Seriously, could this be the end for the Chimp?

[mr blur]

"Why city's defences were down
Cuts in spending to raise levees blamed on cost of war in Iraq "

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1560351,00.html

-snip-
The damage done this time may be also linked to White House cuts in funding for hurricane defence to pay for homeland security terrorist defences.

Lloyd Dumas, professor of political economy and economics at the University of Texas at Dallas, criticised the government's failure to oversee a more efficient evacuation. "It's remarkable that with the massive restructuring of the federal government that took place with the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, they don't have more well thought-out plans to evacuate a city like New Orleans," he said.

"An emphasis should be placed on plans that have multiple purposes, like evacuation plans for a city like New Orleans that can of course be useful in the event of a terrorist attack but also in the event of a natural disaster like this one ... There were plans during the cold war to evacuate major cities in a few days."

Professor Dumas added that not enough provision seemed to have been made for poor people. "There doesn't seem to have been much attention paid to people who didn't have private automobiles," he said. "I didn't hear anything about school buses or city buses being used to aim people out of town." He said that there appeared to be little forward planning to cater to those on low incomes who would be unable to return to their homes for up to two months but who would not have the money to pay for that time in a hotel. "The Department of Homeland Security says on its website that it deals with natural disasters," he said. "They don't seem to have done a very good job. There doesn't seem to have been any long-term planning."

The war in Iraq was also being seen as playing a part in the federal response to the crisis. Many members of the National Guard who would normally have been swiftly mobilised to help in evacuation are on duty in Iraq. Although US air force, navy and army units were deployed to assist, the locally-based National Guard is depleted by the demands of the war.

-snip-

The corps has long wanted to strengthen some of the levees which have been sinking, and on its website yesterday said it planned to build a further 74 miles of hurricane defences. But according to local media, it was last year refused extra funding by the White House which wanted to save money to pay for homeland security against terrorism. "In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for south-east Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4m, a sixth of what local officials say they need," reported Newhouse News Service yesterday.

[jessicazi]

1. lets all hope and pray it is the end.

nt

[Lindsay]

2. From your keyboard

to god's/goddess's monitor.

[Child_Of_Isis]

3. It is not the end for chimp

but the black folk. They are looters and criminals. They killed a soldier. No one cares about White House cuts in funding for hurricane defence. They care about black looters.

[madeline_con]

4. I'm going to risk being flamed and say....

had they gotten the $$ last year, how many here really believe the work could have been completed in time for Katrina's arrival?

[rodeodance]

8. knowing they were trying would have a key factor. We will not know

what 'could have been" now.

[madeline_con]

11. Believe me, N.O's levees could not have been improved in 1 yr.

[Usrename]

20. I've been watching Sen. Landrieu for years. She has

been right on point on this. Loosing New Orleans was not inevitable or unforseeable. To the contrary, it was easily predicted and preventable. Al Gore/John Kerry or anyone living in reality would not have allowed this to happen. Also, the newly appropriated funds for evacuation routes, if provided earlier, would have saved lives.

[Old and In the Way]

9. I'll go out on the limb with you.

If we hadn't spent $300BB over the past 3 years fighting shadows and lining the pockets of war profiteers in the ME.....how much better would our infrastructure be?

Looks like this "War on Terror" plays rather hollow compared to the war mother nature is laying on us.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

23. The WOT has terrorized America's infrastructure... it has starved

it to the point where blackouts, floods, and failing bridges/roadways are the fare of the day. Better start beating that military hardware into plowshares and do some "creating" rather than "destroying".

[Nothing Without Hope]

21. It's not just last year, it's failure to patch the levees when the Mayor

of New Orleans begged them to after the hurricane - wasn't done, despite promises, and the city and many more people drowned.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4523783
Thread title: CNN/New Orleans:"Mayor blasts failure to patch levee breeches" and that's {only the beginning}:
The Mayor couldn't even reach the President, despite frantic attempts. Then it was finally too late.

Read through all of this thread and you will see - it's not just the money. It's total gutting of the intrastructure, banishment of the Guard into Bush's war of choice, total inability or apparent desire to address urgent needs for protection and relief.

Did you know the Administration has refused aid in search/rescue personnel from Canada? apparently, they'd rather the people died and Bush couldl pretend to be in charge.

And yes, there's been much too much emphasis on looting as the most important problem. Unconscionable. Must change. NOW.

