From Scarborough country:
SCARBOROUGH: At the same time, what bothers me is that we have seen, by getting supplies over here from our group from Florida, the best way to do it is not through governmental groups or huge bureaucracies. It's through faith-based groups.
LOTT: Absolutely.
SNIP......
SCARBOROUGH: Why is it that church groups can do this so much more effectively than our federal or state or local governments?
LOTT: Because that's the uniqueness of America.
The first-responders really are always the American people. They will rise to the occasion, any occasion. There are trucks headed from Ohio and Illinois today to help the people there. And, basically, they are coming through church groups, to church groups, where they are quickly moved to the people that need it. I don't know why the federal government can't do the same thing.
But it is a problem. And we have learned over the past, certainly the last week, we are going to try to find where the problems are by talking to the mayors, the supervisors, individuals. Then we are going to find the solution to getting it direct to the people. And we are going around a lot of the bureaucracy.
But the federal government is going to have to come to terms with doing a better job. One other point. Last night, I want to a reception to thank a group called Diageo. It's an international company from London. They moved a giant generator into Pass Christian, Mississippi, within 24 hours after the hurricane winds died down. And they have been running the water system in Pass Christian ever since, private company. Nobody told them where to go. They came. They did the job.
And when I asked the chairman of the company, how can you do that, but the government hasn't been able to do it, his response was, I can't answer that, because it would incriminate too many people. But it can be done. And we are learning. We are getting the bureaucracy, the wheels turning a little bit. We made a little progress on the mobile home issue. But we still need a lot more, and we need to get them to the people.
Wingers will push this harder and harder in the weeks and months to come. They will use Katrina to justify the growing movement to place the role of government in the hands of Christian churches. They will say as above they can do the job and government can not.
Well government did the job in the past. The problem is how the government is administered under Bush. We must demand government Do It's Job and not abdicate its powers and purpose to the churches.
Usurping revenue and powers to churches is Anti-democratic and Anti-American. And the churches will have many strings attached to aid once they have cornered the market. America wake up. When they run the schools what will your children be taught? When they run social services who will be aided and what will they need to do to be eligible? And when they respond to a disaster who will be rescued?
Do you really think Pat Robertson's Operation Blessing will go into The Castro to rescue gays and lesbians when the big one hits San Francisco?
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