Ending the Impunity of the Bush White House

[thebullet]

By Norman Solomon

The man in the Oval Office is fond of condemning "killers." But his administration continues to kill with impunity.

"They can go into Iraq and do this and do that," Martha Madden, former secretary of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, said Thursday, "but they can't drop some food on Canal Street in New Orleans, Louisiana, right now? It's just mind-boggling."

The policies are matters of priorities. And the priorities of the Bush White House are clear. For killing in Iraq, they spare no expense. For protecting and sustaining life, the cupboards go bare.

The problem is not incompetence. It's inhumanity, cruelty and greed.

Media outlets have popularized some tactical critiques of US military operations in Iraq. But the administration is competent enough to keep the military-industrial complex humming. It's good at generating huge profits for "defense" contractors, oil companies and the like. First things first, and first things last.

Why shore up levees when the precious money it would take can be better used for war in Iraq? Why allow National Guard units to remain home when they can be useful, killing and being killed, in a faraway war based on lies?

And when catastrophe hits people close to home, why should the president respond with urgency or adequacy if their lives don't figure as truly important inhis political calculus?

It's time to end the impunity of President George W. Bush.

Of course he doesn't pull the triggers, drop the bombs or oversee the torture himself. And he avoids the dying that he has facilitated in the wake of the hurricane. White-collar criminals - in this case, white-collar war criminals - rarely get close to their dirtiest work.

Every minute has counted in the wake of the hurricane. While dawdling and compounding the massive tragedy, Bush wants to shift responsibility. We should stop and think about why he noisily rattled a big tin cup midway through the week.

While the death toll rises in New Orleans and criticisms of his inaction grow more outraged across the country, the man wants us to think about making a charitable contribution, not taking political action. But George Bush and Dick Cheney must not be let off the hook.

There is something egregiously obscene about the people in charge of the US government telling citizens to donate money for a hurricane relief effort while the administration, from the president on down, has viciously abdicated its most basic responsibilities.

For the activities it views as really important, like the war on Iraq, the Bush White House hardly requires private contributions while siphoning off vast quantities of taxpayer funds. But when the task is to save lives instead of destroying them, kids are supposed to bust open their piggy banks.

"True compassion," Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out, "is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring." He accused the federal government of demonstrating "hostility to the poor" - appropriating "military funds with alacrity and generosity" but providing "poverty funds with miserliness." Four decades later, de facto hostility to the poor remains government policy, and its results include widespread deaths in New Orleans that could have been prevented.

Respect must be paid, and justice must be created. The dead cannot be brought back; the suffering of recent days can't be undone. But it's up to us to create maximum pressure for a truly adequate rescue effort - and to organize effectively while demanding political accountability. That means depriving Bush, Cheney and their congressional allies of the power they ruthlessly enjoy. And that means ending their impunity, so that truth has consequences.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Nice to see making political hay from human tragedy isn't just a Neoo-con past time

 

[thebullet]

Coleen:

perhaps you are right. Perhaps this isn't the time for political outrage.

But Christ, almighty, how can one remain calm in the face of this unprecedented disaster followed by this unprecedented cluster fuck?

I watched the Secretary of Homeland Security on CNN yesterday tell Paula Zahn that there weren 't a lot of people at the Convention Center. People weren't dying there. There were no rapes of little girls there. This was all an unsubstantiated rumor.

Paula, who generally bends over and smiles in this face of these kinds of administration lies, this time didn't take it. After all, every person in the country who has access to a television knew the truth of the matter days ago.

And yet the Secretary of Homeland Security - the man in charge of leading our government's response to this disaster - was more concerned about spin control than about saving the dying.

If you can remain calm in the face of that kind of cynicism, you are a better man than I am.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Coleen:

perhaps you are right. Perhaps this isn't the time for political outrage.

But Christ, almighty, how can one remain calm in the face of this unprecedented disaster followed by this unprecedented cluster fuck?

I watched the Secretary of Homeland Security on CNN yesterday tell Paula Zahn that there weren 't a lot of people at the Convention Center. People weren't dying there. There were no rapes of little girls there. This was all an unsubstantiated rumor.

Paula, who generally bends over and smiles in this face of these kinds of administration lies, this time didn't take it. After all, every person in the country who has access to a television knew the truth of the matter days ago.

And yet the Secretary of Homeland Security - the man in charge of leading our government's response to this disaster - was more concerned about spin control than about saving the dying.

If you can remain calm in the face of that kind of cynicism, you are a better man than I am.

