One difference that Wertz neglected to mention (an innocent oversight I'm sure) is that FEMA was already in Florida picking up after Hurricane Charley. Charley hit almost the same place three weeks earlier. From Wikipedia we get the following......



So, FEMA was already there. But hey, don't let that ruin anybody's fun.

I think we've already got a central question posed in this thread "lordhelmet" and I'd appreciate it if you didn't try to answer it with another question.

You want to pose your own set of questions, start your own thread. Don't try to hijack this one.

Interesting admission by the Commander-In-Chief today:

President Bush: Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government. And to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility. I want to know what went right and what went wrong. I want to know how to better cooperate with state and local government, to be able to answer that very question that you asked: Are we capable of dealing with a severe attack or another severe storm. And that's a very important question. And it's in our national interest that we find out exactly what went on and -- so that we can better respond.

Gee George, now that wasn't so hard was it? First comes the mea culpa and then comes the admission that you are human, you do make mistakes and you totally screwed the pooch in your inept response to the crisis in the Gulf Coast.

Now, while it would give me no small amount of pleasure if you were to follow Michael Brown into the unemployment line, I'll settle for your word that for every one dollar spent in Iraq you'll spend two more to rebuild and revitalize New Orleans and the rest of the areas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.

And while you're at it George, you might give some serious consideration to truly being a uniter and not a divider and take it upon yourself to move the nation forward with a real, honest and sincere admission that poverty still exists and race still matters in America.

Seems there are a few hardliners who haven't quite twigged to that fact yet.

It's going to take more than George Bush to unite this country, Nighttimer.
Blacks and whites alike need to be open to that concept. And, quite frankly,
I don't feel the love coming from a generally speaking, angry black America.

George Bush may have failed the black population of N.O. by not
rescuing them the way he could or should have. However, each individual must
examine his own lifestyle and life's choices to see where his personal
responsibilities lie. I cannot imagine that you would actually believe that every
person stranded in New Orleans didn't have some culpability to the their own
fateful outcome in this tragedy.

Furthermore, this should be a lesson to each American that we must never
rely on the federal government to ensure our short-term or long-term survival.
We must become stronger, more self-sufficient individuals. We must demand
it of ourselves regardless of race or class.

When will the incompetent mayor of New Orleans and the inept governor of Louisiana issue their "mea culpas"?

And, Bush didn't say that "he screwed the pooch". That's your inflammatory accusation.

Back to the central inflammatory question that started this thread; Did race play a role in the relief effort.

Yes.

The relief plans were designed in a way that did not take the "race" and therefore the majority "culture" of the victims in mind. The premise was that members of the "dominant culture" would be victimized, not a sub-culture that largely refuses to assimilate into the "dominant culture". Therefore, this premise led the planning down the wrong road in several key areas.

1. There was an assumption that local government would be competent and would follow their own relief plan. This assumption was clearly false when the hurricane target became the city of New Orleans

2. There was an assumption that local law enforcement would do their duty in their time of need and not walk/run off the job and leave the city with little to no law enforcement presence. The assumption was a police force acting with honor and courage as was done by the NYPD during 9/11. But, the planners failed to account for the fact that a police force may walk off the job en masse, like was done in the city of New Orleans.

3. The disaster planners also had a base assumption that Americans, when faced with a disaster, would band together in cooperative ways, would help the authorities, would share resources, and would maintain some level of order and organization. The premise was NOT based on the actual behavior seen at the Superdome. The planners failed to realize that this premise was based on the morality and established behavior patterns common within the "dominant" culture.

4. The disaster planners in the Federal Government also had their relief efforts staged for evacuation first and law enforcement second (or minimal). This premise, again, was based on the behavior patterns associated with the dominant culture. They did not anticipate the rampant lawlessness, mayhem, looting, firing at relief workers, and overall "war zone" as characterized by the local government. This obviously impacted the planning and required a massive restructuring of the effort and days of delays. I have posted links to the National Guard commanding general's comments on this topic before and it makes the point perfectly clear.

In retrospect, the federal government should plan a relief effort that is, unfortunately, dictated by the "race", and therefore the "culture" of the potential victims.

I personally l think that "race" has no biological significance and is, by far, the most overblown and over-hyped topic in America today.

But, as long as those of a certain appearance insist on creating, maintaining, and perpetuating a sub-culture that refuses to assimilate and that allows/enables self- destructive, anti-social, and un-American behavior, the planning must be realistic and take these realities into account.

So, I hope this answers your question. Feel free to address the post-hijacking questions that I posed if you can.

Good for you.

Unfortunately, social mobility is not measured on anecdotal evidence, but on statistics. Here's an link to an summary article from the LSE that talks about some comparative research they did. There's a link to the actual research results in the article. It's mostly about the UK (which isn't that surprising, given that LSE stands for London School of Economics), but one of the comparators is the USA.

