[Rhodes22-list] Blame the Now: Sailing

Sat Sep 10 04:02:10 EDT 2005

Bill,

You made several valid points, this is a watershed
event, and the knee-jerking is already in full swing. 
What worries a lot of us is that W, who has a known
problem of not locking-up the national checkbook, will
in concert with the Congress, throw massive sums of
our money at NO that will disappear as fast as the
waters return to the sea.  Here is a good scorecard
from the JWR.

Brad

Jewish World Review Sept. 9, 2005/ 5 Elul 5765 
Charles Krauthammer 

Where to Point the Fingers 
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | In less enlightened
times there was no catastrophe independent of human
agency. When the plague or some other natural disaster
struck, witches were burned, Jews were massacred and
all felt better (except the witches and Jews). 

A few centuries later, our progressive thinkers have
progressed not an inch. No fall of a sparrow on this
planet is not attributed to sin and human perfidy. The
three current favorites are: (1) global warming, (2)
the war in Iraq and (3) tax cuts. Katrina hits and the
unholy trinity is immediately invoked to damn
sinner-in-chief George W. Bush. 

This kind of stupidity merits no attention whatsoever,
but I'll give it a paragraph. There is no relationship
between global warming and the frequency and intensity
of Atlantic hurricanes. Period. The problem with the
evacuation of New Orleans is not that National
Guardsmen in Iraq could not get to New Orleans but
that National Guardsmen in Louisiana did not get to
New Orleans. As for the Bush tax cuts, administration
budget requests for New Orleans flood control during
the five Bush years exceed those of the five preceding
Clinton years. The notion that the allegedly missing
revenue would have been spent wisely by Congress,
targeted precisely to the levees of New Orleans, and
that the reconstruction would have been completed in
time, is a threefold fallacy. The argument ends when
you realize that, as The Washington Post noted, "the
levees that failed were already completed projects." 

Let's be clear. The author of this calamity was, first
and foremost, Nature (or if you prefer, Nature's G-d).
The suffering was augmented, aided and abetted in
descending order of culpability by the following: 

1. The mayor of New Orleans. He knows the city. He
knows the danger. He knows that during Hurricane
Georges in 1998, the use of the Superdome was a
disaster and fully two-thirds of residents never got
out of the city. Nothing was done. He declared a
mandatory evacuation only 24 hours before Hurricane
Katrina hit. He did not even declare a voluntary
evacuation until the day before that, at 5 p.m. At
that time, he explained that he needed to study his
legal authority to call a mandatory evacuation and was
hesitating to do so lest the city be sued by hotels
and other businesses. 

2. The governor. It's her job to call up the National
Guard and get it to where it has to go. Where the
Guard was in the first few days is a mystery. Indeed,
she issued an authorization for the National Guard to
commandeer school buses to evacuate people on
Wednesday afternoon — more than two days after the
hurricane hit and after much of the fleet had already
drowned in its parking lots. 

3. The head of FEMA. Late, slow and in way over his
head. On Thursday, Sept. 2, he said on national
television that he didn't even know there were people
in the convention center, when anybody watching
television could see them there, destitute and
desperate. Maybe in his vast bureaucracy he can assign
three 20-year-olds to watch cable news and give him
updates every hour on what in hell is going on. 

4. The president. Late, slow, and simply out of tune
with the urgency and magnitude of the disaster. The
second he heard that the levees had been breached in
New Orleans, he should have canceled his schedule and
addressed the country on national television to
mobilize it both emotionally and physically to assist
in the disaster. His flyover on the way to Washington
was the worst possible symbolism. And his Friday visit
was so tone-deaf and politically disastrous that he
had to fly back three days later. 

5. Congress. Now as always playing holier-than-thou.
Perhaps it might ask itself who created the Department
of Homeland Security in the first place. The
congressional response to all crises is the same —
rearrange the bureaucratic boxes, but be sure to add
one extra layer. The past four years of DHS have been
spent principally on bureaucratic reorganization (and
real estate) instead of, say, a workable plan for as
predictable a disaster as a Gulf Coast hurricane. 

