Sputtering

[mmcirvin]

Can we lower the flags to half-staff already? We did it for the Pope. Or hang 'em upside down; that might be more appropriate, if somewhat obsolete.

After spending a few days farting around, Dear Leader finally made the magisterial disaster address. Thanks for the advice, sir; already did that, will probably do some more. Apparently, having already crippled FEMA in the years since September 11th, 2001, the government is rejecting foreign aid while New Orleans fills up with floating bodies. How charmingly juche of them.

And, in the meantime, he made that "nobody expected the breach of the levees" remark, which is more microcosmic than even Kevin Drum realized. Various people in that thread piped up and pointed out ways that the remark was technically true: nobody expected that the particular levees that broke would break at the particular spots where they did break hours after the storm swerved from a direct hit on the city. All of which is beside the point, given that there was completely inadequate preparation for the storm-surge flooding disaster that had been mentioned as a possibility by many, many people going back years, and which most people expected in the hours before Katrina hit. This is the way this guy operates, over and over and over; he makes statement after statement that can be interpreted as technically true if you squint at it in exactly the correct way and make sympathetic allowances, when the whole statement in context is incredible reeking bullshit.

I have so had it with these idiots, crooks, tinpot tyrants and prisoners of delusion, sometime today I stopped even feeling guilty for ever trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. I think that after two-plus years of reading extensive and detailed explanations of just how idiotic it was to do that, that particular two-by-four is well and truly gone from my eye, the guilt in my belly is not doing anybody any good (none of the national morass being about me and my little feelings), and I can proceed directly to the public rage. I have my disagreements with Michael Moore, but sometime during the late campaign he delivered the most perfect line ever about it: somebody asked him if people ought to feel ashamed for believing the president about Iraq, and he said something like "That's just it, isn't it? Nobody should have to feel ashamed for believing the president."

Comments

Sputtering

[infrogmation.livejournal.com]

Well said. Thanks.

[pantom.livejournal.com]

::Standing ovation::

I just saw on the news that people at the Superdome have been dying because no food or water was delivered there until, finally, today. Unfuckingbelievable.

[ex-askesis860.livejournal.com]

One wonders where all that Homeland Security money went. One wonders why, after 9-11, the federal authorities are so obviously winging it in the face of disaster. One wonders why water bottles haven't been air-dropped all over the city.

One wonders.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Airdropped? Not exactly.

4. National Guard shoving water off the backs of trucks. They're just pushing it off without stopping, people don't even know it's there at first -- they drop it on the side in debris, there's no sign or distribution point -- people are scared to go near it at first, because the drop points are guarded by troops or federal agents with assault rifles who don't let people come near them, which scares people off. It is a mess. When people actually get to the water, they are in such a rush to get it that one family left their small child behind and forget about him until Sig carried him back to the family.

[jarai.livejournal.com]

Here's an article on CNN about Michael Brown, the Bush appointed head of FEMA, saying how the victims in New Orleans bear responsibility for their situation:

"I don't make judgments about why people chose not to leave but, you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans."

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/01/katrina.fema.brown/index.html

His attitude and tone in that are nothing short of disgusting. It's not like all of these people had the means to leave the city.

[pootrootbeer.livejournal.com]

Yes, people "chose" not to leave.

Just like people "choose" to be gay, or "choose" to live off of welfare and minimum-wage jobs their entire lives.

The entire federal government deserves to be slapped.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

Lots of people did choose to say. It's inevitable. Not to say that the quote in question didn't come from a major ass-hat, but yeah, there're always some who stay. There're always some hold-outs when hurricanes slam through Outer Banks, NC, which is exposed on the sea and everything's built on stilts if it's within 5 blocks of the beach, and that's most of every single town on the sandbank.

Frankly, it's not a bad risk in general-- Hurricanes just don't kill that many people or destroy that many houses, as a percentage. And if you're just gambling on 3-5 feet of flooding, against the remote possibility of a Galveston 1900/NO 1927/NO 1965-scale event, well, it pays off 34 out of every 35 years.

And, ya know, the people who didn't choose to stay aren't the Feds' problem, so you just put those dainty gloves away. That's definitely a city, parish and, once they're out of town, state issue.

[glitter-ninja.livejournal.com]

In an interview with Paula Zahn today, Brown was pointedly asked why he was blaming those still in NOLA. He claimed he *wasn't* blaming them and said he understood that some people couldn't leave. But it wasn't convincing.

Earlier in the interview he claimed the government had no idea people were at the New Orleans convention center until today. Ridiculous. I knew about the center last night, when people thought a rumor accidentally led people to the center. Of course, now we know officials (mistakenly or not) led people there. Zahn about shrieked at him for his stupidity and Brown just got condescending.

Doesn't the Guard or FEMA fly helicopters overhead? Did they just fail to notice a few thousand people gathering in one location?

[glitter-ninja.livejournal.com]

Very well said.

I'm personally so mad right now I've got goosebumps and I'm shaking. What I'm shocked at is how the American public obviously cares very deeply about this situation, yet the government seems to care very little.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

the American public obviously cares very deeply about this situation

and that, my friends, is the saving grace.

Basically what's dawning on people is that we have no functioning federal government worthy of the name. It's possible that we liberals spent too much time worrying about creeping tyranny when the real problem was that the federal government was becoming a fragile, hollow shell like the late-stage government of the Soviet Union.

So this is Chernobyl. Let's hope we don't end up with some creep like Putin in the endgame. We can do better than that. I'm trying to figure out how we get through the next few years; all I can figure is that we limp along with what extragovernmental organizations we can until we get people in Congress in '06 who will do their damnedest to remove Bush and Cheney, or scare them enough that they resign Nixon-style. We might end up with Dennis Hastert as president (if he's still speaker then), and he's a jerk, but the symbolic purge would be useful in itself and maybe whoever it is can be convinced to put actual administrators in charge of things.

[mezdeathhead.livejournal.com]

Basically what's dawning on people is that we have no functioning federal government worthy of the name. It's possible that we liberals spent too much time worrying about creeping tyranny when the real problem was that the federal government was becoming a fragile, hollow shell like the late-stage government of the Soviet Union.

Wow. That gave me goosebumps.

That's it.

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

You're going on my friends list after all.

Re: That's it.

[mcmatz.livejournal.com]

Me, too.

--Madeline

[legalstep.livejournal.com]

Nice...Stephanie Miller has referred to Maximum Leader Bush as Captain Obvious. At least while people were drowning Condi got some nice shoes (http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/342712p-292600c.html).

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

That Condi sure is amazing in general, though. She can pull the drowning from the river just by taking a phone call from a foreign nation who might be able to send a rescue team or a check in just a day or so! Wow!

Seriously, in the face of national disaster, who the hell looks to the State Department, and also, do world leaders really have that much trouble getting Bush himself on the phone without a proxy from State to hand it to him? (Here's your chance to make a witty ripost about how Bush is too dummmm to pick up a telephone!)

Benefit of the Doubt

[stevendaryl.livejournal.com]

Your post expresses exactly how I feel about President Bush, although I got to that point about 3 years earlier. I was pretty anti-Bush early on in his first term, but then 9/11 happened, and I was really jolted into a new state of political being: Like him or not, George W. Bush was my President, and the President of the whole damn country. I really, really tried to give him the benefit of the doubt in his handling of the war on terrorism. That lasted about 6 months.

After developing a certain level of animosity towards someone, it is very difficult to be "fair" after that. I have long since reached that point with Bush. I am incapable at this point of giving him the benefit of the doubt on his good intentions, his competence, his honesty. That isn't a good position to be in, I know.