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"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it."
- Noam Chomsky
Certainly one of the greatest disasters of the modern age
truly horrifying in a country that was a nightmare to begin with...
Tens of thousands of Haitians slept on sidewalks or wandered the streets of this heavily damaged city early Thursday, a sign of the vast homelessness emerging after the devastating earthquake.
[...]
Bodies lay everywhere: tiny children next to schools, women in rubble-strewn streets with stunned expressions frozen on their faces, men hidden beneath plastic tarps and cotton sheets. Desperate residents turned pickup trucks and wheelbarrows into ambulances and doors into stretchers, the Associated Press reported, trying to ferry the dead and wounded even as they acknowledged that help was almost impossible to find.
[...]
In the central Bel Air neighborhood, the streets and sidewalks were covered with people sleeping on mattresses, plastic chairs and bits of cardboard. Survivors set up camps amid piles of salvaged goods, including food being scavenged from the rubble.
[...]
Indeed, the neighborhood had largely been reduced to rubble. Flames licked from the shell of one ruined building. Balconies had crashed to the ground. Cars were buried under chunks of gray concrete the size of dining-room tables. The street was littered with bricks, shattered plastic chairs, glittering shards of glass.
Huge crowds swarmed through the city overnight, carrying meager possessions -- a cooking pot, a sack of vegetables -- and shoeless toddlers with terrified eyes. Many people had wrapped themselves in bedsheets, adding to the ghostly air.
it's a heart-wrenching experience to read of a disaster of this magnitude... i'm experiencing a depth of feeling for these people similar to what i experienced as the epic catastrophe of katrina unfolded...
what i don't get is how our erstwhile secretary of state, hillary clinton, can say something like this, an entirely true statement imho, without making the connection that the united states has produced precisely the same situation for the afghanistan people without benefit of an act-of-god natural disaster...
"In the wake of disasters like this, people do get desperate," Clinton said in a televised interview with CNN. "If you have a starving baby in your arms, you're going to find food wherever you can."
yes, hillary... desperate people do desperate things... when they can't feed or take care of their families and are left with no options, they are very vulnerable to doing things they might never otherwise consider... what happened in haiti and what's happening in afghanistan are both hugely tragic but the one was and is preventable...
tom ridge, the first head of homeland security, has a book coming out september 1, The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege...and How We can be Safe Again...
he says...
...never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was "blindsided" by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored; and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush's re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over.
Remembering Baghdad on the bayou and exploding the myth of Bush administration incompetence
even though i've cut WAY back on my blogging, and, yes, even though barack obama officially became the democratic nominee for president in what will be seen as one of the nation's most historical moments, i would be less than true to myself if, on its third anniversary, i didn't honor the national tragedy and monumental disgrace that was hurricane katrina...
first, let's put the lie once and for all to the myth of bush administration "incompetence"...
In the chaos and trauma that accompanied the levee collapses in New Orleans in 2005, a few basic facts were obscured:
1. Katrina was not a natural disaster. It was an engineering disaster caused by the federally funded U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
2. Far from performing incompetently, the Bush administration and reactionary forces in local government were extremely effective in attaining their aims.
Specifically:
1. The Bush administration did an extremely effective job of withholding vital "life and death" information that levees had not only topped, they had also catastrophically collapsed.
2. FEMA did an extremely effective job of discouraging qualified relief workers from coming to the area, going so far as to turn many back at gunpoint.
They also turned away much needed supplies like water and fuel and sabotaged local communications lines.
3. Thousands of flood victims were very effectively herded and held in concentration-like conditions within the city for many days after the flooding.
4. Though it claimed to be unable to bring food, water, medicine or transportation into the flood zone, Homeland Security did an extremely effective job of quickly hiring and deploying highly paid gun thugs to the region who were employed by companies that had made massive contributions to the Bush campaign.
5. The Bush administration and their friends in the news media did an extremely effective job of painting the victims of the flooding as dangerous and not worthy of being helped.
6. The Bush administration did an extremely effective job of erasing a carefully researched and thought out evacuation plan developed over many years by LSU and replacing it with NOTHING.
