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LBJ’s Other Quagmire: Long before Katrina, the welfare state failed New Orleans’s poor.
Wall Street Opinon Journal BRENDAN MINITER Tuesday, September 13, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

“What the American people have seen in this incredible disparity in which those people who had cars and money got out, and those people who were impoverished died.”

The above comment about Hurricane Katrina comes to us from Ted Kennedy, who went on to say that the question for Chief Justice-designate John Roberts is whether he stands for “a fairer, more just nation” or will use “narrow, stingy interpretations of the law to frustrate progress.” But why stop there? Sen. Kennedy is onto something and, indeed, the question isn’t only for Judge Roberts. It’s also one for the national debate now under way in the wake of the most devastating hurricane to hit the U.S. in decades.
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Human Events Thomas Sowell Sep 6, 2005

The physical devastation caused by hurricane Katrina has painfully revealed the moral devastation of our times that has led to mass looting in New Orleans, assaults on people in shelters, the raping of girls, and shots being fired at helicopters that are trying to rescue people.

Forty years ago, an electric grid failure plunged New York and other northeastern cities into a long blackout. But law and order prevailed. Ordinary citizens went to intersections to direct traffic. People helped each other. After the blackout was over, this experience left many people with an upbeat spirit about their fellow human beings.

Another blackout in New York, years later, was much uglier. And what has been happening now in New Orleans is uglier still. Is there a trend here?
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Human Events Rabbi Aryeh Spero

In New Orleans, beginning Tuesday morning, August 30, I saw men in helicopters risking their lives to save stranded flood victims from rooftops. The rescuers were White, the stranded Black. I saw Caucasians navigating their small, private boats in violent, swirling, toxic floodwaters to find fellow citizens trapped in their houses. Those they saved were Black.

I saw Brotherhood. New York Congressman Charlie Rangel saw Racism.

Yes, there are Two Americas. One is the real America, where virtually every White person I know sends money, food or clothes to those in need — now and in other crises — regardless of color. This America is colorblind.

The other is the America fantasized and manufactured by Charlie Rangel, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who constantly cry “racism!” even in situations where it does not exist, even when undeniable images illustrate love, compassion and concern. These three men, together with today’s NAACP, want to continue the notion of Racist America. It is their Mantra, their calling card. Their power, money, and continued media appearances depend on it.

Go to Human Events for more.

Maybe some good that might come out of this is that we finally face how the liberal social policies of the last four decades have kept the poor in permanent poverty.

London Telegraph (Filed: 05/09/2005)

The Superdome has finally been evacuated, and New Orleans’ remaining refugees are almost all safe. A week after initial reports suggested Katrina had blown herself out with a minimum of damage, the statistics are imprecise but staggering: some 10,000 likely dead; hundred of thousands homeless; a repair bill of many billions; and wider economic consequences which are incalculable.

With the reckoning comes the recrimination. It took far too long for supplies to reach the stranded and for troops to arrive in numbers. In the meantime, scenes of Hobbesian disorder developed. It is clear that last week was badly ill-managed. How, and why?
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The author overstates some things and is too harsh in places, but his central thesis that collapse of New Orleans was a moral failure spanning decades is on target.

The Intellectual Activist

by Robert Tracinski

It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can’t blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.

If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city’s infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.

Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists–myself included–did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.

But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.
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Wall Street Opinion Journal Friday, September 2, 2005

Of all the bad news from New Orleans, the most disturbing has been the reports of spreading disorder, with looting, marauding gangs and even sniper fire at helicopters and rescue workers. Americans sometimes expect their government to do far too much–such as ensure low gasoline prices–but they do have a right to expect that it will at least provide for the safety of its citizens, even or perhaps especially in a crisis.

One reason for the New Orleans breakdown is the size of the calamity, whose growing severity caught nearly everyone by surprise. Louisiana National Guard troops that were deployed initially for rescue and relief efforts weren’t available for the more basic duties of public security. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is also geared to providing relief, not order, and only yesterday did the federal government begin to focus on the potential anarchy. Among our political leaders, only Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour seemed to appreciate the genuine risk of disorder, with his early warnings that looters would not be given the benefit of the doubt.
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