In the two most significant american human tragedies of this century so far, I've had the misfortune to be in New York on 9/11 and in Mississippi when Katrina hit. And I've been damned lucky.

My response isn't partisan, it's a snort of derision that is applied to both liberals and neo-cons from their actions in the face of these two tragedies.

Beyond that snort, I don't think the article rates any more comment. It's just as sick and twisted as making 9/11 into an excuse to attack liberals and civil rights.

 

[Liar]

In due time, there will be time and place to review how the scenario has been handled and demand political accountability.
At the moment, it's bad taste and a waste of energy better used elsewhere.
And also, as debate technique goes, shitty timing for it.

 

[rgraham666]

Going to add my voice to the chorus, bullet.

It's too soon to use this tragedy for political points. I'm not sure if the day will ever come.

 

[Liar]

Going to add my voice to the chorus, bullet.

It's too soon to use this tragedy for political points. I'm not sure if the day will ever come.

There is political aspect to a tragedy like this. There is a political aspect to everything, and I think it's just as bad to let it drop because the subject is humanitarian firsthand. When it's appropriate to adress it is another question. I'd at least wait until people have stopped dying.

 

[Wildcard Ky]

There will be a time and place to analyze this disaster from a political point of view. Actions and reactions to the crisis will all need to be fairly judged. Now is not the time and place though. It's much too soon, and there simply isn't enough information yet.

There are more important matters going on at the moment.

 

[Huckleman2000]

Nice to see making political hay from human tragedy isn't just a Neoo-con past time

Political hay created this human tragedy. The faster people realize this, the more pressure they will place on the politicians whose responsibility it is to provide for the greater good, and solve the problems that are created when they abdicate that responsibility.

I direct the argument to a more articulate (and more "conservative") commentator than I am:

The New York Times
September 1, 2005
The Storm After the Storm
By DAVID BROOKS

Hurricanes come in two waves. First comes the rainstorm, and then comes what the historian John Barry calls the "human storm" - the recriminations, the political conflict and the battle over compensation. Floods wash away the surface of society, the settled way things have been done. They expose the underlying power structures, the injustices, the patterns of corruption and the unacknowledged inequalities. When you look back over the meteorological turbulence in this nation's history, it's striking how often political turbulence followed.

In 1889 in Pennsylvania, a great flood washed away much of Johnstown. The water's crushing destruction sounded to one person like a "lot of horses grinding oats." Witnesses watched hundreds of people trapped on a burning bridge, forced to choose between burning to death or throwing themselves into the churning waters to drown.

The flood was so abnormal that the country seemed to have trouble grasping what had happened. The national media were filled with wild exaggerations and fabrications: stories of rivers dammed with corpses, of children who died while playing ring-around-the-rosy and who were found with their hands still clasped and with smiles still on their faces.

Prejudices were let loose. Hungarians then were akin to today's illegal Mexican immigrants - hard-working people who took jobs no one else wanted. Newspapers carried accounts of gangs of Hungarian men cutting off dead women's fingers to steal their rings. "Drunken Hungarians, Dancing, Singing, Cursing and Fighting Amid the Ruins" a New York Herald headline blared.

Then, as David McCullough notes in "The Johnstown Flood," public fury turned on the Pittsburgh millionaires whose club's fishing pond had emptied on the town. The Chicago Herald depicted the millionaires as Roman aristocrats, seeking pleasure while the poor died like beasts in the Coliseum.

Even before the flood, public resentment was building against the newly rich industrialists. Protests were growing against the trusts, against industrialization and against the new concentrations of wealth. The Johnstown flood crystallized popular anger, for the fishing club was indeed partly to blame. Public reaction to the disaster helped set the stage for the progressive movement and the trust-busting that was to come.

In 1900, another great storm hit the U.S., killing over 6,000 people in Galveston, Tex. The storm exposed racial animosities, for this time stories (equally false) swept through the press accusing blacks of cutting off the fingers of corpses to steal wedding rings. The devastation ended Galveston's chance to beat out Houston as Texas' leading port.

Then in 1927, the great Mississippi flood rumbled down upon New Orleans. As Barry writes in his account, "Rising Tide," the disaster ripped the veil off the genteel, feudal relations between whites and blacks, and revealed the festering iniquities. Blacks were rounded up into work camps and held by armed guards. They were prevented from leaving as the waters rose. A steamer, the Capitol, played "Bye Bye Blackbird" as it sailed away. The racist violence that followed the floods helped persuade many blacks to move north.