7. Post-flood law enforcement did an extremely effective job of illegally seizing fire arms from hundreds of law abiding citizens while allowing criminals to run amok.
Incompetence? Poor planning?
You've got to be kidding....
The Bush administration wanted to destroy the black Democratic voting block in New Orleans - and it did. New Orleans and southern Louisiana, one of the last Democratic hold outs in the South, is Republican now.
It wanted a justification for seizing guns and declaring martial law and succeeded in creating conditions where people would beg for military intervention.
It wanted practice holding large numbers of civilians in concentration camp-like conditions - and it got the opportunity.
It wanted to obscure the fact that instead of using the tax dollars it's collected over the decades to repair and maintain levees, it's used the money to engage in illegal foreign wars.
Mission accomplished on every score.
But they made one miscalculation.
So conditioned were administration planners by their own habitual depravity, it never occurred to them that the rest of the country would object to seeing their fellow citizens suffer so outrageously at the hands of the government.
The good news is the moral instincts of Americans still function well. The bad news is their ability to see what is being done to them in broad daylight is highly impaired.
Katrina hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast three years ago this week. The president promised to do whatever it took to rebuild. But the nation is trying to fight wars in several countries and is dealing with economic crisis. The attention of the president wandered away. As a result, this is what New Orleans looks like today.
0. Number of renters in Louisiana who have received financial assistance from the $10 billion federal post-Katrina rebuilding program Road Home Community Development Block Grant -- compared to 116,708 homeowners.
0. Number of apartments currently being built to replace the 963 public housing apartments formerly occupied and now demolished at the St. Bernard Housing Development.
0. Amount of data available to evaluate performance of publicly financed, privately run charter schools in New Orleans in 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 school years.
.008. Percentage of rental homes that were supposed to be repaired and occupied by August 2008 which were actually completed and occupied -- a total of 82 finished out of 10,000 projected.
1. Rank of New Orleans among US cities in percentage of housing vacant or ruined.
1. Rank of New Orleans among US cities in murders per capita for 2006 and 2007.
4. Number of the 13 City of New Orleans Planning Districts that are at the same risk of flooding as they were before Katrina.
10. Number of apartments being rehabbed so far to replace the 896 apartments formerly occupied and now demolished at the Lafitte Housing Development.
11. Percent of families who have returned to live in Lower Ninth Ward.
17. Percentage increase in wages in the hotel and food industry since before Katrina.
20-25. Years that experts estimate it will take to rebuild the City of New Orleans at current pace.
25. Percent fewer hospitals in metro New Orleans than before Katrina.
32. Percent of the city's neighborhoods that have less than half as many households as before Katrina.
36. Percent fewer tons of cargo that move through Port of New Orleans since Katrina.
38. Percent fewer hospital beds in New Orleans since Katrina.
40. Percentage fewer special education students attending publicly funded, privately run charter schools than traditional public schools.
41. Number of publicly funded, privately run public charter schools in New Orleans out of total of 79 public schools in the city.
43. Percentage of child care available in New Orleans compared to before Katrina.
46. Percentage increase in rents in New Orleans since Katrina.
56. Percentage fewer inpatient psychiatric beds compared to before Katrina.
80. Percentage fewer public transportation buses now than pre-Katrina.
81. Percentage of homeowners in New Orleans who received insufficient funds to cover the complete costs to repair their homes.
300. Number of National Guard troops still in City of New Orleans.
1,080. Days National Guard troops have remained in City of New Orleans.
1,250. Number of publicly financed vouchers for children to attend private schools in New Orleans in program's first year.
6,982. Number of families still living in FEMA trailers in metro New Orleans area.
8,000. Fewer publicly assisted rental apartments planned for New Orleans by federal government.
10,000. Houses demolished in New Orleans since Katrina.
12,000. Number of homeless in New Orleans even after camps of people living under the bridges have been resettled -- double the pre-Katrina number.
14,000. Number of displaced families in New Orleans area whose hurricane rental assistance expires in March 2009.
