From AntiWar.com: The Cavalry can't get past FEMA! They are turning away truckloads and tankerloads of fuel, water, and supplies. They are cutting communications lines! What is going on?!?!?!
Isn't there a line in the Declaration of Independence that reads:
...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, security, etc.), it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it...
Goddamn it I'm no alarmist but frankly at this point I'm not entirely convinced we wouldn't be better off with FEMA getting out of the way completely. The whole situation approaches purposeful sabotage and reminds me of all the right wing nuts who used to claim that FEMA was preparing to institute a national coup.
David Brooks shares an opinion with me:
Americans in 2005 are not quite in that bad a shape, since the fundamental realities of everyday life are good. The economy and the moral culture are strong. But there is a loss of confidence in institutions. In case after case there has been a failure of administration, of sheer competence. Hence, polls show a widespread feeling the country is headed in the wrong direction.
Katrina means that the political culture, already sour and bloody-minded in many quarters, will shift. There will be a reaction. There will be more impatience for something new. There is going to be some sort of big bang as people respond to the cumulative blows of bad events and try to fundamentally change the way things are.
Reaganite conservatism was the response to the pessimism and feebleness of the 1970's. Maybe this time there will be a progressive resurgence. Maybe we are entering an age of hardheaded law and order. (Rudy Giuliani, an unlikely G.O.P. nominee a few months ago, could now win in a walk.) Maybe there will be call for McCainist patriotism and nonpartisan independence. All we can be sure of is that the political culture is about to undergo some big change.
We're not really at a tipping point as much as a bursting point. People are mad as hell, unwilling to take it anymore.
I'm mad as hell, and unwilling to take it anymore. I'm not calling for a full blown progressive revolution, but goddamn it we need leaders and we need them now.
Nick Weineger of Catallarchy does the math:
New Orleans proper (not even counting the metro area) has, had (Christ, it's had, isn't it?), half a million people. The per capita GDP of Louisiana is, was, about $29K (cite). Let's assume that's a fair approximation to the figure for New Orleans; it contained a lot of poor urbanites, to be sure, but also was a center of economic activity compared to surrounding rural areas, so in fact it's probably an underestimate. The feds take around 18% of GDP in taxes IIRC; so New Orleans' citizens probably paid about $2.6 billion. Let's be conservative and call it $2.5 billion.
So for one-tenth of the amount they paid to support the feds, the citizens of New Orleans could have protected themselves from inundation. Instead, they left it to FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers, &c; and who can blame them, considering the extravagant price they paid for those agencies' false promises? One damn tenth of all that was siphoned away to pay for other people's boondoggles and pyramid schemes and arrogant attempts to remake the world.
"Centralized power kills" is perhaps too simplistic. But it ain't looking too life-preserving today.
Amen, brother. I highly recommend Catallarchy as daily reading.
UPDATE: There's a great post about price gouging on there, too.
This man who claims the throne of America continues to astound me:
"There's a lot of aid surging toward those who've been affected. Millions of gallons of water. Millions of tons of food. We're making progress about pulling people out of the Superdome," the president said.
For the first time, however, he stopped defending his administration's response and criticized it. "A lot of people are working hard to help those who've been affected. The results are not acceptable," he said. "I'm heading down there right now."
So, Matt, are you gonna jump on Bush the same way you jump on me about being all talk and no action?
If you want the eyewitness account of what's really going on in New Orleans, check The Interdictor. But prepare yourself. This brought tears to my eyes:
Three days ago, police and national guard troops told citizens to head toward the Crescent City Connection Bridge to await transportation out of the area. The citizens trekked over to the Convention Center and waited for the buses which they were told would take them to Houston or Alabama or somewhere else, out of this area.
It's been 3 days, and the buses have yet to appear.
Although obviously he has no exact count, he estimates more than 10,000 people are packed into and around and outside the convention center still waiting for the buses. They had no food, no water, and no medicine for the last three days, until today, when the National Guard drove over the bridge above them, and tossed out supplies over the side crashing down to the ground below. Much of the supplies were destroyed from the drop. Many people tried to catch the supplies to protect them before they hit the ground. Some offered to walk all the way around up the bridge and bring the supplies down, but any attempt to approach the police or national guard resulted in weapons being aimed at them.
There are many infants and elderly people among them, as well as many people who were injured jumping out of windows to escape flood water and the like -- all of them in dire straights.
Any attempt to flag down police results in being told to get away at gunpoint. Hour after hour they watch buses pass by filled with people from other areas. Tensions are very high, and there has been at least one murder and several fights. 8 or 9 dead people have been stored in a freezer in the area, and 2 of these dead people are kids.
The people are so desperate that they're doing anything they can think of to impress the authorities enough to bring some buses. These things include standing in single file lines with the eldery in front, women and children next; sweeping up the area and cleaning the windows and anything else that would show the people are not barbarians.
The buses never stop.
This is horrible. I am so, so sorry for those trapped in these conditions. Please help these people any way you can because their government will not.