The study shows that the UK has declined substantially in the rankings for mobility over time, while the USA has remained stable, but both are way below the levels of social mobility seen in countries such as Denmark (lucky moif ).

The main difference between the UK & USA, I would say, apart from the fact that the UK is moving in the wrong direction and will soon overtake the levels of ossification that are seen in the US, is that there isn't the kind of mass delusion here that "everyone can make it if they just work hard enough".

I can't say whether the American Dream cons people because it dramatically underestimates quite how hard one has to work to succeed, or because it undeplays the dumb luck (or maybe even sometimes racism) that stops four out of five equally hard-working people from "making it". But the truth is that, at least based on this research, that socio-economic mobility in the USA is even more inflexible (but only just) than class-ridden Britain. The American Dream is conning people.

If you have any non-anecdotal evidence to support your contention that America is one of the most socially mobile nations, rather than one of the least, I'd certainly be interested to see it.



Again, I don't doubt the validity of your experience - certainly these types of people will be at a disadvantage and therefore be disproportionatley present in lower socio-economic groups, and that will be true in EVERY society, even very socially mobile ones.

But the biggest factor (at least from the survey I linked) seems to be based on education:





I can see that - maybe we should be looking at the way NO and wider LA support (or not) their students? Education appears to be the biggest driver in social mobility, and education is expensive, especially higher & further education, and it is traditional in the USA (and increasingly so here in the UK, which change I'd be stunned to discover was unrelated to our fall down the mobility rankings) for students in higher and further education to rely on support from themselves and from their families, rather than from taxpayer-funded subsidy.

If it can be shown that LA spends less money and resources on supporting its student population (e.g. through fewer or lower grants, subsidies, scholarships and so on) than neighbouring states, that might go some way to explaining some of the problems faced in the Katrina aftermath. Race does matter, but maybe not causally. Poverty and lack of social mobility matter more, and contribute to many of the problems that are more routinely attributed to race. (As the legions of very poor white Southerners who've lost everything after Katrina and aren't being championed by rappers and interviewed on the news each night can probably testify.)

But all of this simply goes back to the points I was making in my last post - that race is an issue, but not the main one, which is poverty and (lack of) social mobility; that America finds race more comfortable to deal with, or at least talk about, than poverty; and that perhaps the reason for this discomfort is that everyone so desperately wants to buy the American Dream that they ignore contrary evidence as "rubbish" and cling to every anecdotal story of someone "making it" up from the bottom as proof that the Dream can come true. (Sure it CAN, just not very often, and not very reliably.)

Confirmation bias as a cultural necessity.

I'm not even saying that's a bad thing - I'm just saying that America won't be able to do anything about it while Americans deny it even exists, let alone admit that it's a problem.

Indeed, I'd go on to speculate that maybe poor black America has a more realistic outlook - at least they know that the odds are stacked against them.



I don't think that's a fair comparison - since the damage to the New York City was limited to a few blocks at most, very few of the law enforcement and rescue personnel involved there had lost their own homes and (possibly) families when compared to the situation in New Orleans.

I say that in no way to diminish the sacrifices of the NYC people on 9-11 and it's aftermath, but we cannot know how they would have reacted had their own homes and families been destroyed or damaged in addition to the carnage they did have to deal with, and we (hopefully) never will. It's not the sort of experiment any of us should want to carry out.

You are comparing two samples that are different in enough ways that the one you single out as important cannot be determined by anything other than guesswork. You may be right, and the NO city personnel are all just weaker in character than those in NYC were on 9-11.

But, given all the store given to the idea that at times of crisis, one should take care of one's own and not rely on city, state or federal authorities, I find it hard to see how that right and responsibility can reasonably be expected to be waived merely because one is on the city payroll.

At the very least, this kind of action is a reasonable assumption given the circumstances, in which case, despite your sarcasm, it is a failure of planning - clearly, in the planning process, nobody asked "what if large numbers of police desert their duties to take care of their own survival?". And that's a planning failure. And FEMA was responsible for the planning.

I nulled my vote and then I read through the thread. I was not sure how I felt in part because racism is such a loaded term.

Do I think George Bush personally detests black people and secretly celebrated when blacks suffer through a tragedy? Well, nooooo.

I think that the Bush administration has written off the ability to court blacks into the Bush coalition of voters, and I think the Bush administration, like many political groups, sees the country in an our people and not our people kind of way.

As I read through (past or present tense you pick ) this thread I am more inclined to say, yes I think race is a factor in the poor response to Katrina. It is not the overt kind, but the more banal and more insidious systemic kind.

