| Hurricane Katrina
Posted: 9/2/2005 12:00:57 AM | Why or how can people that have seen this disaster be so cruel as far as looting, raping women, shooting others, whats wrong with this world and some in it? | |
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| Hurricane Katrina
Posted: 9/15/2005 3:40:07 PM | This article here answers your question pretty well......
An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State
by Robert Tracinski
Sep 02, 2005
by Robert Tracinski
It took four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it also took me four long days to figure out what was going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.
If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.
Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists—myself included—did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.
But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.
The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.
The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over four days last week. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.
The man-made disaster is the welfare state.
For the past few days, I have found the news from New Orleans to be confusing. People were not behaving as you would expect them to behave in an emergency—indeed, they were not behaving as they have behaved in other emergencies. That is what has shocked so many people: they have been saying that this is not what we expect from America. In fact, it is not even what we expect from a Third World country.
When confronted with a disaster, people usually rise to the occasion. They work together to rescue people in danger, and they spontaneously organize to keep order and solve problems. This is especially true in America. We are an enterprising people, used to relying on our own initiative rather than waiting around for the government to take care of us. I have seen this a hundred times, in small examples (a small town whose main traffic light had gone out, causing ordinary citizens to get out of their cars and serve as impromptu traffic cops, directing cars through the intersection) and large ones (the spontaneous response of New Yorkers to September 11).
So what explains the chaos in New Orleans?
To give you an idea of the magnitude of what is going on, here is a description from a Washington Times story:
"Storm victims are raped and beaten; fights erupt with flying fists, knives and guns; fires are breaking out; corpses litter the streets; and police and rescue helicopters are repeatedly fired on.
"The plea from Mayor C. Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen poured in to restore order and stop the looting, carjackings and gunfire....
"Last night, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said 300 Iraq-hardened Arkansas National Guard members were inside New Orleans with shoot-to-kill orders.
" 'These troops are...under my orders to restore order in the streets,' she said. 'They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will.' "
The reference to Iraq is eerie. The photo that accompanies this article shows a SWAT team with rifles and armored vests riding on an armored vehicle through trash-strewn streets lined by a rabble of squalid, listless people, one of whom appears to be yelling at them. It looks exactly like a scene from Sadr City in Baghdad.
What explains bands of thugs using a natural disaster as an excuse for an orgy of looting, armed robbery, and rape? What causes unruly mobs to storm the very buses that have arrived to evacuate them, causing the drivers to speed away, frightened for their lives? What causes people to attack the doctors trying to treat patients at the Superdome?
Why are people responding to natural destruction by causing further destruction? Why are they attacking the people who are trying to help them?
My wife, Sherri, figured it out first, and she figured it out on a sense-of-life level. While watching the coverage one night on Fox News Channel, she told me that she was getting a familiar feeling. She studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, which is located in the South Side of Chicago just blocks away from the Robert Taylor Homes, one of the largest high-rise public housing projects in America. "The projects," as they were known, were infamous for uncontrollable crime and irremediable squalor. (They have since, mercifully, been demolished.)
What Sherri was getting from last night's television coverage was a whiff of the sense of life of "the projects." Then the "crawl"—the informational phrases flashed at the bottom of the screen on most news channels—gave some vital statistics to confirm this sense: 75% of the residents of New Orleans had already evacuated before the hurricane, and of those who remained, a large number were from the city's public housing projects. Jack Wakeland then told me that early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city's jails—so they just let many of them loose. [Update: I have been searching for news reports on this last story, but I have not been able to confirm it. Instead, I have found numerous reports about the collapse of the corrupt and incompetent New Orleans Police Department; see here and here.]
There is no doubt a significant overlap between these two populations--that is, a large number of people in the jails used to live in the housing projects, and vice versa.
There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit—but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals—and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep—on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.
All of this is related, incidentally, to the incompetence of the city government, which failed to plan for a total evacuation of the city, despite the knowledge that this might be necessary. In a city corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to political supporters—not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency.
