Saturday, March 17, 2007
FEMA frolics
Congress has conducted hearings on the FEMA inactivity down in Dumas. Rep. Mike Ross was in attendance and Governor Beebe testified. The national media has exposed yet another episode of Bush administration misconduct trending from incompetent toward outright negligence.
In the bigger picture of protecting the inherited estates of the super-wealthy and assisting big businesses getting filthy rich on the Iraq war, what happens to a few ordinary American citizens is not all that important to this particular White House. The galling part of the Dumas story is the weeks of foot dragging indifference.
It is probably not a very good idea to be offering advice to tone-deaf bureaucrats, but here goes anyway. When FEMA saw a big tornado with plenty of damage, it might have seemed to care. If some pinhead moron up in Washington could not quite decide if it was a real disaster, perhaps it would have been possible to release a few of the eight-thousand trailers being stored just a hundred miles down the road. They are going to rot anyway, so what would it hurt to part with a few as a sign of good faith?
And, in the same spirit, if I might offer some unsolicited advice to my storm ravaged neighbors in Dumas. Change the name of your town to Baghdad.
(Broadcast March 16, 2007)
In the bigger picture of protecting the inherited estates of the super-wealthy and assisting big businesses getting filthy rich on the Iraq war, what happens to a few ordinary American citizens is not all that important to this particular White House. The galling part of the Dumas story is the weeks of foot dragging indifference.
It is probably not a very good idea to be offering advice to tone-deaf bureaucrats, but here goes anyway. When FEMA saw a big tornado with plenty of damage, it might have seemed to care. If some pinhead moron up in Washington could not quite decide if it was a real disaster, perhaps it would have been possible to release a few of the eight-thousand trailers being stored just a hundred miles down the road. They are going to rot anyway, so what would it hurt to part with a few as a sign of good faith?
And, in the same spirit, if I might offer some unsolicited advice to my storm ravaged neighbors in Dumas. Change the name of your town to Baghdad.
(Broadcast March 16, 2007)