[babylonsister]

31. NO has been asking for $$ for years, and since chimp's

'selection', have been repeatedly turned down. Project Impact 1997 is a good place to start: (this info compiled by another DUer)


The VERY promising program started in 1997 but was cut PDQ by bushco.
IMO, all of these articles are terrific resources because they contain:

- names of people who had warned of the potential disasterousness of the budget cuts,
-people that had talked of what a lifesaver the program had been in their community
-politicians speaking out against the cuts
-journalists who had reported on the importance of Project Impact

I don't know the best way to go about it but I propose that these people should be *seriously* brought to the MSM's attention.
We should somehow get these people out there shouting "told ya" to the heavens.

Here is the quickie list but there is *so much more*

What do y'all think? What should we do?




Here's some of what I got from Googling ""Project Impact" 1997 budget cut"
....................
BellSouth Joins FEMA "Project Impact" Initiative for Disaster-Resistant Communities
"Project Impact provides a practical, cooperative approach to disaster preparedness that benefits the entire community," said Rod Odom, president of BellSouth Business Systems. "BellSouth is fully committed to supporting FEMA's initiatives, and our Business Continuity Service is an excellent example of how we can help local companies protect critical business operations from any type of disruption."
http://www.fema.gov/regions/iv/1998/r4_055.shtm


..............
FEMA Selects Burnsville as First Project Impact City in Minnesota Partnerships Are a Key to Building a Disaster Resistant Community

Project Impact is supported by a grant from FEMA. The amount of the grant will be approximately $300,000 to serve as "seed money" to support community wide disaster prevention. A kickoff event for the project will be held in February and the official designation from FEMA will happen in March.
http://www.fema.gov/regions/v/1999/r5_05.shtm
.......................
9/22/04
In North Carolina, no emergency power and an end to a program that saved millions

http://www.indyweek.com/durham/2004-09-22/cover2.html


Disaster in the making

As FEMA weathers a storm of Bush administration policy and budget changes, protection from natural hazards may be trumped by “homeland security”
http://www.indyweek.com/durham/2004-09-22/cover.html

Among emergency specialists, "mitigation"--the measures taken in advance to minimize the damage caused by natural disasters--is a crucial part of the strategy to save lives and cut recovery costs. But since 2001, key federal disaster mitigation programs, developed over many years, have been slashed and tossed aside. FEMA's Project Impact, a model mitigation program created by the Clinton administration, has been canceled outright. Federal funding of post-disaster mitigation efforts designed to protect people and property from the next disaster has been cut in half, and now, communities across the country must compete for pre-disaster mitigation dollars.

...............
Bush's budget cuts disaster preparedness funding
http://archives.thedaily.washington.edu/2001/030101/N9....
..................

(EXCELLENT Article

March 8, 2001
Bush Plan To Can "Project Impact" Could Be Disastrous
by Broderick Perkins

http://realtytimes.com/rtcpages/20010308_impact.htm
................................

April 6, 2001
Cantwell Says Republican Budget Fails to Meet National Responsibilities
http://cantwell.senate.gov/news/releases/budget4-6.html
........................
more more more

[Drewskie]

5. drive it home

Drive that point home with southern folk, and some key republican southern senators, and it just might.

The repub propoganda machine will be working overdrive from now on... somehow making it seem that Clinton was the one who could have strengthened the levees. Just watch.

[brazil]

6. It could be the end...

...if enough people put two and two together. None of the news anchors I've seen have said it directly, but one of the CNN anchors could barely contain the anger in his voice as he grilled the head of FEMA about the disorganized response and the lack of National Guard troops. Then, in case people missed that little hint, he said "It looks like Baghdad down there."

Subtle, but if they're doing this on CNN and the NYT is raking Bush over the coals for not stepping up to the plate, people will get the idea. I'm not sure what they're saying on Fox but they can't hide the truth forever. Those photos of Bush eating cake and playing guitar aren't going to play well with anyone except the 20% who are actually having fun watching the brown drown.

Now how (and when) the end comes about, that's another question. Impeachment isn't really an option unless you want Cheney in charge. Impeach them both and you get DeLay. Best to delay and impeach after the next election.

If we lived in a true democracy, we'd have a vote of no confidence any day now and an election soon after that.

[Drewskie]

12. argh!

That's the problem... The whole circle needs to go. By circle I mean Bush, Cheney, Delay, Rove, Rumsfeld, and Rice. These 6 people have the government in a strangle hold.

[TWiley]

19. Welcome to DU Brazil

I wish we could have a vote of no confidence.

[rodeodance]

7. nominated ---spread this far and wide.

