<p>Sorry conyat, but this incident doesn’t reflect badly on “my side” at all. This FEMA person was not high enough to have been a political appointee and was just a government bureaucrat who could have been from any “side”. There is also no reference to race in this and it is just wild conjecture on your part that race was the deciding factor and not plain and simple bureaucracy. </p>
<p>As I see it, the most guilty party in this incident is on “your side”. This incident was clearly driven by a fear of John Edwards and his team of ambulance chasers. If your side would agree with tort reform, perhaps people wouldn’t be so paranoid about law suits.</p>
<p>What a bizarrely lame excuse. The Good Samaritan laws absolutely equivocably rule out any liability from the situation. If FEMA failed to educate people about this that they sent into such a desperate situation, it’s even more evidence of disregard for human life. </p>
<p>FEMA had plenty of time to contact everyone they sent in to explain the importance of generating good PR for the agency…but they couldn’t say it was OK for doctors to save lives? Some priorities.</p>
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<p>Even after I posted about the decisions Michael Brown made, you’re still trying to paint this as an isolated incident. Even more bizzare.</p>
<p>If you insist race played no part, please point me to a similar issue where saving white lives was placed at such low priority by a highly placed government official.</p>
<p>Barrons, you have no idea what you’re talking about, sorry.</p>
<p>The # of people in harm’s way and the loss of life aren’t at all comparable between Mississippi and Louisiana. There’s simply no basis for saying the response was “the same.”</p>
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<p>Why the discrepancy? In Mississippi, the water came and went. People who survived the initial onslaught and the in-and-out storm surge were not in much danger afterward. There were not even dozens, much less thousands of people stranded on rooftops or in attics for days on end waiting for rescue. </p>
<p>In Louisiana, the flood waters stood for weeks till they were drained, trapping people wherever they were. People died of dehydration in their attics and on their roofs (some after holding on as long as 10 days waiting for rescue). Some people held on to the rafters in the attics as long as they could, but eventually slipped into the floodwaters and drowned.</p>
<p>Please go back and read some accounts of what happened in Mississippi. You will not find the glaring, obvious need for rescue…nor will you find the federal government acting assertively to prevent rescuers from reaching those in peril.</p>
<p>WashDad, haven’t you read what happened? Do you really think race played absolutely no role in the decision to turn away competent, qualified, federal government rescuers, knowing that people would die waiting?</p>
<p>Do you think if there was a disaster in your town, the Federal Emergency Management Agency would block rescue efforts?</p>
<p>“If you insist race played no part, please point me to a similar issue where saving white lives was placed at such low priority by a highly placed government official.”</p>
<p>How about if I use real statistics and not just isolated incidences that anyone wanting to slime someone can easily use to make whatever point that they want.</p>
<p>If there were a racial motive around the rescue operation, don’t you think that the death toll would be very skewed toward a higher black death rate? Instead, the toll was remarkably consistent with the population totals. Nice try at race baiting however. I’m sure that Al Sharpton, the champion of isolated incidences to provoke divisiveness would be quite proud.</p>
<p>Um, no, I don’t. My position is that the federal government’s response was colored by the color of the faces it saw on CNN in need of help…and what it saw was overwhelmingly black.</p>
<p>The fact this was a misperception, and that whites died along with blacks is quite true. In fact, it annoys me when people try to paint Katrina as a disaster affecting only low income African Americans. Nothing could be further from the truth.</p>
<p>But the people making the decisions were looking at African American faces when they made them.</p>
<p>I still see no evidence of race affecting the response.</p>
<p>I do agree though, conyat, that from the articles you cite there was incompetence on the part of some individuals which is horrible, of course. I don’t see that it was part of any overt act to attack a particular race. Bush also didn’t appoint these particular individuals and I doubt it would have made any difference if the FEMA head was a democrat or republican. Unless you really think Bush is a racist who ensured he could appoint a racist FEMA head to take advantage of disasters like this I don’t see how the conclusion that this was a race-based response can be reached.</p>
<p>Regarding the doc ceasing CPR because some low-level government worker said to stop because of worries of being sued (a bizarre conversation under the circumstances to imagine), I can’t really see a doctor ceasing the act without being dragged away. It just doesn’t make sense. Maybe there’s more to the story that you and I haven’t heard.</p>
<p>Read the links I posted. The doctor, a quite well respected physican, left because he was threatened with arrest. Would you take a chance on the federal pen, if you could just go elsewhere and find someone else to help?</p>
<p>Read what Dr. Perlmutter said, then decide.</p>
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<p>It was an officer in the US military, who was working under the direction of FEMA. An armed man who could summon people to drag him off, if it came to that.</p>
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<p>Under Clinton, FEMA was a highly effective agency. He had greatly rehabilitated the agency after the just criticisms of it’s response to Andrew during the Bush I years. When Bush II took over, most of the qualified disaster professionals were sidelined in favor of people who had run horse breeding associations and so forth.</p>
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<p>So how do you explain Brown’s bizarre decision to let people, even children, die rather than allow highly trained and well equipped people from the Department of Interior to help?</p>
<p>How do you explain a president’s decision to stay on vacation then go to California about Social Security, while his appointee was blocking rescue efforts for dying people?</p>
<p>Haven’t you noticed that we get rescuers halfway around the globe quicker? That Bush showed up at UVa much quicker than he did NOLA? Doesn’t that tell you that some lives are worth more than others?</p>
<p>Wow. Quite a story you’re trying to put in my mouth.
