I’d bet that hundreds floating face down in New Orleans last week are due to the nepotism of George W Bush and his appointment of incompetents to FEMA.
“Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job”
I want Brownie left to be gang-raped and knifed to death in the Convention Center. And I want that to come as a mercy killing after days of dehydration and starvation among corpses and human waste. AND I want it shown on CNN, to the whole country, while NO ONE, least of all our elected leaders, move to help. And I wouldn’t mind seeing the man who put him there, who SLASHED THE LEVEE BUDGETS TO FUND THE WAR along with him.
I want accountability. I was upset over Iraq. Now, I want this to stop. Because when the quake comes for L.A., if FEMA’s responsible for anyone, the next CNN footage will show people in Los Angeles dying of dehydration as they wait for donated Wal-Mart water that FEMA turns BACK. Or it will show firefighters held in seminars led by federal staff while fires burn down Southcentral.
To those who voted for Bush – you have more than just the soldiers and Iraqi children’s blood on your hands. Add to it the rotting waterlogged bodies of New Orleans. I want a fucking list of EVERY PROJECT SLASHED TO PAY FOR THAT GODDAMN WAR. HOW MUCH HAS THIS COST? I knew America was being sold out to pay for this stupid war, but I didn’t realize that the theft from our own country would manifest in such an extreme way.
Michael Moore has a piece out. I know he’s biased, I know he omits and skews to his hearts content, but he’s reminded us all what we’ve done. We’ve sold the country out. I have waited too long to fight this – I should have started fighting in 2000.
Moore asks:
Do you think that cutting federal programs like FEMA
and the Army Corps of Engineers has been good or bad for America? GOOD OR
BAD?
I want THAT question answered, because it sure wasn’t good for New Orleans. And it won’t be good if something like, say, the Ballard Locks in Seattle is next.
To All My Fellow Americans Who Voted for George W. Bush:
On this, the fourth anniversary of 9/11, I’m just curious, how does it
feel?
How does it feel to know that the man you elected to lead us after we were
attacked went ahead and put a guy in charge of FEMA whose main
qualification was that he ran horse shows?
That’s right. Horse shows.
I really want to know — and I ask you this in all sincerity and with all
due respect — how do you feel about the utter contempt Mr. Bush has shown
for your safety? C’mon, give me just a moment of honesty. Don’t start
ranting on about how this disaster in New Orleans was the fault of one of
the poorest cities in America. Put aside your hatred of Democrats and
liberals and anyone with the last name of Clinton. Just look me in the eye
and tell me our President did the right thing after 9/11 by naming a horse
show runner as the top man to protect us in case of an emergency or
catastrophe.
I want you to put aside your self-affixed label of
Republican/conservative/born-again/capitalist/ditto-head/right-winger and
just talk to me as an American, on the common ground we both call America.
Are we safer now than before 9/11? When you learn that behind the horse
show runner, the #2 and #3 men in charge of emergency preparedness have
zero experience in emergency preparedness, do you think we are safer?
When you look at Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security, a man
with little experience in national security, do you feel secure?
When men who never served in the military and have never seen young men die
in battle send our young people off to war, do you think they know how to
conduct a war? Do they know what it means to have your legs blown off for a
threat that was never there?
Do you really believe that turning over important government services to
private corporations has resulted in better services for the people?
Why do you hate our federal government so much? You have voted for
politicians for the past 25 years whose main goal has been to de-fund the
federal government. Do you think that cutting federal programs like FEMA
and the Army Corps of Engineers has been good or bad for America? GOOD OR
BAD?
With the nation’s debt at an all-time high, do you think tax cuts for the
rich are still a good idea? Will you give yours back so hundreds of
thousands of homeless in New Orleans can have a home?
Do you believe in Jesus? Really? Didn’t he say that we would be judged by
how we treat the least among us? Hurricane Katrina came in and blew off the
facade that we were a nation with liberty and justice for all. The wind
howled and the water rose and what was revealed was that the poor in
America shall be left to suffer and die while the President of the United
States fiddles and tells them to eat cake.
That’s not a joke. The day the hurricane hit and the levees broke, Mr.
Bush, John McCain and their rich pals were stuffing themselves with cake. A
full day after the levees broke (the same levees whose repair funding he
had cut), Mr. Bush was playing a guitar some country singer gave him. All
this while New Orleans sank under water.
It would take ANOTHER day before the President would do a flyover in his
jumbo jet, peeking out the widow at the misery 2500 feet below him as he
flew back to his second home in DC. It would then be TWO MORE DAYS before a
trickle of federal aid and troops would arrive. This was no seven minutes
in a sitting trance while children read “My Pet Goat” to him. This was FOUR
DAYS of doing nothing other than saying “Brownie (FEMA director Michael
Brown), you’re doing a heck of a job!”
My Republican friends, does it bother you that we are the laughing stock of
the world?
And on this sacred day of remembrance, do you think we honor or shame those
who died on 9/11/01? If we learned nothing and find ourselves today every
bit as vulnerable and unprepared as we were on that bright sunny morning,
then did the 3,000 die in vain?
Our vulnerability is not just about dealing with terrorists or natural
disasters. We are vulnerable and unsafe because we allow one in eight
Americans to live in horrible poverty. We accept an education system where
one in six children never graduate and most of those who do can’t string a
coherent sentence together. The middle class can’t pay the mortgage or the
hospital bills and 45 million have no health coverage whatsoever.
Are we safe? Do you really feel safe? You can only move so far out and
build so many gated communities before the fruit of what you’ve sown will
be crashing through your walls and demanding retribution. Do you really
want to wait until that happens? Or is it your hope that if they are left
alone long enough to soil themselves and shoot themselves and drown in the
filth that fills the street that maybe the problem will somehow go away?
I know you know better. You gave the country and the world a man who wasn’t
up for the job and all he does is hire people who aren’t up for the job.
You did this to us, to the world, to the people of New Orleans. Please fix
it. Bush is yours. And you know, for our peace and safety and security,
this has to be fixed. What do you propose?
I have an idea, and it isn’t a horse show.
Yours,
Michael Moore
Jillian's Blog 
On that note…
So forest fire fighters here in Washington are set with a rule that they can only work 14 days at a time, at which point they must take a week off. Reasons for this being the physical and mental strain of the job.
Our good friends in DC just made it so this 14 day cap is now lifted… not that you can work on a fire for more than 14 days, but you’re allowed to work past it by going to essentially help search for corpses in New Orleans.
The big issue with this is the nature of fire fighting (summer, unpredictable, hard work, great pay, little training) means that a good portion of the workers are kids fresh out of high school trying to scratch together a few bucks. It’s sad that because they’d be more likely to jump at the “opportunity” and actually do it.
So apparently working more than 14 days at a forest fire site is too mentally straining, but going to do a job, that even many police (who presumably have seen some pretty bad things in their careers) have deserted and has also driven some to suicide, is less so.
keith