Miracles do occur.

I'll start off with this bit by Richard Clarke, not your typical liberal whiner:

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Imagine if, in advance of Hurricane Katrina, thousands of trucks had been waiting with water and ice and medicine and other supplies. Imagine if 4,000 National Guardsmen and an equal number of emergency aid workers from around the country had been moved into place, and five million meals had been ready to serve. Imagine if scores of mobile satellite-communications stations had been prepared to move in instantly, ensuring that rescuers could talk to one another. Imagine if all this had been managed by a federal-and-state task force that not only directed the government response but also helped coordinate the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and other outside groups.

Actually, this requires no imagination: it is exactly what the Bush administration did a year ago when Florida braced for Hurricane Frances. Of course the circumstances then were very special: it was two months before the presidential election, and Florida's twenty-seven electoral votes were hanging in the balance. It is hardly surprising that Washington ensured the success of "the largest response to a natural disaster we've ever had in this country." The president himself passed out water bottles to Floridians driven from their homes.
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The article goes on, but you get the idea.

The snap "conservative" response is usually to blame either the State or the local government for not working hard enough to get the feds involved. At some level, this is certainly true.

Repeat: The local authorities screwed up too.

That said, the whole reason we have a federal government is to do the things that the states cannot do alone. In this case, it was pretty clear what was about to happen. The national weather service was issuing apocalyptic tidings like I've never seen before. Bush himself declared it a federal-level emergency several *days* before the storm hit, and then ... what we saw on the news.

This simple reality is this: Bush and his administration totally failed to do anything to prepare, at the federal level, for what happened in New Orleans. New Orleans also failed to prepare.

Repeat: New Orleans, and its residents who suffered, also failed.

The combination of the two was lethal.

If I want to blame someone for being in the path of the hurricane, sure, I guess I'll blame the dead people. They aren't in any position to argue with me. However: If I want to blame someone for the crappy response from the federal government, I blame Bush.

My core problem with the Carlin comments is that, except for the one phrase disclaimer at the top ("sorry for your loss"), he seems to honestly and truly believe that:

* The people whose homes have been blown away deserve to suffer. They deserve to die.

* The reason they deserve to suffer? Because they are stupid, and because they don't do what they're told.

Do you want government to function on this basis? Let the stupid and disobedient die, because they deserve it? Admittedly, it's funny ... and I've often longed for the opportunity to follow exactly this policy with some very specific people (my neighbors, and their pitbull and motorcycle). However, as a stated government policy, it needs some work.

Unless you're willing to actually allow some of your citizens to starve to death, you want a welfare state at some level. The question is how you want to implement it. Given that we're going to bother with having a FEMA, I think it should have functioned a hell of a lot better than it did.

In short, sure, blame the people who died when the train hit their car. They were dumb, no doubt. But also put some thought into whether you could have had better barriers to keep them off the track.

Specific comments on a couple of his points:

#3. If someone comes in to help you, don't shoot at them and then complain no one is helping you. I'm not getting shot to help save some dumb ass who didn't leave when told to do so.

Reasonable response: I assume he's talking about the "sniper fire" that kept a single rescue helicopter out of the superdome for a few hours. All the evidence says that the drug addicts who were unable to get their usual fix went completely insane in the first couple of days. They were probably the ones who looted the gun stores and fired into the air. Again, I guess we can blame the local authorities for not simply killing all the druggies prior to the emergency.

Snippy response: So what the hell are 2,000 of our troops doing dead in Iraq, helping some batch of people who were "too dumb to leave?" I don't want my countrymen dead for that reason, much more than for the one he mentions.

#5. My tax money should not pay to rebuild a 2 million dollar house, a sports stadium or a floating casino. Also, my tax money shouldn't go to rebuild a city that is under sea level. You wouldn't build your house on quicksand would you?? You want to live below sea-level, do your country some good and join the Navy.

Basically agreed.

#6. Regardless of what Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton want you to believe, The US Government didn't create the hurricane as a way to eradicate the black people of New Orleans; (Neither did Russia as a way to destroy America). The US Government didn't cause global warming that caused the hurricane (We've been coming out of an ice age for over a million years).

Anyone who doesn't realize that human industrial activity over the past hundred years has a clear, measurable impact on both local and global climate is a moron, and I don't expect to change their mind by showing them facts. Sure, nobody "caused" the hurricane, just like nobody "caused" the smog over LA. Still, there are some pretty clear factors that led to its origin and increased strength.

#7. The government isn't responsible for giving you anything. This is the land of the free and the home of the brave, but you got to work for what you want. McDonalds and Wal-Mart are always hiring, get a damn job and stop spooning off the people who are actually working for a living.

Actually, if the government is going to take some sizable fraction of my income every year and claim that it's for my retirement fund ... I think that they *do* owe me the courtesy of having a plan in place that will provide some value at *my* retirement.

Similarly, if we're going to spend untold billions on something called "homeland security," I want a little goddamn security for that investment. If the best that we can do, for that $200 billion, is a program where children take off their shoes at the airport, but the response to an actual catastrophe is to blame the mayor of a flooded city for failing to relocate said city, I want my goddamn money back.

So yes, in general I agree with some of his sentiments, and personal responsibility is important. However, don't sidestep the fact that the system we had in place to respond to disasters like this simply doesn't work.

What does this mean to me:

(1) I'm a little tiny bit more bitter about paying taxes these days, given that it goes to pay for
(a) the retirement of old people who didn't bother to save
(b) killing non-white people and the occasional American GI
(c) an emergency response system that doesn't work

(2) The next time an emergency comes down, I won't be expecting any help at all. In this, Carlin is dead on - we don't have an emergency response plan at the federal or state level. It's every man for himself.

I think that number two is pretty damn pathetic for the most advanced and powerful country in the world, particularly given the "war powers" we've ceded to this administration.

I want my money back, the secret courts closed, the war stopped, the phone taps shut off, and to be able to keep my shoes on at the airport.

Quite interesting. I can't really go into depth tonight, but I actually felt EXACTLY the same way about Carlin's thing. (minus a few things...)

I'll expound my opinion. I just wanted yours first for a change. I usually state mine, and then hear yours. This time I was vague, however, and wanted to see what you thought first.