Civic leaders intentionally flooded poor and middle-class areas to ease the water's pressure on the city, and then reneged on promises to compensate those whose homes were destroyed. That helped fuel the populist anger that led to Huey Long's success. Across the country people demanded that the federal government get involved in disaster relief, helping to set the stage for the New Deal. The local civic elite turned insular and reactionary, and New Orleans never really recovered its preflood vibrancy.

We'd like to think that the stories of hurricanes and floods are always stories of people rallying together to give aid and comfort. And, indeed, each of America's great floods has prompted a popular response both generous and inspiring. But floods are also civic examinations. Amid all the stories that recur with every disaster - tales of sudden death and miraculous survival, the displacement and the disease - there is also the testing.

Civic arrangements work or they fail. Leaders are found worthy or wanting. What's happening in New Orleans and Mississippi today is a human tragedy. But take a close look at the people you see wandering, devastated, around New Orleans: they are predominantly black and poor. The political disturbances are still to come.

 

[mismused]

delete

 

[cantdog]

Not the time? Okay. Let us all know when that is, will ya? I'm sooo bad at this timing thing. I guess I'll never be a social success.

 

[Guest]

Killed another Katrina thread, didn't you, cant?


You know, my opinion has steadily changed about this horror.

At first, it was a mind-numbing sort of tragedy. I viewed the ongoing devastation on the news and worried and wondered about those unforunates who were left behind.

Then when the pictures began to surface after I saw the massive destruction. And I hoped it wasn't going to be as bad as everyone had anticipated.

And then, when I saw it was actually worse, and per the declared state of emergency expected the usual help to arrive, it didn't. For days and days and days.

People dying from lack of food and water? Hospital patients dying because of failed generators? Refugees reduced to fighting and looting for scraps to stay alive while in a supposedly safer area children are being raped and murdered? The 7-year-old boy they found murdered hit me particularly hard - my son is also 7.

So, I was sad. But now I'm angry.

Angry that there have been definite fuck-ups in the response, angry that not everything possible could have been done to help. Angry that FEMA is not the organization it used to be. Angry that the troops weren't deployed sooner. Angry that the police in New Orleans are being blamed despite their efforts to cope in an impossible situation.

AND, I'm angry that 9/11 has been used as a political bashing tool for power since the day it happened. But heaven help the rest of us if we dare suggest Katrina as the counter balance.

But I think it is. And collective anger is going to fuel that fire for a long while.

 

[thebullet]

Okay, people, lay a rap on me for having the ill-grace to point out the obvious. You didn't hear me complaining about the federal response during the 9/11 disaster, and yet I held GW in as much contempt then as I do now.

I felt the response during 9/11 was all that could be expected on all levels. However don't try to tell me that the federal response to the Katrina disaster was in any way acceptable.

During the D-Day invasion, the German commander on the Wester Front (as I recall it was Irwin Romel, but I could be wrong), needed to move his tanks or troops from Calais to the Normandy beach area. He needed the approval of the REMF (rear echelon mother fuckers) in Berlin. But they refused to give him the approval because they needed to tell Hitler about it. But Hitler had gone to bed with a sleeping tablet. His lackies were afraid to wake him up with bad news. And so Normandy was lost because Hitler slept.

I was reminded of this antecdote this week. The Gulf coast of the US was battered by a category 4 hurricane. The results were horrendous. Many thousands of people were homeless. Many were dying of thirst. There was chaos: anarchy, looting, rapes, murders. EVERYBODY in the United States and around the world knew about it. Our news organizations were able to get on the scene immediately to document the awful events.

And yet, the federal government did NOTHING. The President was on vacation. Perhaps his lackies were afraid to tell him the truth of the situation for fear of his wrath. And so thousands were lost, because the President was on vacation.

This is not a partisen post. Our government's criminal inaction is not party-driven. I've heard convincing arguments that the inaction was racial. If these many thousands of people left behind in New Orleans had been rich and white, does anyone think that the government's response would have been delayed by five days?

Could the government not have gotten troops into New Orleans by Tuesday or Wednesday? Could they not have found some water somewhere to take into that beleagured city?

Again, I state, this was a cluster fuck. Today I am hearing the head of FEMA claim that they just didn't know things were this bad, but boy are they responding well NOW. Weren't those bastards watching TV? Apparantly not. I heard Chertoff argue with a reporter about whether people were dying at the Convention Center, while pictures in the background showed dead bodies shoved into corners.