32,000. Number of children who have not returned to public school in New Orleans, leaving the public school population less than half what it was pre-Katrina.
39,000. Number of Louisiana homeowners who have applied for federal assistance in repair and rebuilding who still have not received any money.
45,000. Fewer children enrolled in Medicaid public healthcare in New Orleans than pre-Katrina.
46,000. Fewer African-American voters in New Orleans in 2007 gubernatorial election than in 2003 gubernatorial election.
55,000. Fewer houses receiving mail than before Katrina.
62,000. Fewer people in New Orleans enrolled in Medicaid public healthcare than pre-Katrina.
71,657. Vacant, ruined, unoccupied houses in New Orleans today.
124,000. Fewer people working in metropolitan New Orleans than pre-Katrina.
132,000. Fewer people in New Orleans than before Katrina, according to the City of New Orleans current population estimate of 321,000 in New Orleans.
214,000. Fewer people in New Orleans than before Katrina, according to the US Census Bureau current population estimate of 239,000 in New Orleans.
453,726. Population of New Orleans before Katrina.
320 million. Number of trees destroyed in Louisiana and Mississippi by Katrina.
368 million. Dollar losses of five major metro New Orleans hospitals from Katrina through 2007. In 2008, these hospitals expect another $103 million in losses.
1.9 billion. FEMA dollars scheduled to be available to metro New Orleans for Katrina damages that have not yet been delivered.
2.6 billion. FEMA dollars scheduled to be available to State of Louisiana for Katrina damages that have not yet been delivered.
when the tragedy was unfolding, i was in buenos aires watching cnn international, transfixed and alternately weeping and bellowing in anger at what i was seeing... now, three years later, we still don't have the full story or anything even faintly resembling the truth... i'm not holding my breath...
Earlier, in a statement, Myanmar’s military junta said it was willing to receive disaster relief from the outside world but would not welcome outside relief workers. Nearly one week after a devastating cyclone, supplies into the country were still being delayed and aid experts were being turned back as they arrived at the airport.
In the statement, the government said it would distribute international relief supplies itself.
Paul Risley, a spokesman for the United Nations World Food Program, said, "all the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated." He said the World Food Program was suspending the few flights that the Myanmar authorities had so far allowed to enter the country until the matter was resolved.
[...]
One United Nations official said he had never seen delays like this before in delivering relief supplies and aid officials. In Indonesia after the tsunami in 2004, he said, an air bridge of daily flights was established within 48 hours.
"The frustration caused by what appears to be a paperwork delay is unprecedented in modern humanitarian relief efforts," said the official, Paul Risley, a spokesman for the United Nations World Food Program, in Bangkok. "It’s astonishing."
yes, the scale of human loss and devastation in myanmar is staggering and the cruel and authoritarian response of the myanmar military junta is appalling... but...
as brother tim was reminding me last night during our long chat, three years later, new orleans still looks almost as ragged as it did immediately post-hurricane katrina... my country has no room whatsoever to stake out a righteous position vis a vis myanmar...
wasn't interested, didn't watch it and, other than this from juan cole, so far haven't read anything about it, but nevertheless thought professor cole's summary and rebuttal must be about as good as it gets...
When Bush first came in, the comedian Will Ferrell did a skit on the television show "Saturday Night Live" that depicted the president cowering under his desk as bombs went off in Washington and the country went down the tubes. Coming after the prosperity and relative peace of the Clinton years, it seemed a fantastic parody. Little did we know that if anything SNL did not begin to capture the full extent of the catastrophe.
Nobody cares any more, unlike in 2003 when shills for the war were always on my case to "report the good news" and lay off Bush. Some of my "arguments with Bush" during the past 7 years were internet bestsellers. Now, the man has discredited himself so badly, he can't even get people to so much as yawn at him. But in honor of all those arguments of the past, I'm doing it one last time.
