Clean up... and clean house
Tales from the Road
Kendrick Bales
Issue date: 9/13/05 Section: Voices
Amidst a national tragedy whose extent we are still unsure of, I thought my little anecdotes about Paris could come in the next issue.
There is a lot of finger-pointing going on right now between local and state authorities, the media, and the federal government, so I want to enter the fray and point my finger at someone: the local governments of Louisiana and Mississippi. Admittedly, the federal response has been far from perfect, but LA and MS don't boast the best track record for any type of governance, let alone disaster relief. Contrary to popular opinion, Louisiana is not the most corrupt state in the nation. According to the Department of Justice, it's third. The most corrupt? Mississippi. It seems that many of the local government officials who are denigrating the federal government for its lack of planning have been spending too much time lining their own pockets to come up with their own plans. I find it interesting that the champions of state's rights doctrine now find it so easy to point the finger at the federal government's response.
The citizens of the gulf-coast areas of Louisiana and Mississippi should be livid - not with the federal government, but with their own. Where were all of the public busses to cart everyone away who didn't have cars? How about the school buses? Every single death was avoidable. Hurricanes are not like earthquakes - you get warnings with hurricanes, people can get out of harm's way in time. The petulant attitude of local officials towards the federal government because they couldn't get their act together ahead of time is enough to make me sick. If they want to know what federal resources are being spent on, they should ask Lou Reigel, the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI for Louisiana. The FBI's number one criminal program in the state is public corruption.
The most horrific and tragic consequences of this disaster are human. Katrina could not have chosen a more vulnerable group of people to pick on: Mississippi has the highest poverty rate in the country and Louisiana comes in at fourth. (Do you think that the relationship between MS being the most corrupt state and also having the highest poverty rate is 'statistically significant'?) These people who have been fleeced by their own governments have now been fleeced by mother nature. There is one difference, however: you can do something about your government.
There is a lot of finger-pointing going on right now between local and state authorities, the media, and the federal government, so I want to enter the fray and point my finger at someone: the local governments of Louisiana and Mississippi. Admittedly, the federal response has been far from perfect, but LA and MS don't boast the best track record for any type of governance, let alone disaster relief. Contrary to popular opinion, Louisiana is not the most corrupt state in the nation. According to the Department of Justice, it's third. The most corrupt? Mississippi. It seems that many of the local government officials who are denigrating the federal government for its lack of planning have been spending too much time lining their own pockets to come up with their own plans. I find it interesting that the champions of state's rights doctrine now find it so easy to point the finger at the federal government's response.
The citizens of the gulf-coast areas of Louisiana and Mississippi should be livid - not with the federal government, but with their own. Where were all of the public busses to cart everyone away who didn't have cars? How about the school buses? Every single death was avoidable. Hurricanes are not like earthquakes - you get warnings with hurricanes, people can get out of harm's way in time. The petulant attitude of local officials towards the federal government because they couldn't get their act together ahead of time is enough to make me sick. If they want to know what federal resources are being spent on, they should ask Lou Reigel, the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI for Louisiana. The FBI's number one criminal program in the state is public corruption.
The most horrific and tragic consequences of this disaster are human. Katrina could not have chosen a more vulnerable group of people to pick on: Mississippi has the highest poverty rate in the country and Louisiana comes in at fourth. (Do you think that the relationship between MS being the most corrupt state and also having the highest poverty rate is 'statistically significant'?) These people who have been fleeced by their own governments have now been fleeced by mother nature. There is one difference, however: you can do something about your government.