Yes Virginia (and Louisiana) I think we have a continuing problem with race relations in this country. I think it is complex and difficult to quickly define. I tend to side with those who see this as much of a class problem as a race problem. But the actions of American governments throughout our history have inclined to hurt more than help African Americans.

We come back to this issue again and again. And we (white America) tends to opt for the good American individualistic dream of the hard worker who will get ahead if they believe in the system and keep on chugging. There are several mentions of these values of personal accountability and responsibility for one's economic plight.

Whether it is Watts, or Rodney King, or OJ Simpson, or 9-11 we look at the critics of our society and wonder "What is wrong with those people?" We are doing it again right now.

Katrina is a symptom of a part of American society that we tend to try to ignore. And in doing so for Katrina our society has allowed undue pain, suffering, humiliation, and death. Because we have to look in the mirror to find the answer and not to a foreign enemy, it is harder to unite. I'm sure many poor Americans and many African Americans watched the response to 9-11 and wondered aloud what the response would have been if it was an attack of Bedford-Stuyvesant (sp?) or Harlem or Tenement Buildings instead of the world trade center.

For those spoken and unspoken pessimistic questions, Katrina must be a clear answer.

As I meet at my figurative water cooler with teachers and staff members from in one of the most affluent counties in the country, I am both inspired by the compassion and level of effort in creating aid , and in the inability to think in terms of abject poverty. Many wonder why people didn;t heed the order to evacuate. Less show an understanding of how difficult it is to evacuate without an automobile, a debit and credit card and the means to move on to a temporary residence.

When MLK Jr. was assassinated he was focusing on the remaining work needed to offer equality to more African Americans. The Civil Rights movement helped those in the black middle class, but the problems of black poverty remained and were left to fester and exacerbate. In modern America access to training and education gets increasingly more important. Black Migration helped black America end the jim Crow restrictions that made the majority of African Americans behind the Mason-Dixon line faced.

Yet in the western and northern cities blacks were pushed by restrictions into the inner cities and away from the housing market. After the 1960s the inner cities were left behind in large numbers by middle class whites leaving a problem of fewer people paying taxes and a much higher percentage of the people remaining requiring more services from the cities. In this way suburbs with better schools and new facilities prospered while cities mired down in problems that are very difficult to overcome.

Consequently most urban school districts don't produce much. Here in Nashville the entire metro area is in one school district, and while there are a couple of magnet schools and several strong elementary schools, the public metro high schools leave their students generally ill-equipped to prosper.

While I like most Americans believe in the power of the individual to transcend limitations (yet I lived in the suburbs and had my college paid for) I like most liberal democrats harken back to John Locke and say the the environment one lives in plays a major role in the things that happen in one's life. On the macro scale, some people were going to be harmed by the hurricane (regardless) and the poor condition of New Orleans and its ability to respond to a natural disaster. The slow, seemingly ill-informed response by the federal government worsened the plight of those in New Orleans.

So I tend to side with the African American voice on this issue as a reasonable one. That racism played a role. I think we have been very hard on our poorest Americans the last 20 years. And when you look at a parallel thread about prevailing wage you can see that it isn't easy being an unskilled laborer. It is easier for me to understand in terms of class. But I do not deny the history of my country in helping to create a society where African Americans have received the most harm and the least help. One generation after Jim Crow, Bull Connor, Medgar Evers, Emmet Till, Ross Barnett, and Orval Faubus white America is too quick to say, Race, what race? We are all on a level playing field now.

And just as all voices will have radical extensions (i.e Pat Robertson) those radical voices should not refute the more moderate claims that race is a factor in the Katrina debacle. All of these points should be read with the IMHO grain of salt.

You did claim that the federal government did not issue press releases that pre-dated Katrina. In fact this was your main argument or example as to how each were not alike..Yes? You said one press release was before and one was after...and that was simply not true.

Do you have any evidence other than press releases that preparations for Katrina were not implemented? Because the press release I linked to also gives detailed information on teams that were also being prepared and in place readying for Katrina.
FEMA’s Urban Search & Rescue (USAR) and Disaster Medical Assistance Teams (DMATs) are also staged for immediate response anywhere in the region. The funding and direct federal assistance will assist law enforcement with evacuations, establishing shelters and other emergency protective measures.

FEMA has deployed USAR teams from Tennessee, Missouri and Texas to stage in Shreveport, LA.. USAR teams from Indiana and Ohio are staged in Meridian, MS. Two teams each from Florida and Virginia and one team from Maryland are on alert at their home stations.

A total of 18 DMATs have been deployed to staging areas in Houston, Anniston and Memphis. There are 9 full DMATs (35 members per team) and 9 strike teams (5 members per team) in these staging areas.

