Quite a while ago the city of New Orleans requested a lot of money from Bush to help prepare for a hurricane (which was always a possibility apparently) including money to repair levees that badly needed it.
Well, the levees have spoken and the death count is unknown.
Bush said the money had to go to the Iraq war and for Homeland Security measures.
How do you sleep at night George?
Boy I'm sure glad that money went to Iraq...
http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/atty...es/002331.html
"Set the controls for the heart of the Sun" - Pink Floyd
It's impossible to say exactly what the result would have been had these funds been used for work on the levees. Maybe it would have made a difference. Right now I can't understand why the breaks in the levees can't be filled more quickly. And of course right now the most important concern is the continuing humanitarian crisis that is escalating. Please do whatever you can to help - at the least donate a few bucks to the Red Cross. There will be plenty of time to assess blame (and dodge it, in the case of the Bush Administration) in months and years to come.
"Humanitarian Crisis" indeed.
Jesus, the reports coming out of New Orleans are devastating.
No food, no water (the irony is sick) no medical supplies, no housing- people are living like animals one report said.
People are dying on the street from everything from heart attacks to starvation.
This is a major deal here, this is no joke.
This is a terrible quagmire, in "the best country in the world".
Bush had better step up to the plate on this one big time.
He's been stating the obvious for 2 days.
Let's go, George- people's lives depend on it.
Last edited by Johann; 09-01-2005 at 07:44 PM.
"Set the controls for the heart of the Sun" - Pink Floyd
What's going on in New Orleans, and the amount of devastation there, is incomprehensible. It's impossible that this could be happening in this country (or anywhere in the western world) today. And Bush is saying things like, "this will make us stronger in the end". Drop the fucking cliches, Mr. President. There are many, many people who won't be "stronger" because of this. This isn't some sort of test from God, it's isn't a "test of wills" of some sort. It's simply an extraordinarily difficult situation that we must respond to as best as possible.
Approx. 1/3 of the cars in my apartment complex parking lot right now have Louisiana plates. There are probably at least 100,000 people from LA in Houston right now. It's the closest big city that's fully functional at this point.
Michael Moore has written a scathing open letter to George Bush, who doesn't seem to know what to do, like the day those two towers fell.
He's finally pulling his lips off of fundraisers' asses and making his way over to the devastation.
Make sure you bring food and water, Dumbya! Maybe you can hand out some of those cocktail weenies that are served on Air Force One. (You know the ones- the ones Laura pokes with toothpicks and serves with embroidered napkins)
This is only gonna get worse.
There is no God in this situation. There is only urgent help required. Anyone rationalizing this in the name of God needs to be smacked. If any deity holds responsibility it's Mother Nature.
God is mute on this one- and we are witnessing our "human response" in Dubya and his administration.
This is what you get for re-electing this waste of life of a President.
As everybody can see, the people who are living this nightmare are primarily black and poor. This could be the reason that relief and aid isn't arriving so quickly. They aren't "society's best"- let 'em suffer a while! It's good for the character! Makes you tuff!
I recoil in disgust.
This is the "best country in the world"?
If these relief efforts are any indication, that notion is as phony as Bush's reasons for war.
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/08/31...two_photo.html
Last edited by Johann; 09-02-2005 at 12:43 PM.
"Set the controls for the heart of the Sun" - Pink Floyd
This is a terrible time in America right now. All of a sudden, two Supreme Court posts -- including Chief Justice -- for Bush to fill with anti-Constitution reactionaries instead of just one -- and an unprecedented natural and urban disaster in the heart of our own country being botched -- it's too much.
Bush's criminally slow response to Katrina's devastation -- do people remember the schoolchildren and the story about the goat? -- should be enough to destroy the man. This is a scandal that's costing thousands of American lives and so all of s sudden this administration isn't just destroying other countries but now with the same methods it used in Iraq it's destroying America. In a saner world impeachment proceedings would rapidly be under way. Bush's days would be numbered. How many scandals can happen, how many thousands of lives can be lost, before the spin machine breaks down?
I'm feeling pretty down this morning.
And what a time to think of Labor Day.
The hurricane aftermath proves that this is not a smart country and not one that has either a memory or a vision of even the most immediate future, except where profits are concernned. That's where Americans at the top look ahead: at the dollar signs. That's why Wall Street blossomed after the devastation. Corporate profits ahead. Theme parks. Condos for the rich. And the poor and the people of color will be put into camps. It's getting really gross.
Sunday 4 September 2005
Looking at what has happened since Katrina from outside the US has been unbelievable. If the way this disaster has been handled is the American way that we (the rest of the world) are being brain washed into believing is the best and only way for the future, then God help everyone!
If you don't get rid of Bush now, you never will, he's done more damage to the whole world in the name of "freedom" than any president before him, thousands have died both outside and inside the US yet this bumbling idiot still holds office, how?
Cheers Trev.
The more I learn the less I know.
One explanation is that our system doesn't allow us to get rid of our governments as quickly as the Europeans do, and that is both a fault and a virtue. The very eloquent parish representative from Louisiana on the Tim Russert show today* said the people at the top involved here should be taken out, now, at once, so things can get going. But that isn't going to happen either. Yet the lack of qualifications is staggering. The FEMA director's previous job was as the president of an Arabian horse organization, and the Homeland Security chief Michael Chernoff's selection -- he himself not even Bush's first choice, but the first choice got caught lying and had to withdraw -- seems clearly to be due to his willingness to prosecute foreign suspects energetically. For more information about this chap, who denied knowledge of anything wrong at the Convention Center when the situation was all over the news all day and who said this disaster was far beyond anything anyone had predicted when in fact many people, including a writer in the Scientific American two years ago, had definitely predicted it -- see the Wikipedia article on him. I am so angry right now I don't know what to do.
