Our Government Has Failed Us
Earlier, I had posted my initial thoughts on Hurricane Katrina and my criticism of those focusing on Global Warming and not the suffering and relief effort of the victims. The rest of the week, I watched as the government did too little, too late.
I think the time for pointing fingers is right now, because nothing else has been creating action for an appropriate response to this disaster. There's a lot of anger in the air over how the relief effort has been handled. The race card is being played hard. But, I am convinced that the problem was simply incompetence, inexperience and lack of leadership.
I am also convinced that the accountability for this failure ultimately lies with the Bush administration. Some people think Bush has been at fault for cutting the Army Corps of Engineers budget to upgrade the levees protecting New Orleans. Obviously, there are those who question the response time and resources available because of the National Guard deployment in Iraq.
You can ignore all of that and yet, the problem is undeniably with the Administration. Though hypocrite Bushies would argue that fault lies with the Governor of Louisiana and Mayor of New Orleans, the simple fact is the response to this hurricane - like any response to a hurricane that hits this country - is the federal government's responsibility. Because of FEMA's slow transition into the Department of Homeland Security AND the utter lack of leadership and competence in the Department of Homeland security (lead by a Bush cronie and lawyer with no prior disaster experience), a lot more people have died, are dying and are going to die.
We have shamed ourselves and revealed the hard truth about America to the rest of the world which is, we're full of shit - both in the figurative and now the literal sense.
The big picture is, we cannot trust our current leadership to adequately step in when we need them the most. My number one expectation of the Federal Government is to step in during DIRE FUCKING EMERGENCIES. Terrorist attacks are a great example of but one type of emergency but the simple fact is we also have to worry about what Mother Nature might do.
Which brings me back to Global Warming. Maybe we should be talking about Global Warming and all of the other environmental issues that Bush says "we're still debating" on because of all the things he and his Republican troops have their head up their ass about, it's about time they start respecting Nature and putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to a "culture of life".
We have now seen what kind of leadership we have to respond to emergency situations that cannot be handled on a state or local level - an issue I thought everyone was focused on last November. Or maybe the problem was that Bush really didn't care that much about what was happening. This week he was on vacation, playing golf and giving his 3,245th speech on why we need to be in Iraq - he didn't make it to the Gulf Coast until 5 days after the hurricane. Compare that to 48 hours after Hurricane Charley hit his brother's state and what his response was.
It's rare for me to discuss politics on this blog because I think there is already too much politikin' on blogs for me to offer anything different or new. But I have to write about this, if nothing else, for me to document my own thoughts. I have been unexpectedly inspired by the press corps who are in New Orleans - journalists like Anderson Cooper and Shepard Smith who can't help but to question our government's actions. They were able to somehow respond before the government could and in doing so, they told the ugly, dirty, shameful truth - a rare moment for the American Press.
You know when a Fox News correspondant breaks down on live television because the government has not shown up to help - making Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity look pathetic because they're trying to spin the government's failure into something, anything positive - we've got a problem.
I was just listening to Bill Withers - Lonely Town, Lonely City
