I read the article and it shifts all blame to the poor people in NO. The poor -black people. I think that it greatly exaggerates the crime that took place, and minimizes the federal gov'ts responsiblity. What it says to me is that most of the people who didn't evacute weren't worth saving-mostly a bunch of welfare riding criminals. I do not agree.

Originally posted by CindyfromFlorida
I read the article and it shifts all blame to the poor people in NO. The poor -black people. I think that it greatly exaggerates the crime that took place, and minimizes the federal gov'ts responsiblity. What it says to me is that most of the people who didn't evacute weren't worth saving-mostly a bunch of welfare riding criminals. I do not agree.

I do not think that it is saying that these people were not worth saving. It is speaking to the actions that took place after the disaster. Ask those that were there if they think the crime was exaggerated. The NO police where completely overwhelmed. The article is correct in stating that usually after a disaster the people come together to help each other. It is not normal to shoot at Doctors, Police, Medics and those trying to help you. It speaks to the mind set of individuals who are use to being supported in a welfare environment not knowing how to help themselves. There is a problem in this country when several generations of a family all live on welfare. Be angry at the individuals that accept this as the norm, not the messenger pointing it out.

FTA

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.

People on ATS and other places around the net were assuming the worst was going to happen days before the storm hit. The author of this article obvously has never lived in a Hurricane prone city that is below sea level. I don't either but even I knew just how #ed NOLA really was.

FTA

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.

Really I thought looting was a common occurance when order breaks down.

FTA

But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.

Agreed

But then the article goes on and says...

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.

What is the articles answer to what went wrong?

The man-made disaster is the welfare state.

A Politically Correct way of Blaming the poor for being poor. Right Wings answer is to shove as many people below the poverty line and then start punishing them for it. Social Darwinism at it's more putrid.

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.

Don't know what world the author is in here but I vividly remember the Race Riots and Looting in L.A. If tens of thousands of people with no means to leave the city were abandoned what would you do? I'd take my anger out on the businesses and homes of those I percieve to have left me behind.

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.

And that was happening, the author obvously didn't read the reports of Tribes being formed to help them survive.

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).

A broken traffic light is a wee bit less serious then a Hurricane... and 9/11 was consentrated in a small affluent area.

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.

Comparing a Blunder with a Blunder I have no response just

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.

Basically he's blaming it all on the poor and the city, leaving the Feds and the State blameless.

This Class-Warfare is really starting to piss me off. Reading articles like that makes me think that people like him are running DHS and FEMA.

The argument that the poor people are at fault for not evacuating is a tired and weak excuse for the Feds waiting for days to act while the rest of America watched the horror for FOUR DAYS before ANY FEDERAL RELIEF showed up. All this welfare mentality nonsense doesn't mean squat when thousands of people need to be rescued and while we're all watching people barely survive and die on TV, no one in Wacthing is watching or hearing about this on TV? People died while waiting for Federal relief. But hey, it must be their fault for being victims, right? I don't think so.



[edit on 16-9-2005 by Mirlin11]

Thank you, Mirlin, for taking the words right out of my mouth and probably expressing them more eloquently than I would or could have. I get so damn tired of the "blame-the-victim" mentality that seems so widespread in this country these days. Yes, there were some people in NOLA who should have known to get out and had the means---some who did not have the means---and some got trapped jsut by bad luck. Most of the time it was due to economic factors, but not always. Whatever the reason, there is a time to let bygones be bygones, stop worrying about how these people ended up stuck, and just help them out. The neocon lectures can wait, or, better yet, they can just stuff them. The incompetent response cost people their lives. We can do better---a lot better, but for now let's stop pointing the fingers at the victims and try to help them get back on their feet.
---Ryan

I agree Ryan.

As soon as the news reports showing thousands of people at the Astrodome and Convention Center were broadcast, there's no way they couldn't have known what was going on. Everyone else started helping out before the Feds. No excuse for that is good enough, in my opinion.

Hey - I have an idea.

Why dontcha write up a "Personal Responsibility in Natural Disasters Act," and push it through the Senate.

That way, there won't be any more of this nonsense saying victims aren't to blame for their own problems.

August of 2004, while driving through New Orleans, I noticed that I was getting low on gas. I pulled off of I-10 and began looking for a gas station. I found a nice looking station but when I pulled in, I noticed that the windows were borded and there were a large number of bullet holes in the building.

A police officer pulled over to see if I needed help and directed me to the closest open gas station. I asked why a relativly new looking station was closed. He told me that the gang activity was so bad, that the owners had to close the store. He said that many of the locals tried to keep businesses going in the area, but the crime was driving many out.

New Orleans police knew that they had a major crime problem in that area. So, why were they suprised that law and order broke down so quickly? Did they not realize that a large number of the criminal element had remained? NOLA police are always overwhelmed by crime in the area becuse they are undermanned. The day after the hurricane was business as usual in NOLA. The only difference was that there were a buttload of reporters in the area reporting it.

So because they were poor, that justifies the terrible behavior that was indulged in and directed toward their own fellow people? It was inexcuseable. Are they Americans or not?

Do we pretend it didn't happen? Keep quiet about it because we don't want to face it? That a class of people have lived on welfare and haven't been encouraged and helped to get out of the situation is wrong but that behavior is not something I can accept in this country no matter who they are or what excuses are made. It happened. We know who the people are that did it. We can try to make changes but making excuses simply encourages it to happen again.

Originally posted by Alikospah
So because they were poor, that justifies the terrible behavior that was indulged in and directed toward their own fellow people? It was inexcuseable. Are they Americans or not?

