What are the US doing????

[auric]

With the adoption of Starve the beast style budget plans coupled with a natural disaster of similar magnitudes where it be a hurricane in New Orleans; an earth quake in Seattle or a super volcano Denver you will see harrowing images of destruction and displaced peoples plus a collapse of social order where ever you look.

I trend to think that a natural disaster is colour blind in who it strikes and for the most part so are the local elected politicians who are directly answerable to the electors they share their hometown with but once you move from home town sized project up those spanning states (navigable waterways, dams, roads, rail) problem start to be seen.

If someone in Cape Cod does not wish to pay federal taxes to help build a dam that will supply power to the SouthWest of the country they might then elect someone who will promise to keep federal spending to a minimum hence ââ'¬Å"starve the cowââ'¬Â tends to become the mantra of any official any where seeking election. Now if you multiply this together for all states you end up looking at a low spending federal government that has the backing of most of the people most of the time.

This brings to mind the old saying "You can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.ââ'¬Â. So, to make things better it may well take a long while but it will also take the commitment of people everwhere to excersise more care with how they cast their votes because if they don't the may well get edactly whey they voted for.

 

[ditton]

its a human tragedy, whatever the cause.

Where Government derives its legitimacy from being by, of and for the people, then the people look to Government, in which they invest authority and trust, to act. (Of course, that may or may not apply to the UK, where our pretence is different.)

We (seek to) limit the power of Government to interfere with everyday life, but in extremis it requires the authority and power of Government. War serves as one example, disasters are another. For the people, and all that. For the UK, our disasters in recent times have been the two world wars, which changed the political landscape. (It could be argued that the July bombing in London are a form of disaster, but that's for another thread/place.)

However, it would be foolish to rely on Big Brother Government to ride to the rescue for each and every disaster, there is also responsibility for action at the local (collective) and individual level to cope when disaster happens. Perhaps that's one of the wake-up calls we all should heed. Should 'disaster planning' be on the national curriculum of adult education?

 

[hifikrazy]

Should 'disaster planning' be on the national curriculum of adult education?

Maybe. But Social responsibilty and respect for others certainly should.
This should come from parenting, but increasingly does not. This is something that can only be rectified long term.

 

[lhatkins]

Ok, but I watched a short piece of "news" film from the BBC site that showed a "so called" aid mission where the helicoptor landed, chucked "aid" out and flew off, no one got out, no one helped and the scenes of voilence that followed led me to think we where watching scenes from a 3rd world country, then it cut to a peice of footage showing police shooting at a looter, while just across the street people where begging for help, this you don't expect to see from one of the richest countries in the world, I don't casre what excuse they give, its just no acceptable, you have to maintain law and order and keep people informed and calm. Why do we here so much about New Orleans when this wasn't the worst hit, why because the other cities where poorer and so "to america" don't matter. I don't think this is the right image America should be showing, they've made a monumental cock up, and in itself Caused the human tragedy.

 

[leonard smalls]

Quotes from Michael Moore, eh? Well that must be right then.

I think he has a few valid points.. I don't think dismissing his views out of hand without at least a counter-argument is!

Does it matter at all to anyone here that it was Bush himself who appealed to the State and City of New Orleans to evacuate and they eventually started moving only after he called. How many thousands more lives would have been lost if he had left things up to the mayor of New Orleans?

From what I've read in various papers, and heard on the radio news, the mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, said on Sunday 28th August "every person is hereby ordered to evacuate the city of New Orleans". Bush declared a state of emergency after that. By Wednesday, 80% of NO is under up to 20ft of water, when Bush finally returns from holiday.

On the other hand, it wasn't Bush but President Clinton and the State itself that cut the levee funding - not that it would have made a great deal of difference as the flooding started at the strongest part of the levee not the weakest part (which would have been the part strengthened).

From what I gather, there was a 10 year plan back in 1965 after a devastating hurricane to strengthen defences, but it was never finished. The marshes which had also been defending the area (apparantly every 4 miles of marsh reduces a storm surge by 1 foot), has been largely reclaimed for oil and gas wells, as well as farmland. The levees themselves have been a partial cause of the problem as they encourage the Mississippi to dump it's silt in the sea rather than replenishing the delta. And Bush himself isn't innocent of cutting the funding to the defences, since 2001 it's been cut from $69m to $36.5m per year - as a result work on N.O's east bank hurricane defences stopped last year for the 1st time in 37 years.. Other agency's funding has also been cut - the US army corps requested $37m for further protection this year - Bush wanted to cut this to $3.9m but Congress allowed $5.7m. He also tried to cut another $78m to improve drainage to $30m - congress allowed $37m.. Plans to provide shelter at the Superdome, started after last years' hurricane Pam, were shelved due to funding drying up...
Seems money had to be diverted for the "War on Terror" and tax cuts. Fat lot of good that does the residents of what was New Orleans!

It's not really surprising that many forum members are so ill-informed. As is so often the case the BBC has been shamelessly plugging it's own anti-Bush, anti-American agenda:

I don't think quoting a few web-logs, written by folks who may all sorts of hidden agendas - proves that the BBC, who have written into their charter the need for them to be un-biased, is anti Bush!
I remember Mrs Thatcher harping on about how left-wing and anti government the beeb was, just because they'd highlighted problems in the country... And every government since then has said the same!
Surely that proves Auntie Beeb is doing something right...

 

[ditton]

Maybe. But Social responsibilty and respect for others certainly should.
This should come from parenting, but increasingly does not. This is something that can only be rectified long term.

I deliberately chose the term 'adult education'. Its not about schooling - for which your remarks may have relevance - but about the relative roles of citizen and state, and about levels of government.

The 'poor' are within the moral community on whose part the Government have responsibility to act. That is why the US Government is coming under criticism from some quarters. But as I tried to point out, individual adults in the local community, and their local government, also have such responsibility. Don't leave civic education to parenting alone, that is too fragmentary.

 

[auric]

What the US forces are doing.

A view as to what the Forces have done / are doing can be found at;

globalsecurity.org (+ HOT Doc section on lower right of page)
Katrina relief index

A record of facts that are often the source for TV and paper news and editoral pieces.

 

[domfjbrown]

When I see live footage of a whole community drowning / starving / stranded in a sea of shit with no help anywhere to be seen I know I can safely ignore any right-wing NeoCon apologists who claim the situation is either under control or someone else's fault!

Hear hear!

It's a national disgrace, and the way it's been handled is fairly rank.

Of course, if Bush hadn't invaded Iraq, they'd have the manpower to deal with this properly. That one's bitten him in the arse more than once now, hasn't it?

I just hope they can get it together to get out all the people who NEED help; looters of course are excepted - lowlife scumsuckers

 

[T-bone Sanchez]

I think its fairly well known that Bush is pretty well incompetent. If Blair made a fraction of the gaffes that dubbya makes he would be torn to pieces. I nearly spat out my cornflakes last week when I heard Bush address the nation to ask them to conserve their petrol resources for a short-term. Short-term!! wtf!

A very sad state of affairs.

 

[leonard smalls]

At least the oil companies are raking it in quite nicely from the increase in fuel prices - as is our Chancellor.
Maybe Shell and BP's new Corporate Social Responsibility charters will see them giving some aid themselves?
Though I'd be surprised if Bush's buddies Exxon-Mobil do anything apart from lobby to drill in the newly cleared slum areas of New Orleans!

 

[ditton]

Though I'd be surprised if Bush's buddies Exxon-Mobil do anything apart from lobby to drill in the newly cleared slum areas of New Orleans!

now that is conspiracy theory ...