A Letter To The Editor Says What Politicians Don’t (Or Won’t Say)
Sometimes, you find a “letter to the editor” that makes a lot of sense. This is one of them.
Reader Mike Ehr writes to the La Cross Tribune:
I just wanted to help, and hadn’t even thought that someone should be blamed for the aftermath of Katrina. Watching the “Today” show on Friday, I was outraged when Matt Lauer and Katie Couric glibly advanced that the president is under fire for the failure of the relief effort.
The obvious fault lies with the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana. After Camille, any rational person might expect that the city and state would be ready for a similar or worse natural disaster. It seems like they had no plan of any kind.
The situation at the Superdome is inexcusable. There’s no reason why a “shelter of last resort” should not have adequate food and water and working toilets. A long-established plan should have been in place to mobilize boats, buses, and helicopters to move refugees out of the disaster area. Where are the people of Louisiana? Why are they waiting for the federal government to fix everything?
The answer is obvious. New Orleans, and to a lesser extent the entire state of Louisiana, has a high percentage of people who rely on the federal government.
The welfare state has completely disempowered the people and the city officials. Mayor Ray Nagin is blaming everyone except himself, and why should he have had a plan in place? He’s never been responsible for these people before, why should he be responsible now? The failure of two generations to take responsibility for themselves has had catastrophic consequences.
He’s got a good point. More on this later.
September 7th, 2005 at 8:38 am
I can’t wait for your elitist views on the “welfare state” - please bigot-away. In the meantime while you shift the blame to the looters … here’s a letter to your leader that says what you won’t say …
Dear Mr. Bush:
Any idea where all our helicopters are? It’s Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.
Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren’t there to begin with?
Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn’t want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don’t like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!
I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps.
Don’t let people criticize you for this — after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?
And don’t listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers’ budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn’t cut the money to fix those levees, there weren’t going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them — BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!
On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn’t stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.
There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out.
Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.
No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It’s not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C’mon, they’re black! I mean, it’s not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don’t make me laugh! Race has nothing — NOTHING — to do with this!
You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com http://www.MichaelMoore.com
P.S That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch.
She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way.
Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.