Yes, I have been against the Bush Administration in the past. But never blindly. I supported the 9/11 resonse. I supported the war in Afghanistan.

But how anyone can be happy with these motherfuckers right now is beyond me. Don't tell me to wait and make my judgement later. I saw the people dying.

 

[Weird Harold]

And yet, the federal government did NOTHING. The President was on vacation. Perhaps his lackies were afraid to tell him the truth of the situation for fear of his wrath. And so thousands were lost, because the President was on vacation.

It's very conveninent of you to ignore that the president took a virtually unprecedented step of declaring two entire states federal disaster areas TWO DAYS BEFORE THE DISASTER OCCURED!

From that point, unlike the fascist regime you claim we have, the federal government waited for the state governments to tell them what aid was needed and where it was needed -- just as the laws and disaster preparedness planning called for them to do.

The president cannot order federal troops into a state or call up national guard units for disaster response whenever he feels like it -- the laws governing those actions are fairly clear. Further if the President calls up National Guard units, they become federal troops and Posse Comitatus prevents them from being used in a law-enforcement role; The National Guard can only assist Law Enforcement when called up by their governor as State troops.

The president did what he was legally allowed to do prior to Katrina making landfall -- he made federal support available to Lousiana and Mississippi for the asking; it's not his fault the states didn't ask.

FEMA and the Red Cross did use the disaster declaration to prepostion some quick response assets: There was a picture inthe news the day after the strom of one of the Red Cross Emergency Response vehicles up to its dashboard in floodwaters.

I get the impression that you have never had a bad day when nothing goes according to plan -- or you think the government is somehow exempt from having planning thwarted by events.

Katrina is bit more serious than being late for an appointment because of a traffic accident -- by about a factor of a million or so -- but the same basic principle of "things don't always go as planned" is essentially the same.

When you preposition equipment for an emergency and then find out that the bridge you expected to use is gone and the next nearest bridge is going to add five or six hundred miles to your quick response, your response isn't exactly going to be quick.

When you position equipment too close to an anticipated disaster and find out that the disaster engulfed it, you're usually forced to scrap your originl plan and find something somewher to rplace the assets you no longer have.

Those are only two of the kinds of things that went wrong with the governments plans.

Given the recent changes to disaster planning putting everything under the DHS umbrella and the untested nature that orgizational system, I'm far from surprised at the flaws in the response to Katrina. On the other hand, I've dealt with exercises and war-games enough to be impressed that the response is a far from a total SNAFU as it is -- frankly, I expected it to be far worse once I saw the first images of the devastation.

 

[thebullet]

Weird Harold:

Words. Only words. Yes, the President declared the states federal disaster areas. And then he turned his back on the problem.

Where was FEMA? Where was the Department of Homeland Security?

Bush mouthed the words and then went back to his vacation. As someone noted, when was the last time you heard from Cheney? He is apparantly on vacation still.

How can you defend these people, Weird Harold? They waited while New Orleans crumbled. Is there blame to be laid at the feet of the governers of these states? Probably. I saw the Governor of Mississippi claim that he "Begged" for the people to evacuate before the storm and they ignored him. He begged??? Why didn't he facilitate the evacuation? Where were the buses? Why were there no logistical plans in place?

Most of all, when it was obvious to everyone, perhaps even you, Weird Harold, that people were suffering and dying why did the government still wait?

The storm hit on Sunday. Starting Monday organizations like CNN and MSNBC had cameras on site reporting the extent of suffering going on. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - babies started dying of thirst - rioting, vandalism, looting, rape, murders began - Thousands of people were stranded at the Super Dome and the Convention Center with no food, no water, no sanitation, living in filth.

Tell me, Weird Harold. Did you not notice those people at the Superdome? Did you not notice the people at the Convention Center?

I saw an interview with the head of Homeland Security on THURSDAY. He said that there weren't people at the Convention Center suffering. He may have been the only person in the United States (besides George Bush) that didn't know what was going on. Unfortunately he and George Bush were the two people in the United States most responsible for setting rescue operations in motion.

I guess it's too bad that no one told these two guys about what was going on. Maybe a few more people might have been saved.

 

[Weird Harold]

Words. Only words. Yes, the President declared the states federal disaster areas. And then he turned his back on the problem.

Where was FEMA? Where was the Department of Homeland Security?

What don't you understand about theywere doing as much as they legally could do.

You wail and moan about the neo-cons turning the US into a fascist state and then condemn them for following the law and NOT acting like fascists? How logical is that?