[oasis]

10. It's time Bushco was put under the media microscope.

[Old and In the Way]

13. Come to find out, looks like we were fighting the wrong war.

We should have been fighting the War on Domestic Environmental Destruction instead of the War To Get Rid of a Toothless Tyrant. Oh well, that $300BB investment and those $2TT worth of taxcuts meant shorting our domestic infrastructure ($100MM here, a $100MM there...who's to know?) Ooooops.

[Warren DeMontague]

14. Not as long as the corporate media keeps shilling for him.

Not as long as his apologists live stubbornly in "na na na I can't hear you!" cognitive dissonance-land. People who get their information from right-wing AM hate radio are NEVER going to understand the truth.

Not as long as stupidity is a virus spreading like wildfire out there, and we have, as Tim Goodman quoted Chuck D in today's SF Chronicle, the triumph of "Anti-intellectualism and dumb-assification" in this country. Hey, I liked Beavis and Butthead as much as the next guy. But they were fucking quantum physicists compared to the shaved head twentysomething pickup-truck driving goons and motorcycle revving yahoos I see every day in my liberal California town sporting "War! Bush! Fuck Yea!" stickers and attitudes. (I can only imagine the rest of the nation is even worse)

No, they'll probably try to blame this shit on environmentalists, or the teaching of evolution, or some crap like that. And the sad thing is, a good chunk of the populace will buy it.

[chknltl]

15. Thank you for this ....

I needed this inspirational info., bookmarked. On a tangent here but I believe I heard a CNN weather reporter claim this tidbit: The hurricane went from cat:2 to cat:5 so rapidly because of unusually high temps in the gulf. This he blamed on global warming. If true it will be a further example of ineptitude by the bushco regime. I remember reading back early in the first shrub admin how he replaced the presidential adviser on global warming with someone much less qualified! Then he pulled out of the Kyoto Accord.... If the power of this hurricane is another example of global warming then how is this gonna look in light of what bushco has been doing to increase those greenhouse gasses?

[Murdock]

16. If I had a dime..

For every time I heard that this was going to be the end of Bush..I'd be a millionare by now..

No this won't be the end of Bush, people will rally around the chimp again and praise his "heroic leadership" cutting his vacation short..

Expect to see a photo op in the near future and the corporate media pissing their knickers in awe of his chimperial majesty..

[TWiley]

17. They will blame Clinton.

Somehow, it must be his fault.

[Don Claybrook]

25. r.e. Blaming Clinton

I'm sure you're right--they will blame Clinton, they always do.

With that in mind, does anyone have information on what Bill Clinton did or did not do regarding the possibility of flooding/hurricanes in New Orleans? Obviously, he funded this budget item better than nimrod has. Is there anything else he did or didn't do that anyone knows of? I'd rather hear it here than see the overdramatic flashing light at the drudge site.

[izzie]

18. The group that thinks the ruler is always right will stay that way

Their are many in this country that seem to think you turn over your reason to some one who is the head guy and every country has had such people. It seems to be easier than thinking for ones self.

[Kenneth ken]

22. seriously?

it could be the end of the US empire.

The ripples are just starting to spread in the form of increased fuel prices; this will cause greater ripples in every sector of the already-wobbling economy.

We have a nearly $8 trillion national debt, deteriorating infrastructure throughout the nation, little in the way of manufacturing to revive a crippled economy; so basically, very little can be done to slow and stop the ripples spreading far and wide.

[RC]

24. Right on. And that scares me.

Our whole government is corrupt. Where is the loyal opposition leading the investigation for impeachment and war crimes trial? To say nothing about the Crimes against Humanity.

[Kenneth ken]

26. Scares me too.

I think the loyal opposition consists largely of the left side of the internet community. Our only voices in anything resembling "leadership" positions are the more marginalized of the Dems - John Conyers, Russ Feingold, Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Lee, Cynthia McKinney and maybe a few others like them.

edit to include Mr Conyers :blush:

[babsbunny]

27. Don't forget how Chimp flew in for Terry Schiavo!

In the Middle of the night, in his jammies, for one hopeless cause! We have to bring THIS up!

[youthere]

30. Oh well now you're just "politicizing" this.

:sarcasm:

[DIKB]

28. Goddess willing.

The looting of FEMA for Iraq will prove to be the undoing of this WRETCHED chapter in American History.

[DoYouEverWonder]

29. Maybe not

He's got a bunker, most of the rest of us don't.

[roguevalley]

32. It will be. The hatred that is brewing already there will spread. I

know it will end his reign.