Shocked and Awed

by Aine MacDermot

I am shocked by the destruction of Hurricane Katrina and I am awed by our government’s lack of immediate response to the disaster. New Orleans is no distraction for George Bush — it’s the summation of his failures and bankrupt ideology. Hurricane Katrina laid bare the ugly truths about race and poverty in the United States, a pretty extreme illustration of what it means to be poor in this country and how very little the wealthy elite care. Millions of people who were victimized by this disaster simply didn’t have the material resources to flee, nor anywhere to go. With little information, guidance or resources, the displaced now leave on buses to equally unprepared areas throughout Louisiana, Texas, and other points around America. Some were on buses for 12 hours, only to arrive at the Astrodome to be turned away.

New York Times columnist David Brooks:

“Our institutions completely failed us and it is not as if it is the first in the past three years — this follows Abu Ghraib, the failure of planning in Iraq, the intelligence failures, the corporate scandals, the media scandals.

We have had over the past four or five years a whole series of scandals that soured the public mood. You’ve seen a rise in feeling the country is headed in the wrong direction.”

“I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees,” Bush told Diane Sawyer.

What the hell was Bill Clinton thinking Friday morning, standing there next to Bush and providing verbal cover for the administration’s ludicrous claims that the problems plaguing New Orleans were unforeseeable? That’s a lie, a damnable lie. In 2004, FEMA officials practiced how they would respond to a fake hurricane that caused floods and stranded New Orleans residents. In 2004, National Geographic covered just such a possible scenario in its October issue. PBS even broadcast a documentary that clearly spelled out that a hit by this type of hurricane could put New Orleans under water or destroy it forever.

Despite the years of warnings given by Senator Mary L. Landrieu and others about the possibility of disaster in New Orleans and all along the Gulf Coast, federal spending was continuously cut and threats of this destruction were ignored. Once again the administration claims nobody could’ve known, once again it’s lies.

The failure we are now witnessing is unforgivable. Sadly, after a generation or more of shredding our social safety net and slighting domestic public investment, this is America in 2005. The storm was not preventable, but the death and suffering were. This time, there was all the warning in the world. You have to wonder: If Homeland Security was so ill prepared for a natural disaster that everyone knew was coming, how is it equipped to handle a terrorist attack or a nuclear accident that we won’t know about in advance?

Republican leadership’s reaction to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina? You guessed it, they’re concerned with pushing through more tax cuts for the wealthy, even though their first tax cuts have done absolutely nothing to create more jobs for the poorest of Americans. They are concerned with repealing what they call the “death tax” (aka estate tax) which only affects the wealthiest Americans who otherwise protect their wealth in a myriad of tax shelters and tax loopholes. They’re concerned with cutting back even further into the safety-net programs, such as Medicaid and anti-poverty programs for our sick, poor, and elderly Americans. These are the programs that are the most needed by the thousands of survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

Heartless bastards out of touch with the realities of the poverty in America? You bet. It is time we stop giving tax cuts to the rich and tax breaks to companies that move factories overseas, and it is about damned time to increase our investment in education and jobs here and fight the REAL war right here in America, the war on poverty. And, by God, it is time for Americans to awaken to our common humanity and our responsibilities towards our fellow citizens, to build a better, more inclusive society, and to stop voting against the best interests of all working Americans.

Stop voting Republican.