As usual, most of what he said in the State of the Union address was transparent lies. He praised private groups for doing charity work in Louisiana because he hasn't followed through on his own promises after Katrina. He did that phony thing of reporting the average tax "increase" if his "tax cuts" were allowed to expire. If I'm in the room with someone who made a billion dollars last year and Bush doesn't cut my taxes at all but he cuts those of the billionaire such that he saves 5% of his income, then the two of us in the room have an average tax cut of $25 million apiece. But in the real world, I get bupkus and the billionaire gets $50 million. That shell game sums up the Republican "tax cut" scam they keep running on the American middle class, which always falls for it.
So here are some last arguments with the man's bald faced lies, for old times sake.
Bush assertion: "We believe that the most reliable guide for our country is the collective wisdom of ordinary citizens."
Bush assertion: "And so, in all we do, we must trust in the ability of free peoples to make wise decisions and empower them to improve their lives for their futures."
Sad fact: Amit Paley writes, "A strong majority of Iraqis want U.S.-led military forces to immediately withdraw from the country, saying their swift departure would make Iraq more secure and decrease sectarian violence, according to new polls by the State Department and independent researchers. In Baghdad, for example, nearly three-quarters of residents polled said they would feel safer if U.S. and other foreign forces left Iraq, with 65 percent of those asked favoring an immediate pullout . . ."
Bush assertion: "We've seen Afghans emerge from the tyranny of the Taliban and choose a new president and a new parliament."
Bush assertion: "From expanding opportunity to protecting our country, we've made good progress."
Sad fact: Bush's Iraq is a major generator of terrorism, which it was not before 2003. "Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the prime training ground for foreign terrorists who could travel elsewhere across the globe and wreak havoc, according to U.S. counterterrorism officials and classified studies" by the CIA and the Department of State, Warren P. Strobel reported July 4, 2005. "Iraq's emergence as a terrorist training ground appears to challenge President Bush's rationale for invading and overthrowing leader Saddam Hussein in March 2003," Strobel wrote." So we are safer how again?
Bush assertion: "We launched a surge of American forces into Iraq. We gave our troops a new mission: Work with the Iraqi forces to protect the Iraqi people, pursue the enemy in his strongholds, and deny the terrorists sanctuary anywhere in the country."
Sad fact: "The Iraqi Red Crescent Organization and the U.N. reported last month that the "number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has soared since the American troop increase began in February". . . The chart reports some decreases in the intensity of "ethno-sectarian violence" in certain Baghdad districts (Note: This is based on military data). But where there have been decreases, they are due largely to the fact that "mixed Muslim" areas are being overrun by either Shia or Sunni enclaves.The map above demonstrates that Shias have been gradually taking over all of Baghdad (noted by the green mass that now covers much of the city), wiping out Sunni communities that stood in their path. Center for American Progress analyst Brian Katulis estimated that Baghdad, which once used to be a 65 percent Sunni majority city, is now 75 percent Shia."
A large proportion of the 1.5 million Iraqi refugees in Damascus was displaced to Syria during 2007, apparently as a side effect of Bush's troop surge.
So all this involves "protecting the Iraqi people" how, exactly? Does Bush think Iraqis are safer when they are refugees in a foreign country?
He won't be missed.
now, if we can just figure out how to remove the legacy of unfettered, criminal executive power along with the man...
Hundreds of homes remained under up to 8 feet of water Sunday as federal emergency workers were on their way to assess the flood damage caused when an irrigation canal’s earthen levee ruptured in Fernley early Saturday morning.
Cold weather was turning some of the water to ice, complicating plans to allow natural flows to move most of the water on to a federal wetland outside town. Fernley officials said they were considering using pumps to aid in that effort.
The levee break that occurred just after 4 a.m. on Saturday was repaired late in the day but as much as a square mile of the town was still under at least 2 feet of water.
i don't know about you folks, but, on seeing both those photos, i experienced massive deja vu...
i've been following this story for some time, but i was never in doubt about the outcome...
After protesters clashed violently with the police inside and outside the New Orleans City Council chambers on Thursday, the Council voted unanimously to allow the federal government to demolish 4,500 apartments in the four biggest public housing projects here.
