|
Editorials: Editoriality Archives - Animations Commentary Pandora's Box! Video What Is? Contact Us Voices of the People Home |
I realize it’s easy for me in my office in Texas to armchair-quarterback the chaos in New Orleans. I am not suffering. I am not there. I put in a couple of phone calls to the Denton FEMA center to offer my production company’s assistance, and am yet to hear from the obviously very busy and understaffed Government. I’m not sure if I can leave my home, job and family to render aid directly, but our dollars over the last week have been well-placed.
But I cannot contain my indignance over a co-worker’s comments made Friday in reaction to the continuing dismal news permeating the airwaves and Internet highways. In this time when we should all be getting off our duffs, taking steps back (compare 9-11) or waiting in awe and anticipation for the next step in the Great Commission, this individual—and many others who have used the Today Show and other media vehicles to vent—is complaining and laying blame.
A storm of BIBLICAL proportions struck a populated area of the United States, and this person says, “George W. Bush, because we were screwing around in Iraq, caused the deaths of all those people.”
What a bunch of horse-hooey.
The city of New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen. The scenario is obvious. The city sits like a bowl, at some places 15 feet below sea level, in an area that has been losing coastline for the last 50 years. A weakening levee system was a sticky note keeping a gallon of milk from dropping on a bed of ants. To say that George W. Bush is to blame for every engineering and architectural failure in this country is asinine.
The earth has been spinning on its axis for millions of years. Coastlines wax and wane without care or regard for humans, livestock or concrete barriers. To think that George W. Bush is to blame is overestimating your position in life.
Lousiana, particularly the city of New Orleans, has served as a den of iniquity for years. Consistently, the city’s police force is rated the country’s most corrupt. To say that George W. Bush is to blame is implying that he has been in power since this country’s birth.
The governor of the state of Louisiana was more interested in her image as a humanitarian than as someone who could maintain law and order in a crisis. Her timidity in enforcing the full implications of martial law on the first day of the crisis was exemplary of the politics of girlie-men. Mississippi and Alabama are not doing too well these days, but they have not fallen into lawlessness. To blame George W. Bush for the governor’s panic attack is crass and self-absorbed.
Louisiana has a state police system. New Orleans had a police force. When the jumbo jets struck the WTC towers, New York policemen did not lay down their guns. They re-grouped. Looting was not tolerated. No one expected things to deteriorate as fast as they did at the Superdome. Forces were there, but granted, sometimes it’s not enough. Granted, George W. Bush should have jumped faster. But it takes time to mobilize troops. Sure, Harry Connick, Jr. can waltz across a bridge and find his way to the French Quarter, but try getting 2,000 Guardsmen to waltz across a damaged bridge into the heart of an area of haggard refugees. And they’re shooting at you, for Pete’s sake. You’re a military troop turned humanitarian and suddenly you’re back in combat. I realize the desperate situation these folks were in, but this is still America and not Chechnya. Help will be on the way. Three days without some essentials and the mob turns into the Donner Party? Two weeks, yes. I’d get a little antsy myself. I realize there were sick and ailing individuals who were in desperate straits. But how naive is it to suppose that George W. Bush would be able to have mystical and psychical powers of psychological control, that he could provide physical AND spiritual comfort on demand? Did I fail to mention that the media reported a la 2000 Election that New Orleans was in the clear, that they made it through the storm, and no sooner did the levees break? Shall we blame George W. Bush for that, too?
If I were given the order to evacuate and I didn’t have a means of transportation, I would find one. I would not wait for my government to provide one. New Orleans’ poverty level, according to one source, was 25%. I may not know stats and sociological trends, but I do know that’s higher than the national average. Shall we blame George W. Bush for that, too? Why not?
Someone who blames George W. Bush for 10,000 dead in a natural disaster that wouldn’t have been thwarted but could have been pro-actively allayed does not understand Louisiana politics. Someone who blames George W. Bush for New Orleans’ tenuous evacuation plan has not seen the photos of New Orleans school buses in a foot of water in a parking lot. Someone who thinks George W. Bush is to blame for the sudden jump in oil prices needs to recall the times they jumped on the President for proposing drilling in ANWAR and increasing refinery capacity. Someone who thinks that George W. Bush created this hurricane by merely questioning the validity of global warming needs to do a little self-examination and be thankful that God spared them His wrath. I’m sick of the blaming the government because a scapegoat is needed. I’m sick of the mis-directed rancor. There's nothing worse than loss of perspective in a national crisis.
