I lose friends, while others lose families

[DancingBear]

This is the tipping point for me. I can not, and will not, associate myself in any way with those that believe (by some horribly twisted logic), that the ramifications of this disaster can not be laid directly at the feet of George W. Bush.

The people that are dying today because of no water - Bush.

The people who will die due to lack of rescue efforts - Bush.

Those whose lives have been ruined because "no one could foresee the levees not holding" - Bush.

Those who will die from water-born disease, and the infirmed who can not be air-lifted to safety and will perish - Bush.

Those who will die in the "me first" mindset that now envelops a city - Bush.

The people who will lose family and friends to the water because the troops who are trained to help them are fighting a pointless war thousands of miles away - Bush.

I'm sorry - I can not listen to you anymore. Go away from me, and leave me and the millions I stand with to try and save this country from the living hell that infests it.

He has proven himself to be truly the devil incarnate - may you rot in hell with him if you still believe.

[smurfygirl]

1. recommended

[fudge stripe cookays]

2. Yep, me too.

The next person that tells me how great he is? I swear to God. I'll spit on them.

I fucking hate these people and what they're doing to my country.

FSC

[yorkiemommie1]

3. i don't care to associate w/ his 'base'

the other night i went to dinner w/ some people from work. this one gal is very vocal about her disdain for *, arnold and all, love her to death. she said loud and clear she was never dumb enough to vote for them and i agreed! there were some shocked faces at the table but TOUGH !!!

[whalerider55]

4. i believe there's some good in everybody

and i believe * is a good for nothing lying sob who would shatter into a million pieces if he should accidentally speak a word, one frickin' word of truth.

i believe he'd pee on your shoes and swearf it was raining.

whalerider

[riverwalker]

5. I am amazed that some here are married

to bubbleboy supporters. I cannot even fathom that. I'm sorry, but I am not big enough to embrace that. You cannot separate "politics" from life. Not when the result is people abandoned to roast to death on rooftops.

[silver10]

6. What makes me the sickest . . .

Is that we have over $200 billion and counting, to waste oversees in an un-winnable war, to murder people, and we have billions more for tax cuts for the rich ... but we don't have any money for social programs or to improve this country's - the world's last superpower - infrastructure? This includes unsafe bridges - and levees that could have been reinforced, averting all this terrible suffering!

I hate what shrub has done to my country, and continues to do. He is not MY president!

[mike_c]

7. look, Bush is one of the worst presidents ever, but...

...there's nothing to be gained by willfull ignorance. He is not personally responsible for much of this. He's just not. Nor is his administration. Yes, he has been part of the problem-- a big part, and willingly-- but the political will to fortify NO against severe hurricanes has simply NEVER existed. That didn't start with Bush, and this disaster has been predicted for decades, including through a few democratic administrations. The political will to set up the infrastructure necessary to deal with disasters of this magnitude-- including the IMMEDIATE suspension of state and local authority in order to coordinate a rapid response-- has never existed, except perhaps with respect to cold war nuclear attack fears (where it wouldn't have been effective, anyway). I'm still not certain we really want that, and the cost of maintaining decentralized authority is almost always realized at times like this.

I despise GWB as much as you do, but we gain nothing by substituting that loathing for an understanding of what REALLY went wrong here. If we're ever going to have a productive discussion about how to prevent similar disasters in the future, or even whether we WANT to do some of the things necessary to prevent them, we have to do more than simply knee-jerk our collective hatred of the shrub into one-size-fits-all responsibility for all the world's ills.

[DancingBear]

10. Mike, he KNEW this disaster was coming

We ALL knew.

Where were the Guardsmen, always at the ready? In Iraq.

Where were the first response teams? Money cut - gone for tax cuts.

Where was his emergency preparedness team, burning the midnight oil to decide what to do if/when the levees broke? Strumming guitars in California.

I'm sorry, but he, as Commander-In-Chief, is DIRECTLY responsible for these things.

I can understand the long/term decisions on hurricane fortification, and agree with you on the fact that this issue crossed political lines (re:$$$), but what is happening as we speak RIGHT NOW is Mr. Bush and Mr. Bush alone.

When people die because of willful ignorance and outright contempt for anyone who doesn't fit the mold ...

[silver10]

11. C'mon ...

Shrub has arguably cut and stripped more money from public programs than any other president in the history of this country. Ironically, there's money for murder and for tax cuts - for the rich.

Please read:

http://www.newsdissector.org/blog/


"A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. After a flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, in which the Corps of Engineers strengthened and renovated levees and pumping stations. In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent.

"Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans' levees, but it was too late.


IRAQ CONNECTION

Nicholas Karlin tells us: "At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars."

[mike_c]

13. I understand that, but if every dime of that money had been allocated...

...it would not have changed a thing on the ground when Katrina hit. Those levees needed BILLIONS of dollars of engineering that would have taken years to accomplish. Bush's cutting of flood control funds in 2004 and 2005 was just the latest installment of a larger pattern of incompetence that has kept NO at risk for decades. GWB is a colossal fuck-up, and he followed the usual route of short-term planning for short-term political benefit, but this would have likely happened if he had never even heard of NO flood control appropriations.

Cutting those funding requests was spectacularly bad politics, especially now that the inevitable big storm has hit, but let's all recognize that another 50 million dollars would never have been the solution to NO's problems, nor would there have been time to implement such a solution since 2004 even if the money were unlimited. This is an issue that goes WAY back. NO has had a target painted on it's back for a long time now.

What matters now-- I think-- is that the dreadful response to the disaster shows how distracted the Bush admininstration has been by its elective fuck-ups in Iraq and Afghanistan. The federal government is unable to mount a coherent response to a monumental disaster on American soil because the executive branch has been singleminded in its preoccupation with a masturbatory little war. Don't forget-- DU is outraged today by the suffering in NO, but the suffering in Iraq has been far worse, and has been intentionally caused, rather than happening by neglect. Where is all this outrage when babies die of thirst or water-borne disease in Baghdad?

[uppityperson]

8. Agreed. I am so angry today.

This is my tipping point also.

[hertopos]

9. That is exactly the way I feel now...

I just posted several media link to my local community message board ( in Baltimore, Maryland). I am so upset. I just cannot understand. I cannot relate to the people who feel nothing at watching the poor die from government neglect.

Hertopos

[lala_rawraw]

12. Tell Chimp to go Cheney himself... that should be a slogan damn it!