At the risk of beating a dead horse…
Last night, while watching Acts I and II of Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke, I asked, “What about the school buses? Why hasn’t Spike shown us the school buses?” There are two possible answers, one cynical and one less so. The less cynical answer is simply that Spike’s focus was the post-storm failures, not the pre-storm failures. The cynical answer — which is also a possible ulterior motive for the less cynical rationale — is that he wanted to shine the light on the federal government’s failures while minimizing the local government’s failures.
Whatever Spike’s motives, his failure to address crucial issues like the drowned buses or to adequately discuss the slowness of the evacuation — coupled with the unrebutted inflammatory comments by the likes of Harry Belafonte, and also Spike’s obsession with irrelevancies like Condi Rice’s shoe-buying habits — takes away a great deal of credibility from what could otherwise have been a truly excellent film. (And yes, I realize Acts III and IV haven’t aired yet, but given the stated topics of those acts, it seems highly unlikely they’ll cure the deficiencies of Acts I and II.)
Anyway, this article from last September (hat tip: Jeff Wendt) does an excellent job expanding on the importance of those drowned school buses:
According to the principle of subsidiarity, governmental agencies and leaders at the city, parish, and state agencies hold primary responsibility for implementing the evacuation process. The city of New Orleans apparently agrees, since in their “Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan� they vest the authority to authorize an evacuation with the Mayor and the implementation of such an action with the city’s Office of Emergency Preparedness. The state’s official hurricane evacuation plan even notes that the primary means of evacuation will be personal vehicles but that school and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles, and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating.
How many people would need to be evacuated? In a paper written over a year ago, University of New Orleans researcher Shirley Laska estimated that the city has approximately 120,000 residents who do not have their own transportation and would need to rely on the government. While this is an extremely large number, the Regional Transportation Authority and the local school system have roughly 560 busses in which they could use in an emergency. Assuming that each bus could carry sixty-six passengers, each trip could carry 37,554 residents to safety. Three round-trips would be required to move all 120,000 citizens.
Such a task would naturally be rather time-consuming and fraught with unforeseen difficulties. But it would have almost assuredly save many lives – if it had ever been attempted. Rather than follow their own operating procedures, though, the city allowed the busses to lie dormant and instead advised residents to seek shelter in the Superdome. Only after the storm did the people who had followed this advice discover that they were trapped in the stadium without food or emergency services.
Realizing that their plan was faulty, the city chose to shift the blame to the federal government. Terry Ebbert, the director of homeland security for New Orleans, criticized FEMA for not acting quickly enough to move the 30,000 people who were holed up in the shelter of “last resort.â€? New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin even had the audacity to criticize the feds for not moving quickly enough after the storm had subsided, “I need 500 buses, man…. This is a national disaster,â€? said Nagin. “Get every doggone Greyhound busline in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans.â€? In his rant Nagin never got around to explaining why he never got the 500 buses within the city to move out of New Orleans.
If Spike Lee had wanted to really add something valuable to the public discourse on Katrina, he could have asked probing questions that would have challenged Nagin on that point. Instead, he uncritically quoted Nagin’s rant and never once mentioned the school buses. (And don’t even get me started on the outageous, and completely unchallenged, claim that rapidly evacuating people out of the airport — which necessitated, for the sake of efficiency, a somewhat inprecise process of shipping them off wholesale to far-flung cities — is equivalent to “slavery.” Cripes.)
On a broader note, the above-linked article’s more general point, while not particularly relevant to Spike’s movie, is also very interesting, and dare I say it, compelling:
What is most distressing about the situation, though, is not that a mayor failed to lead but that the principle of subsidiarity was already in place and yet failed to be implemented. Mayor Nagin and Governor Kathleen Blanco deserve the primary blame for the fiasco in New Orleans. But the larger failure belongs to conservatives.