Both Mississippi and Louisiana have mandatory evacuation orders in place for some areas. National Guard troops have been deployed to assist law enforcement in evacuations.

FEMA’s Regional Offices in Atlanta, Georgia, and Denton, Texas, are monitoring Hurricane Katrina’s progress through the Gulf and are closely coordinating with Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama state Emergency Operations Centers. FEMA Advance Emergency Response Teams have been deployed to Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. FEMA has also sent Mobile Emergency Response Support vehicles to Mississippi and Louisiana. Eighteen Disaster Medical Assistance Teams (DMATs) and 3 Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) task forces have been deployed to the region for further dispatch when needed.


Now agreed the wording is not the exact same but it does show that there was preparation and coordination that you claim did not exist. But who cares? It seems that both the press releases and both the preparations were made for the same situation. That is my point. As much as you like to portray FEMA was much much much much worse this time..I don't believe they were. In fact I believe they were much much much too much alike. Frances was a catergory 2 while Katrina was a category 5. Anyone familiar with hurricanes and living in a hurricane zone of the US knows the difference of these two storm categories...as I am sure you do. So if you or I or even some kid sitting at home blogging knows this and can tell this difference why on earth didn't FEMA? Why were the preparations and the communications and the evacuations the same? When the storms were NOT alike..so not alike and the areas they each chose to hit had different possible outcomes? Yet it seems business as usual. I would have thought that FEMA would have at least the oversight to rate storms and their possible impact and their heighten need of prepared response. I find it much more disturbing to know that FEMA treated each of these events the same. It seems like just protocol is being followed and no one in FEMA is thinking or even reacting to the actual emergencies themselves.


Again Hurricane Charley , which destroyed my brother's home did not completely destroy and flood a city...neither did Frances. The storms really were nothing compared to Katrina. My brother and his wife were able to drive to their home and get their two dogs to safety. They were able to still use the city of Orlando's roads and so were the police, firemen, ambulances, etc. So what I am in fact saying is you have no idea...only a grand hypothesis...that FEMA was better prepared in Florida than she was in Louisiana. Had Florida been as bad would she have preformed better? How can you honestly claim this is true?



I only came up with one example because you have only used one example to prove your claims...hurricane Frances. Which I have offered proof that even a congressional investigation has proven true that aid, resources and assistance from FEMA for hurricane Frances was missused and mismanaged.
I am sure there are many many more..I have found an interesting listing of pre-Katrina FEMA mishaps or cited organizational problems...It should be noted that over the last 10-12 yrs it seems only President Clinton took FEMA and it's role and who heads this federal organization seriously..both of the Bush presidents seemed not very concerned with it.



And at the end of these comparisons the compilers asked..and I thought you would like this.."Which of these four is not like the other?"


There is also a lot of evidence of how the Bush admin made many policy decisions that led directly to FEMA's inability to handle a hurricane like Katrina. Sure they looked good in Florida but like I have said already many times before Frances was not like Katrina and it is my personal belief that the most important factor that influenced how this hurricane was handled compared to other's the Bush admin has handled was the storm itself.

Not race, not class, not governors or mayors but the severity of the storm. I don't believe FEMA in it's current state..thanks to the Bush admin...can handle super storms like Katrina..and if what I believe is true then things really need to change because the whole point or need for FEMA is for when storms like Katrina hit and the local and state governments are so overwhelmed. Remember the federal government always claims they need superior control and reign over our states because they don't believe the states themselves can always appropriately ensure our rights as American citizens and yet it seems in regards to Katrina neither can the feds.

I just really worry about this issue giving to much blame to race. It is not that Bush doesn't care about black people..if you read the policy decisions he has made in regards to FEMA..you would have to believe he does not care about the American people as a whole.

Apparently Colin Powell sees the racial context of Katrina pretty much as I do, that is, one of poverty contributed to by racial disadvantage.



This is from this Timeline which is also interesting to examine in the context of ascribing responsibility. It has links to all of the original sources including the Powell interview.

Or if you prefer, here is the Wikipedia Timeline.

I'd hazzard a guess that it had more to do with placing resources away from the brunt of the hurricane, so that they would be deployable once the hurricane passed. A quick look at mapstats indicates that most of the areas covered in the White House address for FEMA resources were 40 (or more) percent black. East Carroll is 67 percent black, Madison 60 percent, St Helena 52 percent, Tensas 55.5 percent, ect. On the other hand, in the south which was not covered in the White House address was Cameron (94 percent white), Vermilon (83 percent white), St Mary (63 percent white), Terrebonne (74 percent white), La Fourche (83 percent white), St Charles (73 percent white), St. Tammany (87 percent white), La Fourche (83 percent white), ect.

