Man-Made Disaster: The Welfare State
Yeah, I saw this one last night. Really zeroes in on the root problem, doesn’t it? A whole sub-species raised to rely on Uncle Sugar for everything their whole lives.
That would be the Iraq that Saddam Hussein destroyed, OCM.
The majority of the National Guard is still in the U.S. Something like 400,000 of them. It looks like there will be 40,000 deployed to NO as well as Mississippi, Florida and Alabama.
Remember Mississippi, Florida and Alabama? You know, the places where they’re not rioting looting and raping?
An excellent article.
Katrina and the Welfare State.
The unreported story, yet today. Thank God there is Barking-Moonbat.com where the truth can be seen. By state law, hundreds of thousands of people are joining the ranks of the uninsured. It is illegal for an employer to purchase the security of individual health insurance on employees. Employers must purchase a dangerous group health employee plan on employees that is terminated if the employer goes out of business, with no COBRA extension rights. Terminating the health insurance on women who are going to have babies is very sad. Not to mention employees with cancer, who are currently going through treatment and all the things these people are diagnosed with and are now uninsurable. All people whose company was blown away by Katrina and is no longer in business, will lose their health insurance. The people who have individual health insurance will not be terminated, see the difference? Of course that insurance is illegal.
I have heard that 500,000 people have lost their jobs because of Katrina. Now that we know this can happen, the question is; will President Bush warn Americans about the dangers of employee health insurance when a hurricane strikes? Will the President warn Americans before the 2006 Hurricane Season? We are not out of the woods yet on the 2005 Hurricane Season. Maybe Governor Jeb Bush should warn Floridians yet this year because Florida could still be hit this year. Jeb could say, “If a hurricane blows your business away, then all employees, including the owners, will lose their health insurance if you have a dangerous group health emplyee plan.” The only problem I see is that all of America will figure out, at the same time, when their employer goes belly-up for any reason the group health plans take a walk and dumps all their liabilities, what a scam.
Let’s face it, open enrollment is coming in a few months for employees on their dangerous group health plans. I say now is the time to warn Americans about how Katrina swelled the ranks of the uninsured in America, by state law, that discriminates and outlaws the security of individual health insurance for employees.
It’s the same across the nation, state law and individual health insurance dicrimination. Knowledge is the key. Leadership is the key too.
Democratic Senator Nelson of Florida will never say a word. He knows too because he was the Insurance Commissioner of Florida. If one worker is still left in Florida that he can mandate to contract with his politically connected group health insurance buddies , with lobbyists up the wazoo, he will insist that this last employee be in danger, by state law. Nelson is just totally thoughtless and doesn’t care if he puts Florida’s mothers and children in danger as long as his buddies make a dime on the sufferring of the poor citizens of the Sunshine State.
Posted by Z Woof
09/04/2005 at 12:09 PM
Well, the division part is almost complete. Now it just remains to be seen who will conquer us. The lesson for the future is that freedom is an abstraction, best left to the academics to discuss the failed experiments of the past, but definitely not something to be left in the hands of the people. The government will supply all that you need, just take a deep drag and close your eyes. There isn’t that better now, ahh, comfortably numb.
OCM,
Just because I’m the only one that can see the ramifications of Katrina and hundreds of thousands of people being terminated on dangerous group health plans because it’s mandated by the state, doesn’t mean I want to enroll any of them, come on.
If someone had the time, which I don’t, I suppose they could run commercials in Houston and try and enroll displaced LA people who have just been terminated and are looking for coverage right now. Trust me, I will not make an effort to enroll any of them.
I just think, you thinking I want to enroll them just because I point out the obvious because I know the law and the suffering, is uncalled for. If someone else knew that state law mandated insurance termination on these hungreds of thousands of people you would not accuse them of trying to make a buck or two, which I’m not.
Our new advertising campaign is targeted at a totally different part of the country and we will not be pulled out of position because of Katrina.
