Nothing I can blog here can say more than this outstanding video, produced by Campaign for America's Future's Anne Thompson:
And nothing I say in this post [1] about the un-patriotism of our conservative friends' response to Katrina—their stubborn refusal to understand that belonging to a national community means no one who lives under our flag can ever be left behind in a crisis—is better demonstrated better than their whiny comments in the YouTube thread. Comments like:
yeah, the government didnt help all the people here in south MS a quarter as much! but look, we got just as much devistation, half the relief money, and STILL have done a billion times better. maybe those do nothing bitches in New Orleans should fix their own problems by rebuilding, instead of just waiting for someone else to do it for em and give em free money???
And this:
New Orleans, a city of jerkoffs. I went to NOLA 35 years ago. Guess what they knew they were susceptible to a hurricane disaster then. In the 35 years since then, guess what they accomplished... they named a drink 'the Hurricane' and they legalized gambling.
Now all the got is a plaintive whine that the welfare isn't good enough. This is a classic tale of the ant and the grasshopper. NOLA the city of grasshoppers. In this case I say compassion should be conserved.
Of course the devastation to Mississippi, as tragic as that was, was but a fraction of that dealt to below-sea-level New Orleans, and of their "billion times better" response—well, I'll be dealing with Mississippi's Governor Barbour in my next Katrina post.
Links:
[1] http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/katrina_question_patriotism