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| Katrina Proves War (on poverty) is a Quagmire |
| 2005-09-07 |
| DC Examiner .pdf file. Page forward to page 6. The Author, one Leslie Milk, titled her opus "Where to Place the Shame" Like many Washingtonians, I spent a lot of time last week sitting in my air-conditioned house watching people in New Orleans suffering and dying in the aftermath of a hurricane and a flood. So you just seethed, Leslie? And like lots of Washingtonians, I was horrified by what I saw. Federal officials absolved themselves by blaming everything on Mother Nature. But only the Federal officials, Leslie? You didn't hear about the Mayor, or the Governor? When all else fails, blame your mother! cute. Some of them blamed the victims â why hadnât they left when ordered to evacuate? Some chose not to go. They chose poorly. Never mind that most of those left in the city were either too sick or too poor to go anywhere. Some were supposed to be rescued by the city where they lived, and protected by the State where they lived. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff even blamed the media. The nerve! In an interview on public radio, Chertoff said that rumormongers were spreading lies about crowds of desperate people at the convention center. Never mind that CNN and Fox were at the convention center showing the very scene Chertoff denied. Killings, rapings, throat-slashings, eating the dead? Iâll bet a Chertoff briefer was chewed out about that! Last week, our government was exposed as the callous, class-conscious operation it really is. Ahhh, now we come to the real 'meat' of the editorial! While Congress handed out tax breaks to the rich, they let the walls come crumbling down in cities like New Orleans. I sure hope the Jack Welches and the Ken Lays are donating their tax refunds to disaster relief! When did you contribute, Ms. Milk? Let them think of it as enlightened self-interest. As part of the war on terror, President Bush has hired his buddy Karen Hughes to run a multimillion-dollar campaign to improve the U.S. image abroad. This is a bad thing?Thatâs going to be tough now that the world watched America abandon thousands of its own starving and suffering people of color. Did you turn your TV off last week, or just shut down your brain? You must have missed the rescues, the six-year old kid who led five other younger kids to safety, the other towns where chaos did not reign, selfless people helping others, not just whining about poverty. But enough about our loathsome leaders. Who did you vote for again? Maybe if you appointed our leaders, you wouldn't find them so "loathsome". What about us? Why did it take a cataclysmic event for us to see the other America? How could we be so blind to the grinding poverty in our own country? Because the War on Poverty is a quagmire, Leslie! 40 years and six presidents, three of them Democrats. Closer to home, why are we so blind to poor people in Washington? Because we donât see them. What do you want to do, Ms. Milk? Got an idea that hasn't been tried for 40 years? Years ago, we had an exchange student from Finland living with us for a year. So will you take in a poor person from New Orleans? This was back when Washington had gained international notoriety as the âMurder Capitalâ of the country. Since replaced by New Orleans, in that place of shame, no doubt due to the loathsome Federal officials. âDonât worry,â we told her parents in Finland. âThatâs not happening where we live.â We explained the geography of the city, the great divides of Rock Creek Park and the Anacostia River. No drive-by shootings and young men killing each other in our neighborhood. That was the other Washington. And you are ashamed of that, Ms. Milk? Moving to the other side of the River to DO something about it? We have invented a whole vocabulary to shield ourselves from poor people. They are âdisadvantagedâ or âinner city.â Who makes up the PC words, Leslie? We certainly donât talk about race â even though in Washington, as in New Orleans, the face of poverty is most often black. We pride ourselves on being colorblind when, in fact, we are just plain blind. If the federal government doesnât admit its mistakes and commit itself to serving the poor as well as the rich, shame on it. See above. 40 years, etc. If we donât admit our own callous disregard for the poor people around here and do more to help them, shame on us. E-mail Leslie Milk at lmilk@washingtonian.com. I will! |
| Posted by:Bobby |
| #5 When watching the coverage over the last week the thing that struck me was the number of poor that are way over weight. You cold hearted SOB! I don't have a pool and walking the course screws up my swing. |
| Posted by: Penguins Dawg 2005-09-07 14:25 |
| #4 BA - Good points. People forget what we here in the United States take for granted - where the 'poor' here would be considered 'rich' in most of the rest of the world - yet it is never enough. I think Mrs Milk should visit a 3rd world country like the Philippines or India or even Mexico - and I dont mean to stay in the glamours 'resorts' or 'hotels' but get her ass out there to where the real people live. Live it up in a one-room shack with no running water (never mind the cable TV or phone system). âDonât worry,â we told her parents in Finland. âThatâs not happening where we live.â We explained the geography of the city, the great divides of Rock Creek Park and the Anacostia River. No drive-by shootings and young men killing each other in our neighborhood. That was the other Washington. Translation: These are not our people! Those are the unwashed masses - your spawn will never have to associate with the likes of them!. Typical liberal... |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2005-09-07 12:11 |
| #3 When watching the coverage over the last week the thing that struck me was the number of poor that are way over weight. |
| Posted by: Cheaderhead 2005-09-07 11:30 |
| #2 GREAT facts to store away, there GC9685! We've got to remember that the poor here in America are doing MUCH better than many middle classes in other countries. Yes, many in N.O. are "poor" according to today's standards, but place them there with what they have now just 30 years ago, and they were living like kings! We certainly donât talk about race â even though in Washington, as in New Orleans, the face of poverty is most often black. I, myself, am so sick of this argument it makes me wanna puke. We give and we give (taxes and private donations), yet it's never good enough. I do wonder what Ms. Milk has done herself? I imagine she can more than afford to donate at least some money, if not time/effort down on the coast. In reply to the "black/poor" issue, I always think of the amigos who are dying to get here just to pick strawberries/pour concrete. Don't hear them complaining about anything, do ya? I'm sure they qualify as "poor" too. Yet, they work harder than most others I know to provide for family (here at back in Mexico), live 10 people to an apartment, etc. It's time we get some outcomes for the BILLIONS we have spent in the "war on poverty." I realize there will ALWAYS be those with us that can't work (physically), but when you won't work, that's a whole different ballgame. |
| Posted by: BA 2005-09-07 09:46 |
| #1 The War on Poverty was only a partial success. Its main failure was the philiosophy that simply helping people who won't or will not actively participate in securing their future and their family's future will doom any effort and to quit wasting resources on those and reapply them to others who will. Second it allowed the program to defuse through layers and layers of patronage and corruption on state and local levels which changed the mission from solutions to maintenance and dependence to secure politicial power. The failure to tie metrics [standards of outcome] to funding meant that it would never be solved and only become the model for our education system as well. For those of us who were aware of our world in the 1950s, a hell of a lot of poverty then has been reduced, but the definition of poverty has shifted as buearucrats kept moving the goal line and thus kept themselves employed. There are still places you can find traditional poverty in America. However, just consider what is considered poverty by buearucratic definition. "The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports: â Forty-six percent of all poor households own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and porch or patio. â Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning. â Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person. â The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens and other European cities. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.) â Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars. â Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television. Over half own two or more color televisions. â Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception. â Seventy-three percent own a microwave oven, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher. Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family isn't hungry, and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family's essential needs. While this individual's life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, activists and politicians." source - http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,132956,00.html The manifestation of poverty in NO as we seen on television has many fathers. If we're rebuilding Iraq without the crooks, thugs, and kleptocrats that ran the place before, we certainly have the means to rebuild NO without the same here. The question is whether we have the will to do so. |
| Posted by: Gleamble Claviter9685 2005-09-07 09:31 |