 Video of Bush on GMA with Diane Sawyer. The ignoramus says, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.” — Via Crooks & Liars |
“Asked in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” if U.S. oil companies should forfeit profits during the crisis, Bush said instead American corporations should contribute cash to hurricane relief funds.
“Howard Dean [DNC chair] seized on that comment. [W]hile Bush was ‘asking ordinary Americans to do more, he ought to show some real leadership, and call on his friends in Big Oil to join in the sacrifice and stop gouging American families at the gas pump’.” – From Reuters at Wired News, via Howie in Seattle
a national state of emergency and then marshall all the resources of the public and private sectors to get the people out of NOLA, to build refugee camps and to stop the deaths.
The function of government is to protect us. Bush is failing big time. I want to see an army of aid and assistance invade NOLA, get the people of there and then to starting fixing things up.
And what Democrats should do is demand action from Bush. Where are the armies of boats, planes, aid, helicopters? Where are the caravans moving the tens of thousands into churches and home throughout America? Where is the leadership that we need in a time like this?
There is NO national state of emergency.
There is a regional state of emergency. A national state of emergency, aka “martial law”, is an over-the-top, hysterical response to the crisis.
How is declaring a state of emergency in California or Rhode Island going to help the people in Biloxi or New Orleans?
What was required was preparation before this crisis hit. However, since we do not have a time machine, what is needed now is:
Just think of the affected Gulf Coast states as if they were a Third World country (which, in many respects, they are) and give them aid accordingly.
over the loss of half a dozen buildings.
We gave up national rights and national freedoms and national defenses against the ravages of nature, and we reordered the priorities of the entire nation due to a neighborhood disaster caused by several guys with knives.
Katrina’s devastation disappeared a port city of national importance and has been reported to be the size of Great Britain.
If a national response is appropriate for some guys with knives, it’s certainly appropriate for this.
So we are now taking our clues from the misbegotten son of a bitch whose name is George W. Bush?
“We” did not start a “global war” over 9/11–Bush, Cheney, and their cabal herded the country into war, with the complicity of many frightened Democrats in Congress.
Just because Bush’s response to 9/11 was over-the-top does not mean that the response to Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath need be, as well.
A proportionate response to the present disaster will require relief on a massive scale. I am confident that, if Americans had a proper President, the response would be just what was needed–I have absolutely no confidence in President Bush nor in Vice-President Cheney nor in the Republican Congress to do what is needed.
Will those of you calling for a national state of emergency please explain to me how declaring martial law in San Francisco or Portland or Chicago is going to speed rescue, recovery, and rebuilding efforts in the Gulf Coast states?
would only embolden Cheney, Bush and the criminal enterprise that constitutes the republican majority in our government. Declaring the entire country under a state of emergency would only further erode the few rights we have managed to hold on to within the scope of this fascist and racist corrupt regime.
My wingnut senators and 3 of the four reps from Kansas have systematically voted for the dismantling of our constitution and its protections of our rights.
Anyone who believes that a state of emergency declared nationwide is a good idea, really needs to seek some freaking psychiatric help, as it would only give the fascists who are controlling our country more power to continue to dismantle our republic.
I’m sensing a good deal of panic and hysteria in the States. When did Americans become such Nervous Nellies? Americans used to be tough, resourceful people who didn’t run scared. Let’s hope that those calling for extreme measures are a distinct minority and that most Americans will keep a cool head.
Did you watch Aaron Brown. After a 12 hour trip from New Orleans the buses cannot unload the passengers because the astrodome is FULL! A passenger has died on route on one of the buses. The flood victims are being turned away, no room at the inn, to other cities and no one knows where. So how do they get in touch with their families when no one knows where they are going? And god only knows how far away is their next destination. Aaron Brown is shocked and asks “Do the bus drivers know the destination?”
to Houston, the flood victims are re-routed to points 200 miles away. These are weary sick people.
And this is FEMA’s solution to the New Orleans humanitarian disaster.
There are plenty of military bases in the Deep South–generations of politicians have made sure of that.
If anyone else–Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, even Reagan or Bush the Elder, or Clinton–was President right now, those dispossessed folk would be sent to military bases and housed until other shelter could be arranged.
Bush just does not care about ordinary folk. Bush, not that know-it-all smarty pants Al Gore, is the fellow Americans imagine is a “regular guy”, someone with whom they could “have a beer” at the local tavern.
