Monday, September 05, 2005
Updated Katrina Musings
FOX News and the Republican lie machine are spinning full force today. After Geraldo rescued an elderly woman on “live” international television, the crisis has been officially declared over, blame placed on the Democratic Governor of Louisiana and May ro of New Orleans, and gold medals awarded to the do-nothing federal stooges of FEMA. Life is grand.
A good deal of blame has to be put on those who failed to load up five days of food and water on their backs, wheelchairs and little red wagons and hike several miles to the Superdome. FOX News is correct, we should all have taken more personal responsibility. Marie and I are feeling especially guilty because, when we were on the Gulf coast back in 2003, we did not drop off a few extra sandbags for the Mississippi River levies. Foolish us! There we were counting on the Corps of Engineers to keep up flood control and Congress to appropriate the money to do it. Thank you Bill O’Riley and FOX News for teaching us a lesson in personal responsibility. In fact, it’s time to stop the blame game. Nobody should be held accountable for anything (except, of course, poor people who failed to abandon every scrap of personal property and all Democratic state officials.)
But seriously friends, it is possible that high Republican officials are not, in the strictest sense, “racist.” It may be more to the point to observe that they just don’t care about the classes of people who do the dirty work of paying taxes and fighting in the wars. The Bush dynasty, headquartered in the sedate upper-crust enclave Kennebunkport, Maine, has a vital vibrant concern about the wealthy and major corporations. They have cared none about the Katrinas that have ruined the lives of so many ordinary people: the War in Iraq, high gas prices, the lack of health insurance, “tort reform,” and the new bankruptcy laws. Why on earth would they care about the demise of a few powerless poor people?
Have a nice holiday.
A good deal of blame has to be put on those who failed to load up five days of food and water on their backs, wheelchairs and little red wagons and hike several miles to the Superdome. FOX News is correct, we should all have taken more personal responsibility. Marie and I are feeling especially guilty because, when we were on the Gulf coast back in 2003, we did not drop off a few extra sandbags for the Mississippi River levies. Foolish us! There we were counting on the Corps of Engineers to keep up flood control and Congress to appropriate the money to do it. Thank you Bill O’Riley and FOX News for teaching us a lesson in personal responsibility. In fact, it’s time to stop the blame game. Nobody should be held accountable for anything (except, of course, poor people who failed to abandon every scrap of personal property and all Democratic state officials.)
But seriously friends, it is possible that high Republican officials are not, in the strictest sense, “racist.” It may be more to the point to observe that they just don’t care about the classes of people who do the dirty work of paying taxes and fighting in the wars. The Bush dynasty, headquartered in the sedate upper-crust enclave Kennebunkport, Maine, has a vital vibrant concern about the wealthy and major corporations. They have cared none about the Katrinas that have ruined the lives of so many ordinary people: the War in Iraq, high gas prices, the lack of health insurance, “tort reform,” and the new bankruptcy laws. Why on earth would they care about the demise of a few powerless poor people?
Have a nice holiday.