Of course I did. But, now that I'm an adult I realize that doing a good job is more important. And I don't use my childhood shirking of duties to make analogies about society. Nor am I on television.

He's black. He's on national TV several times a week. He produces chart-topping music. He's saying that we 'ignore' black people. It's ironic.


Well, I'm certainly not saying that "blacks are whiners." I for one am not sweeping blacks "under the rug." Perhaps you should rephrase above from this:
- Blacks feeling race is involved in any event, policy, or law
to something like this:
- Some Blacks feeling race is involved in EVERY event, policy, or law...

You could even replace "Some Blacks" with Kweisi Mfume or Al Sharpton or CNN or the New York Times if you like. That's where the disconnect lies. Saying that race had anything to do with the recovery from a national disaster, even as we see homeless white people struggling equally and white volunteers taking all races into their churches and homes, just seems ridiculous to most of us.

Perhaps you consider yourself and your people and your problems, and you have lots of company here.
Hamptons resident P Diddy - "These are my people"
Kanye West - "Those are my people"
Louis Farakhan - "FEMA and the Red Cross are too white to represent us"

Frankly, I have to ask where you or Kanye West or nighttimer or anyone else gets off calling a select group of storm victims "your people." The victims of this storm are our people. American people . Stop trying to divide us.

Honestly, this topic is almost surreal in its approaching the (until now, fictional) New York Times headline meant to illustrate media bias:
World Ends -- Women, Minorities Hardest Hit

If you're not feeling the love from a generally (and justifiably) angry Black America, doomed planet, allow me to give you one reason. The reason's name is Vera Smith. The moment I finished reading her story was the moment I went from the attitude of "wait and see" to seething with rage at the foul indignity of how she died.

Neighbors buried Vera Smith on top of the concrete sidewalk at the edge of the Garden District this past weekend in a crude grave they made of soil and bricks they had unearthed from a little park nearby.

Smith had been dead for four days. She was killed by a hit-and-run driver Tuesday night as panicked residents fled the flooded city and looters descended on her neighborhood. She became one of the hundreds, possibly thousands, who died in the mayhem unleashed by Hurricane Katrina.

During the next several days, the humid New Orleans heat had rendered her body so unrecognizable that strangers could not tell whether she was a man or a woman, black or white, said John Lee, one of the neighbors who helped bury her.

"I saw a bloodied corpse weeping body fluids onto the street," said Lee, who had not known her when she was alive.

(San Francisco Chronicle 09/05/05)

Vera was not killed by the hurricane. Patrick McCarthy, a retired electrician who helped bury her, said: "If you need a metaphor for failure, this is as good as it gets. Every body should be buried. [This is] an insult to our humanity."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cf...jectID=10344371

I do not know whether Vera Smith was black or white. Of course, it was a little hard to tell four days after being left to rot on a city sidewalk like a bag of trash.

Mayor Ray Nagin wasn't driving the car that ran Vera Smith down. Neither was Governor Katherine Bianco. President George Bush certainly wasn't. But they all failed Vera Smith and nobody failed more spectacularly than the distant and disengaged Chief Executive.

You can say that those who stayed behind bear some "culpability" if that's how you want to see it DP. I do not choose to blame those who were too infirm, too old, too poor, too young or too frightened to leave.

I'm going to put the lion's share of the responsibility on those who promised to make Americans safer and better prepared to face a catastrophe on the scale of 9/11. That means Bush and the inept political hacks running FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security deserve all the hell they're catching. God knows the survivors of Hurricane Katrina have caught enough already.

The president and the Congress and the political parties will hold their hearings, select their blue ribbon panels, vow to get to the bottom of what happened, fire a few bureaucrats and pass the buck until a final report is issued that nobody will read and the song will remain the same.

Then they'll all pat themselves on the back and announce how they've taken steps to assure nothing like this will happen again. The media will move on, the black folks will settle down, the white folks will get back to the new season of "Desperate Housewives" and further on down the road and six weeks, six months or six years later we'll be right back at Square One.

Way too little. Far too late for Vera Smith.

nighttimer,
This is indeed a tragic story. But, I'd expect tragic stories to occur during a tragedy.

With apologies for a one-liner, are you saying that George Bush should have moved FEMA and the armed forces to prevent hit-and-run accidents from occuring in a hurricane? Was Vera Smith hit by "inept political hacks" or by one of her neighbors escaping a storm zone? What the hell does this have to do with "race" in the aftermath of a storm? Or Bush, Blacks and Katrina?

Carlito

If the analogy fits why not use it?? He was relating to how Black issues are merely swept away under some metaphoric rug out of plain sight, to how he swept dirt from one part of the kitchen o under the counter. He wasn't glorifying childhood shirking, in fact by making this analogy he is saying both are wrong, is he not??



