I knew something was wrong with the “published” list of charities….
Did you know that Operation Blessing is Pat Robertson’s charity… who wouda thunk it… radical clerics filling their thoughs out of the misery of others…
Month: September 2005
Keesler Air Force base, Biloxi
Latest reports indicate 95% destruction at the base – which is where most of the Hurricane Watch planes are based. Presumably they flew the planes out before the storm.
couple more items below…
“Home of the premier electronics and communications training center in the Air Force.”
There was a huge military training hospital at the base with 2000 staff – 2nd largest military hospital in US, if I understand correctly.
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The refugees: Latter day Okies
Not since the days of the great Depression and the great ecological crisis of the Dust Bowl, when the good earth proceded to depart from the Great Plains upon the winds to points further east, has my country faced a refugee crisis on the scale the we do now. For those who don’t know much about this time period, a little background.
In the 1930s, during the Dust Bowl era, large numbers of farmers, fleeing ecological disaster, migrated from the Great Plains region to California along Route 66. More of the migrants were from Oklahoma than any other state, and some 15% of the Oklahoma population left for California. Californians called the migrants “Okies”, regardless of whether they were actually from Oklahoma. The term was disrespectful and used in a derogatory manner, with connotations of homelessness, poverty, and hickishness. The term was made famous nationwide by John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath.
We have sown the wind, and now we reap the whirlwind. And though Katrina is in Canada the winds of change are just starting to blow.
As the BBC reports hundred of thousands of Americans have been dispossed by the storm, these people have nothing to go home to, the sea has consumed their homes and everything they own whole. These people are refugees, even more they are latter day Okies.
The Okies were agents for change, and growing up in the deep red heart of <s>darkness</s> Indiana, I remember being shocked after reading The Grapes of Wrath for a high school English class, and seeing that the comfy bullshit that America has always been a conservative place was utter bullshit. Here in fictional (but true history), was the story of the breakdown of the illusion that naked, savage capitalism is a sustainable system. By their nature, American farmers have always been very slow to change, the yeoman farmer ideal, where a farmer works his own land, had always been part of parcel of the American Dream. But the grevious ecological harm wrought by the dust storms of the 1930’s, took people from settled bourgieous lives, and disppossed them.
Part of the story of the Grapes of Wrath is that you have people who had something forced into a life of migrant labor, and I can’t help but think that our latter day Okies from Louisiana await a similiar fate. Alas, the oter part of the story is that where the Mexicans who had worked the fields before who been docile, these dispossed Okies fough back, becoming communists, and forming unions to force the orchard owners to pay them enough to live a decent life. History has a way of repeating itself, and I think that our Cajun friends aren’t going to take this lying down. I think that there’s a bitter wind blowing and it ain’t going to stop until it’s pushed the President and the Congress out on their asses.
It’s already begun.
“Many people didn’t have the financial means to get out,” said Alan LeBreton, 41, an apartment superintendent who lived on Biloxi’s seaside road, now in ruins. “That’s a crime and people are angry about it.”
…..
Many of the town’s well-off heeded authorities’ warnings to flee north, joining thousands of others who traveled from the Gulf Coast into northern Mississippi and Alabama, Georgia and other nearby states.
Hotels along the interstates and other main roads were packed with these temporary refugees. Gas stations and convenience stores — at least those that were open — sold out of water, ice and other supplies within hours.
But others could not afford to join them, either because they didn’t own a car or couldn’t raise funds for even the cheapest motel.
“No way we could do that,” said Willie Rhetta, a bus driver, who remained in his home to await Katrina.
Resentment at being left behind in the path of one of the fiercest hurricanes on record may have contributed to some of the looting that occurred in Biloxi and other coastal communities.
A number of private residences, including some in upscale neighborhoods, were targeted, residents said.
Come 2006, the Republican party just might have a nasty little suprise in their Southern strongehold, and the term “red state” might just have an entirely new meaning. The outrage over the looting in New Orleans is about more than a simple break down in civil order, the elites in this country have spent the last 20 years ripping the social safety net to shreads, and now they reap what they have sowen. These refugees have lost what little they had, and I think the response of one of the looters (I guess that the culture of life doesn’t apply if we’re talking about private property) was asked whether he was trying to save his store is instructive.
One man who had around 10 pairs of jeans in his arms was asked if he was trying to save items from his store.
“No,” the man shouted, “that’s everybody’s store.” Another woman denied having a bag full of items. “It’s about survival right now,” she said. “We got to feed our children. I’ve got eight grandchildren to feed.”
