Posted on 09/03/2005 9:32:43 AM PDT by aculeus
Thank you, Kristian, for your words and your donation.
I hope more Europeans figure out what you have....but I realize many will just listen to the media and look no further.
From the perspective of a long-time Florida resident, this is the initial difference I noticed between Katrina vs. NO and Charley/Frances/Jeanne/Ivan vs. FL:
Say what you want about his brother, but Fla. Gov. Jeb Bush seemed to be right there with it for each storm, with truly informative, bi-lingual press conferences. He even got the idiot newscasters to tone down alarmist broadcasts. His brother Geo. II may have come to Fla. to make him look good, but Jeb Bush did apply for federal aid in a timely manor, and stated his intentions BEFORE the storms hit.
The only time I saw the Gov. of La. in a press conference was when she was complaining three days after the levees broke. Where was she before that?
Florida cities had police, volunteer FD, red cross, church groups and neighbors going door-to-door two days before storms to identify folks who need rides.
Why didn't the heroic mayor of NO order every city and parish vehicle to collect his poor and infirm constituents in the two days before the 8 mph -moving storm hit?
There were, and still are, EMPTY hurricane shelters available in the Fla. Panhandle, equidistant to Texas.
And it seem everyone has forgotten that it took up to four days to find survivors from 1992's Andrew. My friend and her family lost everything, and spent two years in a tent city in Homestead. I never heard them accuse anyone of racism. Last year it took at least 2 days for national guard to arrive, and that was with advance request. After Charley, some areas didn't get relief response (or a way through downed trees) for four days -- and they didn't even shoot rescuers.
Hurricanes are big storms. It takes time to get to everyone, even if gov. officials are efficient.
It's clear that New Orleans had absolutely no plan for protecting its citizens, and state of Louisiana politicians are the ones who didn't care about their people.
"Geraldo was confirming what both he and Shep were seeing and O'R was telling them they were wrong."
Well, they must have piped a different version of that show to my house because that is not what I saw at all.
Many of the "poor" people in New Orleans stayed because they have always stayed. They've never taken a warning to leave town because a hurricane was coming. Why? One, because they are passive democrats, sure in the belief that the local politicians will throw them a crumb and, two, because it has always been a good opportunity to loot the homes and stores of those (mostly white) who listened to the warning.
Check the police reports after the storms of recent years and notice the high number of looting reports. Then, consider that many instances were written up by the police (also looting participants) as something other than looting, and ytou'll have some idea of the scope of the thefts.
"It has been a profoundly shocking experience for many across this vast country who, for the large part, believe the home-spun myth about the invulnerability of the American Dream."
I tell you, our American Dream really bugs Europe. Any situation that seems to threaten America's faith in itself makes them positively giddy. They're out to pop our bubble, big time. What's funny is that it never quite seems to happen.
I recently read Fernand Braudel's History of Civilizations, a history text written for the French academy in the 1950's. Back then, he was sure (and palpably hopeful) that America was losing faith in itself and that the day was coming when America's cherished "myths" about itself would finally be shattered. That was more than two generations ago, and Mr. Braudel is still wrong.
Predictions like these seem to be a constant part of European thought -- always bubbling in the background and surfacing whenever America is anything less than superhuman when facing adversity. Sometimes it seems the European Dream is largely the desire to see the American Dream brought down.
The good news, of course, is that a corner seems to have been turned in New Orleans. We'll now pull together and work through this thing. Some political haymaking and back-biting will continue, of course, but for the most part we've transitioned into a more unified "git'er done" mode.
With the New Orleans story now becoming less amenable to the overlayment of anti-American themes, we can expect the Beeb and the other Euromedia to lose interest. They'll turn away from it and go back to waiting for the next big thing that might fulfill their dream of seeing the end of the American Dream.
I reviewed the foreign press after 9/11 and they were gleeful. This was not shown to the American people. They hate us and, you know, I no longer care what they think.
I do want us to accept all their aid offers, though. We can then criticize them as stingy and demand more.
"
Well, they must have piped a different version of that show to my house because that is not what I saw at all."
I was watching at about 11PM PDST and Shep kept saying you are wrong Bill, you aren't here, you can't see it and O'R just shrugged and said something like, "Well, whatever."
I believe it was live, not the O'R show but I can't be certain.
Until you have lived though a massive natural disaster, think again what mortal man can do against such things. In most intances, the best we can ever do is get out of the way and run for our lives. Most of our country's population lives in coastal areas. I left Florida after what happened there last year -- we are entering an active hurricane cycle, and these cycles last for decades. I had to be responsible for myself and not be forced into a crisis situation. All the sandbags in the world couldn't have stopped the levees breech. This is what Category 5 hurricanes do - Decimate.
