THE TEMPEST TOSSED

BM

That was the speculation round the lunch table at work today.

Personally, I have no way of knowing if it was the enormity of it all that led to such delays, and all happened as well as it could; a normally stuffed up operation that would have been the same anywhere in the US; a lack of concern for the poor; or whether there was a race element.

Or...BM.

I strongly suspect it too. This past week, as I watched the tragedy of events unfold from hurricane Katrina, I could not believe that the American government, who doles out relief aid around the world, was not doing its best job on this one. How they reacted in their initial effort to help disaster victims, will long be a key topic for discussion.

Somehow I think if this tragedy had happened in Beverly Hills we would have seen a faster response.

or in even in Texas--Bush's home state

My gut feeling on the entire thing is that although race can be bandied about as the big reason why things happened as they did, and as they now continue to slowly (oh so slowly) progress, the bigger issue is financial means. Try being poor anywhere in the world and you will find the first strike has already been placed against you. Think I am not serious? In the United States, I would ask you to take a good hard look at Appalachia. Look at sections of Kentucky, West Virginia and lots of other places as well. Communities where every last person is white as snow. These folk are poor. No running water, heat still made from collected wood.

If instead of New Orleans there had been 7 or 8 tornados and 60 inches of rain in a poor backwoods white community nobody would have said a word. The sad part is that the minorities have not yet realized the advantages they received by being minorities. The attention is more heavily focussed upon them.

Take a closer look at the pictures coming out of the storm ravaged areas and you see the white folk sloshing around in the same filth and debris as the others. Are there less of them? Yes. But they all share one thing in common: Poverty. LBJ's Great Society crap has not done a darned thing to help in some 40 years because in truth the government...and this spans across all party lines...has no desire to help people who they can use and manipulate for their own political gain.

I grew up poor and for a long while we were on the popular 'surplus food' (sort of a predecessor to food stamps).
A few years ago, the government must have realized that some poor folk were getting too much, because the 2 pound hunk of cheese they would distribute every so often, along with peanut butter and corn meal and a few canned goods, suddenly stopped. The excuse was a warehouse fire. People still do not get that cheese and it has been more than 10 years.

Again, I ask people to take a good hard look at everything and then think about a poor town which nobody has heard of and ask why hasn't the government or even the media put any focus there. Places other than New Orleans got hit and there are dirt poor non minorities in Mississippi who are losing their lives due to Katrina.

Being poor in America is the real sin, especially when one considers the resources the country has.

The repercussions are only just beginning.
This link originally from Joe Nation on another thread

A Failure of Leadership

Most of the black leaders are saying it is a poor issue rather than a racial issue, I think I agree. The responses and comments from certain citizens might be a racial issue since all we see on TV are predominately black people.

I also think it was also just lack of leadership in the federal government. Mississippi and Louisiana was declared a federal disaster before the flood hit New Orleans. At that point it became a federal issue and a federal responsibility.

Oh yeah Bob Herbert now there's voice of reason and equality in presenting both sides of every argument Oh that is just too comical for words I just can't stop laughing! .

17 or 18 years ago Herbert rose to glory at The New York Daily News where along with Juan Gonzalez he did some excellent work on the situation of homelessness. Not only in New York City but throughout the nation. Keep in mind, at the time New York had maintained Democrats for years. For Governor they had 2 terms of Hugh Carey and were in term 2 or 3 of Mario Cuomo. For Mayor they had endured a term of Abe Beame, 3 terms of Ed Koch and were starting off with David Dinkins. All these so called good guy Democrats did nothing to ease the poverty levels in New York and if anything just took sledgehammers and whacked the poor more firmly into place. Bob Herbert saw this and reported it and did so fairly distributing the fault across the board to both Democratic incumbents and Republican incumbents at the federal level.

Then the big Ultra-Liberal New York Times came a calling and Herbert flew over there in less than a heartbeat and began his new mission. Bash all Republicans no matter what.

Oh for the days when Herbert still had his head in reality.

Whether we agree or disagree with him (Bob Herbert) or not, I was merely pointing out for the issues at hand, that this article and many others like it, are just the beginning of what's to come as a backlash to the Bush administration.

BM- I have some thoughts on this, but will need time to put them together.

I'll start off by saying that due to power outages and no print news being available, I'm sure most of the evacuees missed the news that Condi was buying $1000 shoes and attending a play in NYC before jetting to Mississippi to say there was no racism involved in the relief efforts.

I really think that race is a tangential issue here. I agree with Sturgis (check my pulse, please; am I still breathing?) that it's an economic matter. The poor are marginalized in our society. It just coincidentally so happens that the majority of the Southern poor are black. Condi Rice was sent down there because so many of the displaced do see it as a race issue, that's all.

Condi Rice is black?

I read an article online the other day, quoting one of the victems from deep in the city, away from the dome. He said that when an occasional person would show, he would beg for help and they would pass him by. He said a military truck rolled by and the people in it were laughing at him. Their truck was empty. I went back a half hour later to copy that article (Google News), but it was already gone.

I agree that it is more of a financial discrimination than a race issue. But, for those that DO see it as a race issue I think sending Condi was a slap in the face. 99% aren't going to see Condi as "one of them" just beacause she is dark skinned. She's part of the elite with no interest whatsoever in the plight of the poor in Mississippi, New Orleans or anywhere else, black or white.

Has anyone considered that this tragedy has turned into an exercise in how to take a large urban area and effectively put it under the federal boot?

I too, do not think this is a racial issue as much as it is an economic one. But people are people, whether rich or poor, we all get hungry and we all feel pain--we all should be treated with the same respect. What has happened in recent days makes you wonder about your own fate if such a disaster should strike your own neighborhood.

A good deal of acrimony has already arisen along partisan lines over the criticism of the Shrub's response. Timber is suggesting that libruls are shooting themselves in the foot on this one by howling without cause. But then, that's a new conservative tactic, to suggest that just about any criticism on the part of those unhappy with the Shrub is just going to redound to the credit of the Republicans--so i give it the attention it merits, a big yawn.

But BFT's comment here had struck me as well. How are people in Tornado Alley and along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts going to see this as the next storm seasons approach? This is why i say i think this issue will grow in significance over time. Whether one is poor and fears the consequences of being neglected by government, or one is black with the same fear--such a perception can only hurt the Shrub in the long run. He's a lame duck, so he really needn't worry about his future. Republicans, on the other hand, would do well to heed the issue, and do all they damage control they can. They need to reassure people that they care and will do all that they can as promptly as they can when people are in danger. The Republicans enjoy a fair amount of support among elderly Americans. Images of a woman dead in her wheelchair certainly don't reassure. Whatever the all-hat-no-cattle rancher does, or his token subordinates, the Republicans need to make damn sure that people don't get the perception that they don't care about any given segment of the population.

Whether or not one asserts that Federal government failed to do enough in a timely manner, or that state and local government were at fault has nothing to do with the perception. Defending the Shrub in a forum such as this is an exercise in futility if in the real world the Republicans add another nail to the coffin built from a perception that they are the party of the wealthy, and the poor, or the black, be damned.

By the way, if you were the wealthy owner of a sea coast resort home, and Katrina flattened it, you have nothing to worry about. Reagan and the Republicans took care of that with their insurance program, insuring properties no sane insurance company would touch with a ten foot pole. The irony is not likely to be lost on poor blacks, or poor whites, as they go about attempting to put their lives back together.

Amen to that.

Once had a thread: Class - America's dirty little secret?