I'm mad as hell. Are you?

[flyinbutrs]

I'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...

Comments

[kalalau.livejournal.com]

I agree with you, don't get me wrong, but there were free evacuation busses, that went to free storm shelters (much like the super dome, but in a safe place). We saw a interview with a guy who had a pie and a book, saying that's all he would need to ride out the storm. I've been evacuated, twice. They give people options, you just have to have enough wits about you to figure out what those options are. Like in everything else, stupidity played its part.

**It'll happen in CA, just give it time.

[flyinbutrs.livejournal.com]

Yes, stupidity did play it's part, but so did an inexcusable lack of preparedness on the part of FEMA. FEMA, along with city planners and state planners knew that the levees weren't designed to withstand more than a cat 3 hurricane, and should have been preparing for the worst. They already said that they (as this administration did in iraq) planned for at worst a medium-case scenario. They didn't mobilize the National Guard until a day after the hurricane hit. The mandatory evacuation was left up to 1,500 NO PD officers to carry out; to go door to door to over 500,000 resident's homes, and (if need be) forcibly remove them. Such an evacuation is simply impossible without the national guard.

And the evacuation busses didn't go to free storm shelters like the superdome. They went to the super dome and the convention center. Which in and of itself isn't that much of a problem, except that neither place was properly set up in terms of manpower, food, water, or medical supplies to provide any meaningful shelter. The entire evacuation plan for people who couldn't afford to drive or fly out of the city was an unparralleled disaster.

YOU ARE A BASTARD

[bumonyou.livejournal.com]

Because of you, the terrorists have won AND puppies die. Puppies. Sleep well tonight with that on your conscience, terrorist!

Re: YOU ARE A BASTARD

[flyinbutrs.livejournal.com]

Ahhh... touche!

And I sleep well under my puppy-fur blanket after a lovely dinner of roast puppy. So tender and delicious.

The hurricane

[schmoo2.livejournal.com]

The government and its agencies are horribly inefficient. Always have been, always will be, that's why I'm an advocate of smaller government and more private action. However, although I am no fan of George Bush I cannot understand why every criticism of the government has to be reduced to an ad hominem attack on him and other individuals in his administration. People knew that New Orleans was vulnerable to disaster long before George Bush took office only 5 years ago. I understand the frustration with government response generally, but I don't understand the venom towards Bush in particular with regards to an unprecedented act of G-d that would have overwhelmed the federal, state and local governments at any time in history.

Re: The hurricane

[flyinbutrs.livejournal.com]

Of course the government and it's agencies are horribly inefficient, and in general, I am also in favor of smaller government. However, there are definite situations that only the government can properly handle. Disaster preparation and relief is one of them. What private company is going to take the responsibility for swooping into action to evacuate a city? Or who is going to pay for levee construction and repair when it does the job just fine under normal circumstances? Where is the financial motivation for any private operation to do this? The resources needed (military troops, military equipment, and vast supply stores) are solely in the hands of the federal and occasionally state government (though most state resources in this respect are funded by federal grants).

FEMA was created explicitly for this job. It's sole purpose is to prepare for, and respond to, the worst disasters that man and nature can create. In 2001, FEMA predicted that if a cat 4-5 hurricane were to hit NO, the level of distruction would be monumental. In spite of this, FEMA did not swing into action as it should have. It didn't do it's job because BushCo has systematically dismantled FEMA, and made it into a subset of the Dept of Homeland Security (DHS). The current head of FEMA, appointed by Bush, is a lawyer from oklahoma whose previous experience in emergency management was limited to his tenure in OK as assistant city manager with oversight over Emergency Services.

My frustration stems partly from the Bush administration policies. Bush unneccessarily incorporated FEMA into DHS, needlessly reorganizing the entire organization just eight years after it was last rehabbed. This administration has consistently underfunded levee construction and repair projects, giving $4.5m in out of a required $11m in 2003, and just $5.5m out of a requested $25m in 2004. He has eliminated wetlands and floodplain preservation programs set in place by the Clinton administration that would have lessened the storm surges' intensity.

However, the rage that I feel towards Bush is about more than just policies and decisions that are of course more glaring in hindsight. It's about a total lack of leadership, and his penchant for saying one thing and doing another. Bush and his Administration have thrown us into a war that we are speding approximately $120b per year on while cutting taxes. Bush says in his state of the union that he wants to work to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, and to develop alternative energy sources, then passes a pork laden energy bill that does nothing to actually lessen our reliance on foreign oil, or create incentives to develop alternative fuels. And when leadership is needed, when disaster is bearing down on a major city in the center of our country, when the people of the region and the country as a whole need to at the very least feel like something is being done, the President is making PR appearences, and gladhanding politico's, the Secretary of State is shoe shopping, playing tennis, and catching a musical, and the Vice President is still on vacation.

