The fact is, this is a disaster of unprecedented proportions, with unforeseen consequences (levees – yes, there is always a known danger, but in fact it wasn’t the levees that broke but the flood walls along the canals); as the Guard commander pointed out, it is a DISASTER, that is why things are so messy. There apparently was no real plans in place at the local, state, or federal level to evacuate the poor and elderly from the city (see Professor Leonard Witt’s comments and op-ed) due to lack of funding and resources. This wasn’t something planned because the potential evacuees were black and poor. This is simply a lack of money at all levels, a lack of priorities, whatever. Had this area been Beverly Hills, of course there would have been different results – the wealthy there would of course be more vocal in the politics and have had better access to their representatives. But it wasn’t Beverly Hills, it was a major US city with a largely black and lower middle-class population. That’s reality – now, let’s pull together and fix the process but not tear ourselves apart with race bating comments and finger pointing and holier-than-thou proclamations. I say we ARE in this together and need to fix it, together!

In Louisiana there was a great move by the poor farm workers to the large towns and few cities in the 1950′s & 1960′s due to being replaced by machines. They had few skills and no place to work.

Our governor was elected by the poor underclass, especially New Orleans, no question about it. Locally, we think that she broken under pressure. There are severre questions about her administrations communicating with our Federal Government. At the same time one of our U.S. Senators, another woman, was undoubtly elected by the poor underclass, of New Orelans in particulare, and has served us well during this time of need of leadership.

FEMA’s former head has now been employed by our governor and has stated publicly that the New Orleans disaster was far worse than trial assessments performed in the 1990′s under his administration.

The U.S. legislature does not seem to understand the extreme need for restoring Coastal Louisiana and how it affects the nation’s no. 1 estuarial fishery. We provided levee protection years ago for the lower Mississippi River which cut off the replenishment of silt to the delta. The Mississippi did in recent history try to change its course to the Atchafalya River above Baton Rouge in the mid 1970′s.

New Orleans proper has been frought with extreme corruption over the bast 20 years and its present mayor has done much to correct this. It is reported to be still present.

On a local news broadcast (Baton Rouge) a soon to be former NOPD lieutnant advised that the NOPD precincts had no emergency supplies and no firearms other than the issued pistols.

For anyone comparing the logists to that of Iraq, plese keep in mind how many months it took to make ready for the Iraq invasion. I can assure you that it did not take one week. Let us consider that the area affected is more than 1/2 the area that Iraq occupies and that Iraq has large areas of desert, and flooding in the hurricane area makes it logistically impossible to compare the two no matter what the area comparison is.

If there is caution about the evacuees in Baton Rouge it has some deserving qualities. For instance, my wife, a former New Orleanian was in a local bank on Thursday helping her brother, from New Orleans, get some banking taken care of and one of New Orleans “finest” stole her cell phone in the bank lobby. Calls to that number revealed an accent of the answering thief which was undeniable about what type of person that was. The answer for any question was “Yo mamma.” Since that time the milling about in Baton Rouge has considerably subsided. The comment, aired publicly, by our mayor and chief of police (both of a “minority” race), who are highly esteemed in the local populace, may have had a lot to do with this.

In my own opinion, greed and corruption, not race has had a lot to do with the sinking of New Orleans for the last 30 years, not the last 6 days. Only some ignorant to Louisiana and New Orleans could say such a thing. However, I may be wrong.

Nah, I should have kept my mouth shut. :-X

Lots of people are doing their best to save lives. But a much smaller group of people who are responsible for directing that effort did a very bad job of planning for this, and they should be held accountable now, particularly the ones trying to fob off responsibility on the victims.

Before dismissing the 911 compensation fund as a politically motivated mistake, ask yourself why the victims and survivors had the clout to warrant that political response. Would the political response have been the same, and would the survivors have enjoyed the same advocacy and access if the planes had missed their marks and gone down north of 125th Street? Maybe so, but unless they hit Clinton’s office building, I doubt it.