Katrina, Part III...Bush Hates Blacks...
This has been a recurring theme throughout the unfolding drama and quite a bit of news coverage as of late. The simple fact of the matter is that the faces we all saw fleeing New Orleans way too late happened to be dark. Then again, many of the same faces were caught on tape looting the local businesses of guns, drugs, jewelry and items that had nothing to do with simple survival, but of course, this is overlooked by the media and the racial megaphones (Jesse, Al, et. al.) because to admit it would be inconvenient.

One gets the impression from watching the news coverage that only blacks live in New Orleans. While there is a case to be made that N'awlins is a black town (the population is 70% black), this is patently untrue. Many of the survivors are white and hispanic and there was a sizeable asian population in the city. However, whites and asians do not have the ready-built grievance machine to pump out propaganda 24/7, and many of the hispanics in the city can be safely assumed to be of the illegal variety, and thus, will remain mostly silent.

Because aid did not reach the city within a reasonable amount of time, the racial grievance crowd automatically assumes it must be because the government, and G.W. Bush is the (white) face of the government, just could care less about drowing, starving blacks in their hour of need. The possibility (reality) of incompetence on the part of city and state officials is overlooked and forgotten in an attempt to guilt the rest of the country (and especially Bush) into giving and doing until we literally bleed from our wallets. This has been the standard tactic of the racial grievance industry since the 1960's, and we shouldn't expect anything to change now. Especially not now, when there are people who certainly need help and when the spectre of billions of federal dollars looms right over the horizon. Bush would have been tarred with the racist epithet in any case, but now that the reconstruction money is about to be shelled out, the brush is broader.

We can argue all day about who did or didn't do what when it needed to be done. The fact remains that those who have a vested interest in flinging mud at George Bush specifically and republicans in general, really do not want to have an honest argument in this regard. What they want is money. Lots of it. And it was convenient that tens of thousands of the expected recipients just happened to be of a certain race and economic class. Had Boise, Idaho been similarly devestated none of this stuff would be said. At last count, I believe 11 black folks live in Boise (sarcasm, but you get the point).

Throw enough guilt around, make enough embarrassing and outrageous statements, and watch how fast the republican party opens the cash spigots. Once those funds reach Louisiana and what constitutes rebuilding is begun, the volume will be turned up. We'll hear than "not enough" of the money and contracts are being steered to "minority" companies without the accompanying explanation that had there actually been "minority" companies capable of doing something about rebuilding the city, they would have gotten a piece of the pie. Instead, money that would have gone to reconstruction will now go to "community groups" and "community activists" who claim to "speak for minorities" but who do nothing but line thier own pockets.

The next argument will be that N'awlins will be gentrified. Public housing will not be rebuilt or rebuilt very slowly. The reason, of course, is economics. There's not a whole lot of money in slums, and to build a new slum in place of the old is ridiculous. However, the hue and cry will go out for "affordable housing", and money that could have been used constructively will go to rebuilding the very cesspools that produced looters and alleged armed rape gangs. If such construction does not go forward, we'll hear all about how Bush wants to ethnically cleanse New Orleans.

Of course, past history means nothing to the racial grievance crowd. It's always about "what have done for me lately?". So everyone involved will conveniently forget all the federal aid that went to minorities in Florida last year when it was hit by four successive hurricanes. Not a word will be said to remind people about government aid to minorities in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. I can continue this list forever, but we have limited bandwith here.

The Jacksons, Sharptons and Kanye West's of this world are not interested in facts, history or logic, only money. I'm still waiting to hear how all this federal largesse affects the "reparations now" crowd, only I have a good idea of what their reaction would be in any case.

But to make the argument that a President of the United States would sit back and deliberately let an American city be wiped out is patently ridiculous. To insist, as some have, that the same President somehow controls the weather, personally directed the hurricane or had the levees dynamited in order to create an American holocaust is bordering on insanity. Suggesting that the same man deliberately sat on his hands so as to make sure "we lose as many as possible" is sick.