Homocon

And I am so frickin' pissed at the Congressional Black Caucus. To suggest (no, scratch that -- they came right out and said it!) that the people in New Orleans are being left to die because they are poor and black is a slap in the face to the several hundred thousand people who are already on the scene helping, and to the rest of the American population who have presently donated tens of millions of dollars in financial aid, food, clothing, water and medical supplies, and this is only days after the hurricane.

For all those who insist that nothing was done in preparation for the disaster, and that nobody thought in advance about what would be needed, here are excerpts from an August 29th AP article:

"As the Category 4 storm surged ashore just east of New Orleans on Monday, FEMA had medical teams, rescue squads and groups prepared to supply food and water poised in a semicircle around the city, said agency Director Michael Brown . . . Brown, in a telephone interview with The Associated Press, said the evacuation of the city and the general emergency response were working as planned in an exercise a year ago. "I was impressed with the evacuation, once it was ordered it was very smooth," he said.

"Also, the Forest Service, which is part of the department, has an incident command team that will coordinate with FEMA and the Red Cross."

There was a lot of preparedness on the part of federal agencies and relief organizations, yet despite the frequent statements that the magnitude of the disaster simply overwhelmed the organizations set in place to provide relief, the news media and race obsessed spokespeople insist that there was nothing in place, no relief intended and that poor black people were simply left to die, conveniently ignoring the fact that FEMA and other organizations had trained for this event, had people in place to help, but were horrifically outdone by the storm and its aftermath

Much of the south is suffering a blackout that won't end for weeks, with power outages across the entire state of Alabama, plus roads and bridges made impassable due to flooding and debris. Biloxi, Mississippi is near decimated, and Mississippi in general has suffered enormous damage -- Interstate 10 has been made impassable, seawalls have been washed away, numerous towns along the coast were heavily damaged (if not outright destroyed) and will take years to rebuild, the dead are still being counted and there are presently over 12,000 people housed in temporary shelters with nowhere left to return to.

So what's up with the New Orleans obsessed race-mongers? The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has nothing to do with race or politics, and everything to do with a disaster that has engulfed the southern coastal region. To focus purely on the plight of black people in New Orleans, while completely ignoring the very real suffering and misery of everyone else in the surrounding regions, is far more racist and bigoted than anything the Bush Administration could ever be accused of. Are poor black people in New Orleans the only ones who matter to the likes of Jesse Jackson? Let's have a little less race-baiting, blame-gaming and 20/20 hindsight, a lot less obsession over New Orleans as the only area of any concern whatsoever, and way more perspective on the overwhelming geographical magnitude of the hurricane's effect.

News flash for the media, the raving left and the extremists on the right -- Katrina didn't just damage New Orleans, and the political beliefs or skin color of the people affected shouldn't mean squat. We have a lot of work to do as a country, and a lot of damage across Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana to repair. Let's knock off the political posturing and blame-flailing and get down to actually helping people rebuild their towns, cities and lives.

I've personally recommended Americares in a previous post, which is delivering hundreds of thousands of dollars of antibiotics to the area, as well as truckloads of bottled water, but I also hear that The Salvation Army is doing terrific work.

ADDENDUM:
This is now the second major disaster that has happened under one president. I well think that George W. Bush may be remembered historically for the challenge of dealing with both a national security disaster and a horrific natural disaster, not to mention major international turmoil. How Katrina plays out in the next several years, regarding economic effects and the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast, will make or break his legacy. Here's hoping that it makes it, not because it personally concerns me as to whether President Bush is remembered fondly by historians, but because a positive legacy would mean that the United States citizenry were able to take a terrible natural disaster in stride, and come out swinging.

That's my hope.

ADDENDUM 2:
Remember when, during the Cold War, we had Civil Defense stockpiles around the country? Water barrels, food rations, medical kits, sanitation kits, radiation kits and other supplies -- there were also more than nineteen hundred 200 bed mobile hospitals stored around the country, similar to an army field hospital. With natural disasters, such as forest fires, floods, earthquakes and hurricanes, as well as recent fears of biological and more standard forms of terrorism, it only seems like common sense to begin establishing Civil Defense stockpiles again so that we have extra resources more readily available in times of regional or national crisis.

The American Red Cross alone had an estimated 200,000 people ready around the New Orleans area with food, water and other supplies, but they were completely overwhelmed. It would have helped greatly if the country had had stockpiles of additional and necessary food, water and emergency supplies, plus mobile hospitals, already existing in key geographical areas that could have been readily accessed and trucked (or helicoptered) in.

I'm just sayin . . .

UPDATE:
As long as New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is taking deflective potshots at the Federal Government for allegedly "not doing enough," I thought I'd pass on this photo, linked on The Drudge Report, which shows an entire lot full of school buses engulfed in flood waters. The caption on Drudge reads: "WHY DIDN'T YOU DEPLOY THE BUSES DURING THE MANDATORY EVACUATION, MAYOR?"

Why, indeed. For a man who's "blasting" President Bush and allegedly "spitting fury" at the White House, Ray Nagin certainly has a lot of responsibility to shoulder for the vast amount of people still left in New Orleans when Katrina hit, and I believe that this is why he's yelling so loudly to the press about the Federal Government -- "No, don't look at that flooded parking lot full of empty buses that could have been used to evacuate the population, listen to what I have to say about George Bush . . ."