The arguments over the depth and causes of the failure to deal with the aftermath of Katrina will run and run – federal Vs local failure, too much welfare Vs too little, too many guns Vs too few, etc, etc,
What seems clear though is that whatever the roots of the failure, they lie somewhere inside the United States itself – and the nasty scenes of material disadvantage and racial divide that have been exposed don’t seem to differ greatly in kind from what can be found pretty much anywhere else on the planet.
Before the usual knees start jerking, I must point out this is not an exercise in schadenfreude by a non-American – I don’t personally believe in exceptionalism, but I had expectations that America had a greater ability to meet the challenge of a large-scale natural disaster than anywhere else. I feel shock at the failure to do so and no pleasure in the human suffering that resulted
How strong and universal is the idea of America as a “shining city on a hill” – a uniquely blessed and able place, a beacon to the rest of the world – within America itself anyway?
Will Katrina change that view in those who hold it? And in what way?
(Is NO seen as a “stinking city in a swamp” – different in some way to the rest of the country? Will some kind of “cognitive dissidence” set in, or a slight adjustment in attitude - or even some kind of crisis of national confidence?)
Will there be any changes in Americans view of their place in the rest of the world? Will that translate into practical changes in American foreign policy?
(At a slight tangent perhaps)
How will the rest of the world (both friends and enemies of the US) now view America and American values?
Could this have practical implications for the success of American foreign policy? (Particularly the “war on terror” and Iraq)
It has certainly changed the way I feel about my country’s ability to help her citizens in case of disaster. I’ve been hearing for four years how much safer we are and it was a big shock to realize we are less able to cope with a disaster than we were prior to 9/11. I don’t know what DoHS has been doing for four years, but preparing for emergency response obviously wasn’t involved.
I don’t like feeling this way. I don’t like feeling as if the President of my country doesn’t give a &#*^ about anyone who isn’t rich or connected. But that is how I feel.
I don’t necessarily view the aftermath as all that bad. A huge hurricane hit a city that was built in a vulnerable area. I don’t really know that there is a good way to deal with a force of nature powerful enough to overturn any sort of levee system we could construct. This is just one of those things, that humans don’t have the ability to combat yet, no humans. I don’t view American exceptionalism as Americans being superhuman, but rather Americans being viewed as the preeminent human society, superior to the others but still constrained by the fact that it is a society made up of human beings. Mortal human beings with limits and fallibilities.
I think America did the best that could be done in this situation. Again, Americans aren’t a race of superbeings. We’re blessed with a history of abundant natural resources, excellent strategic geographic position, and a stable, established liberal democracy.
I think, in general we do have the best ability to deal with a large scale natural disaste. (I say in general because certain countries with more experience in certain types of more regional natural disasters will have more experience dealing with them and will probably be better at it) However I think once enough infrastructure is damaged, like it was in New Orleans, there isn’t any adequate contingency plan to “deal with it.” Its like trying to deal with a nuclear blast. About the best you can do is try to get out of the way, hide, and hope to rebuild once its done.
Most people don’t think about it that way. That’s more of a traditional Roman belief that I think some people tried to latch on to America in the late 19th and early 20th century. Most Americans believe themselves blessed to have been born American, and feel that being American is better than any other option. But it doesn’t really go to any deeper philosophical level for the average person.
No, not that I can imagine. Again, from what I’ve read and from what I’ve seen written by those who use the term “American exceptionalism” they really don’t think about it in terms of dealing with natural disaster. Its just more a political stance and a general view about the attitude and general capabilities of America as a whole as compared to the rest of the world.l
If there is it will be to an infinitely small degree when compared to the aftermath of 9/11.
I’d say it will translate to absolutely no meaningful change in American foreign policy.
Not sure what being hit with a hurricane has to do with American values. Stuff happens, sometimes nothing can be done about it. Most people have a hard time accepting that. Some people may be a little upset that the most powerful nation on the world hasn’t mastered nature yet, but that’s just the way it is. I think everyone has always recognized that America has limits, and that no country is capable of instantly fixing a huge problem like this.
