The hardest part about watching this film was the death, destruction and sadness that I saw, but probably one of the most frustrating things about this whole situation is the aftermath and how people were just so down right selfish. Who was selfish? I'm talking about the Federal government, I am talking about the President of our country, I am talking about the insurance companies, and I am talking about the fortunate people in this country that don't give a damn about the underprivileged people on NOLA.
In today's discussion a fellow student mentioned about the white conservatives and how they feel about the poor and the victims of New Orleans. She said something along the lines of the conservatives believing, "we can take care of ourselves, why can't they do the same? Why should we help them?" Now I'm not mad at the student in our class that said it but all I have to say is screw you man. Not everyone is as fortunate as you to make the money you have made and sometimes people don't even have to earn their money. Sometimes it is just given to them because of social class, or because their mother or father is passing down the business and money to you. Now I obviously don't know how they got their money so that may not be true all of the time. But what happened to being an American? What happened to caring for others in this country? If we are such a fantastic country then why do we have these pompous pricks/politicians thinking that they can sit there and say and do whatever asinine thing they want?
I have one problem with capitalism and that problem is that capitalism creates selfishness. People start looking out for themselves more than they look out for other peoples lives; remarkably, even in the face of millions of Americans that are drowning and starving. Politicians don't give a hoot on who is drowning, they have to stop and think how they are going to protect their votes before they protect their people in the face of danger. The Federal government has to make sure that they cannot send out too much help to save their own people because it has to fit their "budget" and they are currently spending money to make Iraq a "democracy". Lastly, insurance companies have to make sure they are making enough money and don't give out too much financial help for the people because they need to make a profit. By the way, I want to give the person who thought of making insurance companies "for profit organization's" a swift kick in the balls because that has screwed over many peoples lives in NOLA and just made every one's life in general complete hell sometimes.
Now that's off of my chest I would like to talk briefly about the reading I had to do for tomorrow. My reading was called, "25 Questions about the Murder of New Orleans". This reading was captivating for me because it simply asked questions that have not been any answered about New Orleans' preparation and evacuation/aide following Katrina.
The number one question that just makes me furious at our government is:"Why did Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff not declare Katrina an "Incident of National Significance" until August 31--thus preventing the full deployment of urgently needed federal resources?"
Why? What made this guy hold back on pushing the almighty button of sending help? I don't really have an explanation for this. The only one that has the answer is Michael Chertoff and I don't even think he will give you an answer. He might just give you some political answer that never really answers the question! Who knows...But I do know that one thing that made the situation worse was how our governments between Federal, State, and Local communicate with each other. I like to think of the Federal government as having the only authority to push the gigantic green button. What does the green button do? It tells the State and Local governments as well as anyone that is working for the Federal government that its okay to do what ever they need to do. In this case, why did FEMA have to wait for Michael Chertoff to push the big green button?!?!?!? They had all the resources right? They are the people we depend on to save an entire city that is in devastation. I just want everyone who is reading this to forget the question, why didn't Chertoff declare Katrina an "Incident of National Significance"? The real question is "why in the world does FEMA and the rest of our governments have to wait for the Federal government to say its okay to save millions of lives?" Why? People are dying here and our institutions that we depend on are waiting for some dude to push a big green button! That's Insane! That needs to change in my opinion and it needs to happen before another disaster decides to come along and take out another city like New Orleans.
To kind of sum everything up, what I am saying is that I believe: our President and his administration is a joke, our federal government is a joke, politicians are a joke, rich white supremacist pricks are a joke, insurance companies are a joke, FEMA is a joke and most importantly Michael Chertoff is a joke! And boy am I glad someone else is in office this month because something needs to change. I didn't care if it was John McCain, my grandmother or Barack Obama that ran this country, just as long as we can make some progress and I hope we can with a fresh new face sitting in the oval office.
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