If that isn’t primal communism I don’t know what is, unless the American gov’t acts soon, these refugees are going to be forced to wander the country like the wretched of the earth. The way in which honest to god refugees who weren’t in the Superdome (New Orleans) have been turned away from the Astrodome (Houston) shows just how unprepared the government is to deal with this. What is really disturbing is that the type of government intervention needed to control the situation and provide options for people made homeless by Katrina is anathema to the Bush administration.
In the following days and weeks unless action is taken, thousands of people with no money and no hope are going to be left to fend for themselves, wandering the country looking for shelter. Many of these people will be armed, unless the government takes a more constructive approach than the iron fist that the order tonight to end search and rescue operations to focus on the looting is, we are going to see armed bands roaming across the Southeastern United States. CNN is talking like they’re going to bring in the National Guard to hunt these people down.
We in the United States are in for a long, strange trip. I only hope in that something better lies at the end.
NRO roundup of today
Yesterday I commented at dKos the coverage of Katrina by the conservative NRO Corner blog. Their focus was not sensitive, to put it mildly. Today started similarly:
SO MAYBE HE DIDN’T PLAY GOLF [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
but Bush played guitar! Clearly the president doesn’t give a damn.
but Bush played guitar! Clearly the president doesn’t give a damn.
That’s the right thing to do, I conservatively suppose.
For a few hours, the hot Katrina issue was looting, of course. Sarcastic remarks were made towards RFK Jr (That man has no shame.) and Gov. Blanco (She may have won the election but she has no business being in charge of anything).
They were not modest:
SANITY WHEN YOU NEED IT MOST [Jack Fowler]
The outrageous It’s-Bush’s/Barbour’s-Fault response to the hurricane from lefties who are, incredibly, taken seriously makes the case for why you should be subscribing to NR. In a roiling sea of wicked MSM bias, conspiracy-theorizing, and GOP-hate, National Review is a lifesaver. They give you venom and bile masquerading as compassionate reporting, we give you clear-thinking, sharp observations of major events and trends. They club you with psychotic episodes and call it biting commentary. We give you sane, reasoned, well-written, and witty analyses of culture, politics, the economy, and foreign affairs…
The outrageous It’s-Bush’s/Barbour’s-Fault response to the hurricane from lefties who are, incredibly, taken seriously makes the case for why you should be subscribing to NR. In a roiling sea of wicked MSM bias, conspiracy-theorizing, and GOP-hate, National Review is a lifesaver. They give you venom and bile masquerading as compassionate reporting, we give you clear-thinking, sharp observations of major events and trends. They club you with psychotic episodes and call it biting commentary. We give you sane, reasoned, well-written, and witty analyses of culture, politics, the economy, and foreign affairs…
But soon they were reaching for reality base…
GOLF, GUITAR, AND FIVE WEEKS IN CRAWFORD [Byron York]
[…] Cheap shots, aside, there is a legitimate question here. Even given the wonders of modern communications which allow him to stay in touch with virtually everyone virtually all the time, does the president really need to spend five weeks of the summer based at his home in Crawford? What would be wrong with a two-week vacation? After all, he goes to Crawford at other times of the year, and, of course, he can spend all the time he wants there when he is no longer president…
[…] Cheap shots, aside, there is a legitimate question here. Even given the wonders of modern communications which allow him to stay in touch with virtually everyone virtually all the time, does the president really need to spend five weeks of the summer based at his home in Crawford? What would be wrong with a two-week vacation? After all, he goes to Crawford at other times of the year, and, of course, he can spend all the time he wants there when he is no longer president…
BUSH’S VACATION [JPod]
One thing is for sure, Byron: No president, not this one and not any president who follows him, will ever again take a five-week vacation.
ON CNN RIGHT NOW… [Rich Lowry ]
…(my Fox is not coming through at the moment), a big apartment building with people on their balconies beckoning to the helicopter above and two teenagers on the roof with a sign, ?Help us.? It’s unbelievable that this is happening in America–so, so heart-breaking…
I THINK… [Rich Lowry ]
…Bush should send in federal troops…
1,000 DEAD IN BAGHDAD [Rich Lowry ]
In a stampede. Awful news.
“REFUGEES” [Rich Lowry]
It’s so odd to hear that word applied to anyone in America.
BUT SERIOUSLY FOLKS [Rick Brookhiser]
This is one of those times that makes us believe, with essayist Jim Holt, in a god who is 100 percent malign but only 80 percent effective…
IF YOU LIKED… [Rich Lowry]
…the 9/11 Commission hearings, just wait until the FEMA hearings we’re going to have over this…
The Bush speach was revealing:
OVERALL IMPRESSION OF BUSH [Rich Lowry ]
Kind of a fizzle. I’m not sure exactly what else he could do with the speech, but somehow didn’t seem that engaged….
