RE: [Futurework] Gone with the Water

[Lawrence deBivort]

Your prejudices are showing Harry.   Someday you may understand what empathy is.  I hope so.   I do assume people are sensible. Until I see, individually and specifically, that he is not.   Lawry   From: Harry Pollard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, September 02, 2005 3:43 PM To: 'Lawrence deBivort'; futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca Subject: RE: [Futurework] Gone with the Water   Lawry,   Yet again you use ad hominems in place of thought.   Do your best to look at things as they are rather than veiled by your “empathy”.   It is probable that those people on the bridge – and their forebears - have lived their whole lives essentially as wards of the state. It is also probably they have lived their lives in fear of thuggery from the local gangs.   They are simply unable to fend for themselves.   Why?   I suggest generations of “empathy” have emphasized their inability to survive, even as investigation of the reasons for that inability has been practically non-existent.   Perhaps, the reason for this is that searching out causes and struggling to find solutions demands a lot of work and is not particularly rewarding, whereas passing out charity provides great psychological self-esteem to the empathetic. It also ensures another generation of kept people.   Further, when causes are exposed, their solutions are often difficult. It is necessary to tread on toes, to teach, to persuade people who don’t want to think about it, but whose empathy is revealed when they write a $100 check before turning back to “Will and Grace”.   I said that death was a very personal thing. If someone close to you died you would sob and not sleep at night. I asked you if you sobbed for the dead of New Orleans, or those unfortunate 700 who uselessly lost their lives in Baghdad.   You didn’t answer. Let me say now, that there are enough killings, murders, maiming, raping, in the world to keep you sobbing 24 hours a day.   However, you are too sensible for that.   Just assume that other people are sensible too.   Harry   ******************************** Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles Box 655  Tujunga  CA 91042 818 352-4141 ********************************     From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Lawrence deBivort Sent: Friday, September 02, 2005 5:58 AM To: futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca Subject: RE: [Futurework] Gone with the Water   The most unattractive thing about an inability to empathize is the unidimensional judgment to which it leads.   The most attractive thing about empathy is that it encourages a combination of sympathy and intelligent participation.   Lawry   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Harry Pollard Sent: Friday, September 02, 2005 3:52 AM To: 'Cordell, Arthur: ECOM'; 'Karen Watters Cole'; futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca Subject: RE: [Futurework] Gone with the Water   Arthur,   People will better handle their affairs than a government -  or at least they should.   The most unattractive part of those poor people on the freeways was the way they were sitting and standing there saying “No-one has told us where to go.”   The most attractive was the young black man who told us: “I’ve been pulling people out of the water all morning.”   Harry     ******************************** Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles Box 655  Tujunga  CA 91042 818 352-4141 ********************************   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Cordell, Arthur: ECOM Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 5:05 PM To: Karen Watters Cole; futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca Subject: RE: [Futurework] Gone with the Water   I agreee that Bush has not been of much help.  But the lack of attention to infrastructure is part of the consumer culture.  Bush is just carrying on as have previoius Presidents.    The buses could have taken the people anywhere.  Out of the "bowl" that is New Orleans.  To higher ground.  To a military reservation, to state parks.  Anywhere.    In the private culture of the US people were told to evacuate.  They could have been assisted mightily by using some city owned buses.  Take them anywhere.  Now many who could have been moved are dead or dying.   arthur -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Karen Watters Cole Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 7:57 PM To: futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca Subject: RE: [Futurework] Gone with the Water Arthur wrote: For a catastrophe that was predicted for 50 years there was just about no disaster plan in place. Criminal. There will be plenty of blame to go around.  e.g., why weren't the levees better protected.  why weren't the pumps equipped with emerg. power.  why weren't the fleet of New Orleans city buses pressed into service for those "who had no cars or couldn't otherwise drive."   etc.     Well, a cynical reply as to the lack of Bush preparation to the threat in the Gulf Coast is that those states were not swing states, like Florida.   Already, Bush’s choice to head up FEMA is under scrutiny. After the GAO suggested changes in 1992, Clinton appointed James Lee Witt,  who is credited with reorganizing and revitalizing it. But Bush’s 2 appointments have been his 2000 campaign manager and now an Oklahoma lawyer whose only other emergency management experience was as an assistant city manager. In other words, he restored FEMA to its previous history as a backwater place to award political buddies and fundraisers.  The Bush-Cheney White House has a well-documented history of pushing political appointments onto scientific, medical, environmental and national security positions. What was the name of that guy from New York – Guliani’s former police chief – better known as a Rambo talker than a problem-solver?   As to the question of city buses – a good one – where would those people have been taken? Did FEMA have plans to evacuate hundreds of thousands to other sports domes in the South?  I’ve heard that the storm pumps in NO were only prepared to deal with heavy rains – 4-5 inches – not flooding from the lake. I’ve worked with civil and structural engineers and have great sympathy for the problem they’re facing. You can bet that those who are warning about similar problems in other areas are getting a friendly ear from hometown mayors and governors today.   Are these people destined to live in concrete houses and trailers, as survivors of Hurricane Andrew have in Florida? Think of the economic impact of 9/11 and multiply that several times. The shortage of fuel has already hit jet fuel prices, and the ripples are just beginning.

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