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In Reply to: Re: Get beyond the sound bites, mate posted by Fred on September 02, 2005 at 10:23:03:
This is about the US government turning its back on the urban and rural poor, its own people.
I watched Michael D. Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), on television last night talking about the people of New Orleans and the Gulf coast who "chose" to remain in the area after evacuation was mandated last Saturday.
Let me tell you how Michael D. Brown got his job. He's a political appointee who knows jack about the relationship between environmental disaster and poverty. He got his job as the national bureau chief because he contributed the campaigns of the winning candidates.
For years the disaster planning officials in Louisiana have be preparing for this hurricane. One of them, Brian Wolshon, an engineering professor at Louisiana State University who served as a consultant on the state's evacuation plan, said little attention was paid to moving out New Orleans's "low-mobility" population - the elderly, the infirm and the poor without cars or other means of fleeing the city, about 100,000 people.
At disaster planning meetings, he said, "the answer was often silence." (source: NYTimes, 9-2-05)
If you want to link this to Iraq, here's the story: Forty percent of the Mississippi & Louisiana National Guard are in Iraq. The Governor of Mississippi was on television telling us that "it's absurd" to say that the Guard hasn't responded more quickly or effectively because nearly half are deployed in Iraq. I don't care what the damn politicians say to stay in the good graces of their campaign contributors. I can do the math. When you've only got 60% of your disaster response troops on hand, they're NOT going to deploy as quickly or as effectively.
I keep my focus local for one simple reason. I'm powerless to do anything about world consensus, but I can "think globally, and act locally." And that's my advice to anyone who's heart is breaking over this horrible disaster.
