Apropå överdrifter i rapporteringen om Katrina så skriver Washington Post idag om samma sak, och att det kan ha gjort så att hjälpen minskade:
The sensational accounts delayed rescue and evacuation efforts already hampered by poor planning and a lack of coordination among local, state and federal agencies. People rushing to the Gulf Coast to fly rescue helicopters or to distribute food, water and other aid steeled themselves for battle. In communities near and far, the seeds were planted that the victims of Katrina should be kept away, or at least handled with extreme caution.
Jag vill minnas att någon i diskussionen kring de svenska mediernas rapportering om Katrina skrev att det inte var några större problem eftersom medierna i USA hade samma rapportering. Men av just den anledningen är det ett problem, eftersom det har förekommit en rad faktafel som nu börjar nystas upp. Kanske kan man hoppas på en likadan uppnystning i Sverige? Jag satsar inga pengar.*
Reason har en fascinerande intervju med en som officer ur nationalgardet som hade hand om kommunikationen i Superdome i New Orleans.
Reason: Wow, I’m sitting here in Los Angeles, California, so what the hell do I know, of course, but there was just the assumption that, you know, this was Lord of the Flies for at least two or three days there.
Bush: Yeah, and you know what? I need your help. I just got off the phone with a Washington Post guy….Brian Thevenot, the Times-Picayune reporter, was on CNN and was interviewed on Fox, and now we’re getting all these inquiries again, coming back around, because I think a lot of folks are feeling a little bit guilty because they passed along the same old shit.
Read the whole thing, och följ länkarna till de andra källorna.
* I och för sig är det möjligt att det var i ett annat sammanhang, kan inte komma på vem det var som skrev det eller var det skrevs.
Apropå mitt förrförra inlägg, Reason: Lame Duck, Big Spender
Indeed, the headlines from last Thursday’s primetime presidential address from the French Quarter in New Orleans underscored what I’m talking about. As CNN put it, ”We Will Do What It Takes.” Which translates into: Bush and the GOP will spend whatever it takes to buy back alienated voters. Given the reckless (and near-record-setting) spending of the Republicans so far, that’s not exactly a new strategy.
Isn’t Bush the son of another ex-president who calls Texas home? Yet here he is, the prodigal, spendthrift son not of George Herbert Walker Bush but of Lyndon Baines Johnson, prosecuting an increasingly unpopular war and spending money like it was water. All that’s missing for the transformation to be complete is for Bush to show us the scar on his stomach, pull his dog up by the ears, and start holding cabinet meetings in the bathroom.
Det är inte utan att man undrar. När översvämningsskydden i New Orleans påstås ha fått minskade anslag så är det nyliberalism. Trots att staten som helhet kraftigt ökat i omfång. Trots att den myndighet som ansvarar för skydden i Louisiana spenderar hundratals miljoner dollar på annat, utgifter som politiker beslutat om. Och trots att staten sedan länge subventionerat boendet i New Orleans, vilket gör att antalet utsatta ökar.
Samma sak gäller när infrastrukturen på marknader som påstås ha avreglerats ”krackelerar”, trots att elnätet i Sverige är lika reglerat som det var tidigare.
Finns det något fel som inte beror på nyliberalism, enligt Ola Larsmo?
Även om översvämningsskydd inte får de resurser som efterfrågas så är det inte nyliberalism. Inte när de samtidigt kan lägga miljardtals dollar på skitprojekt. Det är inte i strävan att förminska staten som New Orleans inte skyddas, det är staten som inte kan prioritera bland sina åtaganden. Är det någon som är förundrad över att FEMA:s resurser fördelas utifrån politiskt inflytande och inte efter behov? Det är ju sådant som politiker är bra på, att ställa till med problem.
Om infrastrukturen ”krackelerar” så beror det knappast på några avregleringar utan på politiker och byråkrater som förstör.
Uppdatering: Här finns för mängder med exempel på ”pork”, pengar som kunde gått till något bättre än att köpa röster.
Okej, det är visserligen ganska tidigt men orkanen Rita verkar vara på väg åt helt fel håll. I samband med ”Katrina” var det Brendan Loy man skulle besöka, det verkar vara fallet med ”Rita” också.
So let’s just recap briefly, shall we? We’ve got a million or so human beings living in a low-lying area created in the first place by government engineers. The local government of New Orleans, apprised of an approaching storm, summarily orders everybody out of the city about 36 hours too late without lifting a finger to provide the means to do so. At the last minute it occurs to somebody to herd those left behind into a large government-built structure, the Superdome; no supplies are on hand for its inhabitants, and the structure itself is rendered–according to the government’s assessment–permanently useless. Even though the storm misses the city, government-built levees fail in unforeseen and catastrophic ways. Many of the New Orleans cops opportunistically quit their jobs, many more simply fail to show up for work, others take the lead in looting supplies from storm-stricken neighbourhoods, and just a few have the notable good grace to shoot themselves in the head. The federal government announces that assistance is on its way, sometime; local and state authorities–who have the clear-cut burden of “first response” under federal guidelines nobody seems to have read–beg for the feds to hurry up while (a) engaging in bureaucratic pissing-matches behind the scenes and (b) making life difficult for the private agencies who are beating the feds to the scene. Eventually the federal government shows up with the National Guard, and to the uniform indignation and surprise of those who have been screaming for it, the Guard turns out to have a troubling tendency to point weapons in the general direction of civilians and reporters. I’m not real clear on who starts doing what around mid-week, but the various hydra-heads of government start developing amusing hobbies; confiscating guns from civilians, demanding that photographers stop documenting the aftermath of America’s worst natural disaster in a century, enforcing this demand by seizing cameras at gunpoint, shutting down low-power broadcasting stations in shelters, and stealing supplies from relief agencies and private citizens. In the wake of all this, there is probably no single provision of the U.S. Constitution left untrampled, the Posse Comitatus Act appears destined for a necktie party, and the 49% of Americans who have been complaining for five years about George W. Bush being a dictator are now vexed to the point of utter incoherence because for the last fortnight he has failed to do a sufficiently convincing impression of a dictator.
It’s been said that Hurricane Katrina has confirmed pretty much everybody in his pre-existing political beliefs. I can’t say the record gives me any reason to change mine. But if I can’t have a libertarian paradise where state power defers to social power, or use recent events to urge others to the wisdom of such a state of affairs, I’m willing to propose a second-best for America: replace the three branches of republican government with permanent joint rule by Wal-Mart and the Salvation Army. Go on, tell me you could honestly do worse.
California Highway Patrol hjälper till med evakueringen i New Orleans. En film [högerklicka -> spara som, strömmande wmv-fil] visar hur det går till.
Citat: ”[beep] you son of a [beep]”
En beväpnad kvinna i 70-årsåldern när hon blir nedbrottad.