Kind of a fizzle. I’m not sure exactly what else he could do with the speech, but somehow didn’t seem that engaged….
W [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
I found the Bush speech disappointing too, Rich. No doubt the bureacracy is at work but…I think we all already assumed as much. He could have highlighted some great stories of human endurance. Bucked folks up. People down there are not that interested that he flew over and saw some devastation from the comfort of Air Force One.
BOY… [JPod]
…what a lousy speech. He’d better return to the subject later in the week and take the full measure of this event.
RE: THE BUSH SPEECH [Rod Dreher]
Well, let me join the dogpile. The more I think about that miserable laundry-list speech of his, the madder it makes me. I’ve been watching cable news and WWL’s online stream for the past few days, and Bush’s speech was as canned and unrealistic as if it had been phoned in from Mars. All day long, stories of incredible suffering, armed mobs of looters roaming the streets, babies and their mothers in desperate conditions … and the president rattles off a policy speech in which he stops to thank a Texas county executive? Pod’s right: the continued viability of his presidency depends on how he handles this thing. It will take nothing for the “Bush doesn’t care” meme to circulate through the culture, especially as desperate Louisiana people start to grumble about all the Louisiana National Guardsmen serving over in Iraq instead of helping their own families and neighbors who have nothing.
THE POINT IS NOT… [JPod]
…that Bush should have emoted. The point is that he sounded defeatist. And that’s what he cannot be now — what we, as a nation, cannot be now.
HERE’S THE THING [Rod Dreher]
Here’s why Bush’s reaction (so far) has been inadequate. I watched the CBS Evening News just now. They broadcast a jaw-dropping report from refugee encampments atop the interstates in New Orleans. Folks, it was one of the most heart-wrenching thing I’ve ever seen. I can hardly believe this is our country. There were plenty of desperate people stuck there under the boiling sun, with no food, no water, no nothing — including mothers with babies. There was an elderly woman sitting on the curb next to the covered body of her husband, who died waiting to be rescued. She said that she’d flagged down a passing cop to ask for help, and all he could tell her was to move the body of her husband of 53 years out of the way, so the smell of his decomposition didn’t bother people. CBS showed the covered corpse of a man the refugees said jumped from the interstate to his death in despair. These people have NOTHING, and they’re growing desperate. The human drama playing out in Louisiana now beggars description. We don’t need mere emoting — the hapless Gov. Blanco shows how useless that is. But we do need our president to make an emotional connection of some sort with his suffering countrymen. You can be tough, competent AND emotional. It’s called Giuliani 101.
Probably they are even (secretly) impressed with some critique from the left. Here @ @ @ @ @ @ are some articles they refer to. And here are some letters they cite:
>> As you may have noticed from the coverage, the only people left in the city are emergency workers and very poor black people. Of particular concern, is that the latter group generally do not know how to swim.
It never ceases to amaze me though how excellent the US is at dealing with disasters like this. I commend particularly to you Steyn’s piece in the Telegraph yesterday on this point…
>> Truth is, it’s not a “black” thing – it’s a “poor” thing. There aren’t any public swimming pools in New Orleans (OK so the entire city has just been turned into one) and kids don’t get taught to swin at school. Indeed, in most public schools in Orleans parish they are lucky if they get taught to read.
>> Right now, the entire country is watching a great American city collapsing into hopeless devastation, and if there IS a Federal response going on it is barely visible. Government has got to move here….
>> This is an EXTREMELY disappointing speech. Doesn’t he realize that more people may have died from this storm than died on September 11? I don’t expect him to say he’s gonna get Katrina “dead or alive” for what she’s done to America. But for crying out loud, can he put off the laundry list of all the things his wonderful bureaucracy has done so far until the end of the speech and begin by addressing the pain we all feel as this tragedy is unfolding in slow-motion on live TV? We’re talking death on a massive scale, and within 2 minutes he’s thanking Texas for housing refugees (way to perpetuate that “I’m all about Texas” stereotype).
>> The scenes I’m seeing on Fox are things you’d think you’d only see in Somalia or Bangladesh. This is the United States of America. We can’t get a single truck full of water to these people? We can’t get a single helicopter to fly over and drop supplies? A cop car and a military truck roll up from the distance, giving the suffering people hope. Do they stop as the desperate wave? No. They drive through. They can’t even stop to tell them where they should go to get any life-saving water or food.
