Every American should see the video below. Every American should understand that all the lip service in the world from the Bush administration and their apologists won’t change the basic facts at hand. They dawdled, they fumbled, and because of their lack of a real American response, people died. A government that cannot provide basic protection and support to its people, let alone a government in the most powerful nation ever with the most money ever that lets this happen is a government that is beyond corruption.
Please donate to Red Cross to help these people, because your president has not.
ADDENDUM: And for those who say I’m being too harsh, let me remind you — the so-called “ownership society” pushed by President Bush, you know - the one where they privatize social security, is the society where you’re on your own. In the Republican utopia there is only buying and selling, there isn’t any common good or any sort of social fabric to our world. At it’s core it’s a selfish society, at it’s heart it’s fundamentally un-American.
To all my neocon friends and limousine liberals: welcome to the reality that the triple oppression of racism, sexism, and capitalism represent for poor colored folks. It means that in the midst of non-planning for a catastrophic hurricane that experts knew would kill tens of thousands, a hurricane that has been predicted for decades, nothing was done to prevent the misery on a massive scale that we have witnessed. People are dying on national television because of a lack of food, water, medicine, and medical treatment for days at a time. The spectacle of diabetics, elderly people, children, and infants falling ill and dying while their loved ones watch helplessly is an atrocity.
No logistical supports whatsoever for the police that also have no way of feeding themselves, or rescue workers who have no way of protecting themselves when the fatigue and rage from a neglected populace sets in. The dead left to float around or lie around in the open air for days as if this is some neglected and plundered third-world outpost. The scale of this calamity is a stench in the nostrils of God and George W. Bush, whose miserly ways slashed the corps of engineers budget that would have addressed fortifying the levees around New Orleans, is to blame. There is always, of course, money for tax cuts for billionaires and the quagmire in Iraq. To top it off, FEMA has designated Operation Blessing, run by Pat Robertson, of assassinate-Hugo Chavez-fame as a government approved charity to send monies too to help in relief efforts. Disgusting.
I used to just think you are wrong, but not I know you are completely unhinged. You are a sad sad little man.
Conservatives hate government so much, it’s no wonder they don’t know what to do with it once they control it. It’s only value to them is to loot it and pay back their campaign contributors.America’s remembering why it created a safety net for the poor in the first place. Now we are truly reaping the fruits of modern conservatism, and the whole country can see the helpless frightened look in our leader’s eyes. You’ve got Denny Hastert questioning whether NO should even be rebuilt, putting conservatism’s essential inhumanity on display. You’ve also got the closet racists delighting in the fact that they finally have black people about whom it’s safe to publicly want to shoot. Conservatism is on full display, and it’s not looking pretty.
How do you then explain that post-tax cuts, that revenues and receipts to the IRS are at historic highs ?
What’s more, Bush’s actions are emboldening our enemies.
Bush put his tax cuts for Paris Hilton above levees for New Orleans. The fruits of conservatism are bitter indeed.
FEMA’s been weakened by Bush appointing his political cronies instead of competent proefessionals.
JD: I explain it like this: Bush wanted the tax cut. He did not want prudent levee maintenance. No one disputes these facts. How do you defend his levee cuts? Were they sensible? Do you think they in any way helped the people of New Orleans?
I think a lot of the problem is that FEMA seems to be dropping the ball here. I don’t understand why this is the case, because FEMA has always been a shining example of government at it’s best. Right now, all I’m seeing is a lot of heat directed at the agency that’s supposed to be “first-responder” on the Fed. level.
JK
I’m still having a hard time processing this in my mind. These are Americans. We have all these resources, all this money, and we’re letting this happen. These images look like something out of the Third World countries that we rob blind. If our government and its corporate buddies are robbing these countries blind — and they are — and bringing the wealth here, where is it?
We shouldn’t play politics until this is over — our energies must be focused on helping those whom we can help — but afterwards, we can’t not work to defeat and overturn this horrific agenda. We must punish those involved, and we must run them out of political discourse in this country. George Bush and his ilk have no place in a civilized country — I’d wish them on a totalitarian state like China or Saudi Arabia, but the folks in those countries have endured enough.
