THE FACTS ABOUT KATRINA
By Ron Marr (09/15/05)
The lesson of Hurricane Katrina is not about a failure
to help. It’s not about a lack of desire to be
compassionate, to save lives. It is not about the
speed of response. The lesson is about an American
culture that has forgotten how to think for itself, to
act with personal authority and responsibility.
The lesson, is about the deadly legacy of dependence.
Too many Americans, used to soft living and the
asinine wisdom that taking care of one’s self is
politically incorrect, think that government is an
all-seeing Santa who will care for their needs from
cradle to grave. They forget that the first responder
is ALWAYS the individual, a concept that makes the
feckless tremble and shake. You would think that the
horror of New Orleans would convince otherwise,
however liberal media and politicians have so
ingrained a hatred and terror of rugged individualism
within the popular culture that the citizenry seems
beyond convincing.
There’s a reason I’ve taken so long to write about
Katrina. Mostly, I found it in very bad taste to start
pointing fingers and assigning blame - as the
networks, politicians, pundits, pseudo-religious
leaders and major newspapers did - while people were
still drowning. Partly, I found it impossible to
intelligently comment before there were least a couple
of reliable facts on the table (though such didn’t
stop Katie Couric and her fellow celebrity
news-readers). Within 48 hours of this natural
disaster, rapper Kanye West, with the assistance of an
ever–so–accommodating media, was proclaiming to the
world that George Bush hated black people. Jesse
Jackson, hitting a new low of racist manipulation even
for him, immediately turned the tragedy into a battle
between white and black, rich and poor.
California Democrat Nancy Pelosi informed us that the
President was dangerous and deranged. Hillary Clinton
called for investigations. Louisiana Senator Mary
Landreaux threatened to punch the Commander in Chief
if he in any way implied that state and local
authorities had exhibited a dereliction of duty. In
true hysterical fashion, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin
blamed everyone but himself for a slow response,
cursing and fuming and sputtering that there were at
least 10,000 deaths. Louisiana Governor Kathleen
Blanco seemed lost, wringing her hands and - a
politician to the end - offering both veiled and not
so veiled allusions to the slowness of the federal
response.
Environmental nuts rushed to blame the hurricane
itself on Bush, claiming his lack of attention to the
fiction of global warming, and his refusal to sign the
Kyoto protocol, led the hurricane to increase in
strength. At the Senate confirmation hearings of Judge
John Roberts, noted lush Teddy Kennedy adopted the
Jesse Jackson gambit in an attempt to divide the
nation via color.
“The powerful winds and flood waters of Katrina tore
away the mask that has hidden from public view the
many Americans who are left out and left behind,” said
Teddy. “As one nation under God, we cannot continue to
ignore the injustice, the inequality, and the gross
disparities that exist in our society.”
Right Senator, and please keep in mind that your
invocation of a deity on public property is a
violation of the separation of church and state you
often espouse.
Quite frankly, the behavior of people in the aftermath
of the storm - political leaders, the media and the
rampaging criminals of New Orleans - was more
disturbing to me than the hurricane and the flood
itself. The latter was and is horrible beyond words,
the death, destruction and sadness reaching a level of
Biblical proportions. But the former showed a side of
human nature that is beyond reprehensible.
But there ARE facts, and though they are little
reported, their import is abundantly clear.
It’s a fact that the media constantly commented on the
preponderance of poor, black residents who either
refused, or were unable, to evacuate. If you were to
believe the scenes captured by network cameras, every
single victim of Katrina was poor and black. Those of
other colors, we were left to assume, either departed
via private jet or were evacuated in stretch limos.
Media over and over told us their coverage was proof
positive of conservative America’s callous attitude
toward the poor and non-Caucasian.
Simple statistics prove otherwise.
The metropolitan New Orleans area is home to
approximately 1.5 million people, of which 70% (or
1,050,000) are African American. Since nearly 80
percent of the city evacuated, calculations at a
constant rate equate to roughly 210,000 black and
90,000 white refugees. Constants are rarely constant,
however, and most inner city footage provided by the
networks concentrated on the very worst, most
dangerous sections of New Orleans. By filming
specifically in the downtrodden, ghetto areas (where
blacks vastly outnumber whites) the resulting picture
was both predictable and obvious. The media saw an
opportunity to distort an image, to further foster the
left’s desire to portray their political opponents as
heartless bigots. It’s not that the media engage in
wholesale lies, they simple refused to tell the entire
story (or even most of it).
It’s a fact that poverty, ignorance and crime were
rampant in New Orleans long before Katrina. The city
has a 40% illiteracy rate. Louisiana spends less than
$5,000 per year per child on education. Teacher’s
salaries rank 48th in the United States. It is
estimated that 30% of the New Orleans population is on
welfare at any given time.
As to crime, it’s a fact that New Orleans proper
(eliminating outlying suburbs) is often stated as
having a population of 475,000. This allows it to not
be counted in the top level surveys of crime rates in
major cities, as the 500,000 population is the
traditional cut-off mark. Washington DC is often cited
as the murder capital of the United States, however if
New Orleans had just 25,000 more people it would hold
the dubious honor by leaps and bounds. New Orleans’
murder rate is actually 16 times that of DC, and 10
times the national average. In terms of enforcement,
New Orleans has less than half the police of DC, and
has been recognized far and wide as the most corrupt
department in the country.
The facts seem to state that the rapes, murders and
psychopathic behavior witnessed in the wake of Katrina
arose not from something new, but from something old.
