0610 - Incompetent

As Faithful Readers know, our Staff here is not a cheering section for bureaucracies, either U.S., International, or local to Anguilla. We have been merciless in trashing the total botch of the Iraq invasion, and the failure of the verbose but incompetent Pentagon and Administration managers (if that is the word for them). This week, though, while frozen to the TV screen and the terrible tales from New Orleans there unfolding, we saw pervasive incompetency everywhere. The stupidities stretched from the lowest local levels up to the States and of course the supposedly revamped National crisis management and the over- vacationed President. You couldn't believe what you saw. Our vocabulary failed, but thanks to The Economist, we have a new word: Ready? The word is "Aischrolatreia". It is right there in the Webster's Unabridged, and it means "Worship of filth; cult of the obscene". Nothing else fits so well.

We start with the Mayor of New Orleans. He seems to have ordered an evacuation of the city, and expected the poorest of the poor to hop into their SUVs and head North. They didn't, possibly because their garages didn't hold a supply of GM's latest bargains, so instead of loading the left-behinds on buses, he directed them to the Superdome, cleverly covered with a light muslin roof to ward off the elements. Now, if you were directing some fifty thousand hapless types to a stadium in a huge storm, would you not station emergency generators? Provide Large supplies of water? Food? Portable potties? And how about a whole lot of police? Well, it didn't happen. As a matter of fact, apparently some third or a half of the N.O. police just left town. The citizens had plenty of guns available, as everywhere in the U.S. The first few National Guard sent spent hours going through the pitiful baggage of those waiting outside to get in. A monstrous mess. The local hospitals and their patients were forgotten, left in the dark to struggle and die.

You Readers know what this column thinks of the Big Botch in Iraq. This was worse. Apparently, this disaster had been studied for years, and exactly what happened had been predicted by all, including the leading local newspaper. The Iraq mess comes from arrogance and stubborn refusal to admit mistakes. This home-grown mess is from the movie script "Dumb and Dumber". And yet, and yet, don't you see the similarities here? The available guns, and the armed citizenry running wild, looting and marauding? The people standing and yelling at those in power? And, of course, the total surprise of those supposedly in charge who, it seems, had no idea what poor, desperate, and stupid people will do when left in mobs without direction [the repeated story was that there were no bullhorn instructions for days]? This is news to the Feds? Don't they learn anything?

As usual, we are ready with some suggestions, all of which will be ignored because they are sensible. First of all, let's send the cowardly N.O. police who left their posts to serve in Baghdad for a couple of years. Let's fire the hapless Mayor of N.O., and if you want to move all the way up the line to Crawford, TX, that's all right with us, too. Don't forget the Pentagon while sweeping up. And, oh yes, would it not be well to think hard about whether it is a good idea to rebuild a city below sea level?

A final point. The TV has shown that those suffering were poor and black. They didn't have much, they weren't the smartest of the smart, they had lots and lots of babies, and now they have nothing, just nothing. The current political position is to cut their taxes, but they don't pay any, because they don't have jobs. Our policy advice: don't be poor.

Next time: To Be Announced [OO #611]

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