Katrina Divides Rather than Unify

[MiRi]

Katrina Divides Rather Than Unifies U.S.

 

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press Writer 45 minutes ago

 

The extraordinary showing of national and political unity displayed after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, is nowhere to be found in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

 

Finger pointing and blame games have replaced the images of stunned Americans rallying around President Bush and of members of Congress standing on the steps of the Capitol singing "God Bless America."

 

The two events are similar in terms of the amount of devastation wrought ? possibly thousands of deaths, billions of dollars in structural damage and many, many lives turned upside down.

 

But it's the differences, observers say, that explain why a majority of the public and some lawmakers rushed to criticize Bush's response to Katrina and the flooding and subsequent evacuation of New Orleans.

 

Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, says the post-9/11 sense of unity was mostly a response to Americans feeling attacked by an external enemy.

 

"The biggest difference here," he said, "is we don't have an enemy to focus our anger on."

 

Daniel Laufer, who studies the public's response to crises, said the desire to place blame is natural. But it's harder, he says, for people to scapegoat a faceless intangible like Mother Nature as opposed to a real person like Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

 

"That's a face you can point to, bin Laden," said Laufer, who teaches marketing at the University of Cincinnati. "A hurricane, Mother Nature, the environment, that is not something people want to blame."

 

Two-thirds of the public, according to the latest Pew poll, and lawmakers of both parties blame Bush, who is one face of a federal government they say was too slow to respond. Another face is Michael Brown, the nation's disaster relief director who some lawmakers say should resign or be fired.

 

In turn, the federal government has blamed both state and local officials.

 

In contrast, Bush's approval ratings shot up past 90 percent in the weeks after the terrorist attacks.

 

After 9/11, "There was a surge in patriotic feeling which had to do with being in a common boat," political psychologist Stanley Renshon says. While Hurricane Katrina horrified everyone, it directly damaged a particular region and not the nation as a whole.

 

"It's not the story of one guy on the top and how he'll respond to an unprecedented attack on the American national community," says Renshon, who teaches at the City University of New York. "This is a story about the layers of government that are supposed to be effective and wind up having lots of difficulties doing what they're supposed to do."

 

Hence, the blame game.

 

With Hurricane Katrina and the events of the past week and a half, it's difficult to figure out which member of a large cast of players is responsible, Renshon said.

 

"When there's so many cooks working the stew, it's hard to know who put in the vinegar," he said.

 

Four years ago, the Sept. 11 attacks buoyed Bush and his leadership credentials, and helped him win a second term. The attacks on New York City and Washington, which killed nearly 3,000 people, united the political parties behind a promise to protect the country from whatever terror was to come next.

 

Democrats and Republicans worked together to create the Homeland Security Department and put it in charge of dealing with natural disasters and terrorist attacks. They approved billions of dollars in post-9/11 spending and agreed on major anti-terrorism legislation.

 

That consensus eventually dissipated after the invasion of Iraq and as questions grew about whether the federal government could have done more to head off the terrorist attacks.

 

Now, in Katrina's wake, about all the nation's political leaders have agreed on so far is approving the new spending, more than $62 billion, needed to help the disaster-stricken communities along the Gulf Coast.

 

On Capitol Hill, Democratic leaders in the House and Senate said they would not appoint anyone to a proposed, Republican-led congressional committee that is to investigate the Bush administration's storm response. Many Democrats prefer an investigation by an independent committee.

 

In one sense, however, the public response to 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina is similar: Donations of money are flooding into relief agencies. People are donating supplies and welcoming into their homes many of the tens of thousands of New Orleans evacuees now scattered across the country.

 

Sad, but true.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050909/ap_on_...HE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

[Buckeye]

Well, yeah.

 

When there's no one to blame for the disaster and aid is slow in coming, then there's going to be some finger pointing. This is a totally different thing than 9/11 and the comparisons are weak. First off, it isn't some "common" enemy striking at us, it's nature. We can't turn on mothernature and go to war with it. There's nothing we can do about it.

 

Secondly, 9/11 was just two buildings, a lot of people died and it was a tragedy. This is almost half of a city being wiped out.

 

Thirdly, of course whites, blacks, asians, etc., etc. are going to hang together when it's some other race of brown people attacking them. You hold hands, sing songs and vow to get revenge, or whatever. There's no bad guy with a hurricane.

