(c/o jaywillie from DailyKos)Ok, I think it would silly of me to start a discussion forum and not touch on the main topic of discussion: Hurricane Katrina. I've had a number of discussions about it over the last week, including one where we spent some time discussing who was most at fault for the remarkable screw-up of the relief effort. Here's my take: the ultimate fault for this has to lie with the federal government, particularly the Bush administration.
This comes as no surprise to most of you who know my opinions of Dear Leader. But clearly, clearly, damage control and disaster relief of an event of this scale is the federal government's responsibility, especially considering the Dept. of Homeland Security's own mission statement (look under strategic goals-protection) which claims responsibility.
FEMA is one of the agencies in the Dept. of Homeland Security. Both answer directly to the President.
It was this agency that W gutted, firing all the qualified heads, and replaced with unqualified cronies for whom he wanted to acquire government pensions. This from Josh Marshall.
Not only that, but the New Orleans Times-Picayune has reported time and again about the malfunding of the levees for the last 5 years due to the War on Terror and the Bush tax cuts.
This is, of course, not to say that the local and state authorities aren't in any way at fault. I imagine we're gonna find that there's plenty of blame to go around. But as of yet, I haven't really heard anyone, government official or otherwise, make a compelling case indicting the state/local governments for much of anything, whereas it seems that, at every turn, where there's a major screwup, W's written all over it. And wasn't this kinda thing supposed to be Bush's forte? I mean, isn't he president now mainly because he was the guy who was supposedly better suited to keep us safe? What the hell has he (and for that matter, the Dept. of Homeland Security) been doing over these 4 years since 9/11? Is that ridiculous color-coded terror alert all he's done?
4 comments:
yo, Bush didn't fire the qualified heads of FEMA. They mostly got up and quit themselves.
Hey hon-
wish you were here in Austin to see close up the tragedy that this has caused. My company has taken off work for the week to aid the evacuees or "refugees"-now that is an interesting debate.....
Good catch, Rene, and that is certainly worth noting. However, I don't think that detracts from the argument that Bush made FEMA into a dumping ground for political patronage.
And to Dena-- what's your take on it? Evacuees or refugees? Is it racist to call them "refugees"? Is it too euphemistic (I'm not sure, but I think that's the argument) to call them "evacuees"? This is something I'm not too sure about myself.
according to folks working with the lubbock group, you call them "evacuees" or "clients" (preferred). they are not allowed to refer to them as "refugees". i'm sorry to see that the press is letting up on this. i think they did a wonderful job of showing how crappy (that's putting it lightly) we treat our fellow citizens.
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