Interesting Stuff

First off, Fema’s hurricane relief fund has had about a billion dollars in fraudulent expenses charged to it. Not only can this organization not put in good safety precautions given adequate warning, it can’t even seem to give out aid after disasters strike. I hope they get a good overhaul and turn into a useful and capable Agency.

Also, the Bush administration has finally acknowledged that Guantanamo Bay might hurt the US’s image abroad, and expressed a desire to shut it down. However, it won’t be shut down in the foreseeable future, because there isn’t another place to send the prisoners (they’re not related to the US in any tangible way, so they shouldn’t be tried in US courts, but if they’re shipped to their original countries, they will likely be tortured. This is what you get when you hold people from other countries for several years without charging them with a crime, let alone giving them a trial.). However, the Supreme Court is going to rule on the constitutionality of holding these people at Guantanamo Bay later this month, and they will hopefully aver that it is unconstitutional. We shall see.

So, I really should have posted this a couple days ago, but I wasn’t on the ball. Despite the authorities claiming that everything is under control in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, This is simply not the case. This is clearly shown by this FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT blog (special thanks to whosdamike for showing me this). It seems that the entire area is having troubles, with policemen committing suicide because they are simply overwhelmed with everything. The Army is apparently throwing relief supplies off of their trucks to people, but the supplies hit the ground and break open, so little usable water is getting through. There aren’t enough busses to get everyone out of the area, but they won’t allow civilians to come in and pick up people to take elsewhere, so many people are stuck, living in squalid conditions and resorting to looting to simply survive. There are elderly people stuck in their apartments because they have trouble getting around, and who are out of food and medicine. The people have grown impatient with the inneffective relief efforts and have begun setting things on fire and then shooting at the firemen who come to stop the blazes. The situation is absolutely terrible. It’s now a week later, and things are just barely starting to get better.

Also, Elaine brought up an interesting little theory last night – she suspects (and apparently the BBC agrees) that a response effort would not have taken nearly as long if this were a rich, white city (this is at least partially corroborated by this post, in which car looting was allowed until it moved into a rich neighborhood, where SWAT teams descended upon the looters). She seems to think this is much more of a class/race problem than a “we don’t have the supplies” problem. I actually see it the other way around – if it were a richer neighborhood, more people would have had the means to leave the area before the hurricane struck, and there would be fewer people who need assistance. The same amount of relief would go farther on these few people. However, since it is a poorer area, many people didn’t have cars or other means of getting away, so there are more people who need help.