The World Needs More Ninjas

It’s truly a tragedy that so many people’s lives were destroyed and the less than stellar response it getting aid and care to the survivors. If you are looking for places to donate to help aid organizations, here’s a long list of possibilities.

The whole situation has reminded me of The Lord of the Flies with people doing everything they can to survive and providing their own form of protection when the state fails to do so:

The aftermath was truly depressing, with even President Bush acknowledging that the response was “not acceptable” (which begs the obvious sarcastic response, “Well, too bad you weren’t in a position to do something about that.”). Fundamentally, you have to believe one of two things: either (1) the state did the best it could and the response is as good as can be expected or (2) the state dropped the ball big time. The former seems rather pessimistic and I believe America could have done better helping the victims. Looks like over two-thirds of Americans agreed that the federal government did not do enough to help the victims of the hurricane. Here’s a couple of quotes that I feel do a good job of summing up this frustration.

Jack Cafferty on CNN:

I gotta tell you something, we got five or six hundred letters before the show actually went on the air, and no one – no one – is saying the government is doing a good job in handling one of the most atrocious and embarrassing and far-reaching and calamitous things that has come along in this country in my lifetime. I’m 62. I remember the riots in Watts, I remember the earthquake in San Francisco, I remember a lot of things. I have never, ever, seen anything as bungled and as poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans. Where the hell is the water for these people? Why can’t sandwiches be dropped to those people in the Superdome. What is going on? This is Thursday! This storm happened 5 days ago. This is a disgrace. And don’t think the world isn’t watching. This is the government that the taxpayers are paying for, and it’s fallen right flat on its face as far as I can see, in the way it’s handled this thing.

Jonah Goldberg of the National Review:

So the question is, would the money have been better spent if the Republicans hadn’t gotten their way? And, though it sickens me to say so, that is at best an open question. I have the utmost faith in the kleptocratic and dysfunctional governments of New Orleans and Louisiana to waste and steal money. But, we were supposed to be preparing –at the national level — for a major terrorist attack for the last four years. I just don’t see much evidence of that preparation. Congress re-assembled lickity-split to deal with Terri Schiavo — a decision that didn’t and does not bother me the way it bothers some. But however you define the issues involved in that case, in terms of real human suffering they are very hard to stack-up against what’s happened in New Orleans. Congress should have convened yesterday and rescinded the highway bill. It should have broken-open the farm bill like a piñata and reallocated the monies therein.

For supporters of the war, this spectacle is going to be particularly hard to accommodate because it is in the interests of the political classes to keep their pork and it is in the interests of the antiwar left to frame this as a choice between Baghdad and New Orleans. That should not be the choice. The choice should be between the highway bill, ag subsidies and the like. The Don Young Highway should at least be renamed to the “Go Suck Eggs New Orleans Highway.”