Saturday, September 03, 2005
A divided house can not be strong
Back in town after a couple of weeks in Cle working at the job that allows me to keep perenially losing money on this thing I call a band... I'm always nervous enough about traveling, but it seems like major catastrophes often happen while I'm away from where ever I call home. From 9/11 to Tiannemen Square to the LA Riots, all have happened while I was away from home for an extended period of time, and now comes Katrina. I am, like many, in shock that the aftermath of such a well anticipated catastrophe could have been allowed to spiral so deeply out of control. If ever there was any more evidence needed that we live in a class-based society, and that unrestrained capitalism is a heartless, cold and cruel bitch, now we have it. The majority of people left in New Orleans are there because they had nowhere to go, and no money to go with. FEMA director's Mike Brown's classic blaming the victim, in which he says those that "chose to stay" in New Orleans didn't make a good choice, alarmingly illuminates how out of touch our current government is with the very nature of being poor. Being poor means you have NO CHOICE or severely limited ones only. These people don't own 4WD SUV's, summer homes in the north, money for airline or bus or train tickets, or extended families in other states to which they can escape. What happened in New Orleans is a direct result of the current government's desire to create a society in which it's every man/woman/child for himself/herself. They simply do not believe that government has a role in providing for the common good, nor protecting the disadvantaged, taking care of the sick and elderly, protecting the environment for future generations, or in uniting the country. Their current focus is all about protecting the wealth and aristocracy of a limited number of "succesful" businessmen and women, along with untethered lottery capitalism that allows a small percentage of the society to amass obscene amounts of wealth and privilege, while leaving the vast majority of us all to provide the replaceable labor to support the glittering palace.
What should scare the bejeesus out of everyone (the glitterati included) is that we've had 4 years since 9/11, (the event that Republicans say, like a lock groove at the end of a record, "changed everything") and nothing has changed in terms of our preparedness to deal with a mass casualty, mass infrastructure disrupting event. This kind of event (natural though it may be instead of "terrorism" based) is exactly what the freshly minted Department of Homeland Security was supposed to be preparing for. It's obvious to anyone with eyes that their preparedness stops after all the people with means to escape have been advised to do so. This is so much worse than 9/11 because we had several days warning of the actual impending event, not to mention decades of weather studies that warned of the catastrophe that would occur with a Category 4 or higher hurricane in the Gulf region. Everyone could see the giant thing heading straight for us on the weather map. Of course, after the either profoundly stupid or intentionally misleading and manipulative statement that "no one anticipated the levees would fail", the president will appear in photo ops hugging victims, what's left of the National Guard that's not in Iraq will roll in and shoot some looters, everyone will hurry on line and pull their credit cards out of their wallets to help the cause, but nothing will really change. The day after the "Labor Day" holiday Republicans will dominate the Congress' time with the repeal of the aristocracy tax, ensuring that a few thousand young Americans will never have to work a single day in their lives, thanks to the lucky and ruthless "business decisions" made by their forebears, and the whole process will repeat yet again with the next storm or terror attack.
What should scare the bejeesus out of everyone (the glitterati included) is that we've had 4 years since 9/11, (the event that Republicans say