Principles such as subsidiarity, federalism, and limited government are often considered cornerstones of conservative political thought. But when it comes to their actual implementation they are merely given lip-service. While aspiring young politicos sing the praises of states-rights, they prefer to do so on Capital Hill or in D.C. think tanks rather than in the choirs of their state legislatures or local governments. The very idea that our most competent conservative statesmen should be working in their actual states rather than in Washington is considered ludicrous. After all, everyone knows that state and local governments are reserved for the also-rans and has-beens rather than for the able and ambitious. Any job in FEMA, for instance, is considered superior to working in the New Orleans’s Office of Emergency Preparedness.
But mayor’s offices, city councils, and state legislatures all join the “little platoons� that serve as our first line of defense when natural or man-made disasters strike. So why then are we not working to put our best and brightest into these offices? Why do push them to take jobs as Senatorial aides rather than as state senators? Why do we lead them to roles as assistants to assistant directors in the Department of Education rather than as leaders on county school boards? Why do we put our rhetoric behind the local and yet put our faith in the federal?
If we expect to be taken seriously, conservatives must start supporting the principles we claim we believe. One way that we could begin is by “subsidizing� subsidiarity, by using our resources to promote our intellectual and political leaders at the state and local levels of governance.
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Categories: Hurricane Katrina
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August 22nd, 2006 at 10:53:11 pm
Good point regarding conservatives asserting themselves at the state and local levels more than just the federal level. Unfortunately, I think the prestige and power associated with governing at the federal level proves too tempting, even for conservatives, whose political principles indeed lend themselves to being better implemented at the state and local level.
And that article is right on IMHO when it comes to “state and local governments [being] reserved for the also-rans and has-beens rather than for the able and ambitious.” Not to get off point, but here I would draw a parallel to teachers — a crucial occupation in our society, but one that studies have found is filled by education majors who finished disproportionately in the bottom half of their college classes (Thomas Sowell has written extensively on this subject).
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:27:35 pm
“And don’t even get me started on the outageous, and completely unchallenged, claim that rapidly evacuating people out of the airport â€â€? which necessitated, for the sake of efficiency, a somewhat inprecise process of shipping them off wholesale to far-flung cities â€â€? is equivalent to “slavery.â€? Cripes.”
This statement in and of itself shows that you have never studied (nor attempted to study) in-depth the history of African Americans, and specifically slavery in the United States. If you read about it, you would be aware that families were often separated. Wedding vows were even issued with an addendum “to death to use part” to ALSO include or until sold. (This is part of the reason that it is difficult for African Americans to trace their lineages back centuries.) I do not know what to say if you honestly believe that separating babies from their parents, separating siblings from one another, and flying individual family members (especially after a very traumatic event) to various and RANDOM parts of the nation is necessary “for the sake of efficiency.”
While you may be operating in the Webster’s Dictionary definition of slavery. Take a step back and look at the entire history of slavery and what went on. Go deeper than knowing it was working on a plantation and the Emancipation Proclamation, and read what all was involed in the entire “business”. Then perhaps, you will be able to see why the comparison is a very reasonable sentiment.
