Without expressing an opinion on the implications of the immediate post-Katrina aftermath, and only because I live in New Orleans and know a thing or two about what happened, let me say unequivocally that the flooding was absolutely, positively not a natural disaster but a man-made disaster caused by the unbelievable engineering incompetence on the part of the US Army Corps of Engineers, who were in charge of 90% of the city's flood protection.
We should have never flooded. The flood protection should have been sufficient in theory but it was abysmally executed in practice.
Nonetheless, you are not meeting Jay's arguments which are based on the aftermath. I have lots of opinions on that, too, but I don't consider them to necessarily be any better than those of any other intelligent person as they require no local knowledge to confect.
But, since you insist, vbg, I will throw out this hint: the post-K aftermath was a very complex event with many complex causes, some which support Jay's thesis and some which do not. The starting point is that we're an outpost of the Third World within US territory, and have always been treated as foreigners. We're different and have suffered for it. I'm not sure that supports Jay's point, but I do think it is a fact which cannot be ignored.
Oh, and the local political leadership very much follows a kleptoplutocratic [ha! there's a new word] model. These kleptoplutocrats are riddled with ineptitude and incompetence. Thus, what happened here may--repeat, may--have been symptomatic of a localized condition, I can't really say. We would have to have another disaster like Katrina somewhere else to test Jay's hypothesis. |