Bush said they all agreed the storm's damage to the gas supply was a "temporary disruption" and urged Americans to use prudence in filling up over the next few weeks."Don't buy gas if you don't need it," he said in Oval Office remarks with his father and Clinton at his side.
We must be a bunch of fucking idiots to have this guy in the White House. Who, Mr. President? Who in the fuck are you talking to? Who in the fuck doesn't need to buy gas?!?!?!? Isn't that the whole reason your family is so goddamned rich?!?!?!
Ron Fournier makes plain what "went wrong" - and it is the classic argument this blog makes day in, day out (well, except for weekends... and made up holidays... and when I fall and can't get up): politicians cannot be trusted.
There's plenty of blame to go around - the White House, Congress, federal agencies, local governments, police and even residents of the Gulf Coast who refused orders to evacuate. But all the finger-pointing misses the point: Politicians and the people they lead too often ignore danger signs until a crisis hits.
It wasn't a secret that levees built to keep New Orleans from flooding could not withstand a major hurricane, but government leaders never found the money to fully shore up the network of earthen, steel and concrete barriers.
Both the Bush and Clinton administrations proposed budgets that low-balled the needs. Local politicians grabbed whatever money they could and declared victory. And the public didn't exactly demand tax increases to pay for flood-control and hurricane-protection projects.
Just last year, the Army Corps of Engineers sought $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans. The White House slashed the request to about $40 million. Congress finally approved $42.2 million, less than half of the agency's request.
Yet the lawmakers and Bush agreed to a $286.4 billion pork-laden highway bill that included more than 6,000 pet projects for lawmakers. Congress spent money on dust control for Arkansas roads, a warehouse on the Erie Canal and a $231 million bridge to a small, uninhabited Alaskan island.
I hope we learn. I bet we don't.
From left to right: Gary, Tiffani, Michael, Ed, and me at Avalon during the Living the Law of One seminar two weeks ago.
These are the kids who don't make fun of me because of what I believe. Unlike you readers.
They're all taking food without paying for it, but black people "loot", whereas white people "find".
Good find, jameth (at least, if you're white).
EDIT: I just want to say for the record that the needless episodes of violence being perpetrated in New Orleans and elsewhere are despicable. Emergency situations call for emergency measures to restore justice. In other words, send in the troops and shoot to kill these roaming, armed bands of thugs. I'm speaking about those who are attacking refugees and otherwise using violence to hamper the rescue process. I couldn't give a shit about inner city residents looting electronics, jewelry, medicine, etc. Whatever. But to purposely fire on rescue efforts to save innocent victims of the tragedy does not qualify as "payback" for past "oppression and injustice". I am really hoping no lefties try to justify this behavior on Marxist socioeconomic terms. Because it doesn't cost a motherfucking dime to use your head.
MORE: An update on the situation via the NOPD. Thanks tex from Antiwar.com.
Good point, Wil:
You know, I've been baffled for two years at our inability to make any meaningful dent in rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure, but looking at our general impotence to do anything meaningful in regards to saving lives in New Orleans it's starting to make sense. Maybe there are good reasons for it - I suppose you can't just dump bales of water and food on people huddles in the Astro or SuperDome or whatever it's called without genuine fears of riots and hoarding. But I think like most people I'm overcome with a sense that this America in the year 2005 and the best we can do is pretty shitty.
Follow the money, fellas... New Orleans is not Bush's pet project right now.
Mexigogue makes a good point, the subject of which I'm usually too nice to comment:
They're everywhere. . . People who are dumb but do not know it. People who are exceptionally bad at something and keep right on plugging along, oblivious to the fact that that other people are jamming fingers in their ears at their singing, cringing at their jokes, or shaking their heads at their pool shots. I don't mean just kind of bad. I mean people who fall into the bottom 15th percentile of something and bop around like they're good enough to be consultants at their particular area of "skill."
It gets better; read it.
Just found out my friend, the Reverend Hall (yes, he will be officiating the wedding), is out of NOLA and safe. He didn't get my "R U OK" txt messages over the past few days, and both Tasha and I were getting worried that he was not responding.
Doing some template retooling currently. Content should be preserved for the most part for the duration of the redesign.
Greetings, fellow product consumers. Just wanted to give a shout out to Matt and plug his (sort of) new web hosting company. Check out the new ad on the right sidebar. If you're looking for webspace, you want to go with ISB because Matt gets his kicks by providing quick and efficient technical support and customer service. He wants to run a small, tight ship and deliver value. I highly recommend ISB Hosting and have one three times a day!
The poster is not affiliated with ISB Hosting in any way, shape, or form, other than having been threatened to either plug his friend's site or have his server space turned over to file hosting for clown juggling mpegs. In other words, no money was made off this ad. And I'm not happy about that.
If we have time and Tasha is ok with it, I'd like to add something to our mini-honeymoon itenerary. I'm thinking we take advantage of being in Austin, TX for the Austin City Limits music festival and take a trip down to Crawford, TX to visit Camp Casey and support the protests there.
It probably won't work out, but it would be awesome if it did. If for no other reason, just to piss my conservative buds off.
UPDATE: Camp Casey is closed. Pity. I could have pissed Matt off even more than usual.