Criminals enjoy chaos; their failure to evacuate can
be attributed as much anything to the breakdown of an
already broken social structure. It provided the
ultimate opportunity to do what they do best. Why
would the murderers, thieves and rapists leave? Such a
situation is their idea of paradise.
The poverty stricken and those without education
(usually the same) have been dependent on government
for over 40 years. They do not know how to function
when forced to take care of themselves. If the poverty
rate of New Orleans tells us anything, it tells us
that the “Great Society” project founded by Lyndon
Johnson in the 1960’s was a total failure. It tells us
that proponents of welfare on a national scale, the
state of Louisiana and alleged civil rights leaders
prefer to sustain a problem rather than fix it. How
better for them, these liberals, to keep their power
base than by keeping the impoverished and ignorant
impoverished and ignorant?
After all, if those who the “leaders” claim to
champion actually became independent and self
sufficient, the “leaders” would be out of a job.
Success in their stated goals, they feel, would lead
to a loss of their power base. Better, for them, to
throw a few scraps and bones and keep the poor
dependent. Better, for them, to feed the poor with
fear and anger and racial animosity. Better, for them,
to keep the poor angry, bitter and hopeless. Better to
keep the poor uneducated, fully reliant upon
government handouts and the lies of false and uncaring
saviors.
The powers that be in New Orleans pretended a disaster
could never happen, though it was predicted for
decades. When it did happen, the dependent class -
whom liberals have taught to be utterly helpless -
were at the mercy of the city’s most heinous
barbarians. What did New Orleans leaders think would
be the result of mixing a pack of wolves with a herd
of sheep? Did they expect them to play cards, break
out in a rousing rendition of “Michael Row the Boat
Ashore,” or hold a walk-a-thon for flood relief?
Nationally, it’s a fact that the federal response to
Katrina was faster than the response seen in the
aftermath of Hurricane Andrew. The difference, is that
Katrina covered a vast area in several states. You did
not hear about violence problems in Mississippi or
Alabama, mostly because the media preferred to focus
on the atrocities in New Orleans. It’s a fact,
according to the transcripts of a press conference
featuring Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco, that George
Bush pleaded with this incompetent duo to evacuate the
city on August 28th. It’s a fact that the mayor failed
to utilize nearly 2,000 buses to evacuate the inner
cities. It’s a fact that Nagin’s estimate of 10,000
fatalities was only an attempt to cover his backside
with fear and exaggeration (awful as this is, the true
number of deaths will likely be less than 1,000). It’s
a fact that the Red Cross had plenty of food and water
in storage near the Superdome, but refused to open the
cache due to fear they would be hit with too many
refugees.
Brilliant...lets save that water and those MRE’s till
a “real” disaster hits.
It’s a fact that, had the President over-ridden
Blanco’s desire and sent in federal troops against her
will, liberal Democrats would have accused him of
violating the posse comitatus laws and called for his
immediate impeachment. It’s a fact that Blanco felt
her state could handle the problem and resisted
federal help until it was too late.
The day to day dependency of the New Orleans poor is
rivaled by the dependency on mindless bureaucracy
exhibited by those in charge of the response.
Considering all that happened, the magnitude of the
disaster, I doubt that a rescue could have taken place
much faster than it did. Though a huge percentage of
our population seems to think different, you cannot
move 40,000 guardsman by magic. You cannot blink your
eyes or wiggle your nose and suddenly manufacture
food, water and shelter. You cannot wave your hand and
paralyze the gangbangers who are raiding hospitals for
drugs, busting into deserted police departments for
weapons, or firing upon those who wish to provide aid
and comfort.
When bureaucrats were forced to think on their feet,
they proved woefully inadequate. Dependent in their
daily lives upon cell phones, telephones, e-mail and
the like, they were as effective as headless chickens
when the time arrived to be creative. They can’t do
it. They are used to process, red tape and confused
directives. They’re afraid to go out on a limb or rock
the boat.
What happened in New Orleans, the incompetence and
criminality, lies just below the surface in most
American cities. Not all, but most. When New Yorkers
were faced with 9/11 they came together and did what
needed to be done. Then again, New York is different
from most locales...a crazy place that retains a
fierce civic pride. In Los Angeles, the microscopic
excuse of Rodney King led to an orgy of madness, riots
and death. Our nation’s capitol is an insane asylum on
even its best days. Take a look at Detroit on
Halloween, the fires, the vandalism, the stabbings and
shootings. Given a national disaster far less severe
than that visited upon New Orleans by Katrina, most
urban dwellers would do nothing but fall upon their
knees, pray to Uncle Sam for salvation, and helplessly
await the onslaught of the marauding hordes.
Long before Katrina hit New Orleans, Louisiana
Governor Kathleen Blanco offered the following wisdom
to a gathering of political supporters.
“I know that government doesn't have all the
solutions, that real solutions do not come from the
top down. Instead, the ways to end poverty comes from
all of us. We are part of the solution.”
Unfortunately, those words were uttered with neither
sincerity nor passion. When push came to shove, when
the winds blew and the waters rose, Governor Blanco
did an about face. She rejected her stated theology
and blamed the federal government for failing to
anticipate, protect and prevent. She wanted magic. She
got reality.
Blanco is not even remotely a part of the solution.
The bureaucrats, politicians, welfare advocates and
liberal media lickspittles - those that encourage
dependency of both thought and action - are hardly a
part of the solution. They are part of the problem.
Actually, they may be the entire problem.
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