I don’t see it having any meaningful impact on the war on terror/Iraq.
Sadly this post devolved into some sort of proletarian rant. You can’t stop a hurricane. Also, 9/11 was a failure of national security, a natural disaster is almost completely unrelated. Some people have to accept that no amount of money, and no President be he a Democrat or a Republican can snap his fingers and fix the aftermath that comes after a hurricane hits a mage population center.
Seeing people holed up in the Super Dome without food, water, and medical care - despite the fact that the media and freakin Sean Penn seemed to make it there just fine - made me feel like this was when America “jumped the shark”.
It’s bad enough that our schools suck, we have no rational health insurance policy, and that we are engaged in misadventures round the world. But why couldn’t we have sent in a convoy of trucks with food, water, and medicine?
I think you are misguided in your understanding of what the roots are of exceptionalism; it did not arise because a bunch of people looked around and said “this is a hell of a country we got here,” and that somehow once we got taken down a peg we’re gonna say “gee whiz, guess we’re not so great.” We could and did have a bloody civil war without losing that faith. This is a speed bump.
The roots of “American Exceptionalism” are not American, by the way, but European. It was Europeans, full of Enlightenment optimism that proclaimed that the New World was/would be qualitatively superior to the old and proclaimed that the New World would fulfill the promise of the age of reason. At every step of the way, it was the Europeans that arrived thinking they had reached some sort of paradise that created the exceptionalist mentality that was in place well before the USA became a distinct political entity in the 1770s. That sentiment has been fuelled by successive waves of immigrants from all over the world, many of which do see America as something of a Promised Land.
Perhaps more to the point, American Exceptionalism is rooted in the fact that we are exceptional: we were the first nation to be founded and defined by a set a principles, rather than having evolved and being defined by language, culture, ethnicity, etc.
Well, this isn’t meant to be about my thoughts on American abilities, but to answer you anyway -
I thought the US would be able to deal better than any other country with a disaster - both in planning before-hand and in dealing with the aftermath, now I really don’t know.
The resources are obviously greater in America yet they don’t seem to have been deployed effectively - I don’t know why (I’m sure there are other threads on the subject)
Personally, it’s the “human disaster” that followed the natural one that surprised me - shocked me.
I know people who were caught up in the tsunami - they didn’t feel threatened by the people round them as tourists in NO have been - they didn’t witness people shooting at rescuers – they were fed and sheltered quickly
The tsunami covered a much bigger area than Katrina. Hindus, Muslims Buddhists helped each other and the rich (by their standards) tourists – the various governments acted with various degrees of competence/incompetence as one might expect for the third world (and in some areas stopped aid getting through for political reasons) – no big surprises
I remember my dad talking about how the reaction of the people of New York to 9/11 had made him admire them - dealing with an event they couldn’t possibly have predicted, generally calmly and helping each other (he’d seen something of the Blitz and the dust rushing down the streets from collapsing buildings took him right back)
NO is obviously a bigger, wider event, but it was predictable in the way 9/11 wasn’t
I’m not claiming NO’s response represents the “real” America
I had thought New York’s (to some degree) did – now I really don’t know
So the short answer is “I don’t Know”
Now, to turn it round (at risk of hijacking my own thread) do you think the US has a greater ability to meet the challenge of a large-scale natural disaster than other countries?
Is that an absolute certainty - undimmed by recent events?
Yeah, maybe I should have come up with better words - this might just end up as a discussion of the meaning and history of the phrase “American exceptionalism”
Obviously if the general perception in America is that the challenge was met as well as it could be then there will be no effect - not being in the US I can’t tell (though what I’ve seen of US media suggests at least some disquiet with the response)
Those countries were virtually helpless without outside aid just to rescue and feed their people immediately after the tsunami hit. And I think you would be surprised about the help and compassion the American people has given the hurricane victims.
9/11 happened mainly in an area a few square blocks. The only ones in the disaster zones almost immediately after were law enforcement and rescue workers and dead and wounded. Within a few hours the damage was done.