No one has really reported this story, as far as I can tell. In fact, some are already actively distorting it, blaming President Bush, for example, for failing to personally ensure that the Mayor of New Orleans had drafted an adequate evacuation plan. The worst example is an execrable piece from the Toronto Globe and Mail, by a supercilious Canadian who blames the chaos on American "individualism." But the truth is precisely the opposite: the chaos was caused by a system that was the exact opposite of individualism.
What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. And they don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.
But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about saving their houses and property? They don't, because they don't own anything. Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before. Do they worry about crime and looting? But living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them.
People living in piles of their own trash, while petulantly complaining that other people aren't doing enough to take care of them and then shooting at those who come to rescue them—this is not just a description of the chaos at the Superdome. It is a perfect summary of the 40-year history of the welfare state and its public housing projects.
The welfare state—and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages—is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans. And that is the story that no one is reporting.
Source: TIA Daily -- September 2, 2005
Robert Tracinski is the editor and publisher of TIADaily.com and The Intellectual Activist magazine. | |
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| Hurricane Katrina
Posted: 9/17/2005 11:23:49 AM | On the other hand, people in my community have just been great to each other - my neighbors, co-workers, everyone has banded together and I am just amazed at the amount of love and help from private individuals that I have witnessed!
Gulfport/Biloxi area - we're gonna come back strong! Remember, each traffic light that goes back up, every little business that returns, every gas station that reopens, is a victory for all of us!  | |
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| Hurricane Katrina
Posted: 9/18/2005 9:39:47 AM | MeridianRebel Where is Robert Tracinski located at? Do you have a address for him or the Intellectual Activist Magazine That I can confirm what you have posted?  | |
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| Hurricane Katrina
Posted: 9/18/2005 9:47:10 AM | | astrosky hope your ok and things are going as well as can be expected, most of us have no idea what your going through, and cant ever believe theres that many bad people, just a certain few that media exploits. Hope your doing ok | |
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| Hurricane Katrina
Posted: 9/18/2005 2:15:19 PM | Thanks ahmanbay, I wish I could come hang out with you and fish for a while!
We're just trying to take one day at a time. Chaos and upheaval is now a way of life here.
Traffic is a nightmare - Our beach road is all gone, and most of our bridges, so the main arteries that are left are bumper-to-bumper, with a few intersections still missing traffic lights. It takes 3-4 times more travel time and gas as it used to getting across town. Many out-of-staters that are here to help are confused by lack of road and traffic signs.
Another problem is the curfew - all the people in the area are forced to do business during the hours we are allowed on the roads.
Long lines at the few businesses that are open - the majority of banks, laundries, pharmacies, gas stations, post offices, and grocery stores are unable to open without repairs, so the few that can open are working themselves to death to provide for the entire community instead of just a portion of it like they normally do.
The people that used to work at the businesses that can't open yet are now unemployed and on the roads looking for help/jobs/supplies. Yes, construction is booming, but many of the newly jobless are unable to do that kind of work or unskilled in that field.
Child care is also a rough factor, many daycare centers are unable to open, and the schools cannot reopen yet, so there are many bored, fractious children to contend with. This is a problem for many parents that still do have jobs. For example, my neighbor, a single parent, could not go back to his construction job until he had helped get a temporary roof on his son's daycare so that they could reopen.
All this will take time and patience to correct. Media tells us it will take at least another month for the schools to reopen, 2-3 months for a couple lanes of beach road, and 6 months to a year for the bridges.