I am starting to feel a mixture of outrage and shame…
Probably only Derbyshire did not write a single post on the hurricane, although he likes titles like ESSAY OF THE WEEK or (yesterday) MOST DEPRESSING EMAIL OF THE DAY. But the big clown was Jonah Goldberg, again. He started they day with
JOKE NO LONGER [Jonah Goldberg ]
Everyone knows the 50 different versions of the joke about the Meteor (apocalypse, whatever) heading to earth and The New York Times (or Washington Post) running the headline: “World Ends: Women, Minorities Hardest Hit.”
Everyone knows the 50 different versions of the joke about the Meteor (apocalypse, whatever) heading to earth and The New York Times (or Washington Post) running the headline: “World Ends: Women, Minorities Hardest Hit.”
Here’s ABC News:
Poorest Hit Hardest By Hurricane Katrina
Disaster Disproportionately Affects Those Who Can Least Afford It
I’ve decided that every nice, cool, breezy day which happens to come along until the day I die, I’m going to credit global warming. Absent other data, it makes exactly as much sense to blame weather we don’t like on global warming as it does to credit global warming for the weather we do like.
“What a lovely day, thank goodness for fossil fuels!”
Those carping on my levity the other day might take a moment to notice Juan Cole’s gloating that only those nasty, rural Christian zealots were suffering from Katrina while the fun-loving urbanites of Bourbon street were spared.
Update Rereading his post, my initial reading might be a bit of a stretch. His real aim was to exploit the destruction from Katrina to attack Falwell and Robertson, not explicitly to relish the fact those who befell “death and destruction” outside of Bourbon Street were Christians. But, given Cole’s tone I really don’t think I’m that far off the mark either. The whole point is “Aha! See Robertson’s kind of people were hit while the cosmopolitans were spared. Nyah, nyah.”
SHELLFISH [Jonah Goldberg]
This will shock a lot of you, but I’m no expert on shellfish farming. However, I was once told by a fellow in Texas who seemed to know what he was talking about, that you shouldn’t eat farmed shellfish after very big rains because the run-off fertilizer and other pollution from big farms can create diseases in farmed oysters, shrimp etc. Considering how much shrimp farming is done in the Gulf Coast, does anybody who knows about this stuff think it’d be wise to hold off eating domestically farmed shellfish for a while? Or is this all nonsense?
This will shock a lot of you, but I’m no expert on shellfish farming. However, I was once told by a fellow in Texas who seemed to know what he was talking about, that you shouldn’t eat farmed shellfish after very big rains because the run-off fertilizer and other pollution from big farms can create diseases in farmed oysters, shrimp etc. Considering how much shrimp farming is done in the Gulf Coast, does anybody who knows about this stuff think it’d be wise to hold off eating domestically farmed shellfish for a while? Or is this all nonsense?
CLASS CARDS & DISASTER [Jonah Goldberg]
Several readers complain that it’s in fact true that the hurricane will disproportionately affect poor people. I don’t really dispute that in the sense most mean it. Yes, the poor will have special hardships. Obviously so. But what I objected to, and still object to, is the reflexive playing of the class card. Is it really true that some middle class retirees who heeded the advice of the government to leave town, only to watch their homes be looted after a lifetime of hardwork for a better life are suffering less than a poor person who lost his rented apartment? What’s the metric for measuring this sort of suffering? What about the small businessman who worked his entire life to build something he’s proud of? What about the families who lost loved ones, but had the poor taste to make more money than the poverty line?
Several readers complain that it’s in fact true that the hurricane will disproportionately affect poor people. I don’t really dispute that in the sense most mean it. Yes, the poor will have special hardships. Obviously so. But what I objected to, and still object to, is the reflexive playing of the class card. Is it really true that some middle class retirees who heeded the advice of the government to leave town, only to watch their homes be looted after a lifetime of hardwork for a better life are suffering less than a poor person who lost his rented apartment? What’s the metric for measuring this sort of suffering? What about the small businessman who worked his entire life to build something he’s proud of? What about the families who lost loved ones, but had the poor taste to make more money than the poverty line?
Whatever happened to the idea that unity in the face of a calamity is an important value? We’re all in it together, I guess, except for the poor who are extra-special.
But he got some picture later:
OKAY, STRIKE TWO [Jonah Goldberg]
In a real sense the poor do have it worse, as a general proposition. You can’t watch these images and really conclude otherwise. I do think that I am entirely right about the nature of suffering in that it cannot be measured by a simple economic metric. For example, contrary to the grief I give Rich, I make a comfortable living. I don’t think my grief would have been 1/1,000th less had I made ten times as much when my father died. And I don’t think it would have been 1/1,000th more if I made half as much. That was how I saw it. To me measuring such things by an economic calculus seems as grotesque as some people seem to think it is not to.