I do think that being the first to report the flaws of current laws, probably unconstitutional laws, can be done without being targeted as being selfish and motivated by only wanting to make a dollar, get real.
Posted by Z Woof
09/04/2005 at 01:20 PM
Menace??? em, em, em. You don’t have to close your eyes that tightly. Take another hit and relax. Better now? Yes, yes, dear boy, you are free and an intellectual to boot! Take another hit, peace and tranquillity are yours, breath deeper now, we count on your vote so all of us intellectuals can care for you and make all those bad people go away.
Well that was easy. Should have told you to hold it in. Take another hit and pretend it’s still there.
I don’t even know what to say to this. It’s the most utterly uninformed, misguided attempt at justifying an intolerably inhumane and unacceptable response by our government to its people in need that I have ever heard.
ONE IN TEN families in the lowest economic range in New Orleans even have a car. They live paycheck to paycheck, if that - they didn’t have a credit card to max out on last minute airline tickets. They might have scraped up money for a bus ticket, but the busses were all already full. They could not just leave. They had no choice but to stay, and when help wasn’t coming ----it took longer for US government aid to get to New Orleans than it did for them to get to all the way to Indonesia after the Tsunami---- the lowest common denominator in humankind reared its ugly head.
But for every story of looting and violence, there are hundreds upon hundreds of stories of families - moms, kids, and babies, dying on their rooftops begging someone to come and save them with NO ONE in sight.
Wal-Mart managed to get into the area the day after the flood. Reporters managed to get in there the day after the flood. Why couldn’t FEMA get in there? WHERE was the help these people needed? Whether they were on welfare or not before the flood has absolutely no relevance to ANYTHING. These were the most NEEDY of the needy who had NO resources to get themselves out of harm’s way and even when the path was clear enough for the media to get in, help they so desperately needed was nowhere in sight because FEMA is being run by someone who’s last job was to administer Arabian horse shows!!!!!
If the government was so afraid of the looters and rapists, why not just drop food and water from the air? They do it all over the world - why not for our own people? NO water drops. NO food drops. NO supplies were dropped.
The real story is that if the government had done something ---ANYTHING--- in the first day, two days, three days—even four days to bring some help and order to this situation, humankinds’ basest desperation would not have kicked in the way it did and thousands of lives (yes even poor people deserve to be saved from drowning in feces-filled water) could have been saved.
Think about it.
Not_A_Lemming,
Where are you getting your information?
Paychecks are earned by having a job.
All the buses were in bus parking lots and were not used as prescribed in the official New Orleans disaster plan. These buses ended up drowned and are a total loss. Even the BBC knows and reported this.
In Indonesia nobody was blocking the efforts of the U.S. Government and the Red Cross, neither of which was allowed to do their thing by the Louisiana state government. Governor Blanco blocked every attempt by Federal authorities and private organizations to relieve the situation in New Orleans.
But for every story of looting and violence, there are hundreds upon hundreds of stories of families - moms, kids, and babies, dying on their rooftops begging someone to come and save them with NO ONE in sight.
Unmitigated BULLSHIT! This is why I asked where you get your infomation. Thousands were pulled off of their rooftops by helicopters; Coast Guard, Navy, Army, National Guard and civilian private helicopters were out there saving these people. USS Bataan was the first Navy ship to reach the area behind the hurricane and they sent in supplies with their helos and LCACs and started rescuing people right away. They dropped aircrew to break into attics to rescue people who couldn’t get out onto their roofs when the water reached the attics. They searched countless houses from the air this way.
Wal-Mart had always been in the area. Their stores were among the ones looted. I’m alright with people taking food and water, etc. but these “poor victims” were hauling the very display racks out of the stores and when there was nothing more to take they set fire to the stores. These are the same creatures who were running amock in the SuperDome and Convention Center raping and murdering their fellow “neediest of the needy”.