The Governor and Mayor point fingers, but what they should have done was mandated evacuation. They didn't and now they are pointing the finger at W who begged them to order everyone out. That so many people got nailed is horrible. But, there isn't a thinking person on the planet who doesn't believe that they were all on borrowed time for this. Black, white, tourist or resident - a lot of people got caught because of their own lack of action when there was still time. Hurricanes move very slowly, but not as slowly as a lot of the people now suffering.
This mayor and governor caused this problem.
They allowed a criminal subculture to get out of control in this city. When authority was removed, they went berserk. This problem was years in the making.
This is not "looting". These were gangs and a criminal element doing what they have always done - preying on the weak and taking what they want.
Guiliani understood this. He stopped this from happening in NY, which is one reason he has the undying respect of NYers.
Did anyone catch Jimmy Rodger's comments on Neal Cavuto's financial show on Fox News this morning? He said something to the effect that the local levy commission had spent millions of dollars buying a casino, jet plane, and some other stuff. I don't have TIVO where I was watching, and could not go back to get the exact comments.
And notice what was the response from every "right winger" from NRO to Savage "Shoot the looters, Restore order" but of course the break down of authority in the City of NO and the State of Louisiana will be ignored so the Dinosaurs can spew their hate at Bush. The "News Media" including Fox News and such "Right wing" Luminaries as Peggy Noonan don't even merit an F on their coverage. They have sunk to an I. Incompetent and Ignorant. How is it I can find out more hard data in 25 minutes using my Internet then I can get from 4 hours of watching ANY new outlet or reading ALL the major dailies? Why do I know more about most news events then the "professional journalists" who are PAID to report the "news"? Don't suppose it has anything to do with the ideological filter our "news" is strained thru do you?
Or possibly after his disjointed hysterical news interview Thursday night, Mayor Nagin found something "to take the jones off" his anger.
Until you have lived though a massive natural disaster, think again what mortal man can do against such things
I have lived through a massive natural disaster, and one that allowed far less time to escape than the recent hurricane (the S.F. Bay Area fire that destroyed 1000 homes, including mine) It started at 8 am and by 11 am entire streets were gone and it raged for 24 more hours. Thre was nothing anyone could do to stop those 3000 degree fire temperatures that literally melted everything in its path.
The dissaster to which I allude was without any warning. The hurricane situation does have warning and you are right, people needed to get out. But the fact remains that there wasn't a plan in place to deal adequately with the PREDICTABLE results of a category 4 or 5 storm.
Agreed re coverage in UK and Europe, and let's see how many $$ the great EU offers.
The BBC and Sky were passing thru' DFW yesterday, no doubt on their way to give us more enlightenment and sanctimonious blather.
One reporter (?) on the BBC website was complaining about the looting and then went on to say the NO cops loked "threatening" with their guns etc !
Amazing.
O'Reilly might have given an incorrect statement and was corrected by Shep but mostly what I saw was a VERY emotional Shep and Geraldo with Bill trying to get info from them while maintaining some calm.
Bill even commented that Shep should get some journalism award the other night. I know a lot of FReepers aren't O'Reilly fans, and I can respect that but I think his coverage of this situation has been some of the best he has done.
Oh grow up.
It's one thing to order an evacuation ...
If that's what the mayor in fact did ...
It's another thing to carry one out successfully and in time.
The mayor didn't even begin to do that.
The BBC covers up for the mayor's incompetence by making intentions and plans the equivalent of completed actions.
That's the way the mayor will try to justify his actions:
"I meant well."
"I had the right idea."
You can see that maybe Matt Wells (Dateline: Los Angeles) doesn't understand the American system very well.
In Britain, the office of Mayor is mostly ceremonial.
They don't have real power and content themselves with presiding over what other people decide and achieve.
It's different here.
You can also see a lot of the "BBC flavor" in this article:
But behind the elegant intoxicants of the French Quarter, it was clearly a city grotesquely divided on several levels.
Everything in America is so horribly unequal, unfair, and in disrepair.
In the workout room of the condo where I am currently staying in the affluent LA neighbourhood of Santa Monica, an executive and his personal trainer ignored the anguished television reports blaring above their heads on Friday evening.
Americans don't care.
Only I care.
No one feels about this as deeply as I do.
Even though I am too [expletive deleted] lazy to get off my [expletive deleted] in Santa Monica to go anywhere near New Orleans.
But sadly, the more I -- this is not the BBC man talking any more -- hear about New Orleans the more I think he may have a point.
It sounds like it was a city with terribly serious problems.
But it's not like the BBC man in the LA condo really cares ...
And writing in single sentence paragraphs doesn't help.
I don't feel shame, and I resent like hell someone trying to shove shame off on me. I know that those thugs in New Orleans are a tiny minority of Americans, just like the thugs in Brixton were a tiny minority of the English.
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