Sputtering
Sep. 1st, 2005 08:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmcirvinCan 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."
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."
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-01 10:51 pm (UTC)"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.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-01 11:36 pm (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-03 08:38 pm (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-01 11:45 pm (UTC)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?