The government is not afraid of looters and rapists. They quash that sort of thing, it’s what they do. We organized governments for this reason. City governments in particular are a key to this. They are the ones who do the policing on a local level. They are backed up by county/parish sheriffs and State Police. In emergency situations the state governor sends in the state’s National Guard to restore order.
Mike Brown seemed to do fine with all the hurricanes in Florida in the past few years and things seemed to be happening after this one in Alabama and Mississippi which bore the actual brunt of the storm. The only place he seemed to have any difficulty was in Louisiana where the mayor of N’awlins and the governor seem to be continually at cross purposes. I’ll point out that the governor refused to nationalize the Guard, refused to let the Red Cross supply food and water to the people in the SuperDome and Convention Center, refused to let FEMA in and spurned the offers of assistance from other states.
Oh, and supplies WERE air dropped. I saw the footage on television. Food and supplies were also taken in by rescuers and given to all and sundry.
Come on, tell us, are you making this shit up or are you helping MM write the script for his next screed of lies?
In any case, you are an idiot.
Stinker,
In addition to resorting to name calling “in any case, you are an idiot” the way people armed with little more than hatred, self-righteousness and defensiveness often do, you simply missed the point.
Here it is again: Action needed to be taken to help these people (poor or not, employed or not) and maintain order during the FIRST hours and the FIRST days, not after four days. You’re right, there’s all kinds of help there now, and lots of pretty pictures of food and water being handily delivered to folks… but that’s NOW. The during first four days is when this whole tragedy turned to travesty and the situation was allowed to deteriorate to an unspeakable low. Dropping provisions after three or four days of doing nothing doesn’t quite cut it for the people who died or almost died… do you think? How can you say the Red Cross and FEMA were blocked from doing their jobs, when the news coverage ran a continuous loop of the mayor and other officials in tears and begging for help?
You ask where I’m getting my info.... it’s EVERYWHERE. It’s well-reported and documented on TV News, radio news, newspapers, on-line—the help that was needed was nowhere to be found for DAYS.
Even mainstream media reporters who usually let Bush and his merry band of misfits easily spin their way out of mess after mess started asking real questions this time. http://www.slate.com/id/2125581/
Here’s a snippet: (Public Radio’s Robert) “Siegel aggressively blocked every escape route that Chertoff took to evade hard questions about “corpses” and “human waste” piling up at the city’s convention center, where thousands were stranded without provisions. (Siegel gets tough at about minute four in the audio clip.)
“Siegel kept asking Chertoff how long it would take to serve or rescue these people, and a couple times Chertoff answered that the government was doing a great job at the Superdome.
“When he cautioned Siegel about the danger of relying on “anecdotal” “rumors” of people in dire straits, Siegel said, no—these are facts presented by reporters who have covered war zones. There are 2,000 people at the convention center in need, he said. Having finally broken through the steel plate that is Chertoff’s skull, the secretary confessed he hadn’t heard those reports—reports that the television networks were documenting, live, with their cameras. Chertoff promised he’d look into the matter.”
Here’s some more:
“Fox News Channel’s Shepard Smith chasing after a mute police officer down the New Orleans freeway overpass and asking in outrage when the stranded would get help … and MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough in Biloxi transforming himself into the voice of the disenfranchised to put in a good word for the looters:
“You got to understand that these are people who have young babies who haven’t had water in four days, in some cases, haven’t had formula, haven’t had basic necessities. I just wonder what you would do, what I would do if we were in a situation where our 15-month-old child or our 2-year-old baby needed something to stay alive. I don’t know what you would do. I know I would do anything it took to get what they needed.
“Now, I should be getting it from the federal government if I am in New Orleans, from the state government. But I will tell you what. It is amateur hour, and it has been amateur hour over the past four or five days. This is completely different, friends, from the way the crises were handled in Florida last year, four hurricanes, two of them major, it was handled with ruthless efficiency. I know. I was there. That is not happening tonight in New Orleans.”