Did you ever hear a saying about how it’s not necessary to assume more things than are needed? You might go to HS thread and see if some of the science types are about and could explain it to you. </p>
<p>It’s quite possible for the response to have been colored by race without it being a deliberate, pre-meditated plot. People use race to make decisions many times without even realizing it. </p>
<p>My point is that the sight of black people in peril did not move the government into action the way the sight of white, Asian or even Hispanic people in peril would have. </p>
<p>Because it was “only” black and not white lives on the line, the government did not make life-saving the priority it should have been.</p>
<p>We send rescuers halfway around the world within hours of an earthquake. But not for the black faces you saw on CNN.</p>
<p>“That Bush showed up at UVa much quicker than he did NOLA? Doesn’t that tell you that some lives are worth more than others?”</p>
<p>It was actually Virginia Tech. UVA is a different school, in a different location.</p>
<p>I actually remember that the difference in response time had more to do with the way that the governors of MS vs Louisiana responded, and that there was great controversy about that. Was it that MS acted more independently and that La waited for the Feds? Who were the governors?</p>
<p>Anyhow, I don’t remember that there were more whites or blacks being shown on TV. I do know that in Louisiana, things were a mess. For instance, Wal-Mart sent a lot of bottled water there, and they stopped it coming in. </p>
<p>But I really think that it is preposterous to target it as a racial issue, it appeared to be mass confusion and a lack of response. There was also a lot of lawlessness, and random gunshots, and there was chaos.</p>
<p>That’s probably true. FEMA, the Red Cross, and the state and local government ALL have military roadblocks set up to keep food and water from reaching the dying people in New Orleans. The intent was first, to prevent civilian supply vehicles from being attacked by desperate starving people, and second, to force those still in the city to heed the call to evacuate rather than try to wait it out.</p>
<p>Horrible as this one sounds on paper, there was at least some justification for it. Some groups, like Vets for Peace simply ran the blockade, counting on not getting shot at by the military. Others managed to sneak in one way or another. But you’re right, the bulk of the civilian relief effort was turned away, by joint agreement between the feds and the locals.</p>
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<p>Not so much. The issue is that Louisiana hesitated to agree the White House’s demand to put our National Guard under federal control. Mississippi got help without ever being asked to do this. </p>
<p>According to Michael Brown, the only reason the White House had for demanding to federalize Louisiana’s National Guardsmen was to punish our governor for being a Democrat.</p>
<p>I am not entirely sure why Blanco didn’t agree more quickly to place the National Guard under federal control, if that was the price of federal help. But considering that once the feds were in control, the first thing they did was order all rescuers to stand down…then when they allowed some efforts to resume, blocked others, even from the federal government…I’d say her hesitation was not without some merit.</p>
I do draw a distinction when it’s an armed person barking the orders. If this guy was armed, I understand the response of the doctor.</p>
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My first conclusion wouldn’t be that it was race based. I don’t see why anyone would just assume that it must be due to race. Might it not be more likely due to incompetence?</p>
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I wasn’t putting any words in your mouth. </p>
<p>And, now I see that you’ve descended to the point of condescention so I guess any intelligent discussion without resorting to jibes such as the one you expressed are now over.</p>
<p>Does it really matter if it’s racially motivated, UC-dad?
Isn’t just plain ignorance/misinformation/lack of compassion/incompetence enough for the people of NO to be seething angry at this administration and the scandalous way it handled pre-post Katrina? </p>
<p>Is the fact that we can’t outright prove racism change anything? Because no matter what the reason, Katrina remains a scandalous, shameful moment.</p>
<p>“Is the fact that we can’t outright prove racism change anything? Because no matter what the reason, Katrina remains a scandalous, shameful moment.”</p>
<p>I think that there is a difference in pointing out incompetency vs accusing a government of withholding aid due to rascism. Perhaps the best way to go at this point is to try to improve emergency services there, instead of accusations that go nowhere and achieve less.</p>
<p>I understood the NOLA problems a little better when I saw someone quoted as saying that nobody wanted to go ‘down there’ (into the neighborhood of the flooding). Affluent people stayed far away from the poor, crime-ridden districts.</p>
<p>What bothers me about Katrina response is that as far as I can see nothing has changed. If the big one hits anybody, anywhere it will still be a shameful mess, and people will still have to fend for themselves.</p>