BBC Correspondent Justin Webb takes a look at America’s response to Hurricane Katrina and proves that, like most European leftists, he just doesn’t get it.
Rita and Katrina have both been events of massive force, sweeping away an awful lot, but Katrina - because of the ghastly failure of the authorities to prepare and to rescue those at risk - is thought by some to have done more than physical damage.Bill Clinton is among many eminent Americans who wonder whether Katrina’s biggest impact might be psychological, political.
The real question - putting it baldly - is whether there is going to be a revolution.
Will the American social and economic system - which creates the wealth that pays for billionaires’ private jets, and the poverty which does not allow for a bus fare out of New Orleans - be addressed?
Mr. Webb, the social and economic system you are criticizing also happens to be the most vibrant economy in the world. Home of the people who created the Internet, the computer industry, countless numbers of pharamceuticals, and contributed more to the world in the past 200 years than your British Empire has in 5 times that amount of time.
Not only that, but Americans, especially wealthy Americans, are among the most generous in the world, and American charitable organizations are always on the front lines of disaster no matter where in the world it might strike.
Apparently, Mr. Webb doesn’t like charity very much, though:
Charity is part of the warp and weft of American life and it is telling that Hurricane Katrina has encouraged an outpouring of giving on a scale never seen before.Americans are cross with the government and disappointed with the response from Washington, but they have not sat on their hands and waited for the government to sort itself out. Much the opposite.
Americans have given with unbridled enthusiasm and generosity.
Is that not something governments do?
Americans do not think so and never will.
And thank god for that. Why wait for government to do something that we know we can do ourselves, better ? Even the government recognizes this and utilizes the Red Cross and Salvation Army as intergral parts of its response to disaster. Why ? Because these organizations can move in faster, and cheaper, than the government can.
Apparently, Mr. Webb thinks its a bad idea that we are so generous. He seems to think we should sit on our hands and wait for the state to take care of the damage from Rita and Katrina. I can’t think of anything that would be more un-American.
H/T: Ann Althouse