August 23rd, 2006 at 2:16:52 am
Chris - when *you* believe as you seem to profess, that not only is your glass not half full, The Plantation Owner has taken the contents to wash his Coach-and-four, there literally is not much any of us who clearly see *your* glass containing at least 50% liquid can say …
When the African-American community can look back at the entire history of slavery and what went on and can admit to the Africans *own* resposibility for making this commodity available to passing Europeans, when they can admit to themselves that the Muslim slave-traders who bought or capatured slaves in the interior of Africa and brought them to market are at least as responsible as the Europeans that bought them, when they can admit that the African tribes that captured other tribes’ members and sold them into slavery are at least as culpable, *then* iI will be able to respect someone who says “Take a step back and look at the entire history of slavery and what went on. “ …
Until then, all you bring to mind is that Green Day song … Do you have the time, to listen to me whine … …
OK - so I’m mainframe, not PC … I recognise reality and history … and those who recognise reality have gotten over and past such things in their past and are thriving …
Am I being harsh ? Yup …
And so is Life …
August 23rd, 2006 at 2:37:27 am
“When the African-American community can look back at the entire history of slavery and what went on and can admit to the Africans *own* resposibility for making this commodity available to passing Europeans, when they can admit to themselves that the Muslim slave-traders who bought or capatured slaves in the interior of Africa and brought them to market are at least as responsible as the Europeans that bought them, when they can admit that the African tribes that captured other tribes’ members and sold them into slavery are at least as culpable, *then* iI will be able to respect someone who says “Take a step back and look at the entire history of slavery and what went on. “ …
The basic law of business is there wouldn’t be a supply if there wasn’t a demand. Yes, the African’s who sold people into slavery were horrible and bear responsibility..but the white man created the demand and reaped far, far, far more of the benefits. That’s why they get the majority of the blame. It’s easy to get over and past things when you’re part of the group that received and still benefits from the institutionalized racism that reaches into every element of society. America is the richest and most powerful country in the world; Africa suffers to this day from the effects of colonialism. Harsh? Yup…and so is life.
August 23rd, 2006 at 2:56:54 am
Alasdair, that was spoken like a true person who thinks slavery was merely a wrinkle in time, and you probably think it ended with the Emancipation Proclamation when the clock struck midnight on January 1, 1863.
So, the comment I made was in solely in response to the quote in the author’s blog, in reference to why people felt being separated from their families and flown to random parts of the country was reminscent to slavery in the United States. But I’m sure you missed that, since you apparently feel some guilt.
So, your attempt to sound educated with your nonsequitur philosophical commentary of the half empty/half full glass debate was feeble. Perhaps, YOUR glass was full of some intoxicating liquor when you began to read my post (or skim through it, since you CLEARLY missed the reference and context clues), and has half full (or half empty) by the time you finished your post.
So, you can “respect” that. Love it or hate, I said it.
August 23rd, 2006 at 6:26:08 am
I could give only 30% of the truth and
make it sound like the truth but Im
not.Yes slavery was everywhere in the
old days even before Islam from China
to England and even in both testaments
of the bible.Slaves in those day was
a servant or worker who paid his debt
to a King.In most cases a nation would
even trade slaves or workers to other
nation to promote business but it was
the types of slavery that sounded the
alarm in the “early” world. The kind
of slavery that no matter how much
worked you did not get paid.
The kind of slavery that you bet
not even think about getting sick or
taking a break because that = a serious
beating that could possibly kill you.
The kind of slavery that says you are
not a man or a woman you are a piece
of trash that we throw away.When the
world realized that this is something
different they had made laws that made
slavery illegal but pirates,smuggler
prisoners in the American south and
west had that criminal like mentality
continued this evil and wicked
practice thaT of like Christopher
Columbus whose own shipmate say he
was a murdering insane rapist who
drove the indians to there deaths.
This is why I say not all
people are evil just like not all
whites are evil this nation went
to civil war fighting for what they
believed was right.I wish more
nation would do as we did and
fight for what they believe is
right.Instead of……..God
bless America but some ….
August 23rd, 2006 at 8:04:09 am
Brendan -
I’ll second Joe on you having highlighted a good point about conservatives often emphasizing federalism in words and not workplaces. You’re a good person to pick up on it because of your acute sense of place, and loyalty to locales (even the Hoosier state, where you don’t plan to stay). Among academic federalists, Professor Ernest Young at a certain bowl-winning law school that I dare not name in your comments has made this point to his students and in his work.
That said, I think that part of the semi-hypocritical phenomenon described here is actually the product of looking at a small and strange subset of conservatives: “aspiring young politicos,” or “competent conservative statesmen.” After all, these politically-minded conservatives are also giving “mere[] lip service” to the conservative principle that the private sector is where all work of consequence takes place, and that free enterprise and voluntary associations should play a lead role in solving most public problems.