No! Their behavior was not because they were poor. Their behavior was a direct result of their being criminals.

Do we pretend it didn't happen? Keep quiet about it because we don't want to face it? That a class of people have lived on welfare and haven't been encouraged and helped to get out of the situation is wrong but that behavior is not something I can accept in this country no matter who they are or what excuses are made. It happened. We know who the people are that did it. We can try to make changes but making excuses simply encourages it to happen again.

Hello! All of the people were not rioting and raping. It was the criminal element that was trying to terrorize the rest of the community. Do not lump all of the poor into one barrel.

The criminal element is one thing but thousands of people crowding the superdome and convention center waiting for help, having no way out, and not getting help for four days while every news station is reporting the death and suffering live? Yea. It's the victims fault for being poor and not leaving the city. That's crap. The victims of Katrina are AMERICANS. They were VICTIMS of a HURRICANE. We're not talking about Wellfare here. We're talking about victims of a natural disaster who could not get out of the city and needed help that should've arrived a heck of alot sooner than it did and there is NO ACCEPTABLE EXCUSE FOR IT!!

The article seems to have been written two different people.

It outlines the corruption and power of the ruling elites and then suddenly turns around and blames "welfare parasites" for the problem. Preposterous.

Americans during a disaster normally organize to help those having a hard time, make provisions for keeping children comfortable, managing panic and in general not giving into lawlessness. That is the American way, it always has been. They endure with strength and hope.

I have never heard that it is acceptable or even a normal reaction on being crowded into a collection point to wait out a storm or flood that people will riot, give into brutality, prey on the helpless, murder, rape and rob. That is not how Americans have ever behaved. We become stronger during disasters, we find a way to survive. We don't turn on each other and we never ever have.

Some of those victims turned into savages. Americans have never done that, ever.

We have seen the developement of a sub-culture that hates, that blames, that will not lift a finger to help themselves or their own. They hate what is America and want to destroy it. That is what we saw in the dome. What is really sorry, they are the offspring of generations of GOOD Americans.

Alikospah, you appear to be blaming all of the population for the acts of a few.

Originally posted by Alikospah
Americans during a disaster normally organize to help those having a hard time, make provisions for keeping children comfortable, managing panic and in general not giving into lawlessness. That is the American way, it always has been. They endure with strength and hope.

Many of them did. There are many stories of people pooling their resources and helping each other.

I have never heard that it is acceptable or even a normal reaction on being crowded into a collection point to wait out a storm or flood that people will riot, give into brutality, prey on the helpless, murder, rape and rob. That is not how Americans have ever behaved. We become stronger during disasters, we find a way to survive. We don't turn on each other and we never ever have.

Let me introduce you to New Orleans. Over 60% of the population is black.

Over 30% of the population live in poverty.

New Orleans has one of the highest crime rates in the nation. It has nothing to do with the fact that they are black or poor. It has everything to do with the fact that they are criminals.

New Orleans thrives off of tourism, so do criminals. If you can handle the rain, heat and humidity, New Orleans is a virtual smorgasboard for criminals. I have sat in the Riverwalk and watched pickpockets at work. The government is corrupt and law enforcement is undermanned.

Some of those victims turned into savages. Americans have never done that, ever.

No those who behaved savegly were in fact savages when they walked into the superdome. And yes Americans have behaved savagely through out the history of this country.

We have seen the developement of a sub-culture that hates, that blames, that will not lift a finger to help themselves or their own. They hate what is America and want to destroy it. That is what we saw in the dome. What is really sorry, they are the offspring of generations of GOOD Americans.

America is responsible for the development of this sub-culture. It is the result of racism. We have created a sub-culture of people who are dependant on the welfare state. This welfare state consist of many races. A country cannot treat its citizens this way and not be hated.

What we saw in the dome was a group of people who were unable to evacuate the city. There were both good folks and bad. The good folks were not only victimized by the bad, but also by the same country that had caused them to be dependant on them.

Had I been in their situation, I would have been angry too.

How is America responsible for this sub-culture? In the last century we established welfare to help those who had temporarily run out of options and needed help short term. Too too many took advantage and lived on it rather than do for themselves. How is America responsible for that? What do we do, end welfare and put a stop to it for those who really need it?

What has America to do with young people rebelling and turning so sick at soul as to create this "gangsta" culture where women are hated, violence is advocated? Why do we stand for it?

When we do speak out we are silenced by those who have an interest in keeping the poor poor, the downtrodden downtrodden. When we complain and ask where God is people shout us down and tell us God doesn't exist. The good people, the Americans who are left are silenced and prevented from saying or doing anything to resist the criminal element that is spreading from child to child and promoted by media, intrusive pornography and a culture of "haves" who insist anything goes.

So we are forced to live with this "criminal element" that is not American and will in the end destroy us. As we are being destroyed we are scolded and told they are just poor and its our fault. I reject that, it is an evil that has been allowed to grow in front of our eyes because there are some who make money off of it. America as we knew it is disappearing before our very eyes! And we can do nothing about it.

A storm revealed to us what is happening. What can Americans do now to repair what has happened to our spirit? I think it is probably too late to do anything. Like most of America I can turn off the TV and I think I will. I live far enough away from the sick cities and seething evil that I can still insulate myself for the time I have left and that is what I think I will do. It is too late to speak out and there is nothing that can be done anyway. If you know of anything short of shipping that criminal element to live in our laps, let us hear it please.