There were famous Blacks throughout American history, whether they be authors, actors or musicians. Are you saying it is ironic to say we ever had any race problems simply because there is a renowned Black person scattered here and there?



Well over 70 percent of Blacks believe the response to Katrina was second rate at best and that race played a factor in that. If you believe their claims, aren't legitimate, why wouldn't you call them whiners. If their claims aren't legitimate, then wouldn't that mean they are crying for nothing... When someone complains about nothing... that's whining.
So, yes you are correct you never said whining, however....



I do not seek to divide the division that already exists. I have no problem with you claiming Blacks as your people as well as mine. I call them my people because the way I relate to them and my relationship with them... and not just in a time of tragedy. Are they our people when they are disproportionately poor?? Are they our people when their communities are ravaged by the War on Drugs. Are they our people when they don't assimilate to the dominant culture.

I'll reserve judgement and look at your politics. I'll see if you are concerned with our people's plight.

This letter written by a lawyer who was trapped in New Orleans near the convention center illustrates some of the complexity of the latent racism of our society and how it even colored the relationships of those trapped in the city.

Yeah, tragedies do occur in the wake of natural disasters. But I expect the federal government to relieve the suffering of the victims, not make it worse by a criminally slow response.

I'm not saying George Bush should have moved FEMA and the armed forces to prevent hit-and-run accidents from occurring. I AM saying George Bush should have moved FEMA and the armed forces quicker, faster and greater efficiency than he did.

If the sad end of Vera Smith doesn't move you carlitoswhey, believe me there's plenty more where that came from.


Linda Cash, 26, arrived with her two children, Clarence, 6, and Cyrin, 2. "Soon as I got there," Cash recalled, "I saw fighting. I saw people throwing chairs. People pulling guns out, right in front of little children."

Near where Cash had hunkered down Monday night, she noticed a little boy having difficulty breathing. She figured he was having an asthma attack or an anxiety attack. She and others nearby spotted a too-seldom-seen police officer. The officer came over, his gun drawn. Cash said she pointed to the young boy. "The officer checked the boy," Cash remembered, "then turned to us and said there was nothing he could do."

The officer vanished. The boy was dead -- a death confirmed by three others interviewed for this article.

Another officer soon appeared, and Cash and the others figured he would remove the dead child. "But that officer told us he had come over to our area to check on some gunshots he heard near us," she said. The body stayed there.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...&referrer=email

Regarding what the hell Vera Smith has to do with race or Bush, Blacks and Katrina, I think it's far more germane to the hell on earth New Orleans was allowed to become than whether Kanye West is a better role model for blacks than Booker T. Washington.

You hit the nail on the head.

I like the way Gen. Russel Honore took command once his boots were on the ground.

Apparently Mayor Ray Nagin agrees:


http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/honore.profile/

Note: There are three videos in this link.

I’m not a John Wayne fan, but I would respect Bush more if he cussed more like Gen. Honore or Harry Truman and quit playing the "goody two shoes" "god fearing" role. It might make him a better leader if he barked at a few people once in a while--in public.

Forgive my tardy reply, I've been incommunicado.......

You are correct that I have flipped the script, yet you have left me with no other recourse than to engage in hypotheticals and analogies when you state the above as a truism, written as if it were fact, without even an attempt at evidence.
George Bush is a bumbling, nuc-u-lar grade boob when it comes to being chief executive, but in the absence of ANY factual basis for charges of racism that would stand up in any court, public opinion or legal, you're statement carries no validity whatsoever. That, is appalling..............
The tragedy surrounding Katrina has already been blamed on a number of people, bureaucracies and departments, all of which can be agreed upon by most objective thinking people, but it's going to take a hell of a lot more than political divisiveness and self-aggrandizing blowhards with access to a camera to convince me that race was a factor.
Who would stand to gain by such a decision? Define that and you'll go far in convincing me of your case.

Did race matter in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina?


In a word, no. But what the heck, when the only card one has up their sleeve is the race card, might as well play it - worn as it may be.....

I agree that the federal response should have been more timely. Bush should have sent in the 82nd Airborne the day after and taken the political consequences for doing that. I can see the headlines and threads started here now by the usual Bush-haters.

Bush Invades New Orleans!!!
The new Battle of New Orleans!! Bush sends in the troops!!!

We would have all heard Posse Comitatus thrown around here willy nilly and no doubt heard calls for the impeachment of Bush for over-stepping his authority. It would have been an outrage. It's ok for General Honore to be "John Wayne", but let Bush be characterized that way and watch out.

Still though, he should have done it and taken the hit. It's called "LEADING" and I've been pretty disappointed in his leadership this time around. I've also been disappointed by some of the posts made here in this forum by people. But, I'm not surprised.