The Council also called on the Department of Housing and Urban Development to reopen some apartments in the closed projects immediately and to rebuild all of the public housing units that it bulldozes. The agency plans to replace barracks-style projects, known as “the bricks,” with mixed-income developments.
“We need affordable housing in this city,” said Shelley Stephenson Midura, a Council member who proposed the resolution that was adopted. But, she added, “public housing ought not to be the warehouse for the poor.”
Advocates for public housing residents contended that the agency’s plan would not provide enough housing for the 3,000 families who lived in the projects before Hurricane Katrina, almost all of them black. Many of them have not been able to return to the city, and some protesters said they were being deliberately excluded from New Orleans.
"deliberately excluded from new orleans..." yep, that was the plan, all right... stop and think for a moment... how do you think you would feel if the place that had been your family's home for generations was devastated by a natural disaster, forcing you to temporarily relocate, and, when you want to come back, those with the power and the money who call the shots in that city, your city, effectively make it impossible for you to return...? why do you think so many people were evacuated to locations so far away from new orleans...? why do you think it has taken so long to seriously begin reconstruction...? the powerful, monied elites see new orleans as a wonderful, historic, private playground, as well as a gigantic opportunity to continue enriching themselves in the process... now that those inconvenient and unpleasant to look at poor black people are out of the way, let the good times roll...
If rebuilding anything in this storm-scarred place could possibly qualify as simple, surely it would be the administration building in City Park.
The two-story structure, built in 1992, does not have any of the features that can complicate restoring public buildings. No special historic, environmental, cultural or political significance. No history of poor maintenance or other damage (aside from the five feet of water that filled it after the levees failed). No need to be merged, moved or reimagined in response to changes after Hurricane Katrina.
Yet after almost two years of federal inspections and studies and reviews filling more than 90 pages, the administration building has been neither repaired nor replaced. And there are dozens of similarly incomplete projects at the park, hundreds in the city, thousands across the state of Louisiana.
In fact, the federal government has agreed to pay $2.3 billion so far for rebuilding Louisiana public works like schools, sewers and police stations. But so far, only $650 million — 28 percent — of that money has been spent. In Mississippi, only 27 percent has been spent of the $1.1 billion of federal tax dollars set aside to replace government infrastructure there.
i've posted a number of times on how i sat in front of the television in buenos aires, argentina, for days, watching the katrina disaster unfold, alternately sobbing and bellowing with rage at what i believe to have been a purposefully neglectful and incompetent response on the part of the bush administration... it's absolutely one of the most disgraceful things i have ever witnessed, and, over two years later, it's still a mess...
For all this, one needs a catalyst to make [Congress] reach this conclusion. To me, it's Comey's testimony from yesterday. It is so damning in so many ways. It was a deliberate usurping of our Department of Justice by the Presidency. It was an attempt to illegally seize the reins of government to circumvent the Constitution and deliberately trample on the Bill of Rights. Who gave them the right to do this? Who gave them the right to act in such a heinous matter?
Sometimes, it takes a day for this stuff to sink in. When I finally got around to watching Comey's testimony today, it only took a matter of minutes.
They...must...go.
On Katrina, they could hide behind incompetence. On Iraq, they could hide behind the so-called faulty intelligence. But on what has gone on with our Department of "Just-us", there is no more hiding.
It's Nixon again. Maybe worse...Nixon covered it up. These guys were just more brazen about it all.
Even if we're not successful in impeaching, even if it doesn't deliver a single resignation, even if we have to wait until 2009 to get our new President...we MUST CONTINUE THESE INVESTIGATIONS. We MUST CONTINUE TO ASK THE HARD QUESTIONS.
Because we all DESERVE TO KNOW THE TRUTH.
Sorry, this diary is kinda short. I'm just seething right now. I've had it with the lot of them.
Forgive me my past trangressions. I stand on the side of justice now.
to earn your forgiveness, you need to shout this from the rooftops, post it on every available weblog, and preach it to your friends, family and colleagues... the clock is ticking...