In a real sense the poor do have it worse, as a general proposition. You can’t watch these images and really conclude otherwise. I do think that I am entirely right about the nature of suffering in that it cannot be measured by a simple economic metric. For example, contrary to the grief I give Rich, I make a comfortable living. I don’t think my grief would have been 1/1,000th less had I made ten times as much when my father died. And I don’t think it would have been 1/1,000th more if I made half as much. That was how I saw it. To me measuring such things by an economic calculus seems as grotesque as some people seem to think it is not to.
But, while watching this footage of these poor people with absolutely no place to go and with the prospects of the city being closed for months it’s pretty obvious — as I said — the hardships affecting the poor become more pronounced and disproportionate. Your heart really does have to go out to these poor souls. I still don’t think grief and misery can be measured economically, but as this disaster stretches out over time, it seems impossible to deny that the grief and misery will be extended longer the further down the economic ladder you go. I sympathize for more for a middle class family which has lost everything it worked for than I do for some thug having a grand time smashing a jewelry shop window. But looking at these poor women carrying their kids aimlessly through the muck with no place to go, you have to concede their lot would be much better with the means to find a dry bed at the end of the day.
Bood Abides Obliges: “Miss Liberty”
JPol — thinking of the photo of Bush fake-playing a guitar yesterday while New Orleans’ citizens drowned — reminisced about a long-lost Nixon-era poster:
“I had a wonderful poster back in the Nixon years. It showed Tricky Dick strangling the Statue of Liberty while Spiro Agnew sat on its hand, grinning and playing a fiddle. Someone should design a similarly appropriate one today for Bush and Cheney.” Bood Abides came through. SEE BELOW:
PLEASE CLICK the image to see it in its full glory at Bood Abides’ own site:
Miss Liberty
The Jig is Up
[From the diaries by susanhu.] The coverage of Hurricane Katrina has been extensive here at BooTrib. Madman describes anarchy, while tribe34 alerts us to the offer of help from Canada; Stu Piddy is raising the possibility of racial disparities in the recovery effort, while ManfromMiddleTown muses whether New Orleans should be rebuilt at all.
The common thread of this disastrous event is the blatant lack of competence with respect to the rescue and recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast. Homeland Security failed in a real way this week. The Bush Administration has flunked their first major infrastructure test since the September 11th attacks.
Newsweek puts all of this in context below the fold…
On Tuesday, President Bush called an abrupt end to his five-week “working vacation” at his Texas ranch and announced he would return to the White House two days early to oversee federal response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. “These are trying times for the people of these communities,” Bush said Tuesday during a visit to a naval base in San Diego. “We have a lot of work to do.”
For the White House, it was interesting timing. Over the last month, administration officials have deflected criticism of Bush’s monthlong stay at his Texas ranch by making the case that technology has made it possible for Bush to run the country from anywhere, even the so-called Western White House. Indeed, the Bush ranch is equipped with highly secure videoconferencing equipment and phones, and, according to White House officials, Bush has made use of them just about every day this month to talk to senior aides back in Washington and other administration officials scattered throughout the country.
[snip]
So why is Bush going back to Washington now? When asked yesterday what Bush could do in Washington for hurricane relief that he couldn’t do from his Texas ranch, McClellan told reporters no less than five times that it was the president’s “preference” to return to the White House. Asked if the decision was more “symbolic” than logistical, McClellan said, “I disagree with the characterization.”
Well Scotty, I’m not sorry that you disagree with the question. I happen to disagree with the fact that George Bush is the President of the United States. You see, I happen to consider George the worst leader I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing first-hand.
- He never holds anyone accountable for their mistakes.
- He fires or demotes any dissenters
- He is incapable of communicating effectively
- He has proven to be the Ultimate Divider, not uniter.
For the past five years, progressives and other sane Americans, have been screaming from their virtual rooftops; trying to get the attention of the rest of the country that they were being led astray by an incompetent Master of Deception.
The greatest illusion in history has been the way the Republican Noise Machine has distracted the people from recognizing this fact. Perhaps the American people will finally snap out of their trance and realize that the rooftop screaming is no longer an illusion:
Update [2005-8-31 23:53:54 by Man Eegee]:The Gray Lady unleashes her wrath on Bush:
George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration: a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast. He advised the public that anybody who wanted to help should send cash, grinned, and promised that everything would work out in the end.
[snip]
It would be some comfort to think that, as Mr. Bush cheerily announced, America “will be a stronger place” for enduring this crisis. Complacency will no longer suffice, especially if experts are right in warning that global warming may increase the intensity of future hurricanes. But since this administration won’t acknowledge that global warming exists, the chances of leadership seem minimal.
WOW!