I think we found something for Condi to do. We have a refugee crisis in America. Can every body comprehend that? We need to start coordinating the offers of assistance that have been coming in from around the world, in particular, the assistance of the United Nations which has an unparalled expertise in handling refugee situations.
So… that explains why defunding the levees was good, I take it? No? In fact, it describes how a category 5 storm surge would top the levees and fill the city. What happened this week was a storm surge briefly topped a levee, but then eroded it, so this article doesn’t apply.
Anyway, your fatalistic “there was nothing anyone could do” really doesn’t translate into “Bush should have cut levee funding.” Bush should have increased levee funding, and now it’s too late. And you think it’s okay, you prostitute, because you put your president’s poll numbers over the lives of your fellow citizens.
How do you then explain that post-tax cuts, that revenues and receipts to the IRS are at historic highs ?
You’re smarter than this, JD.
For one thing, the number of taxpayers increases every year; that alone more than offsets the revenue lost by tax cuts. It’s like the story of Bill Gates walking into a bar and, suddenly, everyone in the place–on average–is a multimillionaire.
The true way to measure the effect of tax cuts is the ratio of tax revenues to national income. But in that case, revenues are at historic lows.
From an article By Michael Behar - May 2005
http://tinyurl.com/9r75a
If there s one thing you can count on from Bush haters, it s that they seldom do their homework before making their ridiculous pronouncements.
The essence of racism is fear of the other and an indifference borne of contempt. This is why the Red Cross will go bankrupt trying to mobilize for this effort. Nobody is going to rush money to help people portrayed as gang members and criminals run amok. Some of us fell victim to the early coverage of this unconscionable tragedy that focused solely on black folks looting a Wal-Mart as if the multi-billion dollar behemoth that doesn’t pay its workers a living-wage while simultaneously subsidizing the oppression of the sweatshop workers that produce the goods they hawk at low prices can’t afford to let some of that crap slave labor produced go. It is appalling how the same people who obsess and grandstand over Terri Schiavo and the right to life portray poor people who have suffered the most powerful hurricane to hit our country and endured 100-degree heat and humidity for four long days without food, water, shelter, or medical care. They are labeled criminals. People don t have to steal when assistance is provided and information about relocation is communicated. The real criminals are the incompetent cabal in Washington that eliminated millions of dollars in flood control projects for the New Orleans levees the Corps of Engineers were trying to rush online after averting disaster last year when Ivan missed New Orleans by a hair. To think that people escaped the worst hurricane and flooding in history only to die of starvation and heat exhaustion waiting for help should enrage all of us infused with a sense of justice.
Bullshit. Nothing in that article ruled out the fact that defunding maintenance measures might have helped. These failures were anticipated, and as you said, Bush had other priorities.
Bush played expert when he decided to put revenues into money back for Paris Hilton instead of giving the experts in New Orleans and the Army Corps of Engineers what they wanted. He was wrong, and should be punished for it. The dead deserve no less.
Correct, it was hit by a category 4 hurricane and resulting storm surge.
Storm surges caused by a category 3 hurricane are typically 9 to 12 feet high. NO’s levees are 15 feet high. Your statement that the levees were not even capable of withstanding cat 3 storm surge is pure speculation, since it took a cat 4 storm surge to breach the levees. The failures in the two levees that breached were likely caused by the storm surge that poured over them, and then eroding their foundations.
And goddammit, worst of all, you still haven’t offered ANY DEFENSE AT ALL for why Bush should have DEFUNDED these programs!! People are dead, and all you can talk about is how this is motivated by Bush hatred? Are you for fucking real?
TomY, what you’re saying on this subject is nothing more than an article of faith that the reduction of funding must have contributed to the disaster we’re witnessing today. Perhaps, you should attempt to cite some facts in your arguments (you know, those pesky things that I keep providing).
You’re the one asserting that none of those funding measures could have possibly helped. Provide evidence.
Phile hasn’t done the homework.
