No governor needs the permission of FEMA or the president to call up their own National Guard troops in the event of a catastrophe within their state, the LA National Guard is under her command (I used to do a lot of work for the National Guard- I've been in a lot of National Guard facilities all over the country- done my time in tanks and helicoptors) and they also have reciprocal agreements between themselves and the other states to call on the resources from other states. Instead of crying at a news conference that lady should have been doing whatever was humanly possible to get those troops and supplies into place. She was the one most responsible to respond and she was also responsible to communicate effectively to the Feds what she needed in order to respond. <sarcasm>But what could we expect from her, she's a woman and we all know that women can't be held to the same standard we hold men!</sarcasm>
I live near a city with the same percentage of people living below poverty. The city has large numbers of individuals who spend their entire lives on government assistance, both white and black. Living on government assistance always places people below the poverty level, discourages them from developing any kind of safety net of their own and makes them completely vulnerable to exactly the kind of catastrophe that NOLA experienced. I seriously doubt that my governor would have been as ineffectual as the governor of LA and certainly the current mayor of Baltimore knows how to get things done. Still, I'd expect a certain amount of looting here simply because this has always happened whenever the police are powerless to stop it like during major snowstorms. I certainly wouldn't have expected the widespread lawlessness and societal breakdown we saw in NO, and yes, we've had devastating hurricanes and flooding here in Maryland. Mostly these disasters bring out heros, not thugs. This catastrophe seems to have brought out some of the worst aspects of individuals this thread is no exception.
What is sad and ironic is to hear the same people who have been demanding that their representatives cut the defense department budget as long as there has been one, accuse the president of cutting the Army Corps budget (budgets come from Congress for those of you who missed civics 101). The Army Corps gets their funding from the same defense budget people have been shouting at the top of their lungs to cut, the same budget which used to be 60% of Federal outlays in the year I was born (1954) which is now 10% of federal outlays with transfer payments to individuals now at 60% (ironically to some of the same individuals that the city didn't have funds to evacuate). Besides, if anyone bothered to check the budget, you would see that the Corps budget hasn't been cut, it's higher than it ever has been. But as my grandmother used to say, people never let the truth get in the way of a good political bashing. (she never said that but she should have) Maybe they didn't get everything they asked for in the budget, but the way the government is funded is everyone asks for more than they know they will ever receive. This always gives liars the opportunity to say a certain budget was "cut" because they use the figures that were asked for and subtract the figure they got and say so and so cut their budget. At what point are people going to stop falling for these kinds of blatant lies on the part of political operatives?
The levee that failed was finished to spec, the other plans were not scheduled to be finished for 15 years, all the funding in the world wouldn't have changed the outcome.
Still the thing that no one seems to mention in the political blame game is how much lower the casualties will turn out to be than the numbers predicted in all the estimates made in the various scenarios and simulations done over the years for such a catastrophic storm. Most of the deaths so far occurred as an immediate consequence of the storm and subsequent flooding, not from the response or lack thereof. Many more would have died if the Coast Guard and Navy hadn't arrived at daylight next day to start the slow process of plucking people off their roofs. That is not to say people didn't suffer as a consequence of having to hang out and wait to get rescued, but a much larger number are alive than the predictions estimated. Anyone who heeded the mandatory evacuation had an almost 100% chance of survival. If the Federal government failed, it failed by continually suckering people into excepting their pitiful payoff money in exchange for living a life with zero resources you can call your own. This is the price of living in the scourge of socialism, those monthly checks, even though they are a pittance, turn able bodied people into helpless dependent individuals with no savings, no safety net. People who lack the financial cushion, mental acumen and family bonds needed to scrape together $60 to make it 80 miles to a hurricane shelter. |