The Gulf Coast was so drastically different that we are talking apples and oranges. The hurricane was bad but the worse part wasn’t even realized until about 18 hours after the storm had struck.
I absolutely think the US is more capable of handling such a disaster. The tsunami, though much larger hit mainly rural and third country urban areas. While the damage was significant, the loss of life is astronomical compared to Katrina, it was less devastating as far as infrastructure and damage goes. The estimated cost of rebuilding the tsunami struck areas is 12bn. That is the down payment for the rescue efforts for Katrina.
New Orleans is a metropolis with over 1 million living in the immediate area. As far as the comparison goes, its density is similar to that of any major world city accept the most crowded like New York or Tokyo. So if you can imagine any one of those major cities filling up with 10-20 feet of water for weeks, then you can comprehend the disaster that happened in NOLA.
I do not in any way make excuses for those that screwed up and cost maybe hundreds, if not thousands, of lives. But just the fact that that is the worse those idiots could do just goes to show how capable the US is to handle such a disaster. We could have prepared more and built the levies higher. But New Orleans is a phenomenon by the fact that it is a major city surrounded by water and below sea level and steadily sinking. We would have never been able to hold it off forever.
I don’t think even the UN, with all of the resources of its member countries at its disposal could handle it better than the US alone.
I would rather be in New Orleans when the Hurricane hit than I would in any major city in a European country if that city was virtually destroyed or a major terrorist attack happened. In my opinion they would never be able to handle such a devastating blow alone as the US currently is.
I am outraged that even on person had to die waiting for help after the hurricane hit. Can you imagine how many thousands did die waiting after the tsunami? Just Google it and the reports will blow your mind.
What evidence is there that other countries HAVE met the challenge of this type of disaster better than the US did? Remember not that long ago when thousands died in their apartments in France just beacause the temps were in the 90s for a few weeks?
I think a heat wave (in the 90s) is a bit more manageable than a Class 5 hurricane…
I’m not trying to divert attention away from the US response, but you implied that the US’s response was worse than it would have been in other countries. Why?
I think this diaster brings to light the fact that the US has an enormous amount of resources that can be brought to bear on problems. It also shows that management is critically important to make those resources useful.
In this case, the situation became politicized, with people jockeying for position, and nobody knew who could do what. The locals screwed up the evacuation, which left too many people in the city. The feds couldn’t marshall their forces and get supplies into the city, even though the supplies were available.
The changes in FEMA and who is in charge of the effort signals a wake up call for agencies across the country. Things like disaster planning need to be put in the charge of experienced disaster planners, not political friends.
Soon, we will have a much better picture of how we actually did manage to respond, from an “estimated” 10,000 dead to maybe under 1,000 in NOLA (the official number so far is 280). The number dead is the number I care about. The point of these rescues is to save lives, not to make people happy or feel “cared” about.
Not my intended implication at all. It’s more that the US response wasn’t in practise, on this occasion, better - ok each disaster is different in detail and scale and I’m not trying to defend any other government’s handling of anything
I’m perfectly aware for instance that countries in the tsunami zone had chosen not to install an early warning system as exists for the US – that’s pretty much what I’d expect (i.e. a rich country with good governance plans better for “known unknowns” than poor countries with bad governance)
But in NO we’re told “no-one could predict the levees would break” and “no defences could have withstood this event” – one of these may be true, they can’t both be.
I had also expected a more “can do” approach after the hurricane had passed, both at official levels and individually.