Thus, the real question isn’t “why are there so many conservatives in Washington pursuing careers in the federal government,” but “why are there conservatives pursuing careers in government at all?” In truth, there aren’t that many — and those that are usually are motivated by something other than conservative principles!
August 23rd, 2006 at 1:11:33 pm
Brendan,
You actually sound like a closet racist. I am tired of people who “appear” to not be racist until Blacks start expressing themselves and actually form opinions (heaven forbid!) and then people are quick to use the “reverse racism” card. Pathetic. Just be thankful that Spike put your irrelevant ass on film and move on.
August 23rd, 2006 at 1:16:25 pm
WoW, you are an ass. Just because I disagree with individual opinions of individual black people doesn’t mean that the reason I disagree with those opinions is BECAUSE they come from “Blacks…expressing themselves.” When I criticize George W. Bush or Howard Dean or Ned Lamont or Dick Cheney for something they say, would you assume that I am criticizing them because they are “whites…expressing themselves”? If not, where the hell do you get off saying the equivalent here? Calling me a “closet racist” on the basis of what I’ve said here is an outrageous and unjustified insult. YOU are the one making judgments based on race. Therefore, if anyone in this discussion is a racist, it’s you. You see that I’m white, and that I’m criticizing black people, and you therefore conclude that I’m a “closet racist.” Go to hell.
August 23rd, 2006 at 4:33:29 pm
Hey, guys express all you like. But people will call shenanigans when, for instance, a comparison falls flat on its face. This sounds to me like an evacuee told someone that they were separated from their wife at the airport and the listener said, “Hey, you know, that’s just what they did to slaves.”
But let’s assume for a moment that each and every person getting on an airplane was separated from loved ones and each and every one thought they were being treated like slaves. At any point did they think: yeah, but the person putting me on the plane is trying to save my life–not take it. Some of these folks have lost their homes as well. Some of these folks have traveled half way across this country to try and help me. Some of these folks are, well, black. Some of them are commanded by, well, blacks. That would seem to me to make quite a difference.
And if you say, “They were traumatized; this is the way they felt. I’m truly sorry they felt that way. I wish this tragedy was never visited upon them; however, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan said: “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.”
And somehow, if the authorities would have kept all families intact, but doing so would have taken a few more days, we would be hearing even louder cries.
August 23rd, 2006 at 4:39:12 pm
Oh, one more thing: these baseless charges are no different than calling someone a nazi or Hitler. Hey, there were real nazis (and in some cases, there still are), but they don’t look or act anything like the guy (usually the President) who’s being called a nazi or Hitler today. For crying out loud, words have meanings.
August 23rd, 2006 at 11:33:33 pm
Chris @ 2:56 - you’re being a tad provincial - but that may well be a result of provincial education …
With a little research, you will find few long-lasting human cultures who have not had slavery as part of their history at some time … ‘white folk’ didn’t invent it for the very first time, nor for the last time …
The successful long-running cultures got rid of slavery because they found it didn’t pay off economically nor was it humanitarian …
Slavery has been a “wrinkle” and a blight throughout time … and has been repealed and removed most places on the planet …
Interestingly enough, the principle places where slavery *still* exists are in Africa, and mostly where Muslims are *still* thoroughly involved in it … after all, the kaffir has NO rights under Islam and may be killed, sold into slavery, or have whatever done to them that a True Believer in Allah wishes …
Of course, that’s all the fault of BusHitler and ‘the White Man’, isn’t it ?
Chris - if you had studied slavery in US History even half as much as you pretend to have done, you would realise that those m*****f***ing white folk that ran the Underground Railroad that brought significant numbers of slaves to freedom did so by separating families, by sending them where it was safe to send the family members until they could be reunited safely … and the members of those families didn’t whine how The Man had done ‘em wrong …
Are you also klm ? Cuz your logic is as stellar as his …
“but the white man created the demand “
What is that expression that I have learned since coming to this country ?
“Oh, puh-leeeeeze !”
August 24th, 2006 at 3:10:16 am
Alasdair, I’m sure you think slavery should have remained as according to you it was just a footnote of American History.
