Update II (2/23): Follow the link to BELIEVE!
Read Scott Ott’s parody.
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Stop the presses!
Someone finally said what needed to be said…publicly. During some government meeting in Houston, three New Orleans council members (guests?) said to “evacuees” what was on so many people’s minds: Get off your duffs and work.
New Orleans doesn’t want its poorest residents back — unless they agree to work.
That was the message from three New Orleans City Council members who said government programs have “pampered” the city’s residents for too long. (Source)
Houston transplants who want to return to New Orleans got a dose of tough love. “We don’t need soap opera watchers right now,” said New Orleans council member Oliver Thomas (pictured).
Thank you, Mr. Thomas! You will be harassed and harangued for being so “judgmental,” but don’t worry about that. The truth is on your side. Please do not apologize!
Poor areas remain poor (with stinky government schools) largely because of a reduced tax base. Too few people in the community are working. One NO council member said the priority is to bring back people willing to work.
The Housing Authority in New Orleans will require future public housing residents to “express a willingness to work.” More productive would be to actually work rather than “express” a soft “willingness” to do so. But who am I to judge?
“Houston officials” were upset by the NO council members’ remarks, and you can guess why. Such unwelcoming and judgmental attitudes may encourage evacuees to remain in Texas, and “officials” want them out of their city. Evacuees are raising hell in Houston, and “officials” want to send them back where they came from, no doubt. That “soap opera watchers” talk may hurt their government-coddled feelings.
In the article you’ll notice the absence of the word “racist.” When blacks complain about other blacks, no one can accuse anyone of the elusive and ever-shifting charge of racism. You may hear “sell out,” “race traitor,” or “Uncle Tom” a lot, but no “R” word, thank goodness.
I encourage you to read the entire article, but the focus of this post is much broader.
What Hurricane Katrina proved was not how racist America was or how its poor got left behind. It proved that generational government dependency has rendered poor black communities helpless and unable to think and plan for themselves.
(Let’s not forget about rampant fraud. Before giving out $2,000 debit cards to evacuees, an ill-conceived plan, the Bush administration knew what would happen. But politicians wanted to placate whiny liberals and bums. Guess what? It didn’t work. Trying to placate whiners with money never works, and it never will. - Thanks for the link, Christine.)
Liberals want to have it both ways. They cried “Racist!” when people questioned the intelligence, resourcefulness, integrity, or morality of those left behind, especially the looters. At the same time they decry the government’s “slow response” and failure to anticipate lawlessness and helplessness. But you can’t have it both ways. Either people are responsible for themselves, capable of decent conduct and good decision-making, or they’re helpless, incapable of making good decisions or accepting responsibility for themselves. Government-savior to the rescue.
Bloated government, income redistribution, and cradle-to-grave care are so pervasive that most of us can’t imagine what life would be like with small government, more of our hard-earned money in our pockets, and total responsibility for our own lives. To expect someone to suffer the consequences of their own poor planning, financial irresponsibility, and immoral behavior is taboo, at least in public. Everyone is equally “good,” and to make distinctions is “judgmental,” which in our upside down world is supposed to be reprehensible.
Star Parker puts the thing more delicately than I do:
We may recall, as the disaster in New Orleans was unfolding before our eyes, the allegations from Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and others on the black left, that the poor response was racially motivated.
These allegations were, of course, absurd. I wrote then that this was a tragic case in point of the inherent inefficiencies in government. Yet, the baseless and inflammatory allegations of the usual black demagogues achieved their destructive objectives.
…The Katrina debacle showed us, in the most tragic way, the limitations inherent in big government…Certainly, government has a legitimate role.
Creation of wealth and prosperity isn’t part of that role. Private initiative is the only answer to black poverty and to rebuilding New Orleans. The only beneficiaries of government programs are politicians black and white.
And private initiative begins with a community’s willingness to work, not merely exist to suckle the government’s teat. Getting up and going to work, refusing handouts, and facing hardships with dignity builds character and resourcefulness. We should accept nothing less from ourselves or our neighbors.
Some people need government assistance, but too many take advantage of the system. They are healthy enough to work but just don’t want to. You know such people, and so do I. They, and not the truly helpless, are the subjects of this post.
Update: Herman Cain writes about liberals and “gutless socialism.”
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It’s about time someone said it.
My philosophy has always been, hunger is a great motivator.
And jobs are plentiful, everywhere.
The NOLA evacs that landed in MY area have not made very much effort, and they won’t, as long as they are being put up in hotel suites and fed well.