Russert began his questioning of Michael Chernoff by asking him if he was planning to resign. He swept it aside. It doesn't look like his magna cum laude from Harvard and his prosecutorial experience are going to help him retrieve black people from rooftops in New Orleans.
In his piece "Looting Here, Looting There," Iraq expert Juan Cole today (September 4) compares the different Bush administration responses to looting in Iraq post Shock and Awe and in New Orleans post Katrina. Iraqis are seeing the contrast too, he says. He also relates the New Orleans situaition to what happened in Falluja. This isn't far fetched at all. Administration officials were referring to looters in Louisiana as "insurgents."
*The words of Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard on Russert's show were the most powerful uttered about the post-Katrina situation today.
Administrator
Nicholas Kristoff writes an insightful op-ed in the NY Times today inwhich he compares our culture with Japan's. In Japan there is great effort on the part of the gov to include everyone in the cultural fabric he says, while here (and now) our own gov is dismantling that same fabric. The us against them that is part and parcel of our foreign policy has been revealed in the past few days to be the policy here at "home"...sweet home. This isnt really news, but good god, is there nothing that can be done about this guy????.....
Term limits....only 38 months until we can elect a new president...maybe the Dems can at least retake the House and Senate next year.Originally posted by pmw
is there nothing that can be done about this guy????.....
The Bush team seemed convinced that private enterprise and the free market are the most effective means of solving problems in society (except for War). Maybe this is a wakeup call now, for them and for those who elected him.
39 months is way too long to wait. But impeaching Bush is difficult with a Republican Congress. The reactionary ideology that some say is spreading is so against government and social services that some people in America actually think it's fine for poor blacks to rot in Louisiana after Katrina. As Juan Cole concluded in the piece I cited a couple of posts up, "Bush cares deeply about the property of rich white people." That's why the US allowed the antiquities museum of Baghdad to be plundered but sent in troops to shoot to kill in Louisiana -- the protection of property -- when it's the property of rich whilte people -- is the highest good. Except that it's even better, the neocons think, to tear things down and build them back up, because that's highly profitable. This was a major stategy in Iraq -- see the writings of Naomi Klein, especially her Harpers 2004 article "Baghdad Year Zero"-- except that the quagmire there has not permitted the bonanza to go forward according to the neocon fantasy.
I've often wondered why the process of impeachment seems taboo, that the offending "Statesman" must be found 1000% gulity on something, that he must be in such a foul universe of criminality that there is no option.
Can anyone even look at the idea of impeachment for more than 2 seconds? Fault and virtue indeed Chris.
It's like the forever-long O.J. Simpson trial: they carp about "due process", "a fair trial/his day in court" and "investigation by the proper authorities" to reach justice.
Beaurocratic cabals, issues stifled, paperwork from Hell, confusion.
This is the norm in Washington.
It's a sideshow now. It's beyond Ringling Brothers.
They say that Americans should be prepared for gruesome images in the coming months. They say the death count could reach as high as 20,000.
I can understand the incomprehensiveness of the destruction but it only takes a second of your life to see that massive relief efforts are needed.
A WEEK AGO.
More deaths on Bush's hands.
More Americans dead because of this administrations' inability to see beyond record-breaking profits.
More reasons to have rage seeth through your body.
This hurricane and it's aftermath should have every single person
making mental notes to themselves about how the government will help you if your corner of the world is hit with oblivion.
It should be clear to everyone now that the government can't save you from Terrorists, can't save you from Mother Nature, can't save you from social security, can't save you from it's woefully sad imperialist stranglehold and indifference to your life.
Sorry, do I sound unpatriotic?
Am I an insurgent?
Last edited by Johann; 09-06-2005 at 12:20 PM.
"Set the controls for the heart of the Sun" - Pink Floyd
The shock and awe of these words, which slithered out of that old sack of shit of a hag Barbara Bush, are so chilling I can't describe my disbelief.
"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underpriviledged anyway, so this-- (she chuckles slightly) this is working very well for them"
Michael Moore has got an audio recording of her words on his website if you care to hear the evil...
"Set the controls for the heart of the Sun" - Pink Floyd
Sept. 24th is the big day.
An anti-war rally will be held outside the White House, with 100,000 people expected to attend.
We haven't seen a rally of this size at the gates of the Prez's digs in how long?
Bush's war is getting even more criticism, with the situation in New Orleans pressing people to ask why all of the National Guard troops are deployed in Iraq when there is desperate need for them at home.
Chris is right: Bush is taking his tried and true methods to the American people now.
Human life is not something he contemplates.
He has no capacity for empathy.
Cheney either. Or Condoleeza Rice, who was shopping for shoes while Americans were dying. (A customer in the store demanded to know what she was doing there, when New Orleans was in "it's first throes" of disaster).
Remember Condi?
She got the memo about Bin Laden attacking the U.S. with planes and then threw it into her rotating file ("rotating file" is office-speak for garbage can).
Where is Cheney? Shouldn't the V.P. be a little more visible?
Why are we seeing more of Clinton and Sean Penn than we are of the NUMBER 2 MAN?
Fucking crucify him.
Chain his ass to an overflowed toliet at the Superdome.
This is a sad police state of affairs, fellow FilmWurlders...
"Set the controls for the heart of the Sun" - Pink Floyd
Registered User
You're right. There isn't much that shocks you nowadays but this is unbelievable. I'm disgusted.Originally posted by Johann
The shock and awe of these words, which slithered out of that old sack of shit of a hag Barbara Bush, are so chilling I can't describe my disbelief.
"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underpriviledged anyway, so this-- (she chuckles slightly) this is working very well for them"
Michael Moore has got an audio recording of her words on his website if you care to hear the evil...
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