I’ve been thinking. A lot of people seem to like to compare 9/11 and Katrina. I’ve never thought it’s a truly valid comparison. Truthfully, the only thing they have in common is that they happened in the US, but let’s examine some of the differences.

Considering that on 9/11 we had no warning whatsoever, I’d say the comparative reaction for Katrina is a disgrace. As I’ve said on numerous occasions, the government failed those people from the bottom up. The mayor and governor first, then the folks in DC.

The difference in the reactions of the people is enormous. Taking food and water is one thing, but looting stores? New York City is a jackpot of high-ticket stores and such. Number of looters during the 2003 blackout? 4, and all of them arrested. Number of people looting who were not taking food in New Orleans? Too damned many.

Also, the actions of the people are so different. New York City in 2001 reached out and risked its lives to help others. In New Orleans, there are plenty of stories of heroism, and the pictures in the news do show them. However, the people down there also rape others, steal televisions and sneakers, and so on. Those actions simply cannot be blamed on a hurricane. If you’re raping people and robbing sneakers and televisions, the hurricane isn’t the reason.

The Federal Government deserves to be raked over the coals for this one. When it was determined that the inept Blanco and inept Nagin weren’t doing enough in preparation, the Federal Government should’ve gone down there, put them both in handcuffs, taken control of the situation, and worried about the repurcussions later. A mandatory evacuation, by force, could’ve saved hundreds of lives. I don’t believe that if people were stupid enough to stay they deserve what they got. Judging from the behavior of people afterward, I’m not fully convinced that the folks down there understood the consequences of this hurricane making landfall anyway.

The media also has a problem. The whole criticism has been of FEMA, and Michael Brown. I agree with much of it, and laugh when I hear the President commending “Brownie” on the “hell of a job” he’s doing. However, I’ve seen little to no blame laid on the locals. In fact, in interview after interview with Ray Nagin, all I’ve heard reporters ask Nagin is what he thought about the Federal response. What about the local response? What about the local ineptitude?

Same goes for Governor Blanco. Everyone wants to know her opinion on the Federal response. Why isn’t someone raking her over the coals for being an inept tool this whole time? In fact, the mentality that Nagin and Blanco are as much victims as the people who lost everything permeates even the news coverage. A recent ABC poll found that 45 percent of the people of New Orleans believe that the federal government, Bush specifically, should shoulder a “great deal” or “good amount” of blame for what happened, but ABC failed to mention that in that very same poll 57 percent said the same about the local governments!

Instead, ABC focused on how many people down there thought the response would be quicker if the victims were wealthy and white. Well, here’s a newsflash for you. It’s not politically correct to say so, but if the victims were wealthy and white, do you think there’d be looting (not of food stores, but of sneaker and electronic stores), raping, murdering, and so on going on?

Finally, the demographic issue.

The media loves to portray that black people are suffering the most in New Orleans, and that you don’t see white people running from their homes. Wolf Blitzer, on CNN, in a moment of amazing lucidity decided to tell the world exactly what was going on with the victims; and how they were so poor… And so black…

OF COURSE THEY’RE BLACK!

The people fleeing their homes in New Orleans aren’t mostly black due to some slight of the government! The people fleeing their homes are mostly black because the people of New Orleans are (gasp!) MOSTLY BLACK!

Here are some demos for New Orleans:

I guess when you see the numbers, you start to realize that the reason most of the people you see evacuating are “so black” is because most of New Orleans is, by a large number, a black city. You aren’t seeing most of the people running from their homes as black because the white people got out. You’re seeing most of the people running from their homes as black because 72% of the population of New Orleans is not white!

There’s plenty of things to be angry about in this story, honestly, but the disconnect between the media and the facts is one thing that needs to be addressed. Trying to manufacture anger and resentment with every story is doing no service to the people they claim to care about.