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

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

It will be very interesting, as I said in a comment above, whether this provides an impetus for the US to address the vast inequality in the US between rich and poor.

I also commented above to raincitygirl that I think the 'can do' attitude helped the US become the richest and most powerful nation. But I now think that the myth (for that's what it is, maybe what it always was) that anyone can make it if they just work hard enough is actively hurting the US' development.

At least now help finally is getting in. That's something. But not for those who died waiting.

[filenotch.livejournal.com]

It will be very interesting, as I said in a comment above, whether this provides an impetus for the US to address the vast inequality in the US between rich and poor.

Not a fucking chance.

"There will be poor always," said Jesus, which when added to the Puritan notion that material success is equated with holiness in some way, makes Horatio Alger story a necessary myth.

But I now think that the myth (for that's what it is, maybe what it always was) that anyone can make it if they just work hard enough is actively hurting the US' development.

Well, now that's food for loaded conversations. We have to import our 'untouchables,' the people who do the unskilled, necessary (and luxury-providing) labor. They come mostly from Mexico. Asians get cleaner jobs in general, like manicurists. But, "Every one can move up. Your children will do better than you." And who will we import to take over the shit jobs after the latest immigrant waves progress to middle-classdom? Who will bone my chicken breasts and wrap them in plastic, I ask you?!

I have blond hair and blue eyes, and a WASP background, with over 10 generations traced on both sides and descended from players in the Revolution (and yes, dear Brit, in a country just over 200 years old, that's nearly as good as still having a part of your ancestral pre-Norman lands). I am, by birth, appearance, etc., operating at an advantage to general society. My only negatives, other than my grumpy personality, are that I'm short and queer. (Conclusions need not be drawn between these characteristics.) Since blond, grumpy, short and queer works for David Spade, well, hell, I even have a media role model. The point is, I only vaguely have a clue as to what life is like on the other side of the legendary Street. I purposefully spent part of my life putting myself in situations where I wasn't automatically privileged (me: mohawk; him: Southern law enforcement; and &c.) but I always had an escape hatch. I do not know what it's like without that line of credit available to extract myself from most situations.