upnorthkyosa said:
20,000 is probably way to low for an estimation of the people who were left behind or stayed. I've seen estimate of up to 80,000. 20,000 is still more then enough though. Think about this...packing old, sick, and poor people on the bus with all of their stuff including clothing, medical equipment, and whatever else...28 people would be a very full bus indeed. I would expect less.
Further, there wasn't time for two trips. The highways were gridlocked. And I'm wondering if there was anyone around to drive the busses. People in emergencies tend to take care of their families.
That's an aspect of city planning that wasn't carried out. It is part of their evacuation plan. These buses were not used even before the levees broke, as they were sitting in the parking lots doing nothing. At any rate, I love how now you say there wasn't enough time. Once the levees broke, there wasn't enough time to realize that "hey, maybe we should leave". You absolve the city officials of their evacuation plan because they didn't have to realize the magnitude of the hurricane until after the levees started to break. On the other hand, you use the same argument against Bush. That he should've known about it even though the city officials apparently didn't deem it necessary.
But just so you know, there are pictures of around 400 buses sitting unused in large pools of water in various places. At least 255 in one (people have counted) and 146 in another (people have counted). Google search can show you them. Use the controls to recenter and rezoom as you like. You can get down to individual bus resolution or better.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=New+Orleans,+LA&ll=29.968598,-90.089189&spn=0.006110,0.009958&t=e&hl=en
This one is on Canal Street, not even a mile away from the Superdome. They are municipally owned buses.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=New+Orleans,+LA&ll=30.000594,-90.033131&spn=0.005190,0.007145&t=k&hl=en
On the lower left side, you'll see the 255 buses. The links take you to a "before" shot. Click on the red Katrina button to see the "after" shot.
There are also isolated lots here and there (13 buses here, 8 buses there, etc.)
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=New+Orleans,+LA&ll=30.000594,-90.033131&spn=0.005190,0.007145&t=k&hl=en
(13 buses near the middle of the lower left quadrant...expand the picture to full size to see the resolution).
There are probably even more buses that we haven't seen...
So these are all buses that weren't even being used. That means either the city used none of their buses as a resource or they had even more that they used.
I think they used at least some, because if you look at Almonaster facility, their parking lot is almost empty. It's in the bottom right of the second link I provided. It is also only a few blocks away from the at least 255 buses in the other lot.
The city can be faulted for some of this, but the **** spreads thinly. Cuba somehow gets everyone out when they evacuate and I think its because they have a strong plan and everyone knows what they have to do at all levels. The national government moves in and coordinates everything and they move even the poor and the old.
This to me is always such an amusing argument. I've never quite understood the far left's admiration of Cuba. First of all, a country the size of Cuba would have an easier time doing anything. Second of all, Cuba is a communist country so of course they have "a strong plan and everyone knows what they have to do at all levels." Of course "The national government moves in and coordinates everything and they move even the poor and the old." That "admirable" disaster planning comes with the string of them having that same amount of control over everything. Do you want that? I didn't think so...(some liberals I know do, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt).
The city doesn't get a pass. Neither does the state. Neither does President Bush. Blame spreads throughout the whole system in my opinion.
But here's my problem with your assignation of blame. You tend to just gloss over the first two levels witih a nod and reserve the majority of it for Bush when nearly all the factors we are discussing are local politics.
Again, this is incorrect. The reporter asked, "so, is this an issue of class, poverty, or race, or is this something else?"
I'm not sure what exactly you are thinking...any one who wants to can doublecheck this here:
"So is this at its heart a question about class, is it about poor people, is it racist?"
That are her exact words. It starts at around 3:16. I left out the other questions the first time I quoted it because his first response dealt directly with racism at the present time. I didn't imply that her question was biased, only that she did ask specifically about race (with a dramatic pause before she asked the last segment of her question).
His response was:
"That the city administration is now largely African American one could not say there is a racial bias there, I think that vigorous efforts to make sure all citizens were protected, but there, there is a bias built-in in human mobility. Many whites moved first to Jefferson Parish, the immediately upstream suburban parish
during the fifties and sixties. They've been able to develop a fairly secure drainage system themselves and levee protection. So there is, class and, and wealth do play a big part in people's ability to respond and certainly those people with the least means lose everything."
I didn't leave anything out. I didn't paraphrase. I copied word-for-word.
In other words, the
only racial component was decades ago. That is a very thin argument. Yet you wouldn't know this if you only looked at the description of the file. Again, after 4 or 5 decades, if a city government can not provide for the welfare of its city without outside help, that government is corrupt, inept, and has no business being in power. Why were they still in power? Because the people kept electing them. They kept putting them in office because they kept relying on that welfare check, on the policies of socialism.
As far as richer communities being more able to provide for themselves, that makes sense. The question is, what kind of politics promotes richer communities and the uplifting of the poor? Sadly, for you, it isn't the welfare state and the economically crippling policies of the far left. Sadly for the residents of New Orleans, it wasn't those policies either.
Dr. Colten's response was, "since most of the city officials were black, there was no bias on their part, however, when it came to mobility out of the city, there was bias..."
