Dave stopped by to cast his ballot before going to work earlier this morning.... Then swung back by the house not long ago so I could have a chance to do my duty as a citizen.This election year has been a difficult one for us mentally. In the aftermath of Katrina - we learned first-hand that what you see and hear in the news & in the blogosphere does not remotely resemble what is actually taking place on the ground. The buzz about Katrina was full of distortions, half-truths, and down-right lies. To this day - most of it still lingers. Three years later -- we still live in the aftermath of a worldview shaped by the ugly unreality of news coverage. Our tragedy was shamelessly used to drive the final nails in the ideological coffin of the Bush Administration. Truth be damned.
The title of this blog has remained - much to the bewilderment of certain commentors and emailers who had heard on the news that the crisis passed years ago. I assure you - the question is still valid.
Perhaps today we -- the entire nation 'we' -- will get our answer.
The District 3 polling station: So much for record-shattering turn out -- at least in my district.
5 comments:
I'm glad to hear that things were not as reported in the news media.
i had seen photos (I guess doctored) of people fleeing for their lives in chest high water, read that the shelters were hellholes, the police prevented poorer people from entering higher ground wealthier neighborhoods, and then FEMA falling down badly in terms of getting people help.
Such a relief to know that was just Democratic propaganda, and that the federal government did come thru, instead of it's being the worst failure of the federal government in U.S. history in terms of taking care of its own citizens.
Dear anonymous reader:
If you had taken a few moments to read the actual Katrina content of this blog... Wait - no nevermind.. Just leave your comment as is... It makes you look pretty silly.
You assume that I'm saying the actual events were better than what they chose to show on the news for the rest of the country. You assume incorrectly.
I object to the politicization of Hurricane Katrina.
No. President Bush didn't help us in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Senator McCain was eating birthday cake... And I've yet to get a Wal-mart gift card from President-elect Obama. I'm waiting.
As a matter of fact -- we're still waiting three years later for 911 to answer our call and for FEMA to come to our neighborhood so they can fail.
The only people who truly expected FEMA to rescue people from rooftops, bodybag our casualties, feed the masses, restore the local economy, and rebuild our houses were those who believed (and still do) the government is responsible for such things. All of this used to be handled by local officials -- with an intimate knowledge of the area, its people, and the situation at hand. The real failure in Katrina was that FEMA got in the way - and yes they were invited in many unfortunate instances by our own local governments.
Hurricane Katrina did not hit New Orleans, Louisiana. If you want to rail against a federal failure -- please consider taking a look at the Corps of Engineers.
Okay, I see your viewpoint. I guess any minute you'll be returning the federal money and guaranteed loans you got.
We took no guaranteed loans. If you get a chance - use the search term 'SBA' on this site.
The emergency grants we received from FEMA were returned through deduction from our MDA grant amount and then repaid in duplicate through the taxation of our MDA grant proceeds. So yes - thanks - we've already returned it.
As for the MDA grants themselves - please note that the grant program had absolutely nothing to do with FEMA and it is, indeed, FEMA that I have a beef with. Personally we thought that the idea proposed by our own representative - Gene Taylor (a democrat! gasp!) along with our governor Haley Barbour (a Bush republican! gasp!) to assist homeowners who were not insured against floods because they lived outside the flood zones as defined by faulty and outdated FEMA flood maps. The original proposal was that such homeowners could be allowed to pay the federal flood insurance program backpayment of premiums for the years they owned the home leading up to Katrina -- even with interest... This idea was scrapped in favor of a pork-stuffed grant program to be administered by the state. Definitely not the best option, in my opinion... But the only option we were given.
I'm glad that you've come back to read because I do feel the need to apologize to you and other readers of this particular post and my previous answer in the comments section. The original post was vague -- perhaps intentionally - perhaps not. I could have spent at least a few words in my answer to you clarifying the original post. My apologies.
I understand what you saw in the news coverage. Let me tell you what we saw in the news coverage. We saw video of dramatic rescues on national news agencies with captions reading "Rescues continue in New Orleans" while the commentators debated with Louisiana officials about how the response was going. You probably saw them too. What we knew that you probably didn't is the key... The video was taken in Pass Christian, Mississippi... The rescuers were not federal but local fire rescue. We saw that famous picture of the Red Cross van flooding in the streets of New Orleans -- only we knew that it was flooding in the parking lot of a Moss Point, Mississippi hotel.
We saw the infamous picture of the girl being carried across the flooding streets of New Orleans...and of the black woman being led through the rising waters from the broken levees... And we recognized Chicot Road in Pascagoula, MS - two blocks from our home. We watched FOXNews exclusive footage of Avondale Shipyard in New Orleans being flooded by Katrina -- that was actually footage taken at my husband's place of employment here in Pascagoula. When we were able we begged the news for corrections. They never happened.
Our own friends and family were fooled by news coverage. Shocked and amazed that anything had happened to us in the first place... Later, utterly confused to find out that we had not completely recovered due to the partisan efforts of our Republican governor as the news and pundits suggested.
As a result - we no longer trust the national news media. Having absolutely no faith in what is being shown or printed in national media makes watching coverage of presidential campaigns confusing.. irritating.. maybe even infuriating.
It's good to know this isn't the case for the rest of America.
I can't believe I missed this entire exchange...so far, this is the single biggest regret since having left the blog world for my hiatus. I guess it's kinda late to chime in now huh :(
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