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September 3, 2005

Horrible

This isn't a political blog. I worked very hard to make its previous incarnation a politics-free zone, because sometimes you just need that moment of respite from the shitstorm raging around you.

But this is just too much to stand.

One of the "benefits" of digital technology and the Internet is the ability to achieve what Marshall McLuhan called "the global village." Just like in any small group of people, when something happens, everyone knows about it.

The devastation unleashed by hurricane Katrina is terrible, awful, and unrelenting in its ability to continue dishing out pain, suffering, and death. Nature can be like that. There's nothing we can do to prevent terrible storms, but there is a great deal that we can and should do to ameliorate their effects.

You need to read this news article on the cost in human life we're facing.

If you care about animals, you need to read this news article on the costs in companions' lives the survivors are facing.

You need to read these articles because it has become very, very clear in the past few days that this storm may not have been the worst catastrophe ever to strike the US, but the despicable, horrible response by our federal government to it is.

Here's a post listing the Administration's chorus of "I didn't knows."

The rest of us remember the storm warnings that flooded the airwaves days in advance of the storm. But then again, most of us weren't on a month-long vacation at the time.

Here's one listing the Administration's chorus of lies and understatements about the atrocities on the ground. But then again, most of us have forced ourselves to read news reports and watch video footage of the aftermath. Granted, we don't have state-of-the-art information and communication systems and networks, like the Administration, so I guess that's to be expected.

Here's an article from Editor and Publisher explaining how the money for flood control for New Orleans was diverted to Iraq. But I guess you protect your homeland with the missing troops and equipment that you've got instead of the ones you want.

Here's a post about how the Red Cross isn't being allowed into New Orleans because their presence "would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city." We wouldn't want aid workers to send the wrong signal, now would we?

Here's a post about how President Bush's photo-op at the under-repair flood levee was staged, and the levee is not actually being repaired. If that isn't egregious enough, here's one about how the "handing-out-the-food-to-the-starving-refugees" photo-op was also staged -- and how the President's handlers disassembled the food distribution center as soon as the President left. Forget about actually fixing the flooding or feeding the starving... if it looks good, that's good enough, right?

And here's another about how the President's very important visit kept food and relief supplies from being delivered. Because once you let aid helicopters fly over the heavily guarded President, you're on the slippery slope to anarchy. Oh wait, New Orleans is already there.

Let's look at a few pictures, taken at approximately the same time on Tuesday, August 30th:

caption: President Bush plays a guitar presented to him by Country Singer Mark Wills, right, backstage following his visit to Naval Base Coronado, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. Bush visited the base to deliver remarks on V-J Commemoration Day. (AP Photo/ABC News, Martha Raddatz).

Meanwhile, during those same hours, in Mississippi: Volunteers rescue a family from the roof of their Suburban, which became trapped in floodwaters on US 90 in Bay St. Louis, Miss. (Ben Sklar / AP) August 30, 2005.

This isn't about hating the President. It's about letting thousands of people suffer and die because of a storm we knew was coming, heading toward eroded and decayed flood-prevention levees we knew were in trouble, in a city and a region disproportionately filled with poor and African American citizens, many of whom lack the health, mobility, and disposible income necessary to leave their homes for what may be a protracted time.

It boils down to this:

Either:
1) the President was truthfully unaware of Katrina's potential for devastation, in which case he was criminally negligent in his duties as president to protect this country;
2) the President wanted to help but was unable to do so (for whatever reasons), in which case he was incompetent;
or
3) the President was neither negligent nor incompetent, but deliberately waited to send in aid and troops, in which case he is a monster.

I am sick of watching Americans dying from dehydration, sickness, and lawlesness. I am sick of watching Americans forced to cope with having their lives destroyed. I am sick of watching one of the great cities of America rendered not merely uninhabitable for at least the next 6 months, but turned into a watery grave with rotting corpses floating down what used to be streets.

You can't prevent every death during a major disaster.

But the Administration didn't even try.

And that is too horrible to think about anymore.

Posted by reparent at September 3, 2005 7:41 PM

Comments

Posted by: sster at September 3, 2005 10:32 PM

Posted by: coeurlion at September 4, 2005 10:57 AM

Posted by: jon at September 4, 2005 2:12 PM

Posted by: coeurlion at September 5, 2005 11:08 AM

Posted by: wade hicks at November 28, 2005 2:12 AM