Katrina: how and how not to help

Marc at USSNeverdock has extensive bulletins and good links around the Katrina disaster, including a comprehensive list of donation and volunteer help sites. He also links to this useful post which debunks the latest left-wing opportunist attempts to blame Bush and/or the US government for the Katrina disaster. Melanie Phillips on Thursday had a similar demolition job on UK Chief Scientist Professor King's attempts to link Katrina to his constantly promoted agenda about global warming. So I'm not surprised to find this story on the BBC web site, which presents that notable authority one [anonymous] broadcaster who

bitterly encapsulated the sense of burning shame and anger that many American citizens are feeling.

The only difference between the chaos of New Orleans and a Third World disaster operation, he said, was that a foreign dictator would have responded better.

It has been a profoundly shocking experience for many across this vast country who, for the large part, believe the home-spun myth about the invulnerability of the American Dream.

The party in power in Washington is always happy to convey the impression of 50 states moving forward together in social and economic harmony towards a bigger and better America.

That is what presidential campaigning is all about.

Note the deft and entirely gratuitous dig at Bush in the last sentence. I wonder what foreign dictator the anonymous correspondent had in mind to do so much better than Bush. Could he have been thinking of Mugabe, or even Saddam Hussein, who, after all has now so much leisure time?

It seems the British press is also revelling in the chance to bash the USA and once again it's the usual suspects in the lead. Sunday's Independent leads the way with a story blaming it all on Bush supposedly cutting flood defence funds to pay for the Iraq war. The link from Neverdock to the EURota story shows this is not only rubbish, but its source is this article by (surprise!) Sidney Blumenthal, a former Clinton adviser and regular columnist at the Guardian.

Update: The Observer (Sunday version of chief suspect The Guardian) runs this variant, focusing on bashing US government racism by invoking "Black fury at Bush over rescue delay". The voices on offer with the appropriate soundbites are one Kanye West, a rapper (always known for their measured judgements on just about anything) and Jesse Jackson who doesn't fail to come out with a stellar quote, castigating:

'a historical indifference to the pain of poor people and black people' in the US...it was poignant that blacks were suffering in New Orleans, for many years the south's biggest slave-trade port.

'Today I saw 5,000 African-Americans on Highway 10, desperate, perishing, dehydrating, babies crying - it looked like the hold of a slave ship. It's so ugly and obvious. The issue of race as a factor will not go away.'

When you're Jesse Jackson, it's always that obvious. Meanwhile the rest of us might care to reflect on how we'd be doing here if a catastrophic hurricane struck the entire country with equivalent force and devastation. Because the area devastated by the hurricane is about the equivalent of the whole of Great Britain.  Well, no doubt they would be excoriating Tony Blair, George Galloway would be telling us it was all because the money was being spent on the Iraq war and George Monbiot would be telling us it was all because we weren't doing whatever extreme environmentalist panacea he'll deliver in his next Guardian column.

One thing really puzzles me. Why has no-one yet found a way of blaming the zionists, oh, no, sorry, the neo-cons for all this?

Update update Honestly, what chance do us poor would-be satirists have when the originals do it so much better themselves? Here's Chrenkoff with a story of how Gorgeous George is going to be doing the very thing I suggested he might do if the UK had been hit. And with Jane Fonda herself to help him along.

Update update update My darling daughter was reading this post and she said, no, the dictatorship the BBC guy was thinking of must have been the Chinese government. Cos they would have kept completely quiet about it for three months. And then a few minutes later she said a real third world dictatorship would do nothing about it and use it as a good excuse to bury bad bodies. As in, this is a good day to bury bad news. Oh, darling daughter, you are such a smart cookie... Maybe I should ask Pootergeek to start up one of his trademark brilliant contests, this time for the best blame-quote on Katrina. Just to start you off, Damian, my entry would be Ahmed Qurei speaking on behalf of the Palestinian Authority:

Whilst we regret the tragic loss of life in Katrina, we must remember that as long as the brutal Israeli occupation of Palestine continues the Palestinian Authority will be powerless to prevent its ally Jesse Jackson from making damnfool statements blaming President Bush for the disaster.

Positively my last update Damian of Pootergeek has not only obligingly responded to my suggestion, but includes a quote blaming Katrina on the deliberate intention of the George W Bush government to kill black people from... Nelson Mandela. Sigh.

Pootergeek's post also links to this excellent post by Tim Newman, an engineer, which magisterially demolishes the whole heap of blame bullshit from the point of view of a risk consultant who clearly knows what he's talking about. Tim scathingly sets out the main categories of blame and then comes up with what Norm would call a money quote

I think the basic problem afflicting most commentators is that they have no concept of acceptable risk and the fact that mitigating risk costs money, with the relationship between money spent and reduction of risk being non-linear.

Don't miss the comments, either, where Tim exchanges some follow-up points with Damian.

Comments

[marc]

Great post and thanks for the plug!

Marc