Hurricanes

Ok, the time has come for my first political rant on this blog.

I mentioned to Lang and Chris today that I feel kind of strange posting this right after the cheerful post of our nursery progress. But I guess this is the nature of Blogs, saying what you feel at the time. Besides, If I come out with this one in November, it'll seem quite irrelevant.

Now that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are gone, I just want to vent some of my thoughts on how disgustingly political this thing became.

I'm tired of the finger pointing over the response to Katrina specifically. Democrats in the Senate along with Jesse Jackson, Hillary Clinton (is she running for senator of Louisiana now?), and others were very quick to start blaming the Bush administration and calling him a racist over the perceived slow response. The claim is that the government (specifically the Bush administration) responded slower than is normal in this situation because the majority of the population of New Orleans is poor, black people. This is absurd. And all this started while rescuers were still attempting to save people from their attics and recover bodies (while getting shot at).

I don’t see how the president can be blamed for the way things went down. I don't see it as the president or his administration's job to keep up with every storm that threatens our coast and make preparations for the people who may or may not be affected. This is a state/local government issue. They are in place for a reason; if this isn’t one of them, please let me know why they exist. Please keep in mind that the states are afforded many rights under the constitution, many people don’t know this. In most cases the federal government is forbidden to intervene on a state’s turf until given permission by the governor. (I think that's how it's worded in the Constitution, but I'll have to double check) Whether this permission was granted in a timely manner or not seems to be hotly debated now, there are tons of blogs and articles to this effect on the net.

There are numerous “Facts” being strewn across the internet on both sides, I don’t see it as productive to list them here as I don’t know enough to determine the truth from the rhetoric. I encourage you to check them out before formulating an opinion on whose fault this all was, if that's important to you. Personally, I blame the hurricane.

Shame on those who would use this catastrophe to gain political ground and put their own ambitions ahead of the safety and continued support for those suffering, those they claim to represent. While I lean conservative, I would say the same if there were a liberal in the White House. If you don't believe me on this, you can even ask me. Just one more point on this, does anyone remember the 1995 heat wave in Chicago that killed 525 people? That was on Clinton's watch. Where was the rhetoric and where were the senators calling for investigations then? There were none, it wasn’t his fault.

Now, for the most important issue of them all. You’re not going to believe this:
“What do we call the people who were forced from their homes by the storm?”
Are you kidding me?

Evacuees? Displaced Persons?
According to an article I read on msnbc, those words are considered too “clinical and not sufficiently dramatic to convey the dire situation that confronts many of Katrina’s survivors.”

Refugees?
Jesse Jackson says: “It is racist to call American citizens refugees.” I have more strong opinions on this topic, but I don’t care to dignify this line of thought with comment.

To me "refugee" means “a person who seeks refuge”, period.

Now, Bush made reference to this in his address: “The people we’re talking about are not refugees…..They are Americans, and they need the help love and compassion of our fellow citizens.”

I say fine, whatever, call them what you want. Let’s move on and make some progress here. If they decide that for some reason it’s a good idea to rebuild a city below sea level, there is not much I can do about it. We will all be paying for it out of our tax dollars regardless, so let’s see some progress. And for Pete’s sake, build the levees higher this time. Pointing fingers at this point is counterproductive.
Besides, it only took a year for many Americans' opinions and resolve against terrorism to dissolve. I guess this should be all a distant forgotten memory by Christmas.

Hmm, how to end on a positive note? Well, it's good news to hear that the death toll was significantly less than projections. And who knows, maybe all the public awareness of Katrina helped keep more people safe from Rita.

End of political rant.