Over at Polipundit, Lorie Byrd has two excellent posts on the Katrina Disaster. In one, she lists the points she hopes the president will address in his speech tonight. In the second, she quotes an e-mail from one of her readers on the failings of the MSM in reporting this catastrophe. I highly recommend both posts.
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First I acknowledge that the brunt of the blame goes to State and Local government officials!
But for me, the bigger picture is Federal preparedness!! It’s been 4 years and BILLIONS of dollars since 9/11. And this is the best Federal response we’ve got!!
Al Qaeda has got to be frothing at the mouth by now!
We are so vulnerable!
With all the hysteria and expections that in times of disaster El Presidente is supposed to ride into town rescuing each and every person, I fear many Americans will gaze past their own responsibilities and actions needed to support themselves and their immediate community member. I also fear the populace in LA will ignore the problems created by their own governor’s and NOLA mayor’s appallingly inept and hysterial leadership by re-electing the same form of inept leadership in order to deny any personal responsibility while blaming those furthest from the scene because this is easier than actually taking personal responsibility.
I fear that those citizens who insist on reliquishing the self-empowerment concept to El Supremo Leader will be encouraging even more of a reliance upon The Government whereby encouraging such weaknesses to be compounded in future responses. It is inhumane to encourage citizens to be utterly dependent upon The Big El Supremo Government whenever anything happens, this encourages helplessness, confusion and ignorance.
For a country which prides it’s identity as liberally independent and self-empowered how can so many Americans believe we are living in Cuba?
What’s amazing to me is “FOUR YEARS AND BILLIONS OF DOLLARS LATER!” (Is that going to replace “BUSH LIED!” as the Left’s new mantra?), there are still state and local politicians who haven’t modeled their leadership style after Rudy Giuliani.
What folks need to do is actually look at how the government emergency response, from federal down to county, is supposed to happen. I think a lot of people will be surprised to find that the sniping is baseless.
TGC:
Baseless (I agree) or not, as I’d noted, it’s a cultural issue more than political.
Until and unless we change the philosophies of people who believe the federal government is the end-all, it’ll be hard to foster a sense of responsibility and self-determination not only in citizens, but even their elected officials.
Agree, and how do we do that? How do we change a culture back to one where people, and cities, and states, understand that the only real alternative to their self-reliance is a national dictatorship? and where people prefer the former?
According to a cartoonist, the blame is on the military. Check out the first post and the cartoon it references:
http://newjerseyblog.blogspot.com/