I already know, in advance, that this post is going to make some folks angry. Some though, I know, agree with me. In any event, if you're offended, I apologise for that, however, remember that I'm as entitled to my own opinion as you are...and just let me get it out, and let it roll off your backs if it bothers you.
I've been watching the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and daily I get angrier and more disgusted. At first, I was horrified. I felt so sorry for the people still stuck in New Orleans.
Now I feel differently. I feel a lot of contempt and anger for a good portion of them. It's not a "racial" thing, truly, it's not. If you know me, you know better, if not, well sorry, but this is how I feel.
That this happened in an area that's predominantly black, has no bearing. That many of these people have put themselves and their families in an unsafe situation makes me angry. I don't give a flying frig what color they are, their staying in New Orleans before Katrina hit, was simply stupid.
These people had a week's warning. A week to get out. Across Fox News yesterday was an explanation: "Poverty." This is why they didn't evacuate.
The old people, I can understand. The children...they had no choice but to do what their parents did. The sick and mentally challenged aren't to blame either.
So they were poor. They still had legs. And eyes, and ears. When a 30 foot wall of water is going to come at you, self preservation takes hold (doesn't it?) and poor or not, you move out of the way. Head to higher ground, take your children someplace safe! Follow the rats if you have to! You don't just sit there.
Has our government taken over so many minds that people don't bother to think for themselves even at the risk of their own survival? In a catastrophy like this, are we so conditioned to look around for others to "save" us, that we're incapable of doing something to save ourselves?
Geraldo, too, made me angry. I'm not sure what shelter he was in the 2nd or 3rd night after the hurricane hit, but he was holding up a small child, and he seemed so angry.. saying things like "We need help here! These children need help, where is it..these people are fixin' to blow!!"
He's a public figure. I watched, and just shook my head. He's an American. He's a famous journalist. Where was his motivation to calm those people. Why didn't he use that face, that voice of his, to talk to them, to calm them, remind them, "Hey...we're Americans, we're in America, we've not been forgotten, it's going to be okay, just be patient."
Even if he didn't believe it, he had the potential to quiet a volatile situation. Instead, watching, I felt he was trying to incite a riot. That just didn't seem comforting to that child, it seemed to me to scare more than to comfort.
Now, thousands of people have been rescued and moved to shelters. They've been given thousands of dollars with which to survive, until they can get back home. They're being cared for and so they should be. That's not my beef. It's happened. They stayed despite the fact that they should have left. Now they're being taken care of. Thank God for that.
Sam Shephard, I think it was, said that the people were terrified and didn't know what to do, because no one was there to 'lead' them. My jaw dropped when he said that. Those thugs rioting and looting everything they could get their hands on didn't need a leader to show them how to do that. The rapists in the dome didn't need a leader to show them how to do that either. I can't believe, nor comprehend that there wasn't a man among that entire group who was capable to lead those people as to how they were to get by for a day, a week, or a month in the face of this tragedy. Not one? How sad. How entirely enfuriating.
There was no one to lead them."
If you're a mother, or a father, don't you tend to lead yourself? Isn't the first item on the menu to make a mental list, 'what do I have to do to protect my children?' Create your strategy, then commence to doing it?
Now, my cousin Bobby is doing something my mother warned me time and time again, that she'd not do, when I was a child and would go outside in the dead of winter without my coat. He's doctoring for foolishness. He's in the National Guard, and his job there is body recovery. He gets to wade in that filthy bacteria infested water to retrieve dead bodies.
Isn't he lucky? Hell no he isn't. He gets to see this first hand, he gets to bag these dead, children included, so that those memories will be in his head until the day he dies. He gets to risk not only his health but his emotional well being, and too, risk bringing home an infectious disease and share it with his small children, his family, his neighbors, and for what reason? Because they were poor, and had no one to lead them, and didn't listen when they were told to get out.
Those who could, got out, those who didn't are having a hard time. I know they are. I'm sorry for that. Just when I see on the news a woman raising a glass bottle, and rocks, then throwing it at our guardsmen when they're trying to help her get out to someplace safe (again, Fox news, yesterday) it makes me angry.
When I see three hundred pound (plus) women being hoisted in the air in those cages used to save them, a skinny lil guard hanging onto the edge to help her up and into the chopper, it makes me angry.
I guess when I see that a good portion of these people are healthy, able bodied adults, and I see that the choice they made to stay when told to evacuate was just stupid. It makes me angry.
This wasn't a sudden terrorist bombing. This wasn't a high-jacked airplane, this wasn't a nuclear accident. This wasn't a surprise volcanic eruption. This wasn't a huge meteor. This wasn't a sudden and unexpected earthquake, thunderstorm or tornado. This wasn't a sudden anything. These people knew this was coming a week in advance. Hell, 1 day in advance should have been enough. 1 day to get the hell out of Dodge, money or no money. These people weren't at the mercy of the weather stuck on an island it was impossible to get off of, all they had to do was walk. They had days to just walk away to safety.
Hell yes, it makes me angry.