I don't LIKE what following the law and waiting for incompetent and timid local officials to waffle and procrastinate caused in terms of human suffering, but I do understand how the LAW dictated much of the delay in Federal support.

You need to check your calendar BTW, Katrina made landfall early MONDAY morning 29 August 2005, not Sunday.

I can defend SOME of the problems because I spent too many years dealing with the effects of Murphy's Law on contingency plans --especially brand new contingency plans after a reorganization when the responses drilled into people under the old organization no longer apply.

I have enough experience with Murphy's Law SNAFU to understand why some of the problems exist and know that the situation could be horribly worse than it is even while wishing it was much better.

There is lots of blame and stupidity around but it really is far less than there could be. Very little of the blame and stupidity can be laid at the president's feet, though -- appointing idiots that don't believe what they see reported live on the news is one that can be -- because in designating two states disaster areas before the disaster actually happened is about as far as GWB could stretch the law in this case.

I wish GWB was the fascist dictator you portray him to be -- then the LAW wouldn't have limited what he could do and when he could give DHS the overall control. But then I guess we're better off with GWB being limited by the law than we are with him as a dictator.

I really don't know what you think GWB should have done, but I don't know of anything more he could have legally done and nothing that he couldn't have done just as well from Crawford as he could from the Oval office -- legal or not.

 

[thebullet]

You wail and moan about the neo-cons turning the US into a fascist state and then condemn them for following the law and NOT acting like fascists? How logical is that?

The facile answer is, they aren't only facists, they are also racists.

Harold, maybe your statements would have meaning if it were only me talking about the President's incompetence. I'm the first to admit that I think he is a total asshole.

Still, while all these people were suffering and dying, every person who was on the TV, both in front of and behind the cameras, were bemoaning the government's lack of response. Were you watching, Harold? Did you see the disbelief?

Where was the government?

Don't tell me that their hands were tied. That is an excuse, not an answer.

You are a naive old guy, Harold, to believe the drivel that comes out of the mouths of our leaders.

They are more concerned with spin than they are with lives. But they can't spin this one. The whole world knows what incompetence resides at the top of American government.

I guess that leaves you and other die-hard conservatives to carry the torch of GW's greatness.

Gee, that torch keeps getting dimmer and dimmer.

 

[TxRad]

When you compare this to 9/11 it tells me that you don't have a clue as to the scope of the disaster that hit La. Miss. & Ala. This isn'r a dozen square block area with roads, highways, hospitals, fire and rescue all around. This is 90,000 square MILES of devastation. Bridges gone, roads gone, impassable wreckage. Everyone is focusing on N.O. but that's only the tip of the problem. There are whole Parishes in La. and counties in Miss. that still are isolated and cut off that took the full brunt of katrina's fury. Some of these areas sent people to find the news media today to tell officials that they also need supplies and help. These areas are mostly white so let the racial issue drop as it doesn't hold water. As usual, the squeekiest wheel gets all the attention.

I lived most of my life in La. and have helped out in no less than 4 hurricanes... If you've never been through one or worked to get to people after one, you have no idea of the problems. Blaming the President is your right but you need to quit watching the TV and reading what all the idiots are writing and spend a little time just trying to visialize the damage and all the problems that are involved....

 

[Alex756]

Where was the government?

There was a HUGE response. There are many nations smaller than the area affected by this storm. Troops that were pulling up to the dome on Friday morning had been driving for DAYS to get there.

2 states, a land area as large as the UK, transportation made impossible. Ships take time to travel, land conveoys take time and get detoured. At first NO looked spared until HOURS later when the levee went, aid had started to be sent to the thirsty hungry masses in MS and AL and other areas of LA and there was only soo much in the imediate area that wasn't destroyed.

To have been prepared for something like this would have meant the deferal state and city governemnts would have had HUGE stockpiles everywhere.

Do we have those stockpiles for when CA gets the big one? It'll probbaly take some days to get full aid into there when it happens too.

Yes there are things that went wrong at all levels of government. But really, how well can you prepare for something like this? The reporters were there so fast becasue those people are insane and willingly flew in and rode out the storm there.

-Alex

 

[Weird Harold]

You are a naive old guy, Harold, to believe the drivel that comes out of the mouths of our leaders.

I'm not all that naive, I just have a little personal experience with what it takes to mobilize and move a military unit, how reliant most people are on modern communications technology, how things can get snarled when you have to revert back to obsolete technology -- like shouting from rooftop to rooftop.

