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I'm mad as hell. Are you?
Sep. 1st, 2005 03:38 pmI'm fucking pissed off. Thousands of people are dying from disease, lack of clean water and food, violence, and essentially third world conditions. FEMA has suspended the little aid it had managed to start administering because of the anarchy of the situation, much needed National Guard troops and equipment are off in iraq, along with the money that should have been funding levee construction and repair projects for the Mississippi delta / Lake Pontchartrain area.
While all this is happening, our president decided that photo-op's playing guitar with a country singer and speeches commemorating a war we won 60 years ago were far more important. Our secretary of Health and human services is urging all her employees to register to walk to a country music concert to commemorate 9/11, our Secretary of State decided that her time could best be spent catching a Broadway show and spending thousands of dollars on shoes, and the director of Homeland Security* is blaming the crisis on those who did not evacuate beforehand even though the AP reported before the storm that at least 100,000 people lacked the money and methods transportation to evacuate.
Our president has also gone on television and said "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." in spite of the fact that FEMA gave him a report over FOUR FUCKING YEARS AGO saying that it was the third most likely major disaster that could happen on US Soil**. In spite of that, funding for levee repair and construction projects was cut to almost nothing, wetlands and breakwater preservation efforts started under clinton were scrapped in favor of developing condo's, and FEMA has been in the slow process of being swallowed by the Department of Homeland Security.
My blood boils at the sight of these people. I am ashamed of my government. You should be too.
* Who is therefore in charge of FEMA.
** Numbers one and two were a major CA earthquake and a Terrorist attack on new york... hey, maybe FEMA is competent after all... two out of three within four years...
While all this is happening, our president decided that photo-op's playing guitar with a country singer and speeches commemorating a war we won 60 years ago were far more important. Our secretary of Health and human services is urging all her employees to register to walk to a country music concert to commemorate 9/11, our Secretary of State decided that her time could best be spent catching a Broadway show and spending thousands of dollars on shoes, and the director of Homeland Security* is blaming the crisis on those who did not evacuate beforehand even though the AP reported before the storm that at least 100,000 people lacked the money and methods transportation to evacuate.
Our president has also gone on television and said "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." in spite of the fact that FEMA gave him a report over FOUR FUCKING YEARS AGO saying that it was the third most likely major disaster that could happen on US Soil**. In spite of that, funding for levee repair and construction projects was cut to almost nothing, wetlands and breakwater preservation efforts started under clinton were scrapped in favor of developing condo's, and FEMA has been in the slow process of being swallowed by the Department of Homeland Security.
My blood boils at the sight of these people. I am ashamed of my government. You should be too.
* Who is therefore in charge of FEMA.
** Numbers one and two were a major CA earthquake and a Terrorist attack on new york... hey, maybe FEMA is competent after all... two out of three within four years...