First, NOLA wasn’t hit by a Cat 5 hurricane. Second, Phile’s article does nothing to dispute the fact AWOL George’s funding diversions caused the levee system not to be fully ready to withstand a Cat 3 hurricane.
Please show me where I ever said there was nothing anyone could do . You have this chronic habit of putting words into peoples’ mouths.
Of course, if everyone knew that a cat 4/5 hurricane would hit the gulf coast on August 30th 2005, a monumental project would have been put forth in time to avoid a disaster. Events of this magnitude are exceedingly rare, and it’s far too easy to play expert, after the fact. At any given moment, countless different types of disasters are possible, with limited funds to provide anticipatory solutions for them all. Sometimes really bad stuff happens and we just have to pull together and get through it, instead of this tasteless finger-pointing based purely on hindsight.
What is abundantly clear is that funding cuts beginning in 2004 have had no bearing on this week’s events. Maybe, you should consider the fact that NO’s levee system has been so poorly managed by the LA government, not to mention a cause for concern going back through many presidential administrations.
Don’t let any of this interrupt your Bush bashing, though. It’s clearly the only way you know how to react to pretty much everything.
I already have.
You keep ignoring it, so I’m going to keep posting it.
I m not saying it wouldn t still be flooded, but I do feel that if it had been totally funded, there would be less flooding than you have, said Michael Parker, a former Republican Mississippi congressman who headed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from October 2001 until March 2002, when he was ousted after publicly criticizing a Bush administration proposal to cut the corps budget.
Phile, JayC and JD seem to think they know more than the experts. They know so much that they can categorically rule out the notion that *any* of Bush s levy cuts had *any* impact.
What would compel them to make such dramatic declarations of fact about an area they know so little about? Why, the fact that they are whores, of course.
What about how bush stacked fema with political appointees who alienated at least some of the experienced regulars into resigning? Or why bush was still on vacation after the storm hit? Or about how the talking point of sunday and monday was to whine about how the liberal media is always ‘overhyping hurricanes’
Here’s what I would like to know from the conservative trolls on this board: are you planning on putting up the one million refugees in your spare bedroom while the city is rebuilt or relocated? Because that’s the next step once the evacuation actually completes. What’s the Bush plan to deal with that? This is not some third world country where the poor can rebuild their mud huts in a couple of days once the water subsides.
Real federal assistance will be required for these people: food, clothing, medical assistance, and shelter for one million people for a period extending to anywhere up to a decade. Real leadership will be required to do this, together with billions (perhaps trillions) of dollars in funding. Do you think your boy can handle this? Or can we expect more tax cuts for the rich when Congress reconvenes?
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N01279059.htm
WASHINGTON, Sept 1 (Reuters) - Bush administration funding cuts forced federal engineers to delay improvements on the levees, floodgates and pumping stations that failed to protect New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina’s floodwaters, agency documents showed on Thursday.
The former head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that handles the infrastructure of the nation’s waterways, said the damage in New Orleans probably would have been much less extensive had flood-control efforts been fully funded over the years.
“Levees would have been higher, levees would have been bigger, there would have been other pumps put in,” said Mike Parker, a former Mississippi congressman who headed the engineering agency from 2001 to 2002.
“I’m not saying it would have been totally alleviated but it would have been less than the damage that we have got now.”
Parker goes on to say that the blame for the slow repairs and fixes can’t be placed entirely on the Bush administration. Fair enough. But I’d say Parker pretty much backs up TomY’s position. As for Phile, why don’t you quite carrying water for the Bush administration and start carrying some out of NO?
Michael Parker, a former Republican Mississippi congressman who headed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from October 2001 until March 2002 … was ousted after publicly criticizing a Bush administration proposal to cut the corps budget.
That, my friends, is the Bush administration. No more need be said.
Except that every president I have lived under, Republican and Democrat, has had the good of the people somewhere in their (often very misguided) hearts. It becomes clearer and clearer every day that nothing motivates George Bush besides a bully’s vindictiveness and a smug sense of entitlement and privilege. He has never sacrificed anything he values for his country, nor would he ask his friends to do so. His compassion for the NO victims is no deeper than the camera lens, and it shows.