Welfare, temporary welfare, is one thing, but some folks will make it a way of life if allowed. And a LARGE percentage of the NOLA evacs have done just that.
I hear the sound of LaShawn hitting the nail on the head.
Ditto.
I am sure you have read about this by now:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0213KatrinaFraud13-ON.html
Gee. I never would have saw it coming.
Exactly.
Only slightly related, but want to share it nonetheless. One of my husband’s friends was told by his doctor he should file for disability due to a seizure disorder. This man waited a year to file and tried to continue working because he didn’t feel that someone his age and relatively fit should “live off the government’s dime.” But his seizures make him a liability, and put not only him, but co-workers at risk for injury on the job. He wants to work, but shouldn’t. Yet, he is probably more likely to be denied disability benefits that some lazy “soap opera watcher” who wants the government to support his or her sorry rear because someone has taught that person that entitlement is a right based on either race or poverty level. That kind of thing just gets my goat.
Agreed, DragonLady,
My father applied for and was REJECTED the first time he applied for disability and he was on OXYGEN!!!!! This was a man who worked steadily all of his life!!!
What’s amazing about the working conditions in the greater NOLA area is that even taking a job at McDonald’s will get you a signing bonus. And a sizable one, at that.
Finally, some leaders that are actually doing just that “LEADING”. Most people know that the elderly and children are the most vulnerable in any society. With that being said, if you are not in one of the aforementioned groups, you have a little bit more control over your life. Everyone understands some people fall on hard times. It becomes an issue when people stop saying “Just give me a little help to get on my feet” and start talking about “You owe me”.
What is remarkable is, people who actually work and are laid off from their jobs only get $1,200/month for six months. The evacuees are probably getting a total of $2,000 - $3,000/month in total benefits. Is that fair?
Finally, the councilmen understood that much of NO’s problems of social decay in the city, was associated with the segment of the poor that is now causing problems in every city they settled in. This is not an indictment of all of the poor. This is an indictment of those that have no home-training and don’t know how to act, and because of this fact alone are poor.
The article at the Houston Chrincle on the subject has the headline “New Orleans says evacuees won’t get free ride.”
Fine. We’ll start a fundraising drive to pay for the one-way bus tickets to send them back.
Does Greyhound give bulk discounts?
I am now getting 1st hand accounts of what happened in New Orleans. Adding to the later stories out of NO from people who were there, it seems to me that many of the people who were left, either assumed it wouldn’t be that bad, which has been the case up to this point, had sick family that they didn’t want to leave, or some who couldn’t leave.
Once it hit the fan, many of those did EXACTLY what local gov’t said to do and headed for the dome.
With that said, I’m wondering why stories of the people who are still in hotels is being told and not more of the people, like those I know and/or met, who are moving on with jobs, finding a place to stay, and planning to plant roots or return to NO.
For those who are complaining about being kicked out of the hotels, if there is an accurate media portrait being given, then I wonder WHY THE HELL ARE YOU STILL IN A HOTEL AND NOT FINDING A WAY TO GET OUT?
Of course, some people, such as Bill Quick, think there’s another motive here:
So, New Orleans would get the gold mine, and Houston, Atlanta, etc., would get the shaft. Food for thought…
Erbo. Correct. And maybe when other parts of the country see what happens when a city doesn’t have a “beggar caste” draining resources, there will be more calls for reform.
Important to remember that, based on the most accurate national figures, 59 percent of the poor come from working families. Specifically in New Orleans, a major metropolitan area, this percentage is slightly higher. Before you get excited about telling people to work, you might want to make sure that you create jobs that pay a living wage. There is no black population addicted to “sucking the teat” of government, and there is no lack of private initiative in Black communities. There is a lack of well paying jobs in majority black communities, but that does not bother us as much as the idea of a mythical “beggar caste”.
I guess it’s been a while since you’ve been in the ‘hood. - Admin
Right on LaShawn. Lawlessness was not the problem. A lack of virtue was. Humans made in the image of God are humans made in the image of God. Race is irrelevant. It is not a racial issue. It is an issue of human virtue and work ethic. If one will return to New Orleans, one must be willing to contribute to rebuilding. No one, no party is to blame. No government official can put a bureaucratic band aid on it and make everyone feel better.
The Oracle
The Oracle
The destructiveness isn’t limited to H-town. I see it first-hand in Ft. Worth. At least once a week the first story on the evening news is about the Katrina evacuees crying about losing their hotel benefits. So if the majority of evacuees are getting on with their lives and working, it’s not the story that is portrayed here.
