I would really like to think that the BBC

[mandragora]

is exaggerating how horrific conditions are in New Orleans right now to make a better news story.

Seeing person after person on the Ten O'Clock News begging and pleading for help, crying that there's no food and no water and that women and children are being raped following the breakdown of law and order, is one of the worst things I've seen. Not because - sadly - I haven't seen similar incidents on TV before. I have. And all too many of them. But these were in poor countries, often following civil war and the breakdown of the infrastructure, and where there just aren't the resources to help.

Not in the world's richest country. Not in the country that has more resources than anyone else.

Why was it too little, too late? And who made the decision to leave the poorest residents of New Orleans - perhaps as many as 100,000 people - behind to die. Why the fuck wasn't there at least some sort of effort to get those people out?

Yes, I appreciate the problems in the logistics of moving over a million people. But why wasn't there at least some effort made to evacuate at least some of the people without their own transport, who were effectively trapped there?

Why?

Comments

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

From what I'm hearing from people actually nearby, or with relatives nearby, the BBC is most defniitely not exaggerating.

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

No, I never actually thought that they were. I just wish that they had been, you know.

It's rare that I'm in tears when I watch the news but I was tonight. I think it's because it should never have come to this and it could have been prevented. That makes it that much worse, somehow.

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

As you said in your main post, this is the world's richest country. This isn't Bangladesh or Kosovo or Uganda or El Salvador. How can this kind of thing be happening in the world's richest country?

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

I know. To any Western country with a well-developed social system, where government really is accountable to the people, it seems unbelievable. But the US is a very special country in many ways and is very different from the other Western countries - Western Europe, Canada, Australia and NZ etc.

Its principle of self-sufficiency, coupled with the idea that 'anyone can make it here' are part of what helped make it the richest and most powerful nation on Earth, I think.

The trouble is that self-sufficiency doesn't work in circumstances of natural disaster on this scale and the days when anyone really *could* make it there are long since gone. The US now has *less* social mobility than the UK. That's right, less than possibly the most class-obsessed culture on the planet.

Now in the UK we recognise that not everyone can 'make it' that there are factors beyond your control that affect your life, and we have taken steps to try and even out those social inequalities. God knows it's not perfect but no one should ever be without medical assistance or enough money to at least buy enough food to live etc. But in the US the myth persists that those who are poor are that way because they're 'lazy' and if they'd just get off their butts then they too could have that nice 5 bedroomed house and the SUV and plenty of money to send the kids to college etc.

Many Americans realise that the myth is just that - a myth. But many have not.

And I think this attitude may begin explain the inexplainable to those of us who are sitting watching it in horror. I include Americans on my flist in that category, because I know that many of them are as stunned and shocked as everyone else.