OT: New Orleans (VERY long!)

First off -- I was talking about AFTER the flooding started which is when the REAL problems started. Secondly, after the hurricane, it wouldn't have mattered one whit if people were walking on the Interstate or in white neighborhoods, etc. since the Interstate was closed and all the white folks who could had likely left town. Thirdly, it doesn't appear that the whole concept of walking out of the flooding disaster area was even considered. My point being that too many of us -- even those who are convinced that the government doesn't give a damn about us

-- just sit and wait for the government to take care of us!

The Jews were fleeing an army on foot, i.e., travelling at the same speed they were, not a hurricane or floodwaters approaching faster than they could walk.

I guess that's where we differ. I didn't see the article as tarring the vast majority with the parasite brush. Personally, I think there are a whole lot more parasites in the welfare system than anyone wants to admit to. The other thing is that I truly feel that being on welfare (without working to earn money and I don't mean for 10 hours a month) for any significant length of time WILL turn a person into one of those sheep which could quite likely lead to becoming a parasite. The sheep aren't necessarily the parasites but they WERE preyed upon by those wolves!

You might recall that Olwyn Mary, thank goodness, was not forced by rising flood waters to scramble into her attic with whatever she could grab in a few brief moments and then hopefully break through the roof to await rescue. Many others were not so lucky. Hardly a comparable case.

What makes you think they didn't? Then ended up on the side of the road by the thousands, desperately hoping to be rescued.

Don't you think that depends what part of town you were in? I rather suspect those on the east side of town would have had a lot further to go (and a lot more difficulty getting there).

And just how many of those are there? You seem to think it's a substantial proportion. Betcha that's not true.

Apples and oranges. Post hurricane, there was little power and little communication. For many, the first indication that the floodwalls had been breached was the water rushing down their street and into their homes.

What *I'M* disputing is that this is any significant fraction of people. *POOF*, let's make all those shiftless people vanish. Betcha the situation hardly looks any different.

And you know what? There were people who thought *YOU* were shiftless and deserved what you got--simply because you were poor and it's patently obvious that the poor are poor because they deserve it. You didn't deserve that thought, and neither do the vast majority of poor people in NO.

You can say that all you want, but the fact that you keep bringing up these "OTHER" poor as if it makes a real difference means that you think there are enough of them to actually explain anything. On what evidence do you base that assumption?

Again, how many people have you seen or heard from in NO who said, "Yeah, I had lots of opportunities to leave, but I figured I'd just sit on my butt and wait to be rescued"? Of the few individuals *I* heard say that, most were at least middle class white folk who figured they'd outlasted a bunch of storms and figured they could ride out this one too. The stories I heard from the poor, black folk suggested that they were distraught at having tried everything they could figure to do. The only ones who didn't say that they wanted to get out well in advance were the ones who were desperate to protect what little they had been able to put together in their lives. Hardly sounds like the shiftless, waiting for a handout folks to me. I imagine *they'd* be happy to go to a shelter and have the government continue to take care of them and give them a fresh start like the obedient little sheep they're supposed to be.

Best wishes, Ericka

Given that they didn't have power and access to information, most of them were probably sitting there heaving a sigh of relief that they'd weathered the storm and were still okay! How would they have known that they needed to get out? Why wouldn't they have assumed, in the absence of information, that they'd made it through the storm and things were going to get progressively

*better* from here on out? Where would they get the information that the flooding was going to start in the next few hours and they'd better get out while they could?