(And yes I’m aware lots of individuals “did do” in supremely difficult situations
I just hadn’t expected to see scenes of the old and elderly still abandoned in care homes several days after Katrina – the scenes in the Superdome – streets being swept clean in a prosperous neighbourhood, within clear sight of corpses floating in a still-flooded poorer area while (what I guess were) National Guards stood idly by, heavily armed against their fellow Americans and very unwilling to take responsibility for a someone rescued from the floodwaters by a journalist)
No doubt I don’t understand the distribution of responsibility between the different levels of US government, or the sheer scale of the US and the divisions within its people (regional, racial, economic)
But I’m not interested in broadcasting my views on these things or the response to Katrina - I’m hoping to get answers from **Americans **on whether there is an idea of a shared “Americanness” that crosses all those barriers and whether Katrina (or more particularly the aftermath) will change that at all
(I remember a miner who’d been rescued after days underground saying it made him “proud to be American” that his colleagues had striven against the odds to rescue him, as if to say that it was something about their being Americans that had driven them so hard to try to rescue him, that any other American would have done the same, and presumably, a non-American wouldn’t)
If you and (most other Americans) really watched the events unfold on TV and said to yourself “That was a situation that simply couldn’t have been handled better than it was, and yes, that’s exactly how I expected my fellow Americans to behave in the aftermath of a disaster” then the OP is pointless I guess
Naturally dealing with a Hurricane isn’t only about dishing out money… yet the delay in response speaks badly for a country spending so much money against Terrorism and emergencies. Sure seems like its all Bullshit.
What most impressed my fellow Brazilians was the violence and lack of humanity. Roaming gangs and shooting of helicopters. Looting is a given… but the way civilization and compassion broke down in the aftermath ! Disasters happen… but in most places you see people helping each other out… not raping and the violence we saw on the news. Hearing Bush and the Governor saying they would shoot looters also reinforced the gung-ho and cowboy image of the USA.
One must mention that everyone is awed by the destruction... and didn't expect an overnight recovery or rescue. There is only so much one can do with so much destruction. No amount of money can avoid this... but a quicker government action would help.
[qipte]But why couldn’t we have sent in a convoy of trucks with food, water, and medicine?
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IIRC, it was pretty much flooded. They had to use boats and airlift people out.
Anyway, the entire Hurricane thing has been blown out of the proportion by the media. Although it’s unfortunate the governments did not act sooner, given the information they had, FEMA was hardly irresponsible or incompetent. Certainly, it was working as good as it has in the past, and thats not a bad thing overall. The media pretended this a was an awful catastrophe with thousands upon thousands dead…and they weren’t. It was a lot of property damage. People who didn’t leave grabbed stuff out of the stores, which is understandable.
The biggest “problem” here is the fact that the New Orleans and Louisiana governments are filled with incompetent idiots. Fortunately, they are hardly represenative of the US. And even with them, consider that the HUrricane affected an area the size of Great Britain.
Guys and Dolls, this is more or less a success story as far as the nation is concerned. But of course, reality no longer has any affect on the world. Percetion is everything.
OK, but you haven’t demostrated that it wasn’t better, either. You just said you were surprised it wasn’t better-- well, was it not? How do you know that?
It’s more complicated than that. Of course, anyone who knew anything about the levees knew they weren’t designed to withstand a category 5 hurricane. The officials (or officials) who said what you quoted were talking about this specific storm, which looked like it was going to miss NO at the last minute. Besides, why does that statement represent “America”? Some oifficials may have said that, but the local folks couldn’t have been too shocked.
I think you’re reading too much into a few quotes by a few individuals and then extrapolating to the country as a whole.
Of course it could have been handled better and of course people could have acted better. Most of us have never seen a disaster of this porportion before. I don’t know if “exceptionalism” is more a part of the US ethos than it is of any other country. But if you think Katrina is going to change whatever that ethos is, then I’d say you’re wrong.
A better guage might be what others people think of the US in terms of a place to emigrate to. I don’t see that changing, either.
I beg your pardon. Our government was founded on principles. Our nation evolved and was defined by language, culture, ethnicity, etc. Never confuse nations with states. China is still the same nation as it was in the days of Confucius (when it was not a state), but it has been through many changes of government since then.
People are upset because there are pictures coming in of people trapped in New Orleans w/out food and water, people running around in armed gangs and such. Ultimately though, a lot of people just don’t evacuate during hurricanes. Even during really bad ones. There were people who didn’t evacuate their homes when Mt. St. Helen erupted. Some people don’t have an adequately cautious view towards natural disasters.