Again, this is only a cursory look at what he says and very misleading. You've accused me trying to manipulate the argumen. As I mentioned above where I put down his
whole response to the question, the human mobility factor he is referring to is decades ago.
Further, right before the segment in question, Dr. Colten talks about how elevation, class, and race has always been an issue with the poorest and the blackest living the lowest and the more affluent whites living the highest.
In journalism, this would be criticized for being a vague statement. You see, you can't use the word "always been an issue" in conjunction with several nouns unless each and every one of them has always been an issue (including now). If you said "Dr. Colten talks about how economic disparity affects how people can prepare for flood relief", then I would agree. That just makes sense. Those with more money can prepare more.
But race isn't the issue now. The fact that most of the poor are black is irrelevant in terms of playing the race card. It is poor logic to simply link those "based on the historical context" as you always seem to be doing, whether that is hard or soft racism. Did Dr. Colten ever say those people are poor because they are black? No. His argument deals more with economic disparity rather than race. And again, the question is why, after 4 or 5 decades could a city not improve its tax base? Welfare system and corrupt politicians are the answer.
No, this is what is known as a distorting paraphrase. You are coloring the conversation to show what you want it to show and then you are ignoring the parts that contradict your line of reasoning.
I've addressed, ironically, how it is you who are the one doing this further above.
This is also untrue. Dr. Colten lays out present day examples of bias and inequality. White flight was part of the problem, but it wasn't the whole problem as you are trying to make it out to be. Dr. Colten said there was a bias in the way people lived in New Orleans and that there was a bias in the way people could evacuate.
Those things were economics, not race. Again, correlation is not causation unless it is significat, as you said. But even if there is a one-to-one correlation, that is not significant. You know that. It is only significant if tested for other variables. Obviously, we can't do that with history. But the variable that plays such a huge role in determining the economic welfare of those people is the local government. They didn't do a good job.
The bias in mobility that Dr. Colten referred to, dealth with mobility during the evacuation.
See further above where I disproved your point. The only "evacuation bias" was based on wealth, not race.
Most people who pull-themselves-up-by-the-bootstraps were standing on a mountain of privilege. This notion is largely a myth.
A mountain of privilege? How? I'm talking about people that grew up poor, forced themselves to work, and managed to break free from poverty. The operative word here is "work".
I won't argue about wellfare dependency, though, I see that everyday at my line of work.
I'm glad we can at least agree on something.
Political will has very little to do with politics anymore. Politics is all about influence peddling and money. If you have money, you have power, and you have a voice. If you don't have it, then, you have no power.
This isn't a question of will. Talk to anyone down there and they'll say they want to protect their homes from floods, do they have the power to get it done? No. Why? Because they are poor.
Again that's the sense of dependency on the government and inability to help themselves. How many of them, if they even vote, ever talked to their representatives? How many of them, if they even vote, ever discussed levee funding? Or were they more concerned about their welfare check? If there was political will in the people, they wouldn't tolerate politicians who couldn't get anything done. There is a difference between saying "gee, I wish someone would do something about these canals" and political will.
Lets take a look at your example...the $748 million to improve canals and increase barge traffic. Powerful business lobbyists went to Washington to get this project in the works. Why? Because they stand to make a lot of money from its completion. The congressmen wrote it into the budget. Why? Because of all the donations these same interests make in their campaigns.
Actually, you're slightly out of order. Inept politicians went to Washington with the idea first to gain as much pork as possible.
Do the poor have this type of influence to advocate for their needs? No. Are the needs of their homes and lives more important then the needs of these powerful interests? I would say yes. City officials also thought so and they worked hard to lobby for their constintuents...and it all fell on deaf ears.
The poor have the most important influence: their vote. They didn't use their vote (and other democratic means like petition) to get the message to politicians that they won't get elected if they don't get money for flood control they won't get re-elected (rather than all the other massive pork that was at least 34 times the amount the Corps requested total for flood control, and that's only the large industrial lock). Instead, they limited themselves to voting for who would provide them with a check. As for the city officials it doesn't appear they worked hard to lobby for constituents at all. Show me where they did so.
This isn't a wellfare state argument. Its about priorities. Its about who has power and who doesn't. And it illustrates the sad state of democracy today. The influence of corporate power trumps the needs of the people.
The people have one trump card that will overturn any corporate interest. That card is the vote (not to mention other ways of getting politician's attention). Your statement is the typical liberal "the people have no power" argument. Now, I'm not saying this next thought is your own. You're not a politician. But there is a tendency amongst Democratic politicians to treat the poor and minority votes as guaranteed. (Republicans often do the same for their "core constituency" as well) Therefore they don't have to do as much to "help" them in a very real sense. In this case, Democratic politicians saw little need to spend their political capital on projects that would ingratiate them to their poor constituency as they already had their vote thanks to their welfare policies. The only way the poor and minorities can get the Democratic attention is through the vote and petition. We've noticed a trend where more poor and minorities are voting Republican, nation-wide, as a result of the Democratic Party taking their vote for granted. I'm not sure if the Democratic Party will take serious notice or not...
So why did I go off on that seeming tangent? Again, there is always political influence from the people. It is a matter of having political will that makes the difference. As I said, there was no political will amongst the people.