Best wishes, Ericka

I suppose I could quote you word for word too and we'd still be where we are. Olwyn Mary WAS forced by the flooding to leave town. Her area wasn't being flooded but the surrounding area was and they knew it would be safer to leave the city. My other reason in speaking of her was to say that she had prepared by stockpiling food and water in anticipation of the emergency. Regardless of which side of town you were on, if you ended up at the Super Dome or the Convention Center, you could have left town on shank's mare. As for those who did walk out of town, they were a helluva lot better off sleeping on the side of the road than those who stayed behind in the cess pits that were used as evac centers. What makes you think that there are so few welfare parasites? I betcha YOU are wrong! This is a case of either of us being right depending on how the data is manipulated. The fact that this country had to pass legislation "requiring" people to work as much as a whole 30 hours a month in order to collect their welfare after 24 months says something, don't you think? On what evidence do you base your assumption that the vast majority of welfare recipients are people who are down on their luck and just need a bit of help for awhile? Could you tell me how many welfare recipients collected benefits for any length of time, managed to get themselves off welfare and have never gone back on welfare again? My sister is one of those successful ones, just in case you were wondering if I had ever known anyone who was actually on welfare. Face it, we are BOTH probably right! As for people thinking I was shiftless, I don't know how they could have thought that. I had a full time job doing unskilled labour for minimum wage and that's not shiftless. Neither is collecting bottles for the refund as a supplement to my paycheck. You want to know what I REALLY think is the problem? There are just too damned many of us, not enough worth is placed on education and too much worth is placed on material possessions. Obviously you are a LOT more democratic than I am. I'm not a Republican but I certainly don't take the Democratic view that the Federal Government is responsible for taking care of me and keeping me safe from all harm. Ergo, I don't think the Federal Government should be *solely* responsible for taking care of others either. The government is there to HELP those in need take care of themselves until such time as the person is again capable of doing so without aid.

I think possibly she may have been looking at it the other way around--not that poverty causes or indicates low IQ, but that those who are significantly mentally handicapped are more likely to be poor due to challenges in getting and retaining a job that pays well. Similarly, those who are elderly, disabled, or mentally ill are *also* much more likely to be poor compared to other groups.

Best wishes, Ericka

But if it's just a small minority, then his argument falls apart. If most of the folks aren't these welfare dependent sheep, then what's his point?

Again, based on what? It's not like people don't research this issue. There is empirical evidence on how much waste and fraud there is in welfare. Where is the evidence that there's so much waste and fraud that we've got significant numbers of welfare parasites?

So, are they parasites or sheep? And again, I would challenge you to provide any evidence whatsoever that those who use welfare for any "significant length of time" will necessarily turn into sheep. The overwhelming majority of people on welfare *WANT* to work and have a job that pays a living wage. Study after study after study shows that. If they're not working, there's typically a reason. What is colloquially referred to as "welfare" is really the TANF program--Temporary Aid to Needy Families. Note the "FAMILIES" part. They don't even *give* money to single, able-bodied folks. So as much as you'd like to handwave it away, it *DOES* come right back to the issue of families with dependent children and availability of jobs and education. You can't take a job flipping burgers for minimum wage if you have to put your kids in daycare to do it. This vision of the welfare rolls being populated with young, single, able-bodied black men who've never worked an honest day in their lives simply isn't true. There just isn't any evidence to back up your assumption that what you describe is true of any significant number of the poor people of NO (or anywhere else, for that matter). It just isn't there, and it isn't for lack of people looking.

Best wishes, Ericka

You are walking on dangerous waters Dianne , Literacy , might be due to poor living conditions , but IQ ?? How do you thnk many poor persons can survive ? Just because they have a High IQ , . mirjam >