And speaking of the “fine” job former horse show administrator, now FEMA chief Michael Brown did…
“Soledad O’Brien openly mocked FEMA in an interview with its director, Michael Brown:
“As you can tell, the situation clearly is deteriorating. You’ve got armed bandits roving the streets. They’re heavily armed. You’ve got people living out on the streets with absolutely no protection, no help whatsoever, no food, no water. How many armed National Guardsmen do you have on the ground right now? …
“How is it possible that we’re getting better intel than you’re getting? …
“FEMA has been on the ground for four days, going into the fifth day. Why no massive airdrop of food and water? In Banda Aceh, in Indonesia, they got food dropped two days after the tsunami struck. …
“It’s five days that FEMA has been on the ground. The head of police says it’s been five days that FEMA has been there. The mayor, the former mayor, putting out SOS’s on Tuesday morning, crying on national television, saying please send in some troops. So the idea that, yes, I understand that you’re feeding people and trying to get in there now, but it’s Friday. It’s Friday. …”
Here is a link to an interview with a resident who was stranded at the Convention Center. http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/42309.html Here’s a bit of that report:
“...more than 10,000 people are packed into and around and outside the convention center still waiting for the buses. They had no food, no water, and no medicine for the last three days, until today, when the National Guard drove over the bridge above them, and tossed out supplies over the side crashing down to the ground below. Much of the supplies were destroyed from the drop. Many people tried to catch the supplies to protect them before they hit the ground. Some offered to walk all the way around up the bridge and bring the supplies down, but any attempt to approach the police or national guard resulted in weapons being aimed at them.
“There are many infants and elderly people among them, as well as many people who were injured jumping out of windows to escape flood water and the like—all of them in dire straights.
“Any attempt to flag down police results in being told to get away at gunpoint. Hour after hour they watch buses pass by filled with people from other areas. Tensions are very high, and there has been at least one murder and several fights. 8 or 9 dead people have been stored in a freezer in the area, and 2 of these dead people are kids.
“The people are so desperate that they’re doing anything they can think of to impress the authorities enough to bring some buses. These things include standing in single file lines with the eldery in front, women and children next; sweeping up the area and cleaning the windows and anything else that would show the people are not barbarians. The buses never stop.”
Sorry you just don’t seem to get it, and you and anyone who thinks the “man-made disaster” article speaks truth should really examine that logic. The article states no one is reporting that story… well, that’s because it’s not worth the time of day.
Not_A_Lemming: I noticed you first tried to register and post under a fake e-mail address. What are you trying to hide from? We’re used to “one-hit-wonders” who latch onto a particular post, take it off topic and mount their soapbox to denigrate regular members here and lash out with ad hominem attacks on anyone and everyone. You’ll have to forgive Stin. We’ve seen your type before.
You neatly sidestep the whole issue of Tracinski’s editorial whose main topic is the welfare state and its consequences. If we, as a society, had done more to lift these people out of their current situation where they are dependent on the state for everything, they could all have driven their nice cars out with everyone else.
You after-action finger-pointing does no one any good and surely does not address the main problem addressed by Mr. Tracinski. There is more than enough blame to go around from the Mayor of New Orleans all the way to the White House. Contrary to what you profess, I do get it but I’m not sure you want to believe that unless I agree with everything you have said here. That will never happen, I am afraid. You are so misguided on so many of the issues addressed here that it would be pointless to engage in dialogue with you. I could be wrong though. Let’s see if you stick around and discuss all of the issues we are concerned about or if you just wish to hover over these pre-rehearsed Liberal talking-points you have espoused so far.
In closing, do you really believe that any percentage of the US population, no matter how small, that lives in poverty and can’t take care of themselves without government help is “not worth the time of day”? That statement alone smacks of bigotry and racism to say the least.
