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Bush and Katrina, the side effectsKatrina has come and gone, but her effects will linger for years, and people will remember this disaster, our children will learn about it in history classes, and the economic effects will hurt the US more than we can even begin to fathom. But what of our grinning commander in chief? What of lacadaisical leader of the free world? Well, he'll have an excuse for his failed presidency. Bush under the spotlight; it ain't prettyThe entire debacle in New Orleans reveals exactly what is wrong with our would-be-illustrious president:
He favors the whole idea of "winning" more than he does governing. Winning the election is a game, a contest, with excitement; governing is hard, often boring, and those people with microphones and pads ask so many questions! He is a child of pampering and privilege, incapable of real understanding of what life is like for the have-nots of the world. His professed compassion appears to be less than skin deep, a fact which becomes evident to many when he has to respond to situations where anger and defiance can't be trotted out: Cindy Sheehan, the New Orleans flood, etc. He is a basically simplistic, superficial thinker, who understands anger and revenge far better than any other human motivations and emotions. If only the hurricane and levee break were living creatures who could be "hunted down" (at least in rhetoric).
I don't know for sure. I think there's a chance that this is the tipping point, but that will depend largely on whether the public as a whole is angry enough to resist the extensive and well-financed propaganda blitz that is likely being planned as I write, which will throw all the far right's ammunition into deflecting the blame elsewhere. If that fails, look for some action or policy to deflect attention. The good news is that the media once again seems to be functioning as a watchdog. At least for the moment. The View From "The Mount"[apologies for the blank entry before this one--never hit the ENTER button by mistake] Seems God has little else to do but throw down modern versions of thunderbolts at the spinning earth, all with the goal of furthering the earthly work of his chosen ones. Of course, there's a whole lot of dispute over exactly who the chosen ones are. It seems that everybody wants the chosen ones to be them, and wants the unchosen ones to be everybody else. Odd how that works. In any case, the earthly representatives of God have commenced issuing their messages, and providing their responses, in the wake of the worst natural disaster to hit the US in some time, maybe ever. Seems that "natural" disaster means "God-caused" disaster to a lot of folks. And those same folks know exactly why God caused that disaster:
1. The hurricane & its aftermath have been described on al Qaeda-linked Web sites as evidence of the "wrath of God" striking America,"--New Orleans collects dead as officials dodge blame
2. But some American fundamentalists have a remarkably similar view, that differs only as to the behavior that ticked off the lofty one:
3. Or maybe the whole thing was just an opportunity to get a lot of people miserable enough to be receptive to God in the form of his earthly representatives. And Americans are not a people to let opportunity slip away: Bush: Photo-Op Champ?In the Houston Chronicle (which should know our illustrious president well), CLAY ROBISON recently called Mr. Push "the photo-op champ." In storm's wake, how well will Texas honchos lead?, 9/3/05; I wonder why. A sampling of reports from other sources on the current activities of our illustrious leader:
German television is reported to have said that the president's appearance at a food distribution center was completely staged, with the supposed distribution point torn down as soon as Bush and the American Press were out of sight:
Food intended to be airdropped to survivors in two areas of new Orleans was held back until after the president left New Orleans, because air traffic in the area was halted for security reasons while the president was there:
Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu sent out a press release claiming that repair activity at the breached 17th street levee in New Orleans during Bush's visit was merely another photo op, saying: "But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast - black and white, rich and poor, young and old - deserve far better from their national government."