This is why I'm so happy when each business reopens - more jobs, less lines at all the others.
 | |
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| Hurricane Katrina
Posted: 9/25/2005 4:57:11 PM | | well, i know that the manager at my apartment house is screaming for the rent for the whole month, and if you're not here (evacuated) she's plastering 10-day notices on your doors. hell, she even helped load them on the bus AFTER the storm, and she begged and pleaded with the rest of us to go, to be evacuated to some housing project in columbus, ga. now all these people will lose what ever property they did not lose to the storm they will lose just thru eviction. some have lost all to the winds and rain coming in thru broken windows, some still have no windows just some plywood over the holes. but hey the cable tv guy was by here yesterday......lol. but we do have power and clean water now......no more boiling water or adding bleach. just after the storm i was thinking of moving to where i have some more relatives........port arthur, tx...............good thing i didn't go. if you're local drop a line and let someone know that you're still here.......many aren't and i know there is someone out there that would be happy just to see more names that did make it. | |
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| Hurricane Katrina
Posted: 9/25/2005 5:02:56 PM | easopxxx - Hey, that's illegal!
She can't evict anybody for a certain period of time after the storm (not sure exactly - somewhere between 30-90 days). I should know because my landlady wishes she could throw out the downstairs tenant who was 2 months behind before the storm - and now she's got to let her stay until the time limit is up....so y'all look into it - your landlady is not acting within the law right now! | |
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| Hurricane Katrina
Posted: 9/26/2005 8:36:45 AM | | hey thanks for the info and we have already made calls to the atty. gen. office and we're waiting on a call back now. | |
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| Hurricane Katrina
Posted: 9/28/2005 5:01:20 AM | I have to Disagre with Meridian Rebel's article a bit. This isn't a disaster made by a welfare state. This is a disaster caused by the pain and discontent that our federal government has caused the people of New Orleans by not only turning down every proposal to reinforce the levies since 2001, but by cutting the funding to maintain the levies by nearly 40 percent. This disaster could have been easily prevented by the Bush administration if they had only headed the warnings of the Corps of Engineers when in 2001 they announced that the levies would never withstand a catigory 4, or sustained catigory 3 hurricane. If the Federal government decided to cut funding to the nation's fire fighters, we wouldn't stand for it, and if they cut funding for Airport security we would be outraged as a nation. So how do you think the People of New Orleans felt when their government didn't care enough to prevent the flooding that killed, injored, and left thousands of people homeless? They don't even care enough to drop pallets of food on the city via helicopter. Hell they did it for Afghanistan, so why not New Orleans? Maybe because our government has their head up their ass?
Also I must say that there have been plenty of heroic civilian stories to write about, but the tragic looting and killing sells more papers and boosts TV ratings. I feel that the media is to blame just as much as the looters and killers themselves. If anyone has heard the story about the collection of people in the halfway house where one troubled individual took it uppon himself to take care of the rest of the people by giving them their midication and eventually getting them to the Astro Dome, then you should understand that there is good happening there. | |
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| Hurricane Katrina
Posted: 9/28/2005 8:29:32 AM | what you say may or may not be correct.........but the question still remains................
what DID the city of new orleans and the state of louisana do with the money that they DID get to reinforce the levees? it is now coming to light that a lot of it was diverted to other projects...........hummmmmm sure seems strange to me. and why didn't the city of new orleans impliment their own evacuation plan that the federal gov't DID help to fund or were those funds diverted as well and the whole thing was just a 'paper plan'. why weren't the 500 or so buses that the feds DID help to pay for not used? sure seems strange to me. maybe people should stop depending on the gov't to provide them the with life, liberty, and happiness and take those matters into their own hands as defined in the u.s. constitution......sure seems strange to me. but then again i was in an area hit hard than new orleans and we didn't have wholesale looting, rape, murder, we were without fed aid for close to 5 days some more than that. why weren't these people prepared for this? any place that a person lives that is prone to natural disasters, i.e. hurricanes, earthquakes. the gov't bodies and civil service organizations all tell you to have at least 3-14 days worth of supplies because IT MIGHT TAKE THE GOV'T THAT LONG TO GET THE SUPPLIES TO YOU, does that sound the least bit familiar? jeeezzzzz some people torque my jaws. iin 1927 when the hurricane actually DID hit new orleans, not like this time where they were missed by 25 miles, what happened? where was the fed help then? and why was it not expected, hummmm?
maybe this will help you to understand the bigger picture. it was written by ben stein 9/2/05:
> Get Off His Back
> By Ben Stein
> 9/2/2005
>
> A few truths, for those who have ears and eyes and care to know the
> truth:
>
> 1.) The hurricane that hit New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama was
> an astonishing tragedy. The suffering and loss of life and peace of
> mind of the residents of those areas is acutely horrifying.
