The real offense in this article is not his profane references to "poverty pimps" and his demonization of people on the left, who believe there should be basic services from the government to the most vulnerable in society. It instead is this notion that in this unprecedented tragedy, it is the victims who need to accept the blame. Not the man who ignored this tragedy for several days and refused to accept that anything went wrong for a week. I will be the first to say there are certainly people who coast through life and do not take advantage of what opportunities are there for them but to take that small fraction and apply a broad brush stroke to everyone who is poor, is simply wrong. It is simply insulting.
Hurricane Katrina was a horrible natural disaster. The breaching of the levees however, and the abysmal efforts from all levels of government in its aftermath, has many culprits. Bush, Chertoff, Brown, Nagin and many others share that culpabaility. So do the companies that decided it was not cost effective to sustain the levees for a category five hurricane. I draw the line however at blaming the poor people who got trapped simply because they are poor. Maybe if Bill would stop spinning so fast, he would realize that he is shouting into a wind of his own making this time.
Poverty has many root causes and there are many possibilities for how to break that cycle. The notion that will power is the way out is fanciful and ignorant to the core of the poverty problem. This is what happens when someone talks about poverty in an abstract, philosophical way because they have nothing experiential to draw from. I tried to find the link to this article on Bill's website, but it was in his "premium member" section. For a mere fifty bucks I could have access to this premium section for a whole year. If only I could have taken advantage of the affirmative action and job training opportunities I had when I was younger, maybe I could have afforded it. Oh well, at least I won't drown in his hypocrisy.
Hurricane Katrina was a horrible natural disaster. The breaching of the levees however, and the abysmal efforts from all levels of government in its aftermath, has many culprits. Bush, Chertoff, Brown, Nagin and many others share that culpabaility. So do the companies that decided it was not cost effective to sustain the levees for a category five hurricane. I draw the line however at blaming the poor people who got trapped simply because they are poor. Maybe if Bill would stop spinning so fast, he would realize that he is shouting into a wind of his own making this time.
Poverty has many root causes and there are many possibilities for how to break that cycle. The notion that will power is the way out is fanciful and ignorant to the core of the poverty problem. This is what happens when someone talks about poverty in an abstract, philosophical way because they have nothing experiential to draw from. I tried to find the link to this article on Bill's website, but it was in his "premium member" section. For a mere fifty bucks I could have access to this premium section for a whole year. If only I could have taken advantage of the affirmative action and job training opportunities I had when I was younger, maybe I could have afforded it. Oh well, at least I won't drown in his hypocrisy.
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