I've dealt with chaos and I have a small conception of just how big a natural disaster that covers three states and 90,000 square miles really is.

I have as little respect for the "journalists" that film the stranded and dying without using the helicopter they're filming from to assist as you do for what you see as incompetent leadership.

As little as people want to believe it, -- both those affected and those watching the sensational bits the media see fit to show us -- the response of the federal government is as quick as it has been for any other natural disaster at home or abroad. The problems you say should hve been solved the day after the storm hit are the very same problems that Koki Anan was bemoaning nine days after the Dec Tsunami.

I'm more than willing to indulge in Bush-bashing when it's deserved but I don't believe in requiring super-human prophetic abilities and immunity from Murphy's Law or using hind-sight as justification to find fault.

When GWB says "I ordered 7,000 active duty military personnel into the disaster area," I know from personal experience that it's going to be a minimum of 48 hours before they're on the move -- and that's IF they're a unit with a mobility commitment. If they're not a unit with a mobility commitment, it will take a minimum of 72 hours and probably five full days before they are even ready to move -- and there is damn little GWB or God himself can do to get them moving any faster.

People like you will be screaming tomorrow, "where are those 7,000 troops he ordered to help?" but I know better because I've been through it.

The people in charge were far from pessimistic enough about Katrina, but the people with boots on the ground are doing the best they can and nothing happens instantaneously -- or even in just five days.

Command Control and Communications are fucked in this situation -- especially communication with the people who need help -- but until the troops who have what is needed and can get to where it's needed know what is needed where, there isn't anything that will do any good.

You say "the news media can get in and bracast all of the suffering live on your living room so why isn't the military getting there to rescue them, why isn't the military watching television?"

I ask is the news media talking to rescue workers or just broadcasting live?

I ask, who has time to watch television when they're trying to find people to rescue?

I ask why isn't the media at least dropping cheap CB or FRS radios to stranded people so they can talk to the rescue workers and coordinate with them?

I ask why the media helicopters aren't dropping water and energy bar bundles to the people they're filming as partial payment for theratings the misery brings.

The problem is information and access -- the media is providing information to the wrong people and access (in NO) is limited by washed out bridges and flooded roads.

The problems I see aren't "spin" and they are only peripherilly related to the leadership, but the problems I see and can relate to my personal experience with the effect of Murphy's Law on any attempt at following a contingency plan more than explain the delays to me. I'm not swallowing any government spin, I'm evaluating situations and looking at how they affect operations.

I'm looking at what was put in place before hand and where it was placed and seeing that the planners guessed wrong and underestimated the extent of damage. Then I'm looking at what additional manpower was needed and estimating from my experience how long it will take to muster and move into position.

In other words, I'm looking at the situation as it exists rather than looking at ways to blame everything on someone. The one exception is the contempt I have developed for the government of New Orleans' incompetence and negligence in not having an evacuation plan that was worth the match it would take to burn it.

I'm looking at the obvious mistakes that have been made and most of the time I'm saying to myself, "yep, I'd probably have made the same decision and looked just as stupid," because I'm looking at what a reasonable person might have decided if given the same limited information that the decision was based on.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

The Unraveling of Bush's America
Mike Whitney

September 2, 2005

Take a step back for a minute, then take a deep breath, because what we are seeing now is the beginning of the end of America's darkest hour; the end of the Bush Administration.

Bush will never survive this disaster; the tectonic political-plates have shifted too dramatically; the failure too colossal.

Nearly overnight the familiar voices that sang his praises from every media pulpit in America have either been silenced or turned against him. It is truly extraordinary; and a tad suspicious.

The friendly cheerleaders are bailing-out across the spectrum; NBC, CBS, MSNBC and even the "bullish" FOX News have all descended on their prey like feral dogs on a wounded squirrel.

Suddenly the callousness and rustic hauteur of our esteemed leader, the "Fly-over" President, seems to be wearing-thin on leaders and pundits alike. They smell blood in the water and they are preparing to do what they do best; dismember the flailing carcass with gnashing, razor-like teeth.

But, why the abrupt change?

Can anyone remember a time when the government has failed as miserably as it has with Hurricane Katrina?

While tens of thousands of desperate Americans are hunkered down in 90 degree heat without food or water, President Imposter is circling at 30 thousand feet blowing kisses to his drowning people below.

Bush has become a Texas Louis 14, completely detached in his bubble-world echoing the shallow bromides of his ideological predecessor, "Apres moi, le deluge".

