Why The Iraq Scam Won’t Work Here
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It has become clear that the Bush administration plans to react to the Fiasco in New Orleans the way they continue to react to Iraq: deny, deny, deny. It worked in Iraq because that’s a country thousands of miles away that most of us will never go to with people speaking a language most of us never will.
This is not the case now.
The scene of the crime is America. The location is New Orleans, where many (including myself) have visited. And the people? They aren’t abstract Iraqis you would see on tv. They are Americans like us, and they are hurting.
>> Budget cuts delayed New Orleans flood control work
UPDATE: Because they were done with Cindy Sheehan, the right-wing Media Research Center has decided to attack hurricane victims who aren’t sufficiently sucking up to Dear Leader. Not to mention their (faux) outrage at the idea that an FDR-style government (defeated: The Great Depression, Hitler’s Germany, Tojo’s Japan) would have been able to prevent some and certainly respond better to this disaster.
18 Responses to “Why The Iraq Scam Won’t Work Here”
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
Screw the administration, I must admit I am confused that none of our country’s billionaires (Gates, etc.) or companies Walmart, Sikorsky, Bell, Boeing, FedEx, Erickson Helicopter, haven’t started their own private airlift.
If one of these entities wanted to get a big helicopter, fly it to a Walmart, load it up and fly it to the convention center or the dome, don’t tell me the Guard wouldn’t let them.
I watched a Chertoff briefing … what he said was contradicted by what we’re seeing. Do they think we Americans are stupid?
Anyone who would defend cutting levee funding won’t be missed.
I guess you can only defend the indefensible so long.
Of course, the levee that broke was recently was just recently upgraded. From the NYTimes: “Shea Penland, director of the Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of New Orleans, said that was particularly surprising because the break was “along a section that was just upgraded.”
“It did not have an earthen levee,” Dr. Penland said. “It had a vertical concrete wall several feel thick.”"
Try a new tack. Maybe it was the waste of money on the Endangered Species Act. Or maybe it was spending extra money on Medicare. Or maybe it was money wasted on subsidizing farmers not to grow stuff. Etc, etc. etc.
Geta clue, people. It was a natural disaster of unfathomable proportions. Despite the hubris of the “environmentalist” crwod, once again we see that we can not control nature.
Oliver, you suck. That’s my last word here. I know I’ll be missed. Hope you manage to defeat your arch enemy, Bush, and usher in a new golden age of Democratic Goodness and Light. Good luck. But I just can’t read this garbage anymore.
Oliver. I am disappointed.
In you. In MRC. In MMA. In everyone here, there and everywhere who believes that the partisan, liberal vs. conservative, Democrat vs. Republican sniping is appropriate at this time.
Have the evacuated the dead? Have they evacuated the living? The logistics of moving hundreds of thousands of people along the gulf coast is tremendous, and you and many others are pointing fingers, casting blame, and worrying about what he said/she said.
Instead of trying to exploit this tragedy to grab a political edge, I would hope that you (not you specifially but you as a part of all of you) would shut up, grab your wallet or grab a shovel or grab a loved one (and hug them for all they’re worth), and do something constructive.
I applaud the “liberal” fund raiser you have become a part of. I don’t think the people of Louisiana and Mississippi give a shit about whether the money and help comes from liberals or conservatives or Democrats or Republicans. They will just appreciate the help.
Save your “bomb throwing” and your faux rhetorical outrage on this one for the next election cycle.
The logistics of moving hundreds of thousands of people along the gulf coast is tremendous … and the administration should have known and prepared for this in the days before the hurricane hit. Not in the days after. The disaster is unfolding and pressure must be put on those in charge to actually take charge and do something. All of us are doing everything we can, some give money, some give time and talent. Others pray. But if the people at the top don’t take control of this situation then all our individual efforts will be squandered. It is all too clear that this administration doesn’t respond to tragedy. They only seem to respond to political pressure. Rice cut short her own vacation to get back to work only after political pressure:
“The White House battled a chorus of criticism throughout the day as bloggers made much of the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, vacationing in New York during the disaster, where she was spotted at a Broadway show and was to attend the U.S. Open. By Thursday evening, Ms. Rice had cut short her vacation and returned to Washington, where she headed to a staff meeting to discuss ways of coordinating offers of foreign assistance from more than 30 countries and organizations.”
Here (http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/5146.html) you’ll find just what it takes to get Hastert to recall Congress to provide aid. In short: Political pressure. It’s a fucking disgrace that this is what it takes to get these people to do something.
If anyone thinks for one second that the government has been on top of this ordeal from the start, I just ask that you seriously reconsider that view. FEMA, Homeland Security, straight up to the White House have been piping off about what a great job they’re doing – given the circumstances. Of course, the logistics are “tremendous”, as marty mentioned, but seriously – these guys don’t have a clue or a plan.
If FEMA, the other agencies, and the White House had done their jobs, there would have been a potential evac plan already laid out. To say that it’s difficult for them to figure out what to do and how to get help to affected areas is a crap argument. THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN A PLAN ALREADY LAID OUT. The city flooded over the course of a day or two. What if they levees broke sooner; what if the city flooded immediately? Dare I ask what the plan was for that scenario?
I get sick of all these wimps out there that keep whining about blaming, fingerpointing, and the like. Why is it we can only point the victory and success finger at the administration and our government agencies? What about the accountability finger? No one wants to hear about mistakes. Well, people are dieing. For some reason, I think the survivors will not be sympathetic to our government’s claim of unn
unnaccountability
TomY, the cuts in levee funding are irrelevant to this disaster.
“Nudnik has yet to show any defense for actually cutting the levee funding, only offering fatalism and defeatism. Republicans reserve their idealism for Iraqis, not Americans. New Orleans deserved better.”
TomY nails it.
So why are you defending them as a good idea?
Nudnik has yet to show any defense for actually cutting the levee funding, only offering fatalism and defeatism. Republicans reserve their idealism for Iraqis, not Americans. New Orleans deserved better.
9-11 changed everything. There shouldn’t have been levee cuts. There should have been levee improvements.
TomY:
Don’t you think that you are riding both sides of the fence on the levee issue. If you inprove (raise) the levees, then you complicate the problem of wetland degredation. You can’t have it both ways.
The reason this is a partisan issue is that the word “Republican” is currently a synonym for “incompetent” and right now, that matters. Any idiot GOP partisan who can imagine an article about FEMA under Bush that reads like the post-Clinton one here http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0101/011601fema.htm is invited to present facts and evidence for their side.
Clinton was a corporatist tool who let Rwanda happen, but at least he wasn’t a total incompetent.
Ford played without a helmet one too many times, but at least he didn’t appoint incompetents.
Eisenhower liked destabilizing foreign countries that were insufficiently deferential to US capital, but at least he didn’t give his cronies the keys to the larder.
An honest conservative would be fighting to put people like Ike back in charge of his party instead of pretending there’s nothing wrong with asshat loser kleptocrats.
Finally, we uncover the REAL culprit in New Orleans: The Endagered Species Act.
God save the Republic.