[From the diaries by susanhu. Essential information.] Terry Gross on “Fresh Air” (NPR) interviewed Douglas Brinkley, a history professor from Tulane University who was in New Orleans during Katrina. He said that he watched FEMA officials stop people from going back to rescue other people in New Orleans, because the officials were angry that those people had ignored orders to evacuate the city.
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The people who did not evacuate were mostly elderly, poor, and sick people who needed help and didn’t have anyone to give it to them. These are the people for whom government is the most important.
But they hadn’t “followed orders” and evacuated, so the FEMA officials resented them. Since they hadn’t followed orders and evacuated, they didn’t deserve to be rescued. Besides, most of them are Black.
The FEMA officials are conservatives or have been infected by the sick conservative attitudes. To them there are no ill, elderly, or mentally ill people who need help. Everyone is responsible for themselves. We are each on our own, and if we fall off the sleigh because we can no longer hold on, well, the wolves need to eat too. Compassion? Forget it. Only the strong and the wealthy are worthy of life in America.
If this is the kind of selfish, self-centered government the conservatives have brought to this country, then we don’t need the conservatives.