What Bush is, is a cold-blooded aristocrat who cares not for the lives of the common folk. One wonders what President Gore or President Kerry would do in response to this crisis. No, wait, I don’t have to wonder, I know–they’d be moving heaven and earth to save as many people as possible, working round the clock to coordinate the vast resources of the United States to alleviate the Job-like suffering of the hurricane victims, and doing whatever they could to comfort the afflicted.
Now, why weren’t either of those men elected to be President? Because Gore and Kerry were perceived as too smart for the office!
Maybe…just maybe…the next time there is a presidential election, the American voters will vote for someone who isn’t a “regular guy” but who is equal to the demands of the toughest job on earth.
Dr. Dean is asking too much. Bush is no leader.
He’s a figurehead, a hood ornament, an empty suit, albeit a Georges De Paris suit; a hollow vessel.
He hasn’t the temperament, the talent, the skill, instinct, intelligence, or gravity to be a real leader. He is credible only to the credulous, believed only by the true believers, trusted only by the gullible, and truly respected only by the deluded.
He has been as shielded from reality as the naked emperor. He ignores stubborn facts or tries to beat them into submission. He doesn’t know where he is or where he’s going; he’s happy if he thinks he’s making great time.
What we see at work is the religion of the Free Market.
The Free Market is America’s one true religion, and Bush is one of its evangelists.
The poor (most of them black) are left behind to die in New Orleans and Biloxi? That’s the Free Market at work–those people didn’t have the money to pay for transport out of these cities, nor to house themselves in a motel if they did flee, and therefore are ruthlessly being “taken out of inventory” (what you and I would call “suffering horribly and dying needlessly”, but that’s crazy liberalspeak that has fallen out of fashion). Remember, in the Free Market, individuals–unless they are exceptionally wealthy “captains of industry” like Bush and Cheney–do not matter.
Gasoline prices are soaring at the pump? Ah, once again the magic of the Free Market, as the capitalists charge whatever the market will bear. Never mind that in any other commodity–including perishable foodstuffs–a hurricane wouldn’t cause an immediate price jump (we liberalspeakers would call this “price gouging” but, thank the Sky Deity, such talk is also not fashionable), but the Free Market seems especially free to work its magic in the petroleum industry since two oil industry executives became President and Vice-President (I forget which one Bush and Cheney are, but I’m certain ONE of them is President).
The Free Market will also work its miracles in the reconstruction of New Orleans. Halliburton’s stock has already risen on anticipation of the multi-billion dollar federal contracts that are going to be awarded to construction companies that coincidentally just happen to be located in the congressional districts of folks like Tom DeLay, et al. (again, we liberalspeakers would call this “corruption”, “nepotism”, and lots of ugly other words, which is why people stopped listening to us–liberalspeakers are always so NEGATIVE!).
All Americans should be grateful that the Free Market has supplanted democracy. Capitalists and corporations, not the people, run America, and the country is better for it–well, more “disciplined” anyway. Democracy is so inefficient and troublesome–and we can be sure that democracy is dead, because if it were alive, the Republicans, led by Bush and Cheney, would lose power in the next election.
Remember, what we see as a human tragedy and humanitarian crisis affecting millions is really a “profit opportunity” for politically connected contractors. Yes, a few thousand poor people died, some cities were destroyed, and millions made homeless, but that is because the Free Market punishes poverty and weakness and rewards wealth and strength. Coincidentally, so do all fascist states, but the “f” word is also one that is not to be uttered in the public discourse of America.
The most important thing to remember is that Mr. Bush’s seeming passivity in the face of the unfolding disaster in America is actually the proper posture to take. Bush should not, must not, interfere with the workings of the Free Market, which will automatically “correct” the situation in a manner that is definitively Malthusian. Bush need not supply aid, nor federal troops, nor even express proper concern, to those who are suffering–all he needs to do is go for a bike ride, and the problems will sort themselves out.
and it brings back thoughts about The Great Hunger when the British Laissez-faire policy killed many Irish people.
The people in New Orleans have no bread? Let them eat cake!
because of efforts to protect their souls from corruption by a welfare state.
The potato isn’t native there, it’s an American plant. The reason its blight could starve so many Irish was that they’d been pushed to go big into potatoes as a cash crop.
The famine and the subsequent emmigration cut their population in half. They dropped by the modern population of Ohio.
Small wonder the Irish in America became a primary force in developing modern liberalism.
voice comparable to what a tiny fraction of us are now hearing on CSPAN, to speak for a national change of direction.
I very much doubt we have or can produce the alternative leadership the nation needs at this moment in order to turn away from this madness in the upcoming elections.
I’m listening, but I’m still not hearing.
could not lead a dehydrated horse to water if the Mississippi river was 8 ft in front of him.