Tell me if you want on.
Posted on 09/12/2005 6:00:49 AM PDT by Quilla
Fact: Katrina was a devastating storm. It left terrible damage to innocent people's lives and to property throughout the Gulf South.
Fact: There have been other storms as damaging and some far more damaging. What, then, is different about this storm? Here are a few tentative thoughts.
First, the incompetence of the local and state authorities in Louisiana and especially New Orleans was breathtaking. To issue a mandatory evacuation order without providing means of transport is almost criminally irresponsible. To take citizens to shelters where they would be beaten, robbed and raped and to provide no police protection for them was astoundingly incompetent. To allow armed gangs to shoot at rescuers was almost beyond belief.
Second, the response of the federal government is described as slow, and it was slow at first. But can anyone name a natural disaster in which more federal troops, supplies, and money have been dispatched as quickly as they have been done in this disaster? Bush's response has not been unusually bad, but amazingly powerful and swift. In other hurricanes, survivors have been left for weeks on their own. In Katrina's case, the whole affected area has been covered with money and aid and troops to restore order on a scale and with speed never seen before.
Third, the networks and newspapers have been quick to cry racism because so many of the victims were black. This is total nonsense. New Orleans is a mostly black city. Obviously, most of the victims of the storm would be black. No one has been able to point to a single instance in which black victims were mistreated because of their race by whites. In fact, just the opposite has happened. The whole story is of rescues and salvation by people of all races aimed at people of all races. In a gesture never seen before, the whole heart of the nation has taken in poor, bereft black families and sheltered them absolutely without regards to race. This is a mirror of the basic goodness of Americans and the disappearance of racism as an acceptable action basis of American life. It is also a measure of the total absence of racism in the heart of George W. Bush. The media may play this as a story of race versus race, but that is pure incendiary fantasy, and dangerous nonsense.
What is the real story of Katrina is (I suggest) not so much that nature wrought fury on land, water, people, property, and animals, not at all anything about racism, not much about federal government incompetence. The real story is that the mainstream media rioted.
They used the storm and its attendant sorrows to continue their endless attack on George W. Bush. Wildly inflated stories about the number of dead and missing, totally made up old wives' tales of racism, breathless accounts of Bush neglect that are utterly devoid of truth and of historical context -- this is what the mainstream media gave us. The use of floating corpses, of horror stories of plagues, the sad faces of refugees, the long-faced phony accusations of intentional neglect and racism -- anything is grist for the media's endless attempts to undermine the electorate's choice last November. It is sad, but true that the media will use even the most heart breaking truths -- and then add total inventions -- to try to weaken and then evict from office a man who has done nothing wrong, but has instead turned himself inside out to help the real victims.
In the meantime, George Bush does not lash out, does not attack those who falsely accuse him of the most horrible acts and neglect. Instead, he doggedly goes on helping the least among us. I don't know how he does it, but we are very lucky he does. As for truth, it eventually may be salvaged from the flooded neighborhoods of The Crescent City, but not as long as there is a lie to use to hurt an honest man trying to do the best he can, and hundreds of thousands of brave, tireless men and women who do more than point fingers and tell tales. The Katrina story is a disgrace to the people who are "reporting" it while pouring gasoline on a fire. They and their crusade against George Bush are the real stories, and they are dismal ones.
The Congress can do two things that I can think of right off the top of my head:
1) They can lay out the failings of Noggin and Blanche-o Dubois in all their gory detail. This may not be reported by the MSM.
2) They can direct where every penny of the $52 billion relief package is spen, if they have the votes. I suppose what I mean is that if they can cut open the corrupt, pus-filled tumor that is the corpse of LA politics, and spread it out on the table, then even if the msm won't report it, the stench might be enough to withhold the graft from the grifters and see that something gets done.
Personally I'd rather see a military governor appointed like in Reconstruction, but I suppose that isn't going to happen.
The devil is in the details. Note the italicized phrase.
This was to be implemented AFTER the hurricaine passed.
WTF!!!!!??????
I didn't see the reference, but I remember it well. The difference perhaps, is this: in '68 the Chicago cops ceded their authority by letting their anger and frustration get the best of them. In New Orleans, the news media claimed authority by celebrating their anger and frustration at the Bush administration.
I've always liked Ben Stein. He hit every nail right on the head.
Ben Stein is smarter than most liberals are prepared to think.
If Bush were going to do that, he shoulda done it in time to do some good - before Katrina hit, in time to evacuate NO. 'Course that's foolishness; how would the National Guard/Army go about evacuating a citizenry which didn't trust them and (in many cases) wouldn't even evacuate after NO was inundated?But obviously, FReepers don't trust Gov. Blanco. Certainly the Federal government shouldn't simply shovel gigabucks in the general direction of NO and just trust that it'll find its way into actual reconstruction of NO. Let NO/LA either fend for itself in reconstruction, or let them agree to close federal control over the work we pay for. No governmental disbursement without representation!
great read! if everyone knew.
Hey, Bommer, I was just looking for your "the Man"...too bad you had to remove it....
is there a private url that we can access it?
"Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces.
Is not the truth holy?
The real story is that the mainstream media frequently and predictably "riots."In fact, Katrina and its "media riot" is a replay of Andrew and its aftermath. In Andrew as in Katrina, a Democratic governor (Lawton Chiles) withheld a call for federal disaster aid, restricting a Republican President Bush (41 instead of 43) in his ability to act decisively. And after Andrew as after Katrina, the media "rioted" against the president.
This (barf alert) thread makes that quite clear. The difference between Katrina and Andrew, on the one hand, and the hurricanes with which FEMA was faced during the Clinton years, is that Andrew was more damaging than all those faced by Clinton's FEMA taken together - and the damage from Katrina is vastly more than that caused by Andrew.
The media riot after Katrina is simply a reportercrat war on perspective.
Bommer, I don't know what else to say. All I know I am trying me best to 'walk the walk' and I feel the president is also. Reread your own post, and recognize that no matter what the President says, he'd be casting pearls before the swine of the MSM.
He's a brilliant writer who certainly appreciates our military. If interested here's a link http://www.benstein.com/stein2.html
BUMP to the top!!
I have yet to see a time line or the straight facts about what was or was not available to eat and drink in the Superdome. According to the NYTimes, there was food and water but it ran out. Also that the plumbing was functioning until Wednesday. Too bad the MSM forgot that they were in the NEWS business and think that they are in the spin business.
bttt
I agree...news reporting should be impartial and unemotional as much as possible. Cool heads should prevail.
Tell me if you want on.
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