If this were a socialist paradise we could all sit back and let the government look after us but I’d rather stand on my own two feet and try to help my fellow citizens do the same. What would you rather see? All those “poor folks” remain in the government’s care as long as they live, contributing nothing to society as a whole and constantly in need of care? They might as well be back on the plantation working for “Massa” for all the progress you would endow them with.
Now, get back on topic and engage us with rational dialogue or be own your way. Please.
Sigh.... It’s clear no matter what one says here, the “regulars” will resort to name calling and twisting of words to suit their own purposes… c’mon guys couldn’t you do better than putting a picture of a “troll” next to my log-in name?
When people can’t back up their ideas with credible thought or evidence, they resort to name calling and twisting of other people’s words to divert the issue form their failed logic.
I never said or even came close to saying “any percentage of the US population, no matter how small, that lives in poverty and can’t take care of themselves without government help is “not worth the time of day”. On the contrary, people—regardless of their means or abilities—should never be left stranded in a disaster zone with no food or water and without assistance for days on end… how would any of us fare in the same situation?
And I wholeheartedly disagree that before the flood these people “lived in poverty and were unable to take care of themselves without government assistance.” They may have been poor, but where did Tracinski get evidence that all of these (or even most of these) people were on welfare to begin with?
There is NO evidence in his article to back up this most ridiculous claim. In fact, according to the US Dept. of Health and Human Services, Louisiana’s welfare caseloads fell by 66 percent from 1993 to 1999. In the same period, the poverty rate decreased 27 percent (to 19 percent). Louisiana limits cash assistance to twenty-four months in a sixty-month period. According to DSS reports, two percent of Louisiana families receive cash assistance. Seventy-seven percent of welfare recipients are children, nearly all of whom live in households headed by females, and 86 percent of welfare recipients are African-American. Louisiana’s maximum TANF benefit level is low; from 1985 to 2000, the maximum benefit for a three-person family was $190. In 2001, the state increased its benefit level for a family of three to $220.
Tracinski assumes that because these people are poor and black they must be on welfare… but there is nothing in his article (or readily available anywhere) to support this claim! His whole argument is based on a fallacy that gets gobbled right up by group-thinkers who don’t bother to take the time to analyze or apply healthy skepticism to what they read or are told.
MOST of the people stranded were the city’s working poor—yes working and yes, poor. People who scrape by paycheck to paycheck, living in tenements because that’s what they can afford.
Clearly, what I said was “not worth the time of day” is the idea, as espoused in Tracinski’s article (and I use the term loosely) that the “welfare state” is the “real” problem. This ridiculous idea that these people were desperate not because they had lost everything in their lives, including home, shelter, friends and family and were stranded for days on end with no food, no water, no rescue, no aid and no hope, but that they were desperate because they were somehow conditioned and taught to be incapable of managing desperation without government assistance. This is biased, unfounded and racist… which is why, as Tracinski points out, the “story” isn’t being reported—because it’s a load of malarki. It’s not a credible argument. It’s not backed up with research or evidence and is utterly out of touch with the reality of the situation.
And as for attempting to keep my email anonymous, I’m not hiding from anything - I’ve responded here, I just don’t care for junk mail and one never knows how sites such as this treat private info.
I was wrong to call you an idiot, Not_A_Lemming, and I apologize to idiots everywhere. They do not deserve to be associated in any way with such a mendacious individual. You are willfully ignoring facts that do not support the agenda you are promoting and select facts that do fit that agenda, even if you have to dream them up.
I was wrong, an idiot couldn’t do that. It takes a particularly bright mind to come up with stuff like the half truths and outright lies which you spewed above.
Seeing your apparent familiarity with blog comments sections, I searched the net to see where else you might have shown up under this handle. I see an entry at the “Craig’s List” site: “Micheal Moore is one of the few people willing to tell the truth. White House propaganda might as well be a fairy tale.” < not_a_lemming > 07/11 14:42:44 Was that you? I’d have no trouble believing that it was but it doesn’t seem to be verbose enough.