His first response to the storm was to suspend the EPA's clean air restrictions on the profitable oil industry and to promise government aid for offshore drilling facilities.

No surprises there.

The second part of the administration's strategy was to work up an elaborate public relations charade that involved trotting out every waffle-bottomed bureaucrat in Washington in front of the TV cameras to make officious-sounding statements.

Meanwhile, nothing has been done to relieve the desperation of victims in New Orleans who are suffering through America's greatest natural disaster.

In fact, that appears to be the strategy; do nothing!

Many of the reports that are being filed mention that National Guard installations are set up just blocks away from the Superdome and the Convention Center; the epicenter of the human tragedy, and yet, the Guard is doing nothing to meet the needs of the people inside.

Why?

Many people are asking if it is because they are predominantly black and poor.

Certainly as we see the footage of poor, black people dragging across the city, 3 days without food and water and no busses in sight; we have to wonder if there is a racial element involved.

Rather than address the dire needs of the stranded people, Bush has approved "shoot to kill" orders for looters.

Unbelievable?!?

So, now its "open season" on starving people scavenging through the ruins of the city looking for sustenance for their family?

Bush is set on repeating the same mistakes he made in Falluja and Baghdad when angry townspeople were mowed-down during peaceful protests.

Look how that turned out.

Is that what Bush wants; a revolution?

What possible purpose does it serve to take 1500 Guardsman off their duties of treating the wounded and feeding the hungry, and making them patrol the streets to round up petty-thieves?

And why has Bush approved the deploying of snipers to the tops of New Orleans buildings instead of health-care workers to its overcrowded facilities?

"I think there should be zero tolerance for people breaking the law during an emergency such as this," Bush boomed on ABC's Good Morning America.

Bush's "law and order" approach to the tragedy is consistent with his utter inability to grasp the pain of the average victim of this colossal disaster. As always, he simply parrots the inane bromides about private property that underscore the Republican ideological world-view.

Bush is a firm believer that looting should be limited to the class of carpet-baggers and war criminals to which he belongs. He has no problem with the "no-bid" contracts and war-profiteering that has plagued Iraqi debacle from day-one. The $9 billion of pilfered Iraqi oil revenue never even drew a raised eyebrow from our benighted leader, but the notion that that corruption might be extended democratically to everyone regardless of class. That's the REAL crime as Bush sees it.

The vast looting and destruction in New Orleans is an object lesson to the ruling class and one that ultimately benefits antiwar activists and civil libertarians. The people in power need to grasp the ephemeral character of society; there's nothing permanent about it. Order is a transitory phenomenon that papers-over the primordial swamp of human rage, desire and barbarity. When we peel back the outer layer of society, we see those same dark forces at work; a cauldron of competing emotions and shadowy cravings. Those forces are now in play on the streets of New Orleans, along with the even more elemental drive to survive.

What bothers men like Bush is the prospect that everyone may partake in the same nihilistic-revelry that he and his confreres have enjoyed for so long. It is the anarchy of unrestrained greed that puts a shiver in his spine; the selfishness that infects every man's heart. And, yet, this is the true face of present-day America; a lawless, twisted waif unleashing waves of terror across the globe; feeding the burgeoning coffers of its privileged few.

Why not uncork the bottle and let everyone take part in the festivities?


As the poet Yates said,

"The blood-dimmed tide is loosed And everywhere the celebration of innocence is drowned".


What's good for Bush is good for everyone. Isn't this what we see unfolding in New Orleans?

The roving gangs of looters are like a giant mirror hung in front of the White House reflecting the anarchic soul that lies within; Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Falluja; this is the Bush legacy. And, now, it is America's, too.


America has become like Rimbaud's dissolute drifter in "A Season in Hell" who boasts:

"I stretched myself out in the mud, I dried myself in the air of crime, And I played some fine tricks on madness."


Bush can't have it both ways. He cannot destroy the law and then pretend it still exists for the poor and helpless.

The looters in New Orleans are the offspring of the Bush political ethos; a no-holds-barred culture of violence, thievery and impunity.

If we cannot have a society based on justice and mercy, than let's tear it down and start over

 

[thebullet]

we are seeing now is the beginning of the end of America's darkest hour; the end of the Bush Administration.

Sorry, VB but I don't buy it. The one thing that the administration is good at is public relations. Some how, some way, they will spin their way out of this one too. The American public has shown a vast propensity to believe almost anything they are told by these people.

This is a speed bump on the Bush highway. Since he's traveling by helicopter 1500 feet in the air, he didn't even feel it.