>
> 2.) George Bush did not cause the hurricane. Hurricanes have been
> happening for eons. George Bush did not create them or unleash this
> one.
>
> 3.) George Bush did not make this one worse than others. There have
> been far worse hurricanes than this before George Bush was born.
>
> 4.) There is no overwhelming evidence that global warming exists as a
> man-made phenomenon. There is no clear-cut evidence that global
> warming even exists. There is no clear evidence that if it does exist
> it makes hurricanes more powerful or makes them aim at cities with
> large numbers of poor people. If global warming is a real phenomenon,
> which it may well be, it started long before George Bush was
> inaugurated, and would not have been affected at all by the Kyoto
> treaty, considering that Kyoto does not cover the world's worst
> polluters -- China, India, and Brazil. In a word, George Bush had zero
> to do with causing this hurricane. To speculate otherwise is belief in
> sorcery.
>
> 5.) George Bush had nothing to do with the hurricane contingency plans
> for New Orleans. Those are drawn up by New Orleans and Louisiana. In
> any event, the plans were perfectly good: mandatory evacuation. It is
> in no way at all George Bush's fault that about 20 percent of New
> Orleans neglected to follow the plan. It is not his fault that many
> persons in New Orleans were too confused to realize how dangerous the
> hurricane would be. They were certainly warned. It's not George Bush's
> fault that there were sick people and old people and people without
> cars in New Orleans. His job description does not include making sure
> every adult in America has a car, is in good health, has good sense,
> and is mobile.
>
> 6.) George Bush did not cause gangsters to shoot at rescue helicopters
> taking people from rooftops, did not make gang bangers rape young
> girls in the Superdome, did not make looters steal hundreds of
> weapons, in short make New Orleans into a living hell.
>
> 7.) George Bush is the least racist President in mind and soul there
> has ever been and this is shown in his appointments over and over. To
> say otherwise is scandalously untrue.
>
> 8.) George Bush is rushing every bit of help he can to New Orleans and
> Mississippi and Alabama as soon as he can. He is not a magician. It
> takes time to organize huge convoys of food and now they are starting
> to arrive. That they get in at all considering the lawlessness of the
> city is a miracle of bravery and organization.
>
> 9.) There is not the slightest evidence at all that the war in Iraq
> has diminished the response of the government to the emergency. To say
> otherwise is pure slander.
>
> 10.) If the energy the news media puts into blaming Bush for an Act of
> God worsened by stupendous incompetence by the New Orleans city
> authorities and the malevolence of the criminals of the city were
> directed to helping the morale of the nation, we would all be a lot
> better off.
>
> 11.) New Orleans is a great city with many great people. It will
> recover and be greater than ever. Sticking pins into an effigy of
> George Bush that does not resemble him in the slightest will not speed
> the process by one day.
>
> 12.) The entire episode is a dramatic lesson in the breathtaking
> callousness of government officials at the ground level. Imagine if
> Hillary Clinton had gotten her way and they were in charge of your
> health care.
>
> God bless all of those dear people who are suffering so much, and God
> bless those helping them, starting with George Bush.
>
>
> Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly
> Hills and Malibu.
please excuse the rant......i just get passionate about people takiing care of business instead of waitting for the gov't to do it for them. | |
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| Hurricane Katrina
Posted: 9/28/2005 3:58:24 PM | Allow me to clarify, if I may. And I will use some quotes from the post above to make my point.
***A few truths, for those who have ears and eyes and care to know the
> truth:
>
> 1.) The hurricane that hit New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama was
> an astonishing tragedy. The suffering and loss of life and peace of
> mind of the residents of those areas is acutely horrifying.***
The very first statement made here isn't even a "Truth" as you stated, but rather an opinion.