Ericka , i think that it is on the increase in the whole world ,,,, mirjam >

Let's face it -- we could both find reams of data to back up our differing viewpoints. Data can be manipulated and we could both prove the other is totally wrong. I am curious about one thing -- have you had any personal experience with folks on welfare that you can draw upon to back up your viewpoint? Having anyone, be it government or family, provide you with any sort of "assistance" for any length of time takes away your sense of self worth. I've personally known people on welfare and after awhile, they start to lose that spark that keeps a person from becoming one of the sheep and potentially a parasite. All of this rhetoric is wonderful. You can challenge me and I can challenge you but it's still nothing but rhetoric -- and Ivory Tower rhetoric at that. The bottom line is that too many people (regardless of social standing and financial wherewith all) voluntarily spent too long in the dark and the squalor of the evac centers in New Orleans. I'm not talking about any of the other people who might be on welfare in other parts of the country so why even use that as part of your argument? The longer the people stayed in the evac centers, the more like sheep -- or wolves in the case of the thugs & criminals -- they became. Regardless of the information available to them at the time, I still think more of those people would have tried to get out if they hadn't been made to feel powerless by the system and dependent on that same system to take care of them. I don't have any idea how many of those people are on welfare but it's the welfare mentality that makes them sheep. Webster's has this to say -- Parasite: a person who lives at the expense of another or others without making any useful contribution or return; Sheep: a person who is meek, stupid, timid, defenseless, etc. There are many people on Welfare who are good and decent but if they are on "the government dole" without making a contribution to society in some form then they are, by definition, parasites. That doesn't mean they stay parasites tho'. Actually, if you HAVE the data, I *would* like to know how many people who receive welfare actually manage to make it back into the mainstream of the working class. I would like to think that the majority of the people on the welfare roles are just there temporarily. Unfortunately, I don't think that is the case. As you say, how can an unskilled person with kids make a living and put the kids in day care while s/he flips burgers for minimum wage. Obvious answer is to NOT get yourself in that position. Get an education that allows you to do something other than flip burgers for minimum wage. Don't have kids until you can actually afford to pay for daycare and then don't have more kids than you can care for. Learn the difference between rights and privileges -- probably the single most difficult thing for people in our society today!

Aynthem wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.supernews.com:

*wild round of appluase* K

Tia Mary wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net:

How does one who is part of the working poor stockpile supplies on a few days notice? It was the end of the month -- paychecks weren't coming out until the first of the month. If they had a car, they couldn't afford the gas. How does one walk out of a major city with children and elderly parents in tow -- as the flood waters are rising? You simply have no concept of how quickly parts of the city -- the poor parts, since that's how New Orleans was designed 300 years ago, the rich on the high ground and the poor on the low -- flooded.

You keep talking about Olwyn Mary as if she were typical of the people in New Orleans. She's not. And frankly, she was damn lucky to get out when she did. Unlike many poeple in New Orleans, she chose to ignore the evacuation order given before the storm.

A friend of mine chose to do the same thing. He wasn't as fortunate as Olwyn Mary. He didn't have the opportunity to leisurely evaluate the situation, to decide to leave only if the electricity would be off for several weeks, to have friends in the area with whom he could stay when he did decided to leave. He didn't live in the Garden district.

He lived near Lake Pontchartrain. We got a call from him Monday morning as he was shoring up the windows in his ground floor apartment, saying deciding to stay was a big mistake. And that was the last we heard from him for a very long week.

He was one of the lucky ones. He had a car. So when the levee broke and the water level in his apartment reached five feet in just a very short period of time, he had a quick way out. It meant driving through his apartment complex and people's backyards to get to a street that wasn't flooded. He made it out with some clothes, and nothing else. He didn't have children or parents to have to help. He spent four days sleeping on a highway because FEMA wouldn't let him cross a bridge to get out. When we finally heard from him on Sunday, he had found a gas station that would let him plug in his cell phone to call people to let them know he was OK. He was still looking for one that would sell him some gas so he could get someplace where he had friends with whom he can stay -- because he can't afford a hotel room. He was still sleeping in his car.

He's part of the working poor. He lives a little better than paycheck to paycheck. He was recently out of grad school, trying to get a start in his profession, and barely making ends meet. Now all he has left is a car battered by floodwaters and some sewage stained clothes. And he's one of the lucky ones.

The brother of a co-worker was a bit smarter. He left before the storm, even though his house was on the high ground of the west bank. However,he had to drive 3.5 hours before he could find a hotel room for his family. Imagine how long it would take to *walk* that far.

And I bet once the hotel bills start piling up, these people you keep holding up as such great pre-planners will be right there in line looking for their government hand out, too.

K

Just received this from a friend in Iowa - yet another perspective.

Pat P

A SAD STATE OF CORRUPT LOCAL GOVERNMENT LOOKING FOR A HAND OUT.

Politics over duty

This is a post from a fellow over in Merritt Is, FL, a reporter who's been researching what went on before the storm hit

I think all of Nagin's pomp and posturing is going to bite him hard in the near future as the lies and distortions of his interviews are coming to light.

