Katrina's POLITICAL aftermath (keep the political discussions HERE)

chill the strawman shit. that's the reason i typed

"will that actually happen? fuck, i dunno.

I'm sure your research has been as extensive as your knowledge of the shady deals of Pat "Charity" Robertson. Most of the problems are actually caused by the unnatural changes in the geography in New Orleans.

And the theory is that global warming causes more frequent, and powerful, hurricanes, which has been the case for the last year.

But hey, fuck the scientists and the data, we need something...credible?

I'm just trying to keep things factual here, and yes, I need something more credible to explain how exactly global warming caused this particular storm which was a normal hurricane in a normal hurricane season.

I don't think that she needs to be thanking the goddam president on national television, but if anyone was expecting her to get all apeshit on federal and state agencies, you may need to have more patience than Anderson Cooper did.

But I think Anderson Cooper was really railing against all politicians here, not just Landrieu.

Hell, I'd be surprised if someone in the House didn't lobby for this at some point over the last 2 years. Any idea as to whether or not that can be found?

His phrase about the "can't-do government" gets at something important, I think. It's the same thing that struck me when I heard Bush was asking his dad and Bill C. to reprise their tsunami fundraising role -- the idea that government can't and won't do much of anything about anything. You don't have health insurance? Hey, set aside some of your earnings in a "medical savings account." You've been hit by a hurricane? Hey, we'd love to help but we're stretched kinda thin here...tell you what, my dad'll hold a bake sale, call up some of his rich friends.

It's all part of the conservative anti-gubmint boilerplate, of course. But this is the kind of thing that makes you think that maybe possibly you want people running the government who believe in the ability of government to act and react usefully, not just give vague, empty grinning assurances from a thousand miles away.

Before 9/11 the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the three most likely catastrophic disasters facing America: a terrorist attack on New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane strike on New Orleans. "The New Orleans hurricane scenario," The Houston Chronicle wrote in December 2001, "may be the deadliest of all." It described a potential catastrophe very much like the one now happening.

Too late you fucking flip-flopper!

The White House scrambled Thursday to defend itself against criticism that it has consistently proposed cutting the budget for Army Corps of Engineers water and flood control projects - including several that could have mitigated the disaster in New Orleans.

Just in February, President Bush proposed cutting the Corps' budget by 7 percent. The year before, Bush proposed a 13 percent cut....

Hurricane Katrina is expected to cause a spurt of bankruptcy filings by storm victims -- and sweeping changes in U.S. bankruptcy laws may leave them even more strapped than they otherwise might be.

The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, which takes effect October 17, includes a slew of rules and restrictions intended to curb abuse. These are expected to make it harder for individuals to file to keep creditors away, and more difficult for businesses to reorganize...

..."People who are seriously affected by this hurricane are not going to be able to file bankruptcy by October 17," said Henry Sommer, co-editor of "Collier on Bankruptcy," a leading reference work. "They have more pressing things in their lives, like survival."

yeah, there was a bit on crooksandliars.com about that within the last day.

also, Randi Rhodes reported today that some of the contractors working on teh levees were working for free for up to a year, but i can't find confirmation yet.

I guess Jefferson can expect a tongue-lashing from Anderson Cooper as well.

Presidents Chávez, Arbenz, Iraq, and the Big Easy
By Ron Smith

Posted on Thu Sep 1st, 2005 at 03:09:52 AM EST

It’s now fully 3 days since Katrina passed New Orleans, the city is now in a shambles, and now mainstream news, including BBC, presents the tired "it bleeds, it leads" philosophy in yellow journalism as they pretend to care about the tragedy facing the mostly poor, mostly black population of New Orleans. In the reporting, images are repeated of desperate black citizens taking necessities from stores and being castigated by the media as looters, while white citizens doing the same thing are represented as "just doing what they need to survive". Meanwhile, the latest tragedy of the Iraq quagmire goes unnoticed and unreported in all but the most raking of muckraking media (see counterpunch, 8/31). Meanwhile, capitalism presents itself in all its glory, as reports of retailers charging as much as 6 dollars a gallon pour in from all over the region, and the Bush Administration removes pollution requirements from gasoline producers (catalytic converters be damned!). But to get a real picture of the surreal nature of the current predicament, it's important to step back a bit, to the 1950's, and the US government's assassination of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, at the behest of the United Fruit Company...

(from 31 Aug 05)

Just look at these images, though, friends. Again, you know, the first day Haley Barbour came down here, he talked about scenes reminiscent of Hiroshima. Some people were concerned he may have been engaging in hyperbole. You know, I don‘t know what you call it when you walk through entire neighborhoods and there‘s not a single building left standing.

"To kick us down when we're down and destroy hope" is unnecessary, Blanco said.

Read the article again. Yes, Clinton and Carter both squeezed budgets for ALL Corp projects. No one gets the whole budget they would like. Here:

Other presidents also have taken aim at the Corps' budget. President Carters' first veto came against a big water projects bill passed by a Democratic-dominated Congress. And President Clinton squeezed the Corps budget as well. Doing so frees money for other White House priorities.

As compared to specific, gutting of a project by the Bush admin here:

Even though the administration has chronically cut back on the Corps of Engineers' own requests for funding - including two key New Orleans-area projects - White House officials trumpeted the administration's support for the Corps.