Holy crap am I tired of libertarians.

Malcom X made this beautiful speech about what it means to be a diner.



http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/065.html

Did the US government and the US people come to the aid of our brothers in new orleans, with the urgency and compassion we afford to our fellow americans? Did we choose to see and treat them as fellow americans, stranded and starving, or did we selectively see them as looters, rapers, pillagers?

Let's ask the mayor.



And of course we can ask what Kanye thinks, but that would be falling into the trick of holding one hollywood liberal responsible for what crudely reflects the sentiments of millions. Its easier to lambast the most dionyssian french playboy you can find than accuse the 10 million frenchmen he represents of being wrong.

Forget the president for a second, I, and I don't think anyone here has the intimate knowledge of the man to speak truly on how he deeply feels about black people. I could tell you how MOST frat-kids at Yale on a legacy feel about black people as they stumble home drunk through dilapadated New Haven, CT... but its also good to give other people the benefit of the doubt, so lets say Bush is an exception to the college crew he 'ran with.'

The question was, 'Was race a factor in the aftermath of Katrina'?

Here are the levels in which race -- and I will add poverty-- were factors in the aftermath of Katrina:

Persons Most Affected:
-Blacks, those unable to afford cars clearly had the more difficult time evacuating.
-Mostly Black areas were the lower-lying, more vulnerable areas, i.e the ninth ward,

How Those Affected Were Perceived by Other Americans
-Images of blacks as 'looters in times of crisis' loom large in our nation's history, since watts, through Rodney King, and up to Katrina.
-http://www.dvorak.org/blog/images/katrina/ Usually, I wouldn't call these comparisons fair, but websites showing similarimages/captions have flooded the internet lately pointing the strong and effectively inarguable conclusion that to some degree images of blacks as looters and whites as finders prevailed in the aftermath.
-The Fact that Natalie Holloway before, during and after the hurricane, has received coverage at a time when thousands of blacks are missing and at moments when thousands more were starving, is aappalling All respect to her family, its a sad story but man is it by comparison trivial as all hell to the country at large... UNLESS it is easier to feel empathy for a single white student than a thousand poor, elderly blacks, treadingin the current.

I don't see how any thinking person could say race was simply not a factor. And yet over half of us did. To what degree is a very interesting and complex question I would be willing to discuss, but to say that race was just not a factor? That blows my mind like a bubble. Maybe the question wasn't worded right. I happen to think it was both an overriding factor in the aftermath and one of the defining features of this catastrophe.

Whether you want to say class or race determined the fate of these people is, to me, irrelevant when 84 percent of N'awlins blacks were living below the poverty line. At one point 'poor' begins to mean 'black' and vice-versa. If one's race dictates one's poverty, where do you slice the hair?

This is exactly right.

Add to that story, the following anecdotes following the disaster...

CNN Story on Katrina response



Geeze, who created that mentality that the dutiful bureaucrats of FEMA followed? Should we blame Bush for our hypersensitive litigious society too?

and this classic....



Yep, another Bush and republican initiative at work here.

And then there is Brown's viewpoint. He is the FEMA official who has already been replaced.



The director of FEMA had to speak to the governor's HUSBAND because she was "so difficult to deal with"??? You've got to be kidding! Oh, but that was Bush's fault too I'm sure.

The race card is what people play when they want to trump logic, reason, and fact with emotion and irrational rage.

And that's why the incompetent mayor of New Orleans and the utterly incapable governor of Louisiana have played that card.

History will show that the government was hamstrung by Posse Comitatus concerns, sensitivities resulting from years and years of liberal activism (legal liability and sexual harassment training!?) combined with the lack of planning and utter lack of execution at the state and local level.

This sort of thing largely didn't happen in Alabama and Mississippi which took the direct hit from Katrina. The governments in those two states are run by republicans.

Did race matter in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina?
No, I don't believe that it was a factor. Someone previously cited Colin Powell's thoughts on the matter and those most closely mirror my own. I believe this was far more about class than race. Politics of the worst kind (particularly by Blanco) I think was also to blame.


Wrong, Aquilla. Class was also in that deck, and I do think it played to some degree in the laggard response to Katrina. I don't think it was malicious, but indifference doesn't have to be.


This is an utterly ridiculous assumption. If Bush had lead on Monday, instead of waiting 72 hours later, I don't think there's a soul in this country that would have bashed him for taking action to save lives. I don't like the guy, you know this, but he's still my president too and I expected better of him. Just as I would had Gore or Kerry been in that position.


On this we can agree. Its also called "governing" and our current president doesn't seem to be terribly interested in that aspect of leadership, either.

The specific question in this thread was race, not class.