I really don't think anyone is claiming that George Bush caused the hurricane, or caused it to be as bad as it was, or even place guns into the hands of civilians and ask them to fire at will towards rescue vehicles; and to think that anyone of prudent mind can believe such nonsense is simply ludicrous.
I do however believe that George Bush and his staff is responsible for neglecting the levees that were meant to protect the city from flooding. Here is an article from New Orleans CityBusines dated Feb. 16, 2004.
##########The $750 million Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project is another major Corps project, which remains about 20% incomplete due to lack of funds, said Al Naomi, project manager. That project consists of building up levees and protection for pumping stations on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Charles and Jefferson parishes.
The Lake Pontchartrain project is slated to receive $3.9 million in the president's 2005 budget. Naomi said about $20 million is needed.
"The longer we wait without funding, the more we sink," he said. "I've got at least six levee construction contracts that need to be done to raise the levee protection back to where it should be (because of settling). Right now I owe my contractors about $5 million. And we're going to have to pay them interest."##########
Here is another quote from Al Naomi (The Director of the Corps of Engineers) from Times-Picayune on June 18, 2004.
########"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them."#########
The Corps of Engineers have been pleading with the government for the last 4 years to regain funding that has been cut due to Tax cuts and war diversions.
I also blame George Bush and his staff for placing an incompetent person to be in charge of FEMA. FEMA should not wait until after a hurricane has completely demolished a city to start preparation for disaster relief, the preparation should be completed long before the hurricane reaches land.
George Bush has taken "complete responsibility" for what has happened to the city during the immediate post hurricane disaster period, so I ask America this...Why are we not impeaching George Bush for malicious neglect, irresponsible diversion of funds, and complete incompetency in a crisis situation that led to the avoidable deaths of far too many fellow Americans? | |
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| Hurricane Katrina
Posted: 9/28/2005 6:00:31 PM | | so,let me get this straight, instead of louisana and new orleans raising the taxes to help bring the levees up to the needed levels, they decided to sit back and wait for another handout from the federal gov't. hey sounds logical to me. | |
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| Hurricane Katrina
Posted: 9/29/2005 5:15:03 AM | First of all, do you really think that New Orleans and Louisiana could raise an extra $20 million dollars a year just by raising taxes in their states alone? Of course not, and it would be absurd to think otherwise. If the governor of Lousiana would have raised the taxes so high as to raise the needed money to maintain the levies, the people of the state would have had the election recalled and he would be kicked out of office. It's been done before.
Secondly, how can you be so heartless as to consider money given to the Corps of Engineers (which by the way is a FEDERAL oganization, not a state organization) to maintain the levees to save the lives and property of thousands of citizens a "Hand out"?
Did you know that the average amount of money given to immediate family members of 9-11 victems excedes 1.4 million dollars per family. This doesn't include the multi million dollar memorial that is being erected in their names, and the beneffits given to the families such as free college tuition for the rest of their lives. These same families are still asking for more. Now who would you rather see get the money? The people who have already been made millionairs and are now arguing over who's name should be first billed on the memorial marker? Or the common people of Louisiana, who for the most part have worked for what they got in life and are not asking for anything more than some reassurance that what they have will be protected by the same government who helps protect the citizens in Liberia, El Salvadore, and countless other countries in the world from similar tragities. Why is our government so worried about protecting the people of other countries while our own people are suffering? | |
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| Hurricane Katrina
Posted: 9/29/2005 11:08:19 AM | | no one said to raise the whole amountbut they could have raised some and been that much further ahead. as far as me being callous, well maybe i am but then again i was raised to take care of myself and not to expect anything from anyone, even the federal gov't, you know, sort of like the people that were raised in new orleans in 1927 when the other hurricane hit them. they weren't expecting anything from the gov't, because they knew the only ones they could depend on was themselves. as for the memorial well how many would that feed, house,clothe? and you said it yourself the pockets of the millionaires argueing for top billing, i wonder where the missing $$ billions went that was slated for the levees and that went for other 'more important' pet projects. and remember who voted those persons into office, and you've made it plain that you just have a 'thing' for bush and like all people of your ilk you insists that none of the blame rest with the residents, city gov't or stat gov'ts..........i know, i know.........it's all bush's fault..........please!! do you know a different tune for this one is beginning to bore me. you're not going to change your views and i'm can't change until you have proven your point (i didn't vote for bush by the way) but in this case until i see otherwise, the blame lays in another direction. | |