The lack of accountability, the lack of even the appearence of leadership, or any semblence of self-sacrifice is inexcusable, and the entire administration is complicit in it. From start to finish, I firmly believe that this president is without a doubt the worst president of the past fifty years. Maybe the worst in our history. That's why I despise him, and that's why I make no attempt to hide my disdain for him.

C'est la vie

[bumonyou.livejournal.com]

Ug. It always does seem like, at least in some places, that you can't talk down the idea of personally attacking the president without two people calling you a traitor to rationalism. I hate to be the second leftie liberal whinging communist pinko to jump down Sam's throat. So I won't.

Look, every government makes mistakes. One of the Bush Administration's prime goals is to open up the US' natural resources to utilization for the sake of promoting business and civic interests. How I feel about that move* is neither here nor there. But don't you think that if it hadn't been a storm which would have been lessened in intensity through an increased presence of wetlands, it would have been something else? Given any 8 year period, something must go horribly wrong. And inevitably, given the fantastic research resources in use within the US, we will have known about it before it happened. The Clinton administration got warnings about Al-Queda, did they not? i don't have anything conclusive to say about this, just...food for thought.

Now, as far as understanding the venom towards Bush: the best way I can describe it is that some people feel about Bush the way some other people felt about Clinton. A kindling of personal ire against a president for the crimes of arrogance and hubris. Personally, I think it has to do with the fact that Americans are being made dumber** by the minute by short-attention-span TV, and no one is willing to see the whole picture. Just as in some people's minds the presidential election is a proxy for the responsibilities of democratic society, so too is the president whipping boy for the entire government.



*I agree in principle that conservation is a dead ethic. I believe that if you want people living in and around a natural resource to collaborate and become involved with its protection from undue environmental harm, you need to inspire community buy-in, most usually through economic means. This can mean eco-tourism, or sustainable logging, or any other sort of responsible activities, but I think it's hard for anyone to cozy up to the idea of paying a hefty chunk of taxes to keep another area of the country that they cannot recieve any benefit from because it is closed to them.

**uhhh, i realize that this could be misinterpreted to to mean that I think Dan is dumb. I don't think Dan is dumb. Rather I think Dan is brilliant. The end.

Re: C'est la vie

[flyinbutrs.livejournal.com]

Yes, every government makes mistakes. Some are more costly than others. And to whitewash over mistakes as being "part of the game" is to pass the buck, which is all this administration knows how to do. I can't say for sure how the clinton whitehouse was run, as I didn't follow politics nearly as much then as I do now. I'd like to think that I would be equally hard on Clinton if he were the president now. I have no tolerance for politicians whose mistakes so needlessly kill our own people. Republican or Democrat, Libertarian of whatever fucking party my beliefs fall under, I don't think partisanship is at the root of my hatred. It has everything to do with actions, or lack of actions on the part of the administration. It has everything to do with patent disregard for the common good in favor of unchecked selective free-market capitalism. It has everything to do with a majority political machine who pays lip-service to the poor while cutting taxes to the rich at every turn and neglecting to protect those who are most desperate for help. It has everything to do with a "man of the people" who was raised in greenwich, CT, educated at havard and yale, and yet manages to convince middle america that he is "just like them". There should be no us, and no them. We are all americans, and we all deserve to be treated well by our government, regardless of beliefs, regardless of tax bracket, regardless of what region we live in or what color our skin is. We all deserve to be able to turn to the government when the unthinkable happens. That's why we pay taxes, and put up with the other dumb crap that the government does. Because when we need help most, we expect it to be there. And this government has shirked that responsibility while bald faced lying to the nation about it.

Ahem...


yeah...

is it getting a bit ranty in here, or is it just me?

Just me?

Oh... ok. Sorry.

Oh, and yeah, I do agree that conservation is largely a dead ethic, and many natural refuges are just kinda silly. But when a natural resource has a demonstrable benefit to millions of citizens, as the case would have been for wetland floodplains around NO, or undeveloped barrier islands would have, I think it's the government's job to tell the people and businesses that it is something we have to protect. For our own survival....

Ahem... yeah... Sorry again. I keep getting carried away.

** thanks! But man... if you had any idea how dumb I actually am. There's like... three crickets and a mousetrap that needs oil inside my head.

Re: The hurricane

[flyinbutrs.livejournal.com]

I really didn't mean to (as judah put it) jump down your throat, I just have been getting angrier and angrier about this over the past few days, and your question gave me a good excuse to go off on a tangenty rant. Sorry if I came off as an ass...