See the generic, "they messed with our budget" vs specific projects.

And notice how the article's information comes from a former Republican Congressman who has "battled" all the way back to Carter but only gives vague examples about Carter and Clinton. I'm sure Reagan and Daddy-Bush were more than happy to give out money for enviornmental bullshit, right?

This is what passes for fair and balanced reporting; if you dare criticize Dear Leader, make sure to toss in some "Clinton did it too!" stuff for the rubes.

--

If I may -- to all and sundry -- much of the reaction around this reminds me of four years ago in this sense: LOTS of axes are being reground, again. Those predisposed to certain conclusions have made them and in some cases are being incredibly vocal about it.

Personally I think Bush has handled the politics of this situation poorly. At the same time I'm not imagining he's supposed to be going around distributing food and water to everyone personally. But that said, one does wonder quite a bit about what he IS doing, asking after, etc. Frankly, my impressions are underwhelmed.

But it isn't just him -- it's a lot of different organizations, local, state, federal, government, non-government. It is quite obvious that the coordination needed has proven to be a dismal, wretched failure. The point is not to blame it on bureaucracy in and of itself, but on a situation that resulted from lack of care and expectations that things would handle themselves otherwise. Inured, I think, to the idea that Americans would somehow never act 'badly' in a dread situation -- that our purported exceptionalism means we are all somehow equally equipped and caring to help each other out 24/7 with a smile on our face (and the unstated expectation that that's all that's needed in order to help) -- many people are now confronting a different reality and either giving into bitterness (how many random calls of 'that's it, I'm buying a gun' have I read over these past few days? too many) or grasping at straws to score political points.

That said, I do not excuse Bush fully. The serious question I could and would ask Bush right now is this -- "Mr. President, you created a cabinet-level position to help protect against further attacks on this country and its citizens, part of the responsibility being to provide coordination in case of emergency from top to bottom among appropriate bodies. This disaster shows that no such coordination existed, or was and has continued to be handled wretchedly while our fellow citizens die. Why is this so, and why should anyone be assured that this situation could not repeat itself with another catastrophic natural or manmade disaster?"

Claims could be made that it is not Bush's responsibility to provide these answers. Well, frankly, bull -- because it is not Bush's responsibility per se but *the President's* -- and any President who found him or herself in this position, regardless of party or intent, would deserve the same question. On that level, Truman's brittle but pointed slogan of "The buck stops here" applies, fully.

otm. normally i think anderson cooper is a smarmy little prick but i was so proud of him for putting sen. landrieu in her place.

It broke my heart to go to the flood scene in Del Rio where a fellow and his family got completely uprooted. The only thing I knew was to got aid as quickly as possible with state and federal help, and to put my arms around the man and his family and cry with them. That's what governors do. They are often on the front line of catastrophic situations.

I guess it's a sign that I'm too tired/drunk when I thought for a second that an actual governor was posting here!

I'm sure you've noticed of late CNN getting rid of the pundit shows and moving to a hard news only format, right? I think the further they go towards that direction, the less likely you'll see them cater willingly to one side of the aisle or the other.

close paren.

Before the disaster:

- Not cut the funding to levee projects that were underway

- Not dismantle FEMA

- Provide busses to evacuate people who had no transportation

Now:

- Make sure the people who are stranded in NO have adequate food and water.

- Make complete evacuation of remaining refugees the top priority.

- Respond to the situation immediately by travelling to NO, finding some dry land somewhere to land and meet with the mayor, give a speech, talk about what steps are being taken, reassure people etc.

Those should have been some bare minimum no-brainer sort of steps.

My lord, the guy heading FEMA has no qualifications. What was he doing before getting pulled into FEMA by the Bush administration in 2003? He was an estate planning lawyer in Colorado and of counsel for the International Arabian Horse Association Legal Department. And yes, it is the same Michael D. Brown.

After CNN reported today that helicopters were diverted from plugging the levee breach on Tuesday, in order to rescue individuals on rooftops, I wondered what is involved in securing sufficient helicopters in a national emergency. It took me two minutes of Googling to identify the Erickson Air Crane Company and obtain their email address and phone number. The Air Crane is one of the most powerful helicopters in the world (used for lifting trucks and putting out fires, for example). I emailed them today asking if anyone had contacted them about the levee. They replied immediately that while they had put out the word to government entities, and while they are a DOD-listed contractor, they had not been contacted by any Government entity as of Wednesday evening. The levee broke on Monday night. I assume that a governor, or a general, or maybe a President would have gotten the CEO of this company (and other companies like them) on the phone and said "get over there ASAP."

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA. Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers... spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations.... Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars. Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming..."

I don't think that's true and I think you'd be hard pressed to find a similar degree of finger pointing after other disasters. The fact that it's a natural disaster does put the focus squarely on Bush's response to the crisis as opposed to 9/11 where the administration's negligence was overlooked thanks to an easy foreign scapegoat.

You can try to write-off any political discussion as a mere blame game but do you really believe that none of the questions being asked are valid? Do you think the response to the crisis has been sufficient and that we've exhausted every capibility we have as a nation? I think the political questions would have been out of place on day one or two but at this point the situation is nothing but political.

however i do indeed think that people like to be able to lay blame somewhere for natural disasters - it helps them feel a little more secure in a time of emotional trauma. and that's fair enough.