Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail
Welcome,  anywhere156@yahoo.co.uk
[Sign Out, My Account]

Mail Home - Help


Mail | Addresses | Calendar | Notepad What's New - SMS Mail Alerts - Mail Upgrades - Mail Options Check MailComposeCompose Text Msg Search MailSearch the Web

Emailing photos?
Try new Photomail

Folders[Add - Edit]
Inbox (1) Draft Sent Bulk[Empty] Trash[Empty]

Click Here for

Low Cost Loans

See your Credit

Report for FREE

Capital One

Credit Card

Half Price Sky

TV at sky.com
Previous | Next | Back to Messages Printable View - Full Headers
DeleteReplyForwardSpamMove...
This message is not flagged. [ Flag Message - Mark as Unread ]

Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 11:37:09 +0100
To: "Robert Henderson"
From: "Robert Henderson" View Contact Details
Subject: Katrina


The lessons of Hurricane Katrina

Robert Henderson

The shocking thing about Hurricane Katrina is not the hurricane itself
but America's response. It has demonstrated bleakly the inadequacy of
the self-sufficient individualistic gospel which has served as
America's ideology from its foundation.

Even now after more than a week there is still no proper general rescue
and salvage plan, although substantial amounts of federal and state
aid
are coming on stream. Help remains l piecemeal and poorly
co-ordinated. And that in the country best equipped by wealth,
technology and manpower to prevent and manage such disasters.

Before Katrina the defences of the major city of New Orleans and
God alone knows how many smaller settlements were neglected to the
point
where a catastrophe was inevitable if they came anywhere near the path
of a really major hurricane . Despite having advanced warning of
Katrina
no meaningful general evacuation plan was in place. People were told to
evacuate but there was no public assistance or organisation to
facilitate the evacuation or their resettlement.

After Katrina there was no public organised relief work for days
because again there was no publicly organised plan and Congress had to
rush through $10 billion of funding to assist.

What did happen was exactly what is to be expected when people are left
to make their own arrangements. The better off managed it, the poor did
not. Private hospitals and care homes were arranged for transport out
of
the area; those in state run institutions were at least in some
instances left to fend for themselves. Pensioners in wheelchairs found
themselves without help.

The lack of public planning also resulted in break down of law and
order - the police who were left bereft of leadership and essentially
acted on their own initiative. Many simply handed in their badge,
metaphorically or literally. .

The lesson to learn from this is that private endeavour is never
anything like enough when it comes to dealing with the population as a
whole. Public provision and control is essential not just for
emergencies such as Katrina but also for the provision of anything
essential which substantial parts of the population cannot afford. In
America there is a general lack of such provision, must obviously in
medical care which fails to cover adequately or at all some 40 per cent
of the population and which bankrupts many of those with private
insurance when they hit a serious medical emergency or chronic illness.

A nanny state is an unhealthy state because it robs individuals of
their
initiative, but a state which ignores that which is beyond the
individual to provide is equally morally distorted. A balance has to
be
struck between the two extremes. America has failed badly to do so.

When making public policy it is necessary to bear in mind three things.
(1) that social and economic position is strongly tied to the accident
of birth. (2) Much of the population will of necessity be relatively
unintelligent - approximately 50% of the population will have IQs of
100
or less. (3) Those in power often use their power to destroy the
employment opportunities of the less able, for example, through free
trade. In short, many do not have the wherewithal, material or
intellectual, to compete.

Or as George W Moron might have put it:

Mah fellow Moronicans .... God tells me it wuz an Act o' God

Robert Henderson

The TV screen clears followed by the sound of band playing Hail to the
chief cause of disturbance in the world. President George W Moron
speaks:

"Mah fellow Moronicans, evil-sayin' folks are tryin' ter make out thet
'coz folks knew Hurricane Katrina wuz comin' thet means it is the
fault
of folks like me thet nothin' wuz done to git those folks out o' its
way
and provide fer them. Thet's jest commie talk. In Moronica folks know
thet Moronica is the greatest county ever on earth jest 'cos we don't
go in fer such socialist fancies. So let's see Katrina fer whut she
wuz:
God a-punishing folks who hadn't lived the Moronican way an' gut rich.
How do I know this? 'cos God has told me. He jest came into mah head
an'
said this here whinin' an' blamin' jest ain't Moronican. So ah said
does thet mean they ain't Moronicans Lord? An' he said raight back
"Thets as sure as the sun risin' , son."

Well thet's the goddam truth, but Condi Rice tells me thet luts o'
black
folks is gitting reaal mad 'cos they think we ain't doin' nuthin' coz
they're black. Thet jest ain't true. We ain't doin' nuthin ' coz
they're
poor. Anyways, Condie sez I hed to ter git down South an' start
huggin'
a few black folks so thet I cain git some real good photocalls . I said
we gut a pile o' blacks raight by the White House. Whut say I jest go
an' hug some o them ? Condi said thet wouldn't be the same an' I hed
ter
go to New Orleans raight away. I couldn't see whut difference it made
'coz there would still be photos o' me huggin' blacks, but I could see
Condi wuz gittin' real impatient 'bout somethin' so I decided I'd
best
go to New Orleans. An' thets whut I've gorn an' done an' thets why yer
seein' mah photo all over, with me surrounded by black folks.

Trouble is some folks is still tryin' ter blame me an' other upstanding
rich folks fer whut's happend. They say if it wuzn't fer Iraq there
would be more troops an' money ter help folks now Whut I say is if it
weren't fer Moronican troops in I-raq, God knows whut would heve
happened in New Orleans an' the laik. Nut only would folks heve hed the
hurricane they'd heve hed to deal with those Goddam commie Muslim
terrororrrists... er.. . which are jest waitin' ter blow up Moronica
an'
everythin' thet's good in the world. . In fact, if God hadn't told me
thet Katrina wuz an Act o' God , I'd be thinkin' those Al Qeeeda folks
wuz responsible.

Some real evil sayers are claimin' thet folks like me were told over
an'
over 'bout the dangers of a Hurricane this big in the South an' we
ignored them. Thet jest ain't true. No one could heve known whut would
happen even if they wuz told aforehand laik we wuz.Thet's why we didn't
spend federal money on strenthenin' the levies. Thet's real unMoronican
talk. Cain't think why them folks in Congress ain't set up an
Un-Moronican Affairs committee ter deal with folks laik thet.

While I wuz suggestin' ter Condi thet it would be real easy to git the
photos of me an' the black folks in Washington, Dick Cheney suddenly
shouted "For God's sake just get the moron under control". I asked Dick
who the moron wuz an' he looked real mad fer a moment an' then smiled
an' said "Hillary Clinton, Mr President. She wants an independent
commission to investigate your handling of the Hurricane Katrina
crisis." Mah handlin', Dick, I said, it's down to the Good Lord. "Quite
right Mr president, that's why you must head the investigation
yourself." I wondered if folks would think it raight if I investigated
mahself, but Dick said I wuzn't ter worry 'bout thet because who could
know better than me whut I wuz doin'? Dick said thet made me jest the
folk ter investigate me. Dick sure is smart!

Well, I reckon thet jest 'bout tells folks whut is whut 'coz the
movin'
words heve stopped movin' ,so I'll jest say Howdie and' heve a nice
day.
"
--
Robert Henderson
Blair Scandal website:  http://www.geocities.com/blairscandal/
Personal website:  http://www.anywhere.demon.co.uk