The federal government is a slow, stupid, plodding bureaucracy which can’t respond quickly to anything. And if you’re counting on them to save you when the next hurricane hits, you may well find yourself dead. A Department of Defense official told Congress Thursday that DoD and Homeland Security need as much as a week to prepare to respond to a major disaster. And those of you living in hurricane territories will immediately recognize exactly how stupid that is.
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense Paul McHale told a House Armed Services subcommittee Thursday that he and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff would like up to a week’s warning of upcoming disasters, so as to have time to prepare for a federal response.
But he also admitted that there could be a lot of “false alarms” with up to a week’s notice of every hurricane. Consider Hurricane Katrina. It formed on August 23, 2005. No one could possibly have predicted that six days later it would hit New Orleans. And it surprised forecasters by rapidly strengthening and hitting Florida only two days after it formed.
How long does it take you to prepare to get the hell out of harm’s way? And if you don’t leave, are you willing to wait several days for help to arrive? Because these government bureaucrats have just admitted that exactly that is what will happen — again.
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Karl Marx would love the popular moves among politicians in various state governments and the federal government to ban so-called "junk" food in schools, and to "put healthy food in" convenience stores and on the tables of those they define as poor. It's a very elitist and arrogant mindset that promotes this ideology, and it needs to be addressed.
Ultimately, the war supporters in Congress prevailed in the vote on the resolution. Still, the vote was significant because it places every member of Congress on the record as supporting or not supporting the unconstitutional, costly, violent occupation of a country that never attacked us. This vote should serve as an important reminder to the American people of where their representatives really stand when it comes to policing the world, empire building, and war.
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Lenny Zimmermann
May 26, 2006
Most of us decide on our own if and/or when to get the hell out when a storm is coming. Most of us count ourselves lucky that at least we live someplace where we can see the potential disaster coming and get out of the way of it, as opposed to living in a tornado or earthquake-prone area (or near a volcano, or near a coastline where a Tsunami might hit because of active fault-lines around those costal areas, etc., etc… i.e. there ain’t noplace “safe”, folks.) At any rate I think it is ALWAYS a good idea to expect to make those kinds of decisions and to have to do it all on your own. NEVER expect the government to be able to do anything for you, don’t even expect your fellow man to do anything for you, just be pelasantly surprised when they do… and they often will surprise you that way more often then not, in my experience.
The problem for us comes, I think, from a very long history of an entitlement culture. New Orleans is not a rich city and while many (indeed, I would even say MOST) in South Louisiana pride themselves on their self-sufficiency, there are those folks who, I think, have become reliant on government to take care of them. Who have not the means to leave, but also don’t try to plan ahead to take care of themselves by finding the means to leave.
Planning ahead and being fully prepared to take of you and your own is always good advice, if you ask me, and I think it is one that the vast majority of us in this region have long taken to heart. I guess in some ways I am just sorry that the country never really saw that majority of folks, they only got to see those who did not, or could not, find a means to protect themselves and/or their loved ones during Katrina.
Michael Hampton
May 26, 2006
Shortly after Katrina hit, I traveled the South, and I spoke with New Orleans residents who had fled as far as North Carolina. Their stories are, for the most part, unremarkable: They simply saw “the big one” coming, scraped some money together, got in their cars and scattered to the four winds.
The point is, they didn’t wait for anyone to do anything for them; they did for themselves, and from what I have seen, are much better off for it.
Lenny Zimmermann
May 26, 2006
Exactly. But the unremarkability of those stories is exactly why the MSM won’t bother covering that angle. Who wants to hear that the vast majority of people down here didn’t just expect the government to do it all for them? Better to cover the small minority who tragicly misplaced their trust in exactly the wrong place, the government. Of course then the MSM turns right back around and covers ways to rectify that problem that inovlve the very same government that has always been incapable of dealing with it all to begin with. Go figure.
Michael Hampton
May 26, 2006
“If it bleeds, it leads.”