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Edited on Tue Sep-06-05 03:39 PM by Pacifist Patriot
As relief finally rolls into Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana the rhetoric and spin has begun. Republican politicians loudly proclaim this is not the time to “play the blame game” from one side of their mouths while shrilly distributing blame to the closest Democrat from the other. Politicians on both side of the aisle are quick to point out the overwhelming response and immense good will of the American people but continue to miss the point. The American people not only pay taxes to a federal government mandated to keep them secure but to an administration that has pledged itself as the best equipped to do so in a post-9/11 society. This is not a story about the good will of the American people but one about the failure of their representative government; a failure with two vital components to be thoroughly investigated by a truly free and independent press rather than by a political commission.
The first is the abysmal performance of President George W. Bush and his administration’s policies since he took office in 2001. Golfing, eating birthday cake, attending two-week late VJ day ceremonies, and backslapping at political fundraisers while his constituents along the Gulf Coast drown is not only indicative of poor leadership but a decided lack of humanity. Bush told Diane Sawyer on September 1, 2005 he didn’t think anyone anticipated levee breaches. Aside from countless official reports, lay descriptions of the threat appeared in Popular Mechanics (September 11, 2001) and the New Orleans Times-Picayune (June 8, 2004) and National Geographic (October 2004). Anyone who has ever looked at a levee has wondered if it was strong enough to do the job. Bush’s comments are entirely too reminiscent of his shrugging following September 11 despite receiving intelligence warnings in August 2001.
The on-going war in Iraq, increasingly recognized as having been initiated under fraudulent terms, depleted the United States of both military personnel and financial resources desperately needed in the Gulf Coast. Bush’s public policies may not have created Hurricane Katrina, though his insistence on ignoring the threat of global warning may contribute to the creation of such storms in the future, but his policies certainly magnified the consequences. President Bush fired Michael Parker, head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in 2002 when Parker predicted just such a disaster with the New Orleans levees. Bush reduced the budget of the New Orleans Corps of Engineers in 2004 by 44 percent after the worst hurricane season on record, resulting in incomplete and scuttled projects that may have prevented the flooding caused by breeches during Katrina. The Bush administration repealed wetlands protection policies instituted during the Clinton administration. He allowed developers to drain thousands of acres of wetlands protecting New Orleans. In other words, his cooperation with big business removed a vital sponge around the city that would have provided additional drainage.
This last policy decision leads us to the second failure of the American government and that is the abdication of governmental responsibility in favor of enriching private citizens through corporate sponsorship. Halliburton was awarded a contract to rebuild Gulf Coast ports on September 1. Notable in that the award came prior to food and water reaching New Orleans residents and granted to the same company making money hand over fist in Iraq. FEMA is under the direction of a man fired from the International Arabian Horse Association for incompetence and previously under the direction of a man now functioning as a lobbyist for Halliburton. Not only is privatizing government unwise, selling governmental functions to cronies is criminal and morally deficient. The Americans certainly have a leader who falls far short of Winston Churchill in a crisis. Prime Minister Churchill reminded the British Parliamant "The responsibility for the public safety is absolute and requires no mandate. It is in fact, the prime object for which governments come into existence." We did not elect our representatives to enrich them and their associates at the expense of our well-being and our children’s futures.
The good will of the American people was able to affect relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina because they simply did what needed to be done rather than wait to conform to policy within a political and financial agenda. The American government under President Bush hasn’t failed the people so much as sold them down the river.
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