(no subject)

[mamculuna]

Driving home yesterday, I had three hours of NPR news and talk, which often is just idly interesting but yesterday, focusing on what went wrong in Katrina, made me so upset I almost had to stop driving. I couldn't take notes so don't know who exactly said this, but some Republicans apparently consider FEMA to be "another over-funded entitlement program."

I have to wonder at this point how people who voted for Bush are reacting. Do they now realize that all that anti-tax, pro-business rhetoric has a human cost? I hope that most people, in whatever country, really care about other people and are willing to sacrifice a small amount of luxury to prevent hideous suffering and loss of life, but that what happens in other countries is so far away that it seems unreal. Maybe the vision of thousands of our own citizens living in that hell will seem real enough to make us re-think the self-centered philosophy that's driven the elections since 1994. Maybe we'll recall why the New Deal was worth passing and the revolutions worth fighting.

Or maybe not.


Two clips worth seeing:

Jon Stewart reviews the week with Bush--
http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/002358.html

and more seriously but just as damning--
http://media.putfile.com/OlbermannSwings

Comments

[britzkrieg.livejournal.com]

...some Republicans apparently consider FEMA to be "another over-funded entitlement program."

I believe this statement was made by the former director of FEMA -- you know, Michael Brown's old college roommate. I haven't heard that this is a mainstream "Republican" viewpoint, though.

Maybe the vision of thousands of our own citizens living in that hell will seem real enough to make us re-think the self-centered philosophy that's driven the elections since 1994.

Most people are doing a lot of thinking. But remember what the 90s were like -- a boom-time, dot-com economy over which Greenspan presided as a deity. Some people are still clinging to the ideals that came out of that unusual prosperity.

[arethusa2.livejournal.com]

Grover Norquist: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." Small government and outsorcing governmental duties has been the stated goal of the Republican hierarchy always--at least as long as I can remember. These are the same people who touted religious charities taking over for government relief, vouchers (for charter and religious schools especially), and low taxes (for some). Take this flood for instance. The disaster management plan was outsourced and Haliburton is rebuilding the navy shipyards. Plus their most constant and consistant complaint about Democrats is that they are "tax and spend."

Too many people are *not* thinking about others when they vote for tax cuts that hurt the poor and middle class in comparison to the wealthy, when they vote for people who reduce regulation on industry to make the rich richer and everyone else worse off. (There are days here in Houston when the kids are not allowed out to play because the air pollution is so bad, thanks to Bush's grandfathering of so many refineries and industries.) No national health care, unlike every other major industrialized country. High rates of infant mortality, poverty, teen pregnancy (especailly in places with abstinance only education) and so on and on. Those aren't the result of a rosy 90s economic afterglow.

[britzkrieg.livejournal.com]

Good God.

Forget I even said anything.

I don't have time to argue with you. Bye.

[arethusa2.livejournal.com]

Good bye. I know this stuff is difficult to face, but the alternative is more death. ( A statement I would have thought overdramatic until this week.)

[britzkrieg.livejournal.com]

Yeah, whatever.

Just be aware that you don't have a monopoly on the truth. No one does.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean things to go quite this way--but guess I should have realized that this topic would bring out bad feelings. Apologies to both of you.

[britzkrieg.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean for it to go this way, either. All I meant to do was share some ideas with you, and that got me bitch-slapped by a stranger.

This is why I should stay away from LJ. Life is too short to get into battles on the Internet.

[arethusa2.livejournal.com]

That's very true, yet here we are.

Mamculuna, you certainly don't owe anyone an apology. And I don't apologize for saying the truth, which can be easily verified. As partisan as I am, my first concern is that the truth is told.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I know, and this whole situation upsets us all and makes us take things differently from the way they were meant. I'm certainly ready to bite off a few heads, myself.

I actually don't think the two of you see the world all that differently, if you look back at other writings.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Or well, maybe they need a little closer reading. But again, these are angry times.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I think this thing (Katrina, not LJ) has everyone on edge. Right after 9/11, I insulted a state representative for even showing up at a vigil. Grief and tension make us all a little weird.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the clarification. I'd be glad to know that only a few think that way (that FEMA's not really needed).

Interesting too that Ophelia seems headed for Hilton Head right now...where the rich have already driven out the poor. On the coast of SC, at least, money has done more damage to the environment and the culture than any hurricane.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I just got home to hear that Michael Bolton has been replaced as FEMA head!

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Good news, indeed!

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Just re-read--maybe Bolton would have done a better job than Brown! :->

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Whoops.

But, yes.

[maeve-rigan.livejournal.com]

Must read news more frequently. Hilton Head? Michael Bolton?
But it's easy enough to be flippant about the rich. Not far past the mansions of HH lie the ordinary homes, apartment houses and trailers of folk who will be devastated in Ophelia does come ashore at Hilton Head.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

They will be, but the developers bought up all the land that once belonged to African-American farmers and pretty much drove them off the island. It's ironic that the higher ground that the poor got as left-overs now turns out to be safer on the SC coast, not like New Orleans, where the 9th ward backed up to the Ponchartrain levees. That's somewhat true in Charleston, too, though there the surge coming in from the river could inundate the poorer sections.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Hearing OlbermannSwings gave me a moment of pleasure. What a succinct and brilliant essay.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

So glad you liked it. He really tells the truth, doesn't he.

[rara-avis.livejournal.com]

Isn't it sad that our political discussions no longer talk about the "common good"? Whatever happened to altruism? or even the Golden Rule? It may be overly simplistic to use these ideas as touchstones in governing ourselves, but I find it disturbing that things have become so mean-spirited.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Exactly. People forget that government is a way of organizing to do the people's will more efficiently. True, it can become very corrupt, but letting them eat cake is not the solution.

I think people are so easily manipulated by political rhetoric that they lose sight of the results of putting those ideas into practice.

A friend of mine was just wondering why Bush finds it OK now to give everyone $2000 each with no questions asked, yet when those same people are suffering their individuals disasters we need to make them suffer alone. Maybe it has something to do with polls and TV cameras?

[rara-avis.livejournal.com]

Ah. You cynic! I think that you are absolutely correct.

Did you solve the problem with your new laptop? I'm a Mac person, so not much help.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I did--only needed a reboot, duh.

[altaego.livejournal.com]

With each new revelation about the war, the economy, his past record, his cronies' corruption, etc., I expect all sane people to finally admit that Bush is a bad president, but they don't.

I think I have to find something new to hope for.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Let's try hoping that all those people who always knew what a @$%^# he is will finally get motivated to vote for a different kind of president next time...but that doesn't seem to happen, either.