Monday, September 12, 2005

The Speechalist

This may not be new, but it was new to me and one of the funnier videos out there.

The Speechalist

Monday, September 05, 2005

"Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater . . ."


In 2003 and 2004, the Bush Administration cut the funding for the levees that protect the city of New Orleans. Now, I've already heard the Bush apologists claim that any administration would have done the same considering the economic pressures. So, I'm gonna pretend that 100% of all presidential administrations would play Russian roulette with an American city that happens to be our largest sea port, because, you know, we wouldn't want to run up massive budget deficits.

Once you've cut the funding for the levees it seems to me the least you could do would be to be ready to act when the inevitable hurricane smashes into New Orleans. George Bush told the nation that no one could have predicted the damage the hurricane would do. Of course that's not true.

Readers of National Geographic knew of this scenario. The Army Corps of Engineers knew of this scenario. In fact this scenario was well known. For goodness sake, the National Weather Service knew exactly what would happen when Katrina hit.

So, FEMA took advantage of the two days from when Katrina turned category IV and when she hit the coast? That was not the case. Of course FEMA has been neutered by the Bush administration and is run by an incompetent. Michael Brown's main job for eleven years was the commissioner of judges for the international Arabian Horse Association. And he was forced to resign from that job.

And so the horror show continued. The director of homeland security was unaware that thousands of people where at the convention center until NPR told him. I guess he had no TV. The head of FEMA couldn't understand why people hadn't evacuated when the order to evacuate had been given.

And thousands of people died. While I think Kanye West was wrong, I don't think his comments were absurd at all. Certainly the Bush Administration, the State of Louisiana, and the City of New Orleans didn't leave these people behind because they were black. They did it because they were poor. They didn't feel it was necessary to waste time planning for a contingency that only affected the poorest and most vulnerable of their constituents. Kanye West was understandably confused because most of the poor people in New Orleans are black.

So we have demonstrated once again the lack of compassion of the Bush administration. Just like NCLB, just like the Iraq War, just like the giveaway energy policy, and just like the Medicare bill, we see the poor paying the way for the people in power.

As Keith Olbermann points out, this administration won reelection by running around this country claiming the other side couldn't protect them. Meanwhile, they left New Orleans and her most vulnerable population unprotected.