Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 6:36 pm
A snippet from here:
A mostly agree with him. See, I'd just as soon not have government at all, but if we're going to be forced to pay 1/3 of our money into the damn thing every year, it should be handling shit like this. What the fuck have I been paying for, I ask you?
The government has failed. We’re seeing the results of a government policy and culture that is so used to using shock and condescension to speak to its people that when an actual crisis hits, it’s dumbfounded.
Look. We lost a city. Literally. There are over a million refugees in the southeast US right now. I’m not talking about the poor souls in the Superdome who can’t sleep in three days because of the water, heat and smell much less find a waterlogged corner to take a crap from the last-minute scrounged up MREs. No, I’m talking about the lucky ones. The ones who owned cars and left.
If this happened in France? Or Germany? Or hell, even Poland? There’d be a tent city outside of Baton Rouge. Someone would have already printed temporary identity cards, troops would be filtering refugees for weapons and the Red Cross would be registering survivors. They’d have a fucking PLACE TO SLEEP.
Here in the land of the free? We tell them to find hotels. How immensely fucked up is THAT? We’re watching an entire city bankrupt itself because we can’t be bothered to do a simple refugee housing operation that WE’VE DONE IN OTHER COUNTRIES. Maybe we’ll depend on the Baptists or the Salvation Army to do it, and maybe they won’t be as insistent on trying to use the refugees that come to them for a bowl of soup as an opportunity to convert them.
Even when we have vague stabs of conscience, we screw it up. The Governor of Texas this morning made a grand prounouncement, stating that the people of Lousiana were family, and that the unused Houston Astrodome would be opened for refugees - like the Superdome, but with working AC and toilets, so it’s at least a minor upgrade. He said the right things. It’s what we should be doing.
Except, of course, we’re turning away refugees there too. See, they’re only taking people from the Superdome there. Actual refugees should continue to bankrupt their personal savings, thanks.
In the meantime, the Astrodome is turning away refugees who aren’t part of the Superdome evacuation. That was bad news for Christy and Honald Salomon and five carloads of family members, including a 93-year-old great-great-grandmother.
The Salomons and their extended family have been staying at a Comfort Inn for $55 a night. News of a longer stay had the family searching for more permanent housing arrangements.
But they were turned away from the Astrodome a little before noon, with only a one-page information sheet of services offered by the Red Cross.
“People with no money will be able to stay here, but what about people like myself who have a little money to hold us?'’ said Brian Salomon. “Where are we going to stay when we run out of money?”
Now look. As I keep feeling compelled to remind myself, I’m a conservative at heart, and what’s more, a libertarian one. Most things, the government should not be involved in. But you know, when a whole goddamned city gets wiped off the Earth in 2 days? Last time I checked, this is why we had a government. And they had damned well better drop everything else they’re currently being bitchy about and start FEEDING PEOPLE, and while they’re at it, SHOOTING LOOTERS IN THE HEAD.
I pay taxes for a reason, and it’s not to keep President Bush on permanent campaign trips so he can sell the Iraq war.
As Americans, we shouldn’t hope for our government to act. We should DEMAND it. And come elections, remember both the heroes (among them the New Orleans mayor, who deserves several medals) and those who were so thoroughgoingly incompetent they couldn’t do their jobs.
A mostly agree with him. See, I'd just as soon not have government at all, but if we're going to be forced to pay 1/3 of our money into the damn thing every year, it should be handling shit like this. What the fuck have I been paying for, I ask you?