So right here we’re once more.
I keep in mind watching, nineteen years in the past, as Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and surrounding areas. I keep in mind donating luggage stuffed with provides to a company that was accumulating them in New York Metropolis and taking them to the stricken areas. I keep in mind listening to about individuals who lived in these areas coming collectively, getting organized, and doing no matter they might to assist one another – and I keep in mind listening to about FEMA brokers doing all the pieces they might to forestall them from serving to one another.
For many who missed out on that have, or have forgotten about it, listed below are some highlights, courtesy of A Midwestern Physician:
Two days earlier than the storm made landfall, whereas FEMA was floundering, the [Mormon]
church dispatched 10 vehicles stuffed with tents, sleeping luggage, tarps to cowl wrecked roofs, bottled water, and 5-gallon drums of fuel from its warehouses to New Orleans and different hard-hit areas. The provides had been distributed in an orderly style to individuals who desperately wanted them.
The Cajun Navy are casual advert hoc volunteer teams comprising non-public boat homeowners
who help in search and rescue efforts in the US in addition to supply catastrophe aid help. These teams had been shaped within the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and reactivated within the aftermaths of the 2016 Louisiana floods, Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, the 2018 Hidalgo County flood, Hurricane Florence, Tropical Storm Gordon, Hurricane Michael, Hurricane Laura, Hurricane Ida, Hurricane Ian, and Hurricane Helene. They’re credited with rescuing 1000’s of residents throughout these disasters.
FEMA’s response to such efforts was to grab mills and different provides, threaten to arrest anybody who crossed their imaginary strains, and in at the least one case, shoot a person who was getting impatient standing in line for provides.
This e-book has a reasonably good accounting of all that, for anybody who’s .
A Midwestern Physician goes on to inform us that FEMA is repeating its harmful – and I’d go as far as to say prison – conduct within the aftermath of Hurricane Helene:
“…contemplate this headline:
A South Carolina pilot who flew stranded Hurricane Helene victims in flood-ravaged North Carolina to security claims he was advised he could be arrested if he continued the rescue missions.
“Many (very annoyed) residents in flip, are additionally reporting that FEMA, past doing nothing, is prohibiting them from offering support to the trapped residents there (whereas the residents for days have remained trapped and in determined want for provides—to the purpose looting is starting to happen).
“Sadder nonetheless, lots of those that may ship the provides (e.g., helicopter pilots) are as a substitute being threatened with arrest (e.g., see this testimony, this testimony, this testimony, this testimony, ), and extra curiously impartial truckers making an attempt to ship aid provides to the world are reporting their tires are being slashed at stops.
“Word: a no-fly zone has additionally been established (which can’t be bypassed in a drone except the working system is hacked), which is especially egregious on this case since Drones are important for finding stranded people who need assistance.”
There may be extra, and I encourage you to learn the total submit right here.
However – and with the caveat that A Midwestern Physician is producing among the greatest well being and medication reporting within the post-Covid-panic world, and I don’t imply to dump on him – his meta tackle the scenario is solely weird. He labels all of this “catastrophe capitalism”, and concludes that “we have to cease placing income earlier than individuals.”
So let’s simply again up a bit of, as a result of AMD is just not the one individual committing this gross error, and the extra individuals who take up any number of anti-capitalist chant, the tougher it will be for us to get on the supply of the issue.
So, very, very merely:
Right here’s what “capitalism” is: A system wherein the technique of manufacturing are owned privately, and the place non-public property rights are revered to an ideal extent.
Right here’s what FEMA is: A authorities company that’s NOT owned privately, that will get its funding from cash that has been taken from individuals with out their consent, and has the ability to grab and even destroy the property of others.
Are you able to see that the 2 aren’t the identical factor?
Are you able to see that they’re, in actual fact, essentially incompatible?
Are you able to see that trying on the actions of FEMA, and the overlords who inform it what to do, and blaming any form of “capitalism” in any respect for these actions, is totally nonsensical?
It could appear as if I’m being pedantic right here. “Who cares what terminology he makes use of! Persons are dying!”
Sure, persons are dying. Once more. And plenty of, many, extra persons are dying unnecessarily, due to the involvement of FEMA and different authorities businesses. They’re dying as a result of individuals don’t perceive the distinction between capitalism and the state.
Of us didn’t be taught this final time. They didn’t be taught it with Katrina, they didn’t be taught it with Lahaina, and most of them nonetheless haven’t realized it with Covid.
The federal government is just not there that can assist you.
The federal government is just not your pal.
The federal government is, in actual fact, your enemy.
I keep in mind, throughout and after Katrina, making an attempt to make this level with my “political” mates. You understand, those who imagine within the political system, who imagine that voting is how we make issues higher, and if solely the “proper” individuals had been in cost all the pieces would all be effective.
What a few of these mates advised me was that FEMA tousled the Katrina response, NOT as a result of authorities actors are performing underneath backwards incentives and don’t have any purpose to work to profit different human beings and little or no incentive to not hurt them – however as a result of the mistaken individuals had been in cost. It was all as a result of the top of FEMA was a Bush appointee, and in addition some form of horse breeder or one thing.
I’m excited to listen to what my political mates give you this time round.
In the meantime, and despite authorities efforts to “assist”, people are onerous at work serving to these in want, getting provides to the place they’re wanted, and rebuilding.
Says Starr of Appalachia:
”Instantly within the days after the storm, I started to see inspiring tales of mountain individuals serving to one another. Of oldsters on horses and mules, carrying provides to the extra distant communities which were minimize off by this storm. Of eating places and meals vehicles hooking up mills and serving free meals to the group. Of mates operating harmful provide missions to Charlotte and again. Of neighbors constructing foot bridges throughout ravines so individuals can get out to purchase groceries. Sure, it’s dire. However Appalachia has obtained this.”
For anybody searching for respected, non-thieving, organizations to which to donate, Starr has offered an inventory.
Nurse Freedom Community can also be taking donations and getting them to the place they’re wanted.
I typically don’t know what to consider my fellow people. Time and again, the establishment of the state has proven itself to be the enemy of humanity (I haven’t even talked about what’s been happening in – centrally regulated and funded – hospitals these previous 4 years), but so many people insist on clinging to it as if it’s the one factor upon which our survival relies upon. I usually discover myself pondering “effectively, if this isn’t sufficient to persuade you that the state is just not your protector, however is essentially the most lethal risk to your existence, then there’s nothing I can do that can assist you.”
However then I see all of these people in Appalachia, simply getting on the market and doing what must be accomplished, routing across the harm that’s the state – whether or not they acknowledge it as such or not – and I feel, perhaps we’re going to be OK anyway.
Initially revealed at LewRockwell.com.