 

[Weird Harold]

Sorry, VB but I don't buy it. The one thing that the administration is good at is public relations. Some how, some way, they will spin their way out of this one too. The American public has shown a vast propensity to believe almost anything they are told by these people.

You keep saying things like that, but don't comment on my rebuttal at all? Typical.

 

[thebullet]

You keep saying things like that, but don't comment on my rebuttal at all? Typical.

Not that it matters, Harold, but I didn't see your rebuttal. I've been away from my computer for a while. When I came back I had an email about VB's latest message and I read that.

It comes down to one thing, Harold. Any of your lame excuses cannot make up for the fact that the Bush administration sat on their asses for 4 to 5 days and did nothing while the world watched.

I was reading about the tsunami disaster in Asia. Two days after the tsunami struck, Thailand already had made significant headway into rescure operations, there were already lists of survivors and victims posted. It's a week since the hurricane hit. Does our government have lists of survivors and victims posted anywhere? Or are many people still out of their minds with grief and worry?

Of course, there were no flood waters to contend with in Thailand, but the destruction was tremendous and the # of dead was horrendous. But Thailand, without outside help, had aide on-site within 2 days of the disaster.

Where was the federal government? I saw an interview with a county manager in Mississippi whose associate's mother was trapped in a nursing home. She kept calling him, asking when help was going to arrive. He kept telling her that the feds were assuring him that help would arrive very soon. By the time help arrived (4 days later!) the woman was dead.

How many times was the scenario acted out? Don't give me that the government was doing everything it could. That is a bold faced lie and I won't accept it.

This was a massive failure on the part of the federal government and no apology or excuse from you, Harold, will convince me or 95% of the rest of the world of anything else.


Just an additional note, Harold. The government didn't even have to search for many of the victims. They congregated in their thousands in the Superdome and the Convention Center. Why was the government unable to provide food and water to these people? Why couldn't they drop a few doctors in there? Maybe the could even have brought a porta-potty so the people didn't have to live in their own shit!

Harold, you can't spin this one.

 

[Weird Harold]

It comes down to one thing, Harold. Any of your lame excuses cannot make up for the fact that the Bush administration sat on their asses for 4 to 5 days and did nothing while the world watched.

Without resorting to hind-sight, just exactly what would you have done differently at any given point in the progression of this disaster? Bearing in mind that you have to abide by the law of the land.

Tell me in detail just how you would adapt when your prepositioned supplies get washed away by the storm. Where are you going to find replacements and how are you going to move them to where they're needed. RTell me xctly how you're going to find out where they're needed.

Just an additional note, Harold. The government didn't even have to search for many of the victims. They congregated in their thousands in the Superdome and the Convention Center. Why was the government unable to provide food and water to these people? Why couldn't they drop a few doctors in there? Maybe the could even have brought a porta-potty so the people didn't have to live in their own shit!

Those are some good points and questions.

Just exactly why did the City of New Orleans send people to a shelter that didn't have the necessary supplies to function as shelter when power, water and sewage systems failed? Just exactly why is it that those people so desparately needed Federal supplies and assistance in the first place?

Tell me why the federal government should have started moving relief supplies to that location that was checked off in their plan as "handled by local authorities" and how they could have gotten the supplies and support there sooner without having them enroute to a place that according to the plan shouldn't have neeed them?

I have to ask myself, "just which other victims of the storm had the supplies and personnel planned for helping them diverted into the media spotlight on the Superdome and Convention Center?"

There is no doubt that this whole operation is a textbook definition of a cluster-fuck, but your hatred of GWB is causing you to point fingers in the wrong direction.

I sincerely hope that the after-action analysis of the failures of disaster response and preparation at all levels results in prosecutions for negligence on the part of some of the people involved, but I don't have any realistic hope that it will happen -- not because of any cover-ups or spin-doctoring, but because insufficient pessimism isn't really a crime, it's just stupid and unfortunately being stupid isn't a crime either.

I also have a bit more realistic hope that analysis of what went wrong is going to improve the planning for the next major disaster with fewer reliance on the assumption that local authorities really do have functional shelters so feeral relief doesn't have to be diverted to cover a situation that shouldn't have existed in the first place.

You're looking at the situation and seeing a failure of the federal government. I'm looking at the situation and seeing a logical plan that should have worked being torn apart by circumstance brought about by failures at all levels -- but especialy the major failure of the City of New Orleans to fulfill their responsibility to those they sent to the Superdome which cascaded through the entire relief effort.