Katrina Revisited Part V

I watched most of Spike Lee's documentary "When the Levees Broke..." last night on HBO. It's really shocking to relive the horror of bodies floating in streets, communities and lives destroyed and the insensitivity our leaders had to the situation. That's what was so shocking to me. So many of them made such stupid, asinine, bigoted comments. Remember Barbara Bush, the President's mother saying how fortunate it was for the poor people to have gone through so much horror and death. She actually said "This is working very well for them." Dennis Hastert said we shouldn't rebuild New orleans. It wasn't enough that two major American cities were attacked on Bush's watch and one was destroyed, but now the Speaker of the House was saying the people of New Orleans should simply abandon their homes, their ties and their communities.

Then we had our own fool Rick Sanitorium saying:

"I mean, you have people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. So there may be a need to look at tougher penalties, candidly, on those who decide to ride it out and understand there are consequences to not leaving."

How the hell did he propose those people would leave? After all his Republican buddy George Bush had gutted FEMA and the stuck his buddy from the 2000 campaign in as director. When Joe Allbaugh finished dismantling the organization he handed it over to his buddy Mike Brown. It was this agency that had accepted responsibility to provide 500 buses to evacuate those poor souls. They never provided the buses.

Poor people in wheelchairs and people without cars cannot simply start hitchhiking on interstates to evacuate in the face of a category 5 hurricane. They were abandoned by idiots like Rick Santorum to their horrible fates then had to listen to his sanctimonious bullshit about their being irresponsibilty. They were left to die. Maybe if Tricky Ricky hadn't voted 12 times against raising the minimum wage there wouldn't have been so many desperately poor people in New Orleans. Santorum is personally responsible, as a Senator and for his votes, for some of those lost lives. He helped set our national priorities. He voted for Bush's budgets slashing programs for the poor.

Yes, there were people who could have left who didn't. They were fools too and many of them died for their foolishness. Maybe Mayor Nagin could have been clearer about the force of this storm and the necessity for getting out of the city. Of course if he'd predicted the levees might fail and they hadn't he'd have been eviscerated for going overboard. Too often it's a damned if you do and damned if you don't scenario. Mass evacuations are extremely difficult under any circumstances.

I remember President Bush finally ending his vacation several days after Katrina and after doing numerous photo ops and speaking from Jackson Square. He promised to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. A year later not much has been accomplished.

All that talk about attending to the poverty issues was nothing but pandering. He still hasn't signed a minimum wage bill and he's still trying to kill the estate tax for the richest people in the country. His priorities haven't changed. Kanye West was right, George Bush doesn't care about Black people. He doesn't care about anyone but CEO's and the richest of the rich actually. Blacks are just one of the demographics (all are Democratic voters by the way) he doesn't give a damn about. I believe it's more a class war than racial but who am I to say, I'm not Black. I'll take Kanye's word for it.

You get the government you vote for folks. If you elect people to run your government who don't believe in government or who want to destroy it don't come crying when their incompetence and their priorities become evident. Republicans have long been advocates for as little government as possible. Grover Norquist is famous for his comment that has become a GOP rallying cry: "let's shrink government to a size where it fits into a bathtub. Then let's drown it."

These types do NOT believe government can and should be a positive force for good. Why should they, most are very wealthy people living very comfortable lives. It isn't their offspring being blown to bits in Iraq. Heaven help them share some of their fortune with those who are starving and needy. They could care less about public schools since their children go to private academies. They'd like going back to a feudal system and are working hard to achieve that goal. These people are completely greedy and selfish.

When you elect these aristocrats and their cronies to public office you get arrogance and incompetence. How in the world could the fired head of the Arabian Horse Association know anything about emergency preparedness? When we make stupid decisions about who runs our government it has real consequences for real people. Sometimes that means you. Real people die. Real people suffer. If George Bush had really cared a damn about the people in New Oeleans he'd have introduced anti-poverty legislation in the twelve months since Katrina. He did the opposite and those in Congress and the Senate are behind him all the way.

If you aren't happy about happened last year and what hasn't happened since you have an opportunity to do something about it on November 7th. Elect people who really care about you, about good government, about dealing with our real problems. Elect people who actually believe government, properly run, can be a positive force for good. Examine your candidates and ask these questions. If you don't get good answers keep asking. It's too important not to.