Other than that, there’s not much at all. This leads me to believe that you change names as you go, which is usually accepted as a sign of a troll. It’s certainly a mark of insincerity.
Ah yes, a reference to a Slate article. That doesn’t surprise me either. I see they have a hit piece obituary on Chief Justice Rehnquist. It appears that he kicked a prescription drug dependance twenty four years ago but their whole 1,400 word article seems to be all about Rehnquist’s “drug habit”. They are an arm of the Washington Post and seem to specialize in hit pieces that the WaPo doesn’t dare touch.
When you get over your pique at the way I ended my post, you might consider discussing the points I made in answer to your first post. As to your second post, I’d like to see a link to the information you give. I will point out that the welfare rate across the country has dropped by huge percentages over the last number of years, probably a result of welfare reform.
Just FYI I haven’t received any spam from this site or that can be traced to this site. The Skipper has gone to great lengths to insulate email from spammers while providing the ability to contact members privately. The first contact message is monitored, as are all further email contacts through the site. In other words, were I to contact you The Skipper would get a copy of the email and you would get my email address but I wouldn’t get yours until you replied. Seems fair enough to me.
1. I go to great lengths to preserve members’ private information. You will get no spam from this site. Ever.
2. I assigned the troll avatar to you to draw you out further. For the record, this is my site, I built it and I maintain it. I am always curious as to people’s motives and what their life view is based on. So far, you have revealed nothing except an unbending desire to ram questionable quotes down our throats and by questionable I mean from known biased sources. I have also checked the HHS statistics and have little faith in them. Why? Because I’ve been there.
3. The majority of the people in Eastern Orleans Parrish are well below poverty level. Crime is rampant. I don’t need statistics to know that. I lived in New Orleans proper from 1998-2000 and in Long Beach, Mississippi from 2001-2003. I have worked contracts in that area for the US Navy’s Port Authority, Ochsner Hospitals and Tulane University, to name a few. I’ve seen the “projects” with shot-out windows, the pimp-mobiles cruising the streets looking for drugs. I’ve also listened to the gunfire while driving home at night. How much time have you spent on the streets in New Orleans?
4. As for the people being “conditioned”, let me refresh your memory: Mayor Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation and everyone with transportation left. The Mayor’s evacuation plan for those left behind involved school buses that were never fielded and eventually were caught in the flood. The Mayor ordered everyone left to come to the SuperDome and they all complied. After all, the Mayor promised to take care of them and he had always taken care of them in the past so why wouldn’t they follow the herd?
5. New Orleans is now and always has been a city of corruption. Payola to friends of politicians, lucrative contracts to do absolutely nothing, hiring relatives who never show up for work and still collect a paycheck. It is all part of New Orleans. Welfare doesn’t only include a check from the Feds. A welfare mentality is bred through corrupt practices at City Hall as well. New Orleans is #1 on the list of areas where politicians are either under indictment, in jail or under investigation. Source: FBI.
Finally, there was more devastation in Mississippi than New Orleans could ever imagine. I know. I was down there last week helping out, distributing food and supplies for the Red Cross. I have friends and family down there and no one, I repeat NO ONE, was asking for a handout. The folks in Mississippi have, for the most part, worked all their lives and depended on no one. They were already putting the pieces back together and starting the cleanup when I left last Thursday.
P.S. What exactly did you mean by “sites such as this”? Have you already neatly pigeonholed all of us here in your little “neocon” slot? If so, you haven’t met OldCatMan yet. Please tell me you’re not “profiling” or “stereotyping”. That would really lower my opinion of you quickly.
P.P.S. You may have noticed also that your comments have not been censored or deleted. We believe in the free exchange of ideas here even if we think the other fellow is full of crap. Try disagreeing with the folks at Democratic Underground or Daily KOS and see what happens. Then again, I have a suspicion that you fit right in with them. Tell me I’m wrong.
