Originally Posted By jonvn The military is part of the federal government. That link is 50 pages long...
Originally Posted By DVC_dad The government is worthless and you, jonvn would never consider going into government yourself. It's not nice to sit on the sidelines and boo if you are not willing to get in the game. Do you vote?
Originally Posted By TomSawyer >That link is 50 pages long...< Page 22. I'd be happy to do a full APA cite for you, if you'd like My point is that the federal government didn't offer any monetary aid to San Francisco. They just paid for the increased operations of the military in San Francisco.
Originally Posted By DAR <<The military is part of the federal government. >> And the military is and will still continue to perform brilliantly.
Originally Posted By jonvn "The government is worthless and you, jonvn would never consider going into government yourself." And what, exactly, would I be doing for them?
Originally Posted By jonvn "Page 22. I'd be happy to do a full APA cite for you, if you'd like" It's ok, I'll take your word for it.
Originally Posted By jonvn "They just paid for the increased operations of the military in San Francisco. " I think we are splitting hairs here. Through the military, at the very least, they aided the city.
Originally Posted By jonvn I just looked some of this stuff up, and wow, there are a lot of articles all over the net comparing SF and NO.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer >How did SF recover so quickly?< A ton of private investment to rebuild the city. Don't forget how much wealth there was in the city even then, and the folks like Crocker and Stanford could rebuild the city to their liking and make a fortune doing it.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer There are a lot of comparisons out there between SF and NO. What's interesting is that SF just pulled them selves up and did it, while NO is waiting for Uncle Sam to come down and rescue them.
Originally Posted By DAR <<What's interesting is that SF just pulled them selves up and did it, while NO is waiting for Uncle Sam to come down and rescue them>> Very good point Tom. In this country, we have this strong sense of entitlement. We don't want to necessarily do the dirty work, someone else needs to. Back in 1906 they didn't think that way. We're just spoiled and we've got nobody to blame but us.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <Don't forget how much wealth there was in the city even then> ... and likewise, don't forget how much poverty there was in much of New Orleans. People who were living in the 9th ward with barely two quarters to rub together are going to find the money to rebuild their part of the city... where?
Originally Posted By TomSawyer Money is only part of the equation, Dabob. The other part is picking up your shovel or hammer and getting to work.
Originally Posted By ecdc But it isn't nearly that simple. Who's going to spearhead the cleanup effort to ensure there's some safety measures imposed? People in New Orleans who were most affected were poor and rented cheap apartments. They didn't own shovels, let alone expensive power tools or equipment. How do they get to the cleanup sites after being evacuated several hundred miles away? What I continue to find the most frustrating about the attitude towards Katrina is the false assumption that the people affected must've been just like LPers. They were well off enough for the occasional-at-least trip to Disneyland, they have plenty of friends and relatives that could take them in, they had transportation out of the city when it hit, and they have the skills, knowledge, and resources to clean it up and start over again. We have created a self-fulfilling prophecy regarding the poor in America - especially if you're black and poor. Racism 80 years ago created red lining and redistribution of city neighborhoods, which also led to white flight into suburbs. Middle- and upper-class Americans have both deliberately and ignorantly made it next-to-impossible for anyone in this country born into poverty to rise above it. Aside from obstacle after obstacle, there's an entirely different culture infused with an entirely different worldview. Yet we expect the poor to look at the world the same way we do and when they don't, or don't act or respond the same way we do, we can't think of any reason other than laziness or abuse of the system. And middle- and upper-class Americans tell anecdotes about so-and-so that got out of the ghetto and turned their lives around as evidence that anyone can do it, then we simply pass off the millions of Americans who can't as not up to snuff. In short, over years of neglect on our part, we've created a culture where the aftermath of Katrina was almost inevitable, and then acted shocked and outraged when it happened. It's not unlike 9/11 really, where we were so caught off guard that we wandered around in a daze asking, "Why do they hate us?" And like 9/11, the aftermath of Katrina was inexcusable, but the shock of it comes from our ignorance of what it's like to be among the poorest of Americans, not because it was so impossible. For such a so-called Christian nation, we remain woefully ignorant of Jesus' calls to help the poor. And in an effort to head-off the inevitable strawman, I'm not excusing inaction, laziness, or crime. But I am saying that a review of American socio-economic history makes it immediately clear that only the ignorant would be surprised at the reactions of poor, lower-class black Americans to their surroundings.
