Re: OT: Katrina's Wrath

Lueko Willms wrote: 
  There are no material reasons not to save peoples lives, only the
incapacity of the capitalist society which is well able to bring shock
and awe and real destruction in all parts of the globe, conquer
countries, organize hundreds of thousands of soldiers to terrorize
people all around the world, but even then they can't create
conditions where human beings can live in peace and progress.



l> Government in this country has a limited function.  Providing for the
l> defense of the land is probably the biggest one.  Name for me one
l> other country that has given more to this Earth than the USA has over
l> the past 100 years.  There's not one!  Just because people don't heed
l> warnings (which, freedom being what it is, they can make that
l> choice)doesn't mean that it's still not the best place for peace and
l> progress.


If I wouldn't have known your ideas, I would have thought that somebody is trying to make a bad cynical joke to show how much the USA is a failed state.

The USA is not a state - it is a voluntary collection of states. And, in all this, looking at the would/could/should scenarios, the *state* of Louisiana comes up as the one who shoulders the responsibility for many of the things that went wrong.

You can not seriously claim that the USA is a great state, bringing racism, colonialism, wars, "shock and awe", i.e. terror, military dicatorships, torture, and mass killings to the world, just to leave each and every of its citizens helpless against the powers of nature.

We're *all* helpless against the powers of nature - anyone who tells you otherwise is deluding themselves. Sure, we can create structures that *should* hold to certain forces, but few of even these structures could survive a direct hit from a tornado - and there's nowhere you can go on land where you can't have one of those.

And your list is rich... Who was it again that liberated a significant portion of your country, back around, let's say, 1945? Do you really think that the most wealthy and the freest country in the world is an abject failure? That the country is worthless because of a poor response to one natural disaster?

The tens of thousands of people trapped in New Orleans did not get out of the city, because they did not "heed warnings", but because the COULD NOT MAKE THAT CHOICE either because they had not the means, i.e. no car of their own, or because they were ill, handicapped, in a nursing home or hospital, whatever.

You mean to tell me that within the course of a *year*, these folks couldn't figure out a way out of New Orleans? Panhandle for the $49 bus ticket to Baton Rouge. Heck, you could probably *walk* across the bridge to the north side of the lake in a week, and your chances of surviving Katrina's aftermath go up dramatically.

Although we may joke about things costing "an arm and a leg," most poor people do have feet (and, in this country, shoes to cover their feet, thanks to the generosity of their fellow man).

The handicapped / nursing home populations are a bit different. If they were the only people that were having to be saved, they would have been covered fine.

You claim that being poor in the USA just means that you have to die when the hurricane hits.

No - what you have here is people making choices. There are folks who balanced the risks of living there/staying there against the risks of leaving, or the effort of relocating, and decided that they would rather stay there. It is not the government's place to be there, ready to catch someone if their choice turns out to be a bad one.

But people to organize collectivities, which means in today's world states, to organize for the common tasks and problems. The state USA has obviously failed before that challenge.

Our country was not founded to keep people out of the rain. Our Declaration of Independence and Constitution are online - that is why our country was founded.

So when this is useless and failed, it should be replaced. I think that the failure of the USA as a state as shown in the incapacity to deal with the upcoming catastrophe Katrina, will be a watershed like the 1972 earthquake in Nicaragua, where a few years later the US- sponsored Somoza dictatorship ended, just after having bombed their own people - and when I see the military on their threatening patrols in New Orleans, I think that might come faster.

I hope that the military *does* take out our "own people" - the thugs who looted pawn shops and gun stores and have now formed their gangs who think they're going to be allowed to run the city. They're delusional, they're dangerous, and they need to be eliminated. You won't find many people in this country that disagree with me on that - I have yet to talk to someone who does. (And I *know* I'm not that convincing to talk to... :> ) It will *not* result in our country falling in on itself.

What is striking is to contrast New Orleans' mayor's statements with Rudy Giuliani's statements (then the mayor of New York City) after September 11th. Giuliani's comments were comments of hope, determination, and condolence to those who lost loved ones. NO's mayor's comments are something along the lines of "Why haven't you helped us yet?" Attitude has a lot to do with the success of any kind of rebuilding. New Yorkers had it - do the residents of Louisiana?

(I'm not hearing this defeatest spirit and "poor pitiful us" from Biloxi, MS; Gulfport, MS; or Mobile, AL. It seems to be confined to New Orleans. Consequently, look for much quicker progress in restoring *these* towns to their pre-Katrina state.)

No one event, especially a natural one (over which we can *never* have any control), is going to sink this nation. Freedom is a stubborn thing, being one of the natural yearnings of the human spirit. A dispassionate assessment of the situation needs to be done, and a decision made about what should be done with New Orleans. (Is it smart to have a city 70 feet below sea level?)

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