On Friday night before the storm hit Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Center took the unprecedented action of calling Nagin and Blanco personally to plead with them to begin MANDATORY evacuation of New Orleans and they said they'd take it under consideration. This was after the NOAA buoy 240 miles south had recorded 68' waves before it was destroyed.

President Bush spent Friday afternoon and evening in meetings with his advisors and administrators drafting all of the paperwork required for a state to request federal assistance (and not be in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act or having to enact the Insurgency Act).

Just before midnight Friday evening the President called Governor Blanco and pleaded with her to sign the request papers so the federal government and the military could legally begin mobilization and call up.

He was told that they didn't think it necessary for the federal government to be involved yet. After the President's final call to the governor she held meetings with her staff to discuss the political ramifications of bringing federal forces. It was decided that if they allowed federal assistance it would make it look as if they had failed so it was agreed upon that the feds would not be invited in.

Saturday before the storm hit the President again called Blanco and Nagin requesting they please sign the papers requesting federal assistance , that they declare the state an emergency area, and begin mandatory evacuation.

After a personal plea from the President, Mayor Nagin agreed to order an evacuation, but it would not be a full mandatory evacuation, and the governor still refused to sign the papers requesting and authorizing federal action.

In frustration the President declared the area a national disaster area before the state of Louisiana did so he could legally begin some advanced preparations. Rumor has it that the President's legal advisers were looking into the ramifications of using the insurgency act to bypass the Constitutional requirement that a state request federal aid before the federal government can move into state with troops - but that had not been done since 1906 and the Constitutionality of it was called into question to use before the disaster.

Throw in that over half the federal aid of the past decade to New Orleans for levee construction, maintenance, and repair was diverted to fund a marina and support the gambling ships.

Toss in the investigation that will look into why the emergency

preparedness plan submitted to the federal government for funding and published on the city's website was never implemented and in fact may have been bogus for the purpose of gaining additional federal funding as we now learn that t he organizations identified in the plan were never contacted or coordinating into any planning - though the document implies that they were.

The suffering people of New Orleans need to be asking some hard questions as do we all, but they better start with why Blanco refused to even sign the multi-state mutual aid pack activation documents until Wednesday which further delayed the legal deployment of National Guard from adjoining states.

Or maybe ask why Nagin keeps harping that the President should have commandeered 500 Greyhound busses to help him when according to his own emergency plan and documents he claimed to have over 500 busses at his disposal to use between the local school busses and the city transportation busses - but he never raised a finger to prepare them or activate them.

This is a sad time for all of us to see that a major city has all but been destroyed and thousands of people have died with hundreds of thousands more suffering, but it's certainly not a time for people to be pointing fingers and trying to find a bigger dog to blame for local corruption and incompetence. Pray to God for the survivors that they can start their lives anew.

Stop trying to justify the harsh, unsympathetic things you said - Ericka has pointed out, the welfare parasites are very few at best.

I was reading an article the other day which maintained that we are in a race for the bottom as countries allow the poor from other countries to stay as illegal immigrants (with no benefits of course) to compete mostly for the lowest manufacturing wages. It claimed it was directly related to 'globalization' and I think it is a good point.

I didn't bother reading beyond this! Anyone with a grain of sense knows that this is the beginning of the PR legwork to repolish GWB's image after he dropped the ball badly.

This has gone on too long. Tia Mary, you are choosing to ignore the fact that FEMA and the local authorities wanted everyone to stay in the shelters until the government was able to remove them. It was all done on FEMA's terms. Once a body walked in the door, he/she no longer had a choice. FEMA and local authorities also blocked the one sound bridge to keep people from leaving until the situation became so dire that they reluctantly had to let people go. This was all done in the name of "their own good" but the fact remains that these people didn't "voluntarily" stay in squalor. Didn't it ever occur to you that the reason the people were becoming mutinous (or despondent) in the shelters was because all choice was taken away from them and they were being neglected by the people who had all the power?

An education does not guarantee a job that pays a living wage. BTDT. In fact, it can be a detriment since too many employers will say you are overqualified for any openings they might have. Overqualified doesn't feed the kids.

BTW, many "burger-flippers" make more than m> Let's face it -- we could both find reams of data to back up our

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