You must listen to this interview with the Mayor of New Orleans*. (update: mp3 version here.) It’s pretty amazing. And depressing. The guy was pleading with the government for help, and getting little. He described his frustrations at not being given powers, not being able to marshall resources. He expresses his feelings in no uncertain terms, and he says:
Excuse my language, people out there in America, but I am pissed.
More quotes I typed out for you while listening:
This is crazy. I’ve got 15,000 – 20,000 people over at the Convention Centre, it’s bursting at the seams….
Every day that we delay, people are dying…
Our critical water supply was destroyed, because of lack of action…
They’re feeding the public a line of bull, and they’re spinning, and there are people dying down here…
You’ve got some knuckleheads out there….and they’re doing some awful things….. but that’s the minority of people…
They’re waiting for an official request…? Did the Iraqi people request that they come in there?
(and a paraphrase from memory…:)
We authorized $8 billion to go into Iraq….lickety-quick; after 9/11 they authorized help…. lickety-quick…. you’re telling me you can’t get help down here? I’m not one of those drug addicts….I’m thinking straight here….
Don’t do another Goddam press conference … get off your asses and do something…..
And there’s a whole lot more…. (update: transcript over at Wonkette.)
-cvj
(Thanks Cathy, Arun. Update: Thanks bittergraduatestudent, Rikard)
(*You need Windows media player for this format. I don’t know if it is available in another format.)
September 2nd, 2005 at 3:20 pm
A mp3 version
September 2nd, 2005 at 3:22 pm
There’s a transcript at Wonkette here and an mp3 version of the interview here, if you can’t listen to Windows media (like me).
September 2nd, 2005 at 3:31 pm
Thanks!
Will update !
-cvj
September 2nd, 2005 at 9:39 pm
Nagin for President! Yee, ha!
September 3rd, 2005 at 11:41 am
But then the mayor apologizes after having a rational and useful conversation with the president.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-profile3sep03,0,7595703.story?coll=la-home-headlines
September 3rd, 2005 at 11:47 am
Under extreme pressure and horror, the truth comes to light for a second…..and then it’s gone.
September 3rd, 2005 at 11:53 am
Also check out this story about Kanye West’s comments during the live benefit concert for hurricane victims last night. I happened to catch West right before they cut him off. The astonished look on Mike Myer’s face (who was on with West) was priceless.
Kudos for West for telling it like it is.
Some important points West brought up:
- the media portrays black families as “looters” and white families as “looking for food” when they’re doing the same thing
- soldiers are authorized to shoot to kill (hurricane victims) down there
September 3rd, 2005 at 12:22 pm
All this (implied and/or explicit) Bush-bashing over Katrina is jolly good fun, but it gets a bit monotonous by invariably landing in the “conclusion” that failure of government calls for even more government. For a more rational view, read http://www.mises.org/story/1902
September 3rd, 2005 at 12:28 pm
Dissident. I think this is a somewhat complicated issue, but your statement that the link you provided is a “more rational” view doesn’t hold up. There are many countries in which government plays a larger role and works in situations of national emergency. As just one example, look at how London and Londoners responded to the bombings there.
September 3rd, 2005 at 12:48 pm
Dissident, since the very same government could organize air drops for the Indonesian earthquake/Asian tsunami in 2 days, it is not a question of asking for more government. The question is – why is the government that we have acting so ineffectively?
September 3rd, 2005 at 12:50 pm
Dear Mark, your speed is truly amazing, not to mention profoundly awe-inspiring, striking deep fear in the heart of a humble dissident. Nevertheless, I venture to submit to you that your comparison with the (UK) government’s response to the London bombings does not constitute a valid argument against the views of http://www.mises.org/story/1902.
The point being made there is that the US government not only failed to respond properly to the New Orleans disaster, but that it actually CAUSED it, by chronically mismanaging the infrastructure for the usual, well known reasons (lack of incentives to do its job):
“Only the public sector can preside over a situation this precarious and display utter and complete inertia. What do these people have to lose? They are not real owners. There are no profits or losses at stake. They do not have to answer to risk-obsessed insurance companies who insist on premiums matching even the most remote contingencies. So long as it seems to work, they are glad to go about their business in the soporific style famous to all public sectors everywhere.”
September 3rd, 2005 at 3:06 pm
(via Pharyngula), Robert Farley:
This is the Dissident argument.
September 3rd, 2005 at 3:57 pm
No, dear Arun, it is not my argument. While I may agree that “Government fails by design”, the hypothesis that this “design” is intentional is unnecessary and uncorroborated by an elementary consistency check. Look at other countries. Look at history. Government fails everywhere, all the time, no matter whether the politicos in charge happen to call themselves Republicans, Democrats, Social Democrats, Christian Democrats, Conservatives, Peronistas, Socialists, Communists, Hindu Nationalists, Islamists or what have you.
September 4th, 2005 at 7:58 am
Dissident, by examining history, one finds that every human institution fails and continues to repeatedly fail, from the family to mom-and-pop businesses to law-enforcement to corporations and their auditors, stock markets, you-name-it. We all die “by design” – evolution or the Intelligent Designer didn’t design us for immortality or even for a productive old age. So should we give up on everything?
September 4th, 2005 at 12:43 pm
Yes, every human institution eventually fails. That’s one important reason why the optimal societal model is maximally distributed, i.e. maximally privatized, so as to minimize the effect of the inevitable failures.
September 5th, 2005 at 11:01 am
Well, Dissident, there are some things which cannot be privatized, disaster relief is among them.
Anyway, we’re able to talk to each other today because of two crucial things that came out of government money – TCP/IP, the internet, and web-browsers. Let’s chalk this up to another big mistake and go our separate ways.