[...] Domino found. Bush cuts delayed flood control work. (Source: Reuters) Oliver Willis has video inside the Convention Center.
Entry Filed under: Katrina
[...]
Since you don’t expect conservatives to help anyone, why are you asking?
Bush already sent $10 Billion down there…
If that’s not enough, ask Kerry and Soros — they have plenty.
This whole thread is tryly a waste of time and ink.
Lefties will always blame Bush for anything and everything — even hurricanes.
Interestingly, all this improvement was supposed to have taken place between 1990 and now.
Were there no hurricanes, no levees, no Cat 3’s or 4’s or 5’s to worry about before 1990?
This whole thread could have been reduced to two posts: Bush is no good , and How could it be his fault?
Everything else is BS
Frank D’s fantasy world is a fun place — only George Soros is ever responsible for anything!
All anyone has ever said is that Bush should be held responsible for cutting levee funding. That’s only one part of the problem; no doubt local and state officials carry blame, no doubt civil engineers carry some blame, no doubt the disaster planners at Homeland Security and FEMA carry some blame. But the first reaction of every *EVERY* wing nut troll I’ve seen on the internet is to *COMPLETELY* absolve Bush of any wrongdoing. And that’s what makes you and your kind whores, Frank D. You put your president’s poll number before the lives of your countrymen.
Even if we leave out the fact AWOL George diverted monies away from needed levee projects, can anyone deny the federal response to what is an emergency–a disaster–has been unsatisfactory?
Especially in light of the fact this admin created a huge new agency just after 9/11 to deal with these very kinds of disasters?
A waste of ink?
It’s a little late (I’m new to the blog) but JD is totally incorrect when he says “How do you then explain that post-tax cuts, that revenues and receipts to the IRS are at historic highs ? ”
Look up “Historical Budget Data” at http://www.cbo.gov. 2004 Individual Income tax receipts were down 20% since 2000. Corporate Income Taxes down 9% and Estate and Gift taxes down 15%. At the same time the GDP grew by 19%. So much for historic highs.
Next time a rightwing-nut starts spewing this trickle-down drivel, be sure to have the FACTS at hand.
I guess you guys don’t know where Condy was around the time W said he would dedicate his whole administration to saving lives — she was sitting in the Monty Python show on Broadway - and spent the next day, Thursday, shopping on 5th Avenue for thousand-dollar shoes and expensive clothing. You can verify this with Ferragamo Shoes! That’s how much our admin cares about us!
It seems to be becoming common practice to say that “we shouldn t play politics until this is over”, but the reality is that it will not be over. Not for another three and a half years at least. Even then we are facing another potential republican take-over.
The time to do something is now for New Orleans and the rest of our country. My vote has already been submitted for impeachment. http://www.votetoimpeach.org/
“Cowardice asks the question - is it safe? Expediency asks the question - is it politic? Vanity asks the question - is it popular? But conscience asks the question - is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right.”
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them. There is almost no kind of outrage—torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, the bombing of civilians—which does not change its moral color when it is committed by our side. & The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
- George Orwell
“You can fool some of the people some of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
- Abraham Lincoln
phile Says:
September 1st, 2005 at 11:10 pm
Of course, if everyone knew that a cat 4/5 hurricane would hit the gulf coast on August 30th 2005, a monumental project would have been put forth in time to avoid a disaster.
Hmmmm….I seem to recall Bush being given a Presedential Daily Briefing on Aug 6th 2001 entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack inside the U.S.” and his response was to go on vacation for the month of August.
So what type of “monumental project” do you think Bush would have undertaken? Clearly the “monkey boy” is not suited for the job of President.