There are reports that the women that Bush hugged for the camera in Mississippi were not even Biloxi locals, with some speculation that they were looters who were just individuals wandering in the area that were quickly recruited as props for Bush's faux compassion photo-op. Number Six's Really Awful Bedtime StoryOnce upon a time, there was this really big nation... The world is watchingAnd boy, are they surprised at the world's superpower's response to the disaster in New Orleans. Newspapers around the globe have commented on the government's response, some saying that the chaos has exposed flaws and deep divisions in American society. Of course, lots of us here knew about those deep divisions for a long time. Now I'd like to provide an example: I was listening to WGN radio Friday afternoon (9/1/05), and they were speaking with a physician that was previously stranded in New Orleans. They had spoken with this doctor throughout the week, using him to report on conditions in New Orleans. He is an infectious disease specialist, and he and other doctors were holed up in the Ritz Carlton. (Remember that: the Ritz Carlton.) I'm sure the conditions at the Ritz Carlton weren't all that ritzy. They had no water, the toilets weren't working, etc. However, this doc and other doctors in the hotel were able to create a makeshift emergency medical center, and were treating people that needed medical attention. Lucky Ritz Carlton guests. When the host of the WGN radio program spoke to this doctor on Friday afternoon, he asked the doc where he was calling from. Strangely enough, he was at O'Hare International Airport. It turns out that armed troops came to rescue the unfortunates stuck in the Ritz Carlton very early Friday morning. SUV's were commandeered from the hotel's parking structure, and armed troops evacuated the hotel guests to a staging area to wait for buses. From what I remember, they were loaded onto the buses around 4 or 5 a.m., and the good doctor was able to get a flight home to Chicago. In the meantime, while the Ritz Carlton hotel guests (who had physicians and medical supplies) were being evacuated, thousands of people were still at the convention center living under appalling conditions. Mind you, at this time the convention center crowd still had no food or water, were living amongst corpses and human waste, and had no idea if or when they would get any relief. But the Ritz Carlton guests were evacuated by armed troops in commandeered SUV's and taken to buses. Many people, especially those on the right, are lambasting the people that were stranded by Katrina. They say things like these people didn't want to leave, or even the poor have cars so they should have gotten out. What about this doctor from Chicago? Is he just some "dumb scum" that should have been left for dead? Why didn't he leave? Why were hotel guests at the Ritz Carlton provided relief and a way out before the people at the convention center? I guess I'd like the people of the world to understand something. It's not so much a racial disparity (although that's definitely part of it). It's a division between the classes -- the haves vs. the have nots. While the Ritz Carlton guests were receiving food and water and being evacuated, the people at the convention center were dehydrated, starving, and some of them were literally dropping dead. The world is watching. And if they didn't suspect it before, now they are beginning to realize that the good ol' U.S. of A. isn't quite the land of equality our leaders would have them believe. Mixter Wary of the Stories of New Orleans RampagingTelevision coverage of New Orleans is heavy with tales of absolute lawlessness, including a widely reported sniper shot at a rescue helicopter. I don't doubt that looting has occurred, nor that some of it is for "luxury" goods not just necessities. But I do have a lot of skepticism about the type and degree of lawlessness being portrayed. Now it turns out that Laura Brown, a Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman in Washington, has cast doubt on the report of the firing on the helicopter. She said she had no such report. "We're controlling every single aircraft in that airspace and none of them reported being fired on," she said, adding that the FAA was in contact with the military as well as civilian aircraft. from http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1087205] It's probably good to keep in mind that the last two major disasters of this scale, the Galveston hurricane of 1900 (some 6,000 dead) and the late 1800s Johnstown, PA flood (2,200 fatalities), both involved false reports of "minority" savagery, Blacks and Eastern Europeans supposedly rampaging and cutting off the fingers of the dead to get their rings. All or most of these stories, many reported in the respectable press of the time, are now believed to have been completely untrue or wildly exaggerated.
In fact, an unpublished paper presented at a conference states that social scientists investigating claims of looting at & after national disasters inevitably find little evidence to back up the claims. See "LOOTING IN DISASTER: A GENERAL PROFILE OF VICTIMIZATION," Jane Gray and Elizabeth Wilson of the Disaster Research Center of The Ohio State University WHAT, HOW, WHY, WHEN and WHO?Also posted at Mixter's Mix: Hurricane ReliefHat tip to RebelleNation, who asked me to send out a plea for help. She's in Northern Louisiana, with eyes on the ground.
THERE ARE 1 MILLION HOMELESS WHO NEED HELP
The following local organization has been contacting local churches begging for immediate relief items. They have been 'Overwhelmed' by the crisis and are in desperate need of help.
WHAT THEY NEED..
Diapers
Who Needs It..
United Christians Assistance Program (UCAP)
For those wishing to donate money, or inquire further about what is needed
Program Director Larry Rhodes
~A! Hurricane ReliefHat tip to RebelleNation, who asked me to send out a plea for help. She's in Northern Louisiana, with eyes on the ground. |
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