I don't think my comment concerning what some would have said had Bush sent in the troops right away is ridiculous at all. Come on, Doc, you've certainly been a member of this forum long enough to know that some here would have bashed Bush regardless of what he did. Had he stood on the Gulf shore and through sheer will turned Katrina back into the Gulf, some here would have accused him of messing with Mother Nature and attacking Cuba.

Had he parted the waters of Lake Pontchartrain to allow people to walk to safety we would have been entertained with threads here about Bush's "Moses complex" and then complaints about him not caring about the enviornment because some 2 inch fish got caught on dry land and died. The visceral hatred of Bush by some, including some here in this forum runs deep. You know that, you're not a part of that, but you can read the same things I read.

Now I have been critical of Bush's response to Katrina because I think he should have acted sooner and been more Presidential. But, to lay that out as racial bias is just more Bush bashing garbage.

Not so fast. Cindy Sheehan, the darling of the left, has done exactly that. She is now calling for Bush to withdraw the Troops from "occupied New Orleans".

The people who get themselves twisted into a knot about the Bush administration's so-called attacks on "civil rights" through the bi-partisan passed "Patriot Act" now insist that he should have ignored the US constitution, Posse Comitatus laws, and the incompetent governor of Louisiana and the inept mayor of New Orleans in response to this disaster. In other words, the rule of law, state's rights, and the constitutionally mandated separation of powers.

But, in the true damned if you do, damned if you don't tradition of the left when it comes to our President Bush, he's now "occupying New Orleans" like he is Iraq.

Amazing. Simply amazing.

Lordhelmut is correct. From Michael Moore's website, we get the following gem from Cindy Sheehan......




and later on, this......




I agree with you on one thing, Doc. It is ridiculous. But that's coming from your "side" if you will.... Not mine.

This thread has theoretically turned in to perpetual mincing of words and rhetorical SPIN.

The truth of the matter is that it's not the President's responsibility to intervene in state matters such as this unless the state so requests. Gov Blanco didn't ask for help until Wednesday.

There was a lack of leadership, poor federal response, and tons of bureaucracy and environmental bologna that caused such vast suffering and damage... but not from the White House.

Want some proof??
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=9104
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/15/katrina.response/index.html

The Corps of Engineers being underattack, civilian aid being stopped and asked for paperwork, and overall red-tape caused many Americans to not be rescued, to not be saved, and to lose house-home-life...

There is no reason for the President to stand in front of the United States and pander to the apathetic minority and to perpetuate media-driven racial division. Was this about skin color??? No... it just proves the point that federally or state run intervention is a general waste of tax dollars at this level. What would've happened had we outsourced this? There would be accountability, cost savings, and a general sense of urgency and determination that would've come from personal interest coupled with compassion. How does FEMA do it?? They send their people to hotels in Atlanta and Dallas for days... spending money hangin' out and drinking beer. Good job federal government. Hats off to perpetual inefficiency. We might have some better response if the we sent the military to do this, as their perpetually mobile, have the resources and training to do with poorly equipped working conditions, and operate on a results driven foundation.

Why do black people feel like they've been neglected?? Because people in the US allow their kids, family, friends, and co-workers in American to believe this mess. Turn of CBS news, smack Kanye back into the third grade, and turn off syndicated black radio whom perpetuates this abhorrid lie (i.e. the Rickey Smiley morning show). That might be a good place to begin... and blame and finger pointing might turn into action and help to prevent future ineffective action.

Even you misunderestimate the utter mindlessness of the moonbats.
Posse Comitatus is real. Any President can not move in U. S. troops until they are asked for specifically by the Governor. In this case the Governor in question failed to ask for troops in a timely fashion, and refused to have the operation Federalized.

Getting back to the original premise tho, Yes, race was an issue. It was an issue the the Libs and the Press. Thankfully the rescuers, the troops, the Red Cross, and others aiding were color blind.

As a firefighter I can tell you, I don't check to see what color someone is, ask their sexual preference, or who they voted for before rendering aid.

Could the Federal Response have been better? Obviously. Go to FEMA.gov and look up "NIMS". If NIMS had been fully implemented the response could have gone much better. Sadly, the system is still in it's infancy. Most of the blame for it taking so long belongs in the laps of the institutions, State, Local, Labor, and the like, that have to be pacified to make it happen.

In all the plans (IAPs, EOPs) I have seen, the locals are typically still responsible for the first 72 hours. If the local and state politicians aren't comfortable dealing with, and planning for, that they ought to just find a job they are competent in. Look at past responses such as 9-11 and previous hurricanes and you'll see that organized federal efforts were typically begun at around 48-96 hours.

What is amazing to me, is that the "heartless" conservatives are busy mourning the dead and helping the suffering while the "caring" liberals are busy trying to get sound bites.