More on the National Guard and emergency preparedness
a follow-on to an earlier post about the problems of emergency preparedness following the tornadoes in kansas...
since hurricane katrina, i have been convinced that the bush administration has deliberately disrupted and obstructed our country's capability to respond to natural disasters... the strength of my cynicism leads me to believe it is part of a purposeful strategy to convince us that our government is not either equipped, willing or able to provide anything in the way of comprehensive assistance in time of citizen need... it's all part of the socially-darwinian, on-your-ownership society and the on-going dismemberment of any type of implied or explicit social contract... they are QUITE capable, however, of telling you what you talked about on the phone last night with aunt jane...
According to a recent report by a congressional commission, nearly “90 percent of Army National Guard units in the United States are rated ‘not ready,” largely “as a result of shortfalls in billions of dollars’ worth of equipment.” A January Government Accountability Office analysis found that the Pentagon “does not adequately track National Guard equipment needs for domestic missions” and as a consequence, “state National Guards may be hampered in their ability to plan for responding to large-scale domestic events.”
if that indeed is the strategy, it's working quite nicely...
The rebuilding effort in tornado-ravaged Greensburg, Kansas, likely will be hampered because some much-needed equipment is in Iraq, said that state’s governor.
Governor Kathleen Sebelius said much of the National Guard equipment usually positioned around the state to respond to emergencies is gone. She said not having immediate access to things like tents, trucks and semitrailers will really handicap the rebuilding effort.
we're fighting 'em over there which means we don't have shit available to help ourselves over here...
perhaps the assumptions should be questioned... here's what i believe to be the case...
the current administration deliberately failed to effectively respond post-katrina and, likewise, has had no intention of capturing osama bin laden... in the former instance, sending the message that government cannot be relied upon to help us with anything has been undeniably effective... in the second, why take the poster child for endless war out of action...? we are so invested in seeing our government officials as miserably incompetent in their pursuit of the common good that we completely fail to consider the possibility of much darker motives... unless and until we do, the constitutional crisis will continue unaddressed, the unfettered power of the executive will continue to grow, and our country will continue to be transformed into something unrecognizable... and, if unaddressed until 20 january 2009, it may be too late...
Why would anyone refuse to take an oath on a matter like this, unless he were not fully committed to telling the truth? And why would Congress accept that idea, especially in an investigation that has already been marked by repeated false and misleading statements from administration officials?
yes, why...?
Mr. Bush’s overall strategy seems clear: to stop Congress from learning what went on within the White House, which may well be where the key decisions to fire the attorneys were made.
therefore...
It is no great surprise that top officials of this administration believe they do not need to testify before Congress. This is an administration that has shown over and over that it does not believe that the laws apply to it, and that it does not respect its co-equal branches of government. Congress should subpoena Mr. Rove and the others, and question them under oath, in public. If Congress has more questions, they should be recalled.
That would not be “partisanship,” as Mr. Bush wants Americans to believe. It would be Congress doing its job by holding the president and his team accountable — a rare thing in the last six years.
the part i like the best is the first sentence...
In nasty and bumbling comments made at the White House yesterday, President Bush declared that “people just need to hear the truth” about the firing of eight United States attorneys.
Apparently, the way to set Bush off isn't to mismanage a war in Iraq and kill thousands of our own. That gets you a medal. It isn't to stay on vacation while a major American city drowns amidst neglect from incompetent federal agencies. That got Brownie a "heckuva job!".
But you say that Bush and his administration should be held accountable for their actions, and look out! You say that his people should testify under oath, and he's outraged that they won't be able to lie!
when bill kristol looks in the mirror, is there a reflection...? i think not...
In this week’s Weekly Standard, editor Bill Kristol writes that Bush must pardon Libby immediately. “If the president does intend to pardon Libby, there is no reason to wait,” he writes.
Asked to comment further on his editorial, Kristol claimed this morning that pardoning Libby would remove the “cloud hanging over his White House and over the war.” He added that if Bush waits, “Fitzgerald will keep repeating that there’s a cloud over the White House, and Bush will be passive, and it will demoralize his supporters.”
here's the cloud over the white house... this is one cloud that AIN'T goin' away...
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