I don’t know how ANYBODY defends this president regarding this disaster. He and his government have failed our citizens, miserably. Too little, too late, is the only thing one can say. Of course cutting the budget for the Army Corps of Engineers had an impact, here. As did putting a “friend” (read “contributor”) in charge of FEMA, and demoting that agency from its Cabinet position. And, of course, the state governments deserve blame, too. Perhaps if Louisiana hadn’t privatized its hurricane emergency response, things would be different, today. Conservatism, like liberalism, has unintended consequences. 25 years ago, it might have been accurate for Ronald Reagan to say, ‘government IS the problem.’ Today, however, it seems the LACK of government is the problem. Pendulums swing - it’s time for this one to swing back.
………RIDICULOUS
Why don’t I say what we’ve all been waiting to say? BUSH IS AN IDIOT!!!!
He doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t care about anything, but himself. He’s a liar. He can’t read. He can’t pronounce any words. So why should anybody expect him to do anything right? Why should we actually believe that he’d try to do something about New Orleans? Maybe if they’d show more white people suffering then somebody will do something. If it were in Asia they wouldn’t have this problem. As a matter of fact, if this happened in Iraq, BUSH would’ve made sure that they were out of there and in U.S.A. He would’ve made sure they had a proper place to lay their heads and would have food/water. So you know what the problem is? Bush is so caught up in “rebuilding Iraq” that he can’t even pay attention to what’s happening in his own country. FORGET HIM AND ALL THAT HE IS WORTH BECAUSE THIS IS REDICULOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
I haven’t seen anyone mention the fact that the very important wetlands that helped to absorb the waters from things like this and keep water levels down were sold out to the oil industry, despite a big fight with environentlalists who tod them that this would happen. I also haven’t seen much discussio about how global warming played an effect on this, as well as too much coastal development, as the hurricane wet from a Catgory 1 as it hit GFL, then rapidly went to a 5, before letting off some steam before landfall at a level 4, due to the warmer waters of the Gulf. Check out what Dr. glen Barry has been saying about this problem on his site, among other things to see how this could be, if not avoided, then had the devastating impact lessened. http://earthmeanders.blogspot.com/ and “Wetlands erosion raises hurricane risks
Natural storm ’speed bump’ around New Orleans now missing” at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9118570/
If we keep selling out ur future for short term gains at the expense of long-terms gains, this will continuie to happen.
Some of you want sources, how about sime of these?
Posted before I was through, for some odd reason:
Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen?
‘Times-Picayune’ Had Repeatedly Raised Federal Spending Issues
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0831-04.htm
`Engineering Nightmare’: Water Keeps Rising in New Orleans
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0831-08.htm
The National Guard Belongs in New Orleans and Biloxi. Not Baghdad
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0831-27.htm
2005 Set to be Historic Year for Hurricanes
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0831-05.htm
Wetlands erosion raises hurricane risks
Natural storm ’speed bump’ around New Orleans now missing
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/2438#comment-18492
Lst anyone acuse me onf doing nothing let me tell you that we are organizing a community-wide collection of goods to take to the victims overflowing Shrevepirt’s Hirsch Coliseum and the hospitals, one of which my brother-in law works at and cooringdinating with the Red Cross. We may not have much, but since we live on 10 acrees aon a rivebank and border the antional Forest, those willig to camp and have their animals with them, are welcome. We won’t be coming back with empty vehicles after delivering the much-needed supplies.
We are p[repared to take in cats, dogs, “pockets petsm” even snakes * over 245 yerds of caring for them), and many chickens. We are on Farm Sanctuary’s ist to take them in. Right now, we can only accomodatre 12-20, but if we fget our lng-awaited expenasion built, we can house 10 tiwmees tht number with no prioblem. Hw may of the reich wing bloggers and cometers are dong this? I would guess not many. We may be financially-challened, but we are not “poor” OPur welath just takes different forms.
Those tht may wish to check me out can tead my latet ost on my blog at http://cyberactivist.blogspot.com/ which was written before we knew about Farm Sanctuaruy’s plea. I understand that many of you are in cities and cannot take in suych aimals, but your support, both financiall and moral. will be greatly appreciated. We are still trhiiing to figure out howe to take tcare of that many people and animals, but where there id a will there is a way.
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single minute before starting to improve the world.”
–Anne Frank
I am only one,
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
~Edward Everett Hale
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