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| Hurricane Katrina
Posted: 9/30/2005 10:46:07 AM | I am glad that you are a man that can take care of yourself. That is a huge relief to me. But please stop with the "you just don't like George Bush" pity party. It's not all George Bush's fault, and I never said that it was. If you would actually read what I have written, I made a point of talking about all of his staff and even FEMA. The only point I was trying to get across to the masses is that Bush's ass doesn't really smell like roses as most people in the Southern states believe. He CAN do wrong and he HAS made bad decisions. Weather it is due to ignorance or denial, a vast amount of the population in the area that I live will support even that most ridiculous decisions that our government makes, and if they can't use facts to support their claims, they will first make up unbelievable, skewed, or unsubstantiated statistics; and if that doesn't work they use the old standby "You just don't like George Bush".
But it is correct, I really don't like George Bush. And what reason do I have to like him? Because the unemployment rate has more than doubled since he took office, or because the economy was driven into a recession only 18 months after having the strongest economy the nation had seen in 47 years. Or could it be because money is taken out of every pay check of mine to go to medicare and social security, both of witch I will probably never get now. Or could it be that not only did he lie to the American population when he said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that they had ties to the 9-11 bombing (both of which have never been found to be true after 3 years of heavy searching). All of these reasons could be the reasons that I dislike him, what I don't understand is what is it that people like about him? If you could enlighten me on at least one positive thing that he has done for the greater good of the American population I would be much appreciative. | |
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| Hurricane Katrina
Posted: 4/17/2007 4:50:06 PM | I am sooo glad to see someone finally told the truth about New orleans!! I lived in Bay St Louis, MS, near Waveland, MS, and all that was being told on news was the pitiful situations in New Orleans, when this article told it all! All of us in Hancock county lost everything, and instead of looting the stores and robbing each other, we banded together, shared meals, water and helped each other to clean up our homes and lended shoulders to cry on and hands to hold!! Thanks for sharing this article.... it was great! Kudos to you!
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| Hurricane Katrina
Posted: 7/30/2007 9:10:46 AM | | no one really cares what happens to the "welfare state people" They are a disposable population........they area mostly parasites on society and don't contribute very much, I'll quote one of my favorite bumper stickers I have come across "Work hard America, People on Welfare depend on you" Sad but true I wish there was very limited welfare, and only for elderly and truely disabled not these pretend disabled people it would be nice to have mandatory sterilization for Selected individuals both black and white, mexican, and whatever minority I didn't mention. those that keep reproducing and cant contribute to society should be limited to the amount of people they put into the gene pool, it might cause less criminals, idots and just plain stupid people from existing. oh well everybody has an opinion and I just hate all this political correctness so I don't participate in it. | |
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| Hurricane Katrina
Posted: 8/7/2007 8:26:40 AM | | Thanks for telling like it is.Wish the politicians worked for the people and not special interest groups,maybe there would be a lot less problems to deal with,Oh yes,I had a lot of friends in Gulfport and Biloxi and some are still recovering due to insurance companies balking. | |
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| Hurricane Katrina
Posted: 1/7/2008 5:57:20 PM | | I was glad to see some of the crimnals got washed away to another city or area. it was like a cleansing | |
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| Hurricane Katrina
Posted: 2/24/2008 11:31:57 AM | | i really dont understand why all i ever here of when someone talks about hurricane katrina is the dams breaking!!!!!!!!!! no one ever ask about the citys that were wiped clean nothing left but the slabs everybody there in n.o. new that dam couldnt hold a big storm and they still lived that.....im sorry i dont feel sorry for people that just expected the goverment to fix everything... instead protecting them self..... no trying to hurt anyone feeling.....but ms wasnt beging for handouts or anything on tv they were trying to make the best of it and im proud to to say iam from ms!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! | |
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| Hurricane Katrina
Posted: 3/2/2008 8:48:02 AM | To understand why the people of the New Orleans area expected the government to protect them, you must first understand that it was the government who endangered them in the first place.