What doesn’t get told is the violence I see every day on my high school campus where I work that has gone up exponentially because of the actions of high-school aged Katrina evacuees who have no interest in getting to class on time and doing their school work.
One other item. The concept of living wage is a joke. You can make it on a low paying job IF you are willing to be resourceful enough and sacrifice until you have the opportunity to 1)further educate yourself 2)work hard enough to earn a raise 3)take a risk to improve your lot. I know of and see plenty of these stories daily. The key is that not everyone is willing to do it.
#17 Don’t you think if jobs are created that pay higher wages most of these folks will be in the same boat because higher wages means you have to have the skills that demands the higher pay and from what I’m seeing here in Atlanta is most of these folks lack in this area and only take the min. wage jobs.
#17: Way to expand what was said to an entire community. The beggar caste are those that do not work, often will not work. NOLA’s council members are asking that that the workers come back, but not the ticks. If you think that is disrciminatory to blacks as a whole, then that is your bias and prej. shining through.
Well Ms. Barber, if there were enough jobs for people to work at there would not be a problem of people working.
Welfare = Glorified Reparations
Why give that up?
La Shawn:
One major complaint about FEMA was that they were not moving many house trailers to New Orleans because there was a rule against putting them up in flood zones.
The real truth is that most property owners don’t want a FEMA village in their backyard.
Certainly, some communities are attracted to this because there is a lot of Federal money to be had. But then the truth becomes obvious - the FEMA money is not forever. When the FEMA money runs out, the community is left with the FEMA village, and many people who don’t work.
Now, as a posture, FEMA is moving the trailers to some trailer parks. You can bet that these trailers will not be in the Governor’s, the Senators’, or the Mayor’s back yard.
“EASY STREET”
“Easy Street! If I could live on Easy Street, Nobody works on Easy Street. Just sit around all day!
Life is sweet, for folks who live on Easy Street. No weekly payments you must meet that make your hair turn gray.
When opportunity comes knocking, you just keep on with your rocking, ‘Cos you know that your fortunes made, And any time that you desire, there’s a man that you can hire….To plant trees so you can have some shade!
Oh Easy Street, I’m telling every one I meet ….If I could live on Easy Street. I wouldn’t want no job today, So please go away!”
—-Words and music written by Alan Rankin Jones and recorded by Louis Armstrong and Sarah Vaughan
Sheldon.
You are absolutely correct in that that most of the 24% of black people who are poor are working poor. This includes New Orleans. Many (if not most) are single family homes, but most of those single parents do work.
Does anyone like me absolutely cringe at the word “entitlement?” How did we ever let politicians begin to throw that word around?
Memphis got quite a few refugees but mainly the ones who got themselves out. Everyone I have met is decent. Our Mayor was talking about pulling a Houston and importing a bunch of thugs to our old arena but luckily he didn’t.
I have lived through it before. There is nothing like leaving your house at 7 in the morning to go to work and looking next door at a bunch of thugs still drinking from the night before and wondering if you are going to have any belongings when you come home from work. Wait - Yes there is - Having the same people yell at you for mowing your yard at the unbelievably early hour of 10 in the morning on Sunday.
Thanks to our wonderful government and section 8 housing, my old neighborhood turned from a mixed working class neighborhood to boys in the hood.
Let us hope that eventually the liberals in government will realize that the best way to help a man is to teach him to fish - not hand him a fish on a government subsidized platter.
Although I agree with the transplanted New Orleans residents needing to work, it’s amazing the spin that people have put on Hurricane Katrina, that somehow their suffering was their fault. yes, the government dependency is horrible, but ask yourself, had this happened in Orlando, Florida, Boston, Mass (although a hurricane is highly unlikely) or anywhere else, would the response have been as slow? You know as well as I do that it would have been much quicker. I am not conservative nor liberal, however, I hope that this particular experience will bring “our” people together because we are divided as it is, and we need each other in order to become a “pro-people” and not a “re-active” people……..
I agree that they need to work instead of acting like victims of anything but a natural disaster, but you must remember that as of recently they are indeed victims of a man-made disaster: Illegal immigration, and more to the point how dangerously widespread it is in this country. Crooked contractors have circled New Orleans like vultures and now they’re swooping in, hiring illegal aliens instead of American citizens who demand what they call a wage (imagine that!). So in that way, conservatives (real conservatives, not phony Republicans) are the only ones who truly care about the displaced New Orleans citizens who want to work.
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