[PhxPhin]

i just wish more good stories would get news .... we are housing a lot of people out here in phoenix

 

the evacuees are getting at worst 1 month of free housing, food, clothing, $$$ and job leads

 

also the LSU/ASU game, although relocated, should generate over $1M to the efforts and 700 tickets are being given away to the evacuated

 

a family of 6 was just given use of a 5 bedroom house near my neighborhood ... by the time they accepted to move in they have the pantries full, utilities pre-paid and the place ready to live ... also had job leads for the families

 

they are surveying people and between 30-50% of them don't plan on leaving the area

 

my wife was watching oprah (i was just in the room .....) and i saw many tales from the astrodome where people are very gracious about how the state of TX is taking care of them

 

a lot of good is being done out there that cuts through race, religion and location ... i just wish more people knew of it

 

my only other hope, is that these people who were extra poor, embrace the opportunity for a second chance and a new life in a new location and not squander the good will that is now coming to them

[MarlinFan10]

Actually I'd say about 95% of the country is united in the relief efforts. It's just a few politicians and just about all the media trying to divide the country. They did the same after 9/11, but that was well after the disaster. This pointless bickering is going on during the crisis at hand.

[Kid T]

My personal opinion is that this country was quite divided before Katrina hit. Pick what you will: political ideology, race, income disparity, geography, urban vs. rural, etc.

 

I don't know who to blame (though politicians always seem like a safe bet) for creating such divides. I'm a marketer and in my profession, when you find niche markets, you highlight the differences to magnify your appeal. This is essentially what politicians/political parties do.

 

The saddest thing is that the least divided I remember this country ever being was immediately after 9/11. Somehow, we've become even more divided as a country since the pre-9/11 days.

[MarlinsFan253]

People who hate the President of the United States love for any opportunity to point a finger at him and blame him for anything that happens. There are so many people in this country that are blinded by hatred for Bush that they will say and do anything to make him look bad and somehow people have found it convenient to blame him for the hurricane, blame him for supposedly poor relief efforts, and now even racism. Come on, America.

 

They don't call it a NATURAL DISASTER for no reason. A terrible thing has happened and I never would expect any president or government to be able to go down to New Orleans and save everyone's lives and clean up the entire mess in a few days. As Americans, we have very unrealistic expectations of how things should happen when something goes wrong in America because we just aren't used to seeing things like this at home. It always happens "somewhere else". We trick ourselves into believing it is possible to turn absolute chaos into logic.

 

Personally, I don't care about what the government does. I don't hold them responsible for much of anything. I think it is up to American citizens to act and help out in any way that we can because we are part of the same national community afterall. We have more power than any government in the world to help out. We shouldn't be pointing our fingers towards Washington while we sit on our asses and do nothing. And thankfully, a lot of people are helping.

 

Many of the refugees are being housed at Fort Custer up here in Battle Creek Michigan and I have heard that some of the student housing in my university (Western Michigan University) is even being filled with some refugees. Unfortunately, despite our unrealistic expectations and standards we have set for our government, many of the victims will not be returning to their normal lives for a long time. It's just good to see that things are happening everywhere to try to make their lives as comfortable as possible for the time being.

[Kid T]

People who hate the President of the United States love for any opportunity to point a finger at him and blame him for anything that happens. There are so many people in this country that are blinded by hatred for Bush that they will say and do anything to make him look bad and somehow people have found it convenient to blame him for the hurricane, blame him for supposedly poor relief efforts, and now even racism. Come on, America.

There are equal numbers of those who are such "true believers" of the republican party that they refuse to believe that Bush (and Republicans in general) can do no wrong.

 

They don't call it a NATURAL DISASTER for no reason. A terrible thing has happened and I never would expect any president or government to be able to go down to New Orleans and save everyone's lives and clean up the entire mess in a few days. As Americans, we have very unrealistic expectations of how things should happen when something goes wrong in America because we just aren't used to seeing things like this at home. It always happens "somewhere else". We trick ourselves into believing it is possible to turn absolute chaos into logic.

 

No offense, but I think you aren't familiar with the situation. Yes, the hurricane was a natural disaster, but the relief efforts following the wake of Katrina was a human one. This was a massive failing at all levels (read: local and federal) of government. People were stranded at the Superdome and Convention Center and went for several days without food, water, or medicine (which is why the looting/scavenging occurred) after Katrina had passed by. It wasn't as if the government weren't aware of these people (though there is footage of Brown claiming such), especially when it was on CNN and other networks.

 

 

Personally, I don't care about what the government does. I don't hold them responsible for much of anything. I think it is up to American citizens to act and help out in any way that we can because we are part of the same national community afterall. We have more power than any government in the world to help out. We shouldn't be pointing our fingers towards Washington while we sit on our asses and do nothing. And thankfully, a lot of people are helping.

Then you have very low expectations from your government. Our taxes fund agencies such as FEMA, whose sole purpose is disaster relief/crisis management.