Tempus Fugit

You bet your ass it is political. Yeah, I’m going there. I’m sick of all you self-righteous people who say that it isn’t proper to address the political issues at work right now in New Orleans and then sneak in your political jabs anyway. You want to make a political point, and indeed you made a political point, but you don’t have the balls to admit it. You offend more with your lack of honesty than with any callousness that your surreptitious comments might convey.

If you are easily offended, or impressed at your own pious statements of political neutrality on the issue, stop reading. I’m going to offend you. I’m not joking. Don’t bother leaving a comment if all you can muster is indignance. I don’t have the patience for your delicate sensibilities right now.

Let’s get a few things straight right now:

• There are important political aspects to this situation. The creation of a culture than has people shooting at police helicopters demanding rescue is a political issue. This didn’t happen in Sri Lanka during the tsunami, and isn’t happening in Mississippi right now. Why is it happening in New Orleans?
• There are many people who could have left town, but didn’t. These people could be stupid, stubborn, or ignorant, but it is a problem, regardless. There were many people who couldn’t leave, and I’m as sympathetic for their plight as anyone else. But anyone who knew of the danger, and could have left, but decided to stay put is to blame for the situation that they are in.
• People reveal their true selves by their actions when a crisis hits. Those who selflessly stepped up are heroes. Those who let fall their last remaining facade of humanity and used this crisis as an opportunity to terrorize, vandalize and victimize are the worst type of villain.
• I don’t want to hear your accusations of hard-heartedness. If I spend more than $15 in the next 3 days, I’ll bounce my rent check. That’s what my donation cost me. So spare me the moral superiority.
• Donate. Please.

No One Caused the Hurricane

Hurricanes happen. Bigger ones than this, even. Hurricanes have been happening since before man even thought of harnessing the power of hydrocarbons. Bush didn’t cause this hurricane. Global warming didn’t cause this hurricane. Homosexuals didn’t cause this hurricane. Atheism didn’t create this hurricane. Hurricanes are a naturally occurring phenomenon that, despite our advances in technology, humans are helpless to prevent. So shut the hell up with your idiotic conspiracy theories.

No One Could have Stopped the Flooding

The blame-Bush crowd is already shouting that if more money had been taken from other parts of the country and used to fund the engineering nightmare that is the underwater city of New Orleans, the flooding might have been prevented. They’re wrong. Not surprisingly, the same assholes who think that humans activity can cause a hurricane are the ones who think the human activity could have stopped it in its tracks. Like any problem, they think it can be solved by throwing other people’s money at it.

The Local Government Failed

The mandatory evacuation wasn’t ordered soon enough. In fact, it was only made when the President personally called LA Gov. Kathleen Blanco and “appealed” for the order to be given.

The city of New Orleans failed its citizens by failing to fully utilize their resources to get people to safety. They knew what kind of flooding was expected, and yet they still packed people into the Superdome. Worst, there were 236 school buses only 3 miles away, just sitting there. Count them yourself. They could have moved 14,000 to 16,000 people out of harms way in one trip. They messed up, big time.

And now, New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin is screaming at the Federal government to give him… wait for it… buses. This was a failure on the local level, no doubt about it.

Guns are Good, Criminals are Bad

Certain Eurocentric police state advocates (you know who you are) have suggested that the problems with armed gangs roaming the street stem from the Second Amendment. I must assume that these people have never heard of England or Australia, where the abolishment of guns has done nothing but ensure that law-abiding citizens relinquish them, and ensure that said law-abiding citizens become easy prey for the criminals who (surprise) break the law and keep their guns. So now, only criminals have guns. Or, you let law-abiding citizens own guns, and when a looter tries to enter the house of someone who is armed, he is greeted with a bullet to the head. His rotting corpse can be displayed on the front porch with a sign: “Your Brain after Looting,” maybe with an arrow pointing to the gaping hole in his head, for good measure.

The Culture of Dependency

The Louisiana Weekly reported in 2001 that a free Welfare-to-Work program designed to teach people on Welfare the skills they would need to be a functional member of society had been available for five months but not one single person in New Orleans had signed up. There was a report of people shooting at police helicopters that were rescuing people along with shouts of “You had better come get me next.” I can’t even comprehend that mindset. “You owe me help, and if I don’t get it promptly, I’m going to make sure that you aren’t able to help anyone else.” Such people are leprous sores on our great country. Their only concern is for what benefit can be given to them at the expense of others.

Racism?

Blow it out your ass. Seriously. The usual candidates were salivating, waiting for the first tidbit that might suggest racism. It came when someone noticed a photo of black people with bags of food referred to them as having “looted” it, and a photo of white people with food referred to them as having “found” it. Never mind that the photos and captions come from two different press agencies. Never mind that the photographers were contacted and as it turns out, the black people in the first photo were seen breaking into the store, but the white people in the second photo found the food floating down the street. As always, accusations of racism need not be held back by the truth.

Rebuild Somewhere Else

If they rebuild New Orleans, this will happen again. It’s just a matter of time. Rebuild the city somewhere else… somewhere that isn’t actively sinking into the ocean. I’m sorry, but if you think that tradition and city pride is worth more than people’s lives, you have your priorities backwards. As far as natural disasters go in the United States, this one probably ranks third. Any policy that sets it up to happen again is, well, stupid. New Orleans is like a mouse trap. All it takes is one thing to trigger the trap, the the water will flow according to the laws of nature. Pumping the water out and rebuilding the levees is like resetting the trap. Now that it has happened, no one can live in denial anymore.

And once again, go donate.