When a submarine runs aground, no matter what the cause, the Captain is held responsible and usually fired.
When a city faces a disaster which is further compounded by poor decisions of its leaders in the 20 years prior to the the disaster, I would very much point the finger at the Mayor.
Whatever mistakes that may or may not have been made by the federal government prior to and after the hurricane hit New Orleans, the root cause of most of the problems (beyond the actual hurricane itself) was the failure of its leaders to be prepared for such an event. In a democratic society with elected leaders... the people that elected those leaders must share in the responsibility for this failure.
New Orleans obviously never seriously considered an evacuation plan and how a large portion of their population lacked the means to evacuate on their own. Is that the fault of the federal government? or even the state government? I am sure some of you will disagree, but this sounds like a local city government responsibility.
Who told these people to just go to one of the government designated shelters rather than evacuate? Who ignored federal suggestiongs and told these people that it was okay to return when another storm was threatening to repeat this disaster? Who wasted time making accusations while the disaster still needed 100% of the focus?
It is probable that the federal government made some mistakes and could have done a better job (that can be said of almost everything the federal government does), but it seems to me, the person criticizing and pointing fingers at everyone (i.e. the Mayor) should be looking into the mirror and learning from his own mistakes. But I really don't blame the Mayor or the Governor all that much. This was a huge NATURAL disaster that almost nobody expected.
Any attempts to make this thing into a class and/or race issue are laughable. When a disaster strikes a major city, it is a given that the city does not have the means to help very many people. Unless the wealthier upper and middle class citizens decide to help and if the lower class chooses to accept their help, it is a bygone conclusion that it is the poor lower class citizens will be the ones left behind and suffer the most from the impending disaster.
All major US cities have large numbers of poor people. The fact that there are large numbers of poor people is a byproduct of capitalism. In a lot of these cities, the majority of the these poor people are minorities (is that an oxymoron?). Frequently, a majority of these minorities are negro/black/African-American. At this point in American history, the fact that many of these poor people are black is not as much a product of slavery or racism issues, but more a result of cultural issues. If someone is poor, unmarried, has a child, and that child grows up to be a violent criminal, whose fault is it? Almost any adult can do a 2 to 4 year stint in the military, get some sort of professional education, and get a decent middle class job. Some immigrants come to this country with nothing but end up with their own home and college educated children working in upperclass professional jobs. Atlanta has a large black population and a significant percentage of that population is much wealthier than me. How is this possible in a country so racist that it intentionally abandons poor black people in flooded cities?
Yup, after careful consideration, FEMA was to blame for almost everything that went wrong in New Orleans and forcing the resignation of its chief administrator made everything right.