6. The American people. They have made it impossible
for any politician to make any responsible energy
policy over the past 30 years — but that is a column
for another day. Now is not the time for constructive
suggestions. Now is the time for blame, recrimination
and sheer astonishment. Mayor Ray Nagin has announced
that, as bodies are still being found and as a public
health catastrophe descends upon the city, he is
sending 60 percent of his cops on city funds for a
little R&R, mostly to Vegas hotels. Asked if it was
appropriate to party in these circumstances, he
responded: "New Orleans is a party town. Get over it."

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here. 

© 2002, WPWG 

--- Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:

> Jim,
> 
> I think my real point did not pass you by.
> 
> My real point is to look at what's happening here. 
> The anti-big 
> government people are creating a bigger and bigger
> federal government.  
> The personal liberty people are curtailing
> everyone's personal liberty.  
> The anti-states' rights people are defending states'
> rights.  The 
> homeland security people are unable to keep the
> homeland secure.  The 
> send more troops to Iraq people are demanding that
> the troops be brought 
> home...
> 
> These are not red vs. blue issues.  They are not
> liberal vs. 
> conservative issues.  They are not ivory tower vs.
> in the trenches 
> issues.  They are not black vs. white issues.  They
> are not even rich 
> vs. poor issues.  For the most part, they are
> selfish vs. common good 
> issues.
> 
> We are all in this together because deep down in our
> hearts we feel it 
> is better for the common good to cooperate with each
> other.  This 
> involves constant trade-offs and compromises on
> everyone's part.  Nobody 
> can come out ahead all the time.
> 
> I think what happened in New Orleans may prove to be
> a watershed issue.  
> I think the confusion of positions on this list is
> indicative of the 
> confusion in the country.  I am very concerned that
> pendulums might 
> swing too far, too fast in the opposite directions.
> 
> Don't let the knee-jerks win.
> 
> Thanks for reading what I wrote, and please be
> assured I always read 
> what you write. 
> 
> Bill Effros
> 
> Jim White wrote:
> 
> >Thanks Bill
> > 
> >It really did pass me by...maybe it has something
> to do with my dyslexia...or maybe impatience on my
> part, but it was an overload.
> > 
> >It took me eight years to do college and grad
> school, and sometime I still feel like a gypsy in
> the palace. Hours and hours of Government, American
> History, Civics etc. as an undergrad, and I came
> away with a sense that we (the individual) are
> resposible for the caretaking of this country. I was
> under the impression that the government (especially
> the federal government) is a necessary evil...At
> least that's what I thought the framers and founders
> thought. I always thought the the local governments
> were primarily responsible to their governed, and
> beyond that each individual was responsible to one
> another (the higher law thing...). I guess I need to
> relearn things.
> > 
> >The La. tragedy seems to me to be just that, a
> tragedy, regardless of which levels of government
> screwed things up. It's time to pull together for
> the common good.
> > 
> >Them gov'ment kind are all a bunch of city slickers
> anyhow.... I figure we can sort the mess out later,
> but right now we need to take care of the problem.
> > 
> >Anyway, I have little time to try and solve
> political problems...I'm too busy trying to keep an
> eye on the workings of this little microcosm of
> ocean down here, and besides I'm sort of kinesthetic
> to begin with...I have to get my hands on the
> problem, that's why for me it was better to send so
> money (which I have little of), clothes and food for
> the effort in NOLA. That's my obligation and duty as
> an American citizen. If I didn't have school age
> kids, like Herb I would've gone there to try and
> help out too.  
> > 
> >Let better minds solve the big problems on this
> list...
> > 
> >Cheers
> >jw
> >
> >
> >Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
> >Jim, forgot to label that a joke, we all did get it
> 8 times. At least, 
> >I did.
> >
> >Bill Effros
> >
> >
> >
> >Jim White
> >Le Menagerie
> >www.lemenagerie.blogspot.com
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