As thousands of human and animal corpses decompose in waters contaminated with the detritus of a recently great city now synonymous with devastation, there is \u2013 as in every catastrophe \u2013 an implicit and utterly overwhelming demand to learn something, to avoid or at least diminish the horror of a similar experience.\u00a0 So what are the lessons from this?\u00a0 What can we conclude?<\/p>\n
First, most have soberly declared this a natural disaster and not blamed sinful people or an insensitive God, and acknowledged that heat and wind and water unconsciously conspired with gravity to hurl waves of fury at a densely populated area below sea level.\u00a0 Out of every nine such storms, one and a half hit land, and that land isn\u2019t always packed with humanity.\u00a0 It was bad luck, it was no luck, a long shot of tragic fate.\u00a0 It was also inevitable.\u00a0 And those with both the scientific knowledge and civic responsibility had been saying so.\u00a0 In 2001 the Federal Emergency Management Agency warned that a huge hurricane threatening New Orleans was one of the three catastrophes most likely to strike the United States.\u00a0 (Another was a terrorist attack on New York.\u00a0 Whatever the third warning was, examine it carefully.)<\/p>\n
Rather than adequately strengthening and rebuilding levees holding back the mighty Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, which almost envelop New Orleans, the President of the United States slashed the $100 million requested this year by the Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Project and offered $16.5 million.\u00a0 Congress ultimately funded $34 million. \u00a0The president is such a prolific political fundraiser he could\u2019ve generated that much cash during a week of backslapping lunches with wealthy cronies.\u00a0 Instead, two days ago he had to pledge $10.5 billion in immediate disaster relief. \u00a0An ounce of prevention\u2026<\/p>\n
The next issue is also financial, and generally larger than any single president, though presidents who start expensive wars that drain manpower certainly exacerbate the difficulties.\u00a0 The United States is spending more than $400 billion a year on defense.\u00a0 Depending on whose statistics you quote, that\u2019s more than the next 10 or 12 nations combined or more than all nations together.\u00a0 That, at minimum, is strange.\u00a0 It probably is pathological.\u00a0 It is definitely a lot of our loot of which too much goes for $500 coffee pots and $500 million weapons systems that don\u2019t work well or at all except for those paid to produce them.\u00a0 And while members of the National Guard are fighting (and often dying in) an unnecessary war in Iraq, they\u2019re unavailable for real emergencies at home.\u00a0 Several thousand more trained troops from Louisiana and Mississippi could have been there rapidly with additional food and medical aid and aircraft and trucks.\u00a0 Next time, make sure the Guard and the hardware are home.<\/p>\n
We also must, above all, consider the people most damaged by this catastrophe.\u00a0 They are black and they are poor.\u00a0 They are, or were, 70% of the population in New Orleans where 30% of the people live, or lived, in poverty.\u00a0 Those with cars and credit cards and friends with safe places out of town were most likely to escape.\u00a0 The poor, those without the means to leave, those \u201cthrowaway people\u201d we\u2019ve been reading about or watching on TV, are the ones who most need the help of this nation and its incomprehensible wealth.\u00a0 On rooftops surrounded by water, floating face-down in cesspools, wading from stores, desperately laden with hot merchandise, they are the ones who are shouting: \u201cGive me a hand.\u00a0 Help me get an education.\u00a0 Help me find a job that will pay the rent.\u00a0 Do something.\u00a0 For God\u2019s sake, at least get me out of here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As thousands of human and animal corpses decompose in waters contaminated with the detritus of a recently great city now synonymous with devastation, there is \u2013 as in every catastrophe \u2013 an implicit and utterly overwhelming demand to learn something, to avoid or at least diminish the horror of a similar experience.\u00a0 So what are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,90],"tags":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n