Also, your lexicon is cute. But again, your reading comprehension is obviously meager, as you have AGAIN missed the point. There was no debate about who began slavery and why it was brought about. It was about the experience of the slaves themselves. Try Hooked-on-Phonics, and then find a tutor to work on your reading COMPREHENSION.
August 24th, 2006 at 7:37:47 pm
I think we should implement slavery…In fact, I’m gonna start a platform and try and get on the GOP tix… Okay, that was wack, but seriosly, the facts can be skewwed however we like to. Sure Northern white folks were instrumental in implementing the underground RR, but seriously, why would it called underground if the masses were for it? In the south where I atteneded college, a few of my frat bros. grand parents in their 80’s still hold a subserviant (sp) tone when they encounter white folks…It’s more subliminal, but I attest their courteous attitudes to in grown norms that they have been raised with. The funniest is when athletes are around…These guys are fawned upon on campus and at white frat partoes, but at Auburn they still have “dress like a nigger night.” That blatant disregard and arrogance has to come from somewhere, right? But when some football players crash the party at AU, it’s like “dude we’re just having fun, and etc…I kind of like racism or better yet prejudice. Racism is a mo’ fo when it comes to ingrained institutional racism, but good ol’white boys of the KA Order don’t bother me…they’ll marry their future soccer moms raise a few Tad and Chad’s and get great loans and have a helluva life. To be fair so will some of the bros in my frat. VOTE YES for slavery in ‘08….
August 30th, 2006 at 1:27:58 pm
Why did you edit my post and mix up my words?
August 30th, 2006 at 1:31:57 pm
I didn’t.
August 30th, 2006 at 6:25:48 pm
Who wrote this then?
August 30th, 2006 at 6:28:53 pm
Hi Spike/jalypso. What wrote what then? You wrote your comment, I presume. No one has edited it, so far as I know.
August 30th, 2006 at 11:27:25 pm
Brendan What are you talking about?You are the
only one I know that can correctly write to yourself.
Don’t be so nervous people will write you believe me man!!!
Don’t weird out man!!! ok!!!
September 3rd, 2006 at 10:32:26 am
all I know, not being black or White, is that when black people start to talk
about their problems, white people have the tendency to not understand those problems
because they are not black. all you ever hear is white people complaining about
black people complaining. it’s becasue black people call you on what happened in
the past. Brendan is Irish as far as I know, so I can’t say that he’s a racist. He’s not
complaining about how the British did his race, but then again, it was way before
Africans were brought over here(or maybe I’m wrong, but they did away with it before
it was abolished in America). he was merely criticizing spike lee for emphasizing the
airport situation. white people get uneasy when black people start reminding them
about the past, it’s only because the past wasn’t too long ago. you have 80
year-old black people that are children of former slaves. do you expect blacks to
forget that. I’m pretty sure that if this happened to Puerto Ricans not too long ago
there would be some tension between the Italians(which is what Columbus was) or the
Spainards. I have to say that yes, when I saw the airport situation, I found it a bit
wierd that spike lee would do this to minimize Nagin’s incompentence as well, but you
have to look at it in their point of view. if these were white people, and the director
was white, it would be a totally different story. white people never went through
slavery. they’d probably complain about being seperated but they would never say
anything about slavery because they either weren’t involved(indentured servants
are significantly different than slaves) or they benefited from the profits of
slavery. There’s the difference. white people always complain about black
people complaining but when they complain they think they are correct in
their allegations. For Brendan to complain about black folks being wrong in their
allegations just speaks of guilt. that’s all, doesn’t make him a racist at all, uneducated
in the history of black folks, maybe, but not a racist. there’s a difference in cultures
and this country loves it. the only ones that win are the Elite so why bother fighting
over the scraps on the table.
Congrats on the Wedding by the way Brandon, I’m from CT as well, so I know what you mean
about Lamont, but I wouldn’t mind living in Pheonix……