New Orleans is Sinking and I don’t wanna swim…

The title is actually a lyric from a very popular Tragically Hip song that debuted over fifteen years ago. Right now the song has been banned from US airwaves. Just goes to show that the government has their priorities, which is to make sure the radio is being sentsitive rather than saving people in New Orleans who are still trapped on their roof without food or water. I think you can see what direction this entry is going to take…

But I’ve waited a full week to collect my thoughts about what’s happened in New Orleans before posting a response. There are several reasons why I chose to do this. One is my usual stance on all tragedies, being that there is a right time and place to voice your concerns and complaints and earlier this week as people were still suffering was certainly not the right time. Another reason why I’ve held back from commenting too much is because I have family that reside in Lousiana and I was waiting to hear back from them. Even though they didn’t leave when ordered to, since they live in the norther part of the state, their home is fine and are doing okay. My mom has a close friend that actually lives in New Orleans and we didn’t hear back from her until yesterday, and mom was getting really scared cause she didn’t have a car and was unable to evacuate because of a disabilty. But we got word that she has been rescued and survived which caused us all to give out a deep sigh of relief. There are still however people on their roof waiting for help according to the networks, and where are the troops and the choppers? They’re downtown, trying to stop the looters.

Now it’s time for my first rant: looting should NOT be a priority of the national guard. This is a pathetic use of manpower, especially when there are survirors who are still waiting to be rescued alomst a week after the storm hit! What the hell is wrong with the people in charge of this operation? What the fuck are they thinking? Looting happens no matter what the disaster, but for this particular disaster, I wouldn’t care about the looting just now as it should be considered the lowest priority right now. Right now getting water and food to the survivors and medical aid to the injured, that should be the # 1 priority of any task force going in there, fuck the looting and fuck the stores! If some asshole wants to walk hip deep in contaminated sewage that could cause health problems in the long run, fucking let him! If he wants to risk his health, and his future for a fucking plasma TV, let him!

Don’t waste manpower and time going after morons like that when people are in need of medical aid and are calling out for help. This kind of thinking just disgusts me beyond all other things. How materialistic are these assholes to think that looting should be enforced before rescuing all the survivors? Let me just give an example of how stupid this is to enforce the looting. Most of the shit that people are taking from the grocery stores and other outlets are water damaged, which means the store is only going to write them off anyway and collect from insurance. So why are troops risking their lives for shit that is only going to get tossed out and written off anyway? Sounds like a complete waste of time, manpower and resources if you ask me. Just another example of how the little people are being screwed over for the corporate thugs who are insured up the wazoo and don’t need the fucking help right now.

And you really, really, really want to be picky, the real looting started a long time ago… like last summer to be exact. The looting actually started when Bush and the Republicans took the axe to over $71 million from the budget that was supposed to be used by the New Orleans Corps of Engineers, a 44% cut. Bush and his chickenhawks were more interested in giving that money to the rich through taxcuts, and to his war buddies through massive Iraq defence contracts. According to some pretty creidible sources, this cut basically caused major “hurricane and flood” projects to be tossed by the way side, and I’m willing to bet the farm that one of those project cut out of Bush’s budget was the levees that broke and caused 20 feet of water to destroy homes, and cost people their lives. But hey, they got their tax break… so why the fuck should they care about the people suffering in New Orleans? Then we have an issue with the national guard, which had to be shipped in from other states. What about Louisiana? Where is their national guard? Almost half of them are currently serving in Iraq and were unable to immediately help their fellow statesmen. Then we have this ultra slow response from the politicians, which has prompted accusations of racism. Many are suggesting that if the families left on the rooftops were not African-American, they would have been quicker to respond. Well, I guess one way to prove that would be to compare to how fast the Government responds to Hurricanes in other states where there are less African Americans like Florida and the Carolinas. would be interesting to see what would result from such a comparision.

The blame can’t be tied down to just one person, despite efforts that have been made so far. The fact is, there’s plenty of blame to go around. A lot of scientists warned us all years ago that this could happen, only to have their concerns fall on deaf ears because no one wanted to spend the money to fix the levees and make the city Hurricane ready. Katrina proved to everyone how horrific nature can be when it wants to be, but it at the same time showed the true ignorance of others, and their true feelings about those who are less fortunate than themselves. It’s been an ugly week, and word going around is that its going to take a long, long time to clean up. Hate to be the person left to clean up that mess, but I’m sure they’ll get it all fixed. It’s just a shame that lessons like this have to be taught after people die, rather than before. Let’s hope that other coastal cities learn from this and make the effort to prevent deaths rather than clean up after them. We need more prevention, and people who actually care enough to invest in the future. We can always hope that some good will come from this disasater, but nothing will as long as that Corporate whore is still in the Whitehouse…

Peter