Katrina's brewing scandal
By AaronVB Posted in User Blogs — Comments (9) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Much of the current politicization of hurricane Katrina has had to do with the environmental agenda of the Bush administration, and secondarily with the War on Terror. If only Bush had signed Kyoto, if only Bush cared about global warming, if only Bush would visit the city, if only Bush hadn't assigned so many national guard to Iraq...and so on. Most of this ranting is rather banal and quite inane, and really bears no further comment.
However, we have only seen the first wave of recrimination and backlash against the Bush administration and the governments of Louisiana and Mississippi. An issue far more divisive than the environment or terrorism could make the politicization of Katrina occurring now look tame.Look at the pictures accompanying the following news articles:
First, from The Star.
Second, from the BBC.
And finally, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Notice something? The faces of the refugees for whom the first refugee camp in United States history is being set up are disproportionately black. As I watched Shepherd Smith's live coverage on FoxNews, the video footage of the refugees streaming out of New Orleans showed almost entirely poor blacks in the crowd. Blacks outnumber whites by vast margins in nearly every picture or video of the disaster.
I am not one for playing racial politics following disasters, or for playing politics at all in the wake of such events, but mark my words, the race and economic status of the refugees will become a vastly more long-lasting political issue for the left than anything having to do with Iraq or global warming. The fact that Governor Blanco of Louisiana is a Democrat will not matter, because the left has made this entirely about President Bush. The image of the South as a hillbilly region rife with racism and active discrimination against blacks will probably be resurrected to explain why it seems that the disproportionate amount of refugees are black. And as with any debate about race, the rhetoric will be extremely heated.
The exploitation of racial issues in the wake of Katrina will be just as reprehensible and deplorable as the current politicization has been, and it will again be the left who carries it out. The question that must be answered by those who oppose it is whether such rhetoric should be dignified with an answer. I would hope the blogosphere and the news media can do the victims of Katrina a service by simply reporting on the facts on the ground and how to help. We can all do without the politics.
"But this diary in itself is basically a political attack against an opposition for acts that have yet to be committed."
Huh?
...suggests the same in his Times column.
Here's the final graph:
Civic arrangements work or they fail. Leaders are found worthy or wanting. What's happening in New Orleans and Mississippi today is a human tragedy. But take a close look at the people you see wandering, devastated, around New Orleans: they are predominantly black and poor. The political disturbances are still to come.
that New Orleans is predominately black in population. Yes, there is a large white population, but they largely live in the suburbs and across the big lake from the city and commute. (i may be wrong, and if someone wants to correct me, feel free, my power keeps going up and down here, and am on generator power atm.)
I'm willing to be 90% of those in the city who stayed for the storm were black. There are a variety of reasons for that, one being the very large black population living in the city itself. Another reason being that 1 in 6 residents depends upon public transportation, i.e. they don't have their own car to evacuate with. The areas where people stayed are largely the poorer areas of town, which tend to be black in population, and these are the ones generally without their own cars. Its simply a question of who can they film, and if it happens that everyone is black, then everyone is black, its that simple.
That said, I personally think most of the people trapped in houses, etc are pretty ....meh.... yes, they couldn't evacuate the city, I don't fault them for that. There were numerous shelters set up around N.O. though I'd imagine, and they could have made their way to any of those instead of staying in their apartments/houses/etc. I don't fault them for being poor. I don't fault them for not leaving the city. I do fault them for not seeking shelter in a place like the Super Dome... I do fault them for getting stuck in their houses, and then blaming the cops/etc when they can't be rescued right away. The people i've seen on TV with small infants, etc, who were escaping their homes/apartments/etc and seeking shelter elsewhere because their homes are flooded/destroyed/etc basicly asked for half of the problems they are experiencing now. They are legitimately victims of the storm, yes, but they are also victims of their own stupidity. Their plight is horrendous, but they made it worse by being stubborn and not doing the smart thing and seeking shelter in a hurricane shelter before the storm hit. I feel sorry for them, yes I do, I'm dealing with cleanup myself atm. My parents are living with me atm, because their house is basicly unlivable atm due to the debris that washed out the first floor of the house. They however got out of the house, and went elsewhere in town - i.e. my place, which is miles from the waterfront and about 100 ft above sealevel.
most people understand the statistics, and realize the NO is predominately black, and Katrina was a natural disaster.
Nope the real attack is going to be the whole "we were spending all our money on war with Iraq and on terrorism, when we should have been building levees, and other stuff in NO."
that it was a natural disaster Bush caused because he didn't sign Kyoto and doesn't care about people.
And I agree about the levy piece...but why the hell would we have been building levees if there wasn't a need to? I don't how people will drum that up...because, well, since we've recorded hurricanes this hasn't happened.
We can only take so much preventative action before becoming overly paranoid about life. Remember: everything causes cancer, and if it doesn't, it might.
Obviously no one would carp about having supposed to have built levees if this never happened. It was 100% unexpected. The best we can do is prevent it from happening again, right?
that may become significant.
But this can all get worked out later.
No homeowner's policy includes flooding -- or at least, most don't. That's why Federal Flood insurance exists. It's frequently underwritten by private companies in a messy relationship I don't even want to get into here, but it's not like the insurance isn't there to buy.
How does a lefty spend so much time reading conservative blogs?
But this diary in itself is basically a political attack against an opposition for acts that have yet to be committed.