The wetlands found just off the Louisianan gulf coast line are a natural formation of soil deposits that have created thousands of small islands around the mouth of the Mississippi river. These small islands were once the home for millions of trees that acted as a natural barrier against hurricanes and tropical storms. They worked to drastically reduce the wind speeds so that the storm was far less destructive once it reached civilization.
In the 1950's our government decided to erect barriers along the Mississippi river to prevent erosions and flooding so that the land may then be used as farm land. This resulted in far less soil being carried down the Mississippi River, and thus a drastic reduction in the wetlands of Louisiana. The islands started to reduce in size drastically, while hundreds of them disappeared completely. This left the city of New Orleans vulnerable to storms.
I believe that it is our governments duty to provide man made protection (the levees around New Orleans) where it has destroyed natural protection (the wetlands). George Washington once said "The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.". I only wish that I could say our government still used this philosophy.
i really dont understand why all i ever here of when someone talks about hurricane katrina is the dams breaking!!!!!!!!!! no one ever ask about the citys that were wiped clean nothing left but the slabs
The reason that New Orleans was considered to be far worse a travesty than many other areas such as Mississippi's gulf coast was for 2 reasons.
1. Of all of the areas hit, New Orleans had the densest population, and therefor had the most number of casualties of any other area its size.
2. Much of the destruction that was caused by the storm could have been prevented in New Orleans. But by destroying the wetlands and then neglecting their duties to maintain the levees, our own government failed to protect its people. Not to mention their ineffectiveness after the storm. George Bush stated that no one could have foreseen the amount of devastation that was cause by Catrina. But that was a lie. He had been told on many occasions that the levees would not withstand a Cat. 4 or sustained Cat. 3 hurricane.
This is why, even though Mississippi was probably hit even harder than Louisiana, so much emphasis was put on New Orleans.
im sorry i dont feel sorry for people that just expected the goverment to fix everything... instead protecting them self..... no trying to hurt anyone feeling.....but ms wasnt beging for handouts or anything on tv they were trying to make the best of it and im proud to to say iam from ms!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What about all of the people who didn't have the option to leave? What about the elderly with no family and no reliable transportation? What about the thousands of hospital patients who were not medical evacuated? What about all of the inner city residents like many students who's only modes of transportation were bicycles and public busses and cabs. What about all of the people who had a chance to leave but didn't because they knew they would be needed, such as the doctors and nurses who volunteered to stay behind for those patients who couldn't leave? What about the law enforcement officials and utility workers who risked their lives knowing that they would be in demand after the destruction? You don't feel sorry for any of these people at all?
My point is that not everyone stayed where they were based on ignorance. Some actually showed bravery and risked their lives (and many lost their lives) to help in any way that they could. And to be as naive as to think that just because there was an ordered evacuation, that everyone would or even COULD leave is asinine.
Thomas Aquinas once wrote "I would rather feel compassion than know the meaning of it." Instead of criticizing people for their decisions made regarding their own life or death, just hope that you will never encounter a situation that would require you to make that kind of decision.
And by the way, plenty of people in Mississippi were begging for handouts too. They arrested many people for fraudulent claims after the storm. When the government was giving out $20,000 to unlucky individuals who lived in the effected areas, some people stood in line multiple times. There were also people as far a 4 and 5 hours north of the coast who were getting government money for missing shingles on their homes and scratches and dings in their cars because they didn't want to claim it on their insurance. So don't try to convince me that people in Mississippi are any more noble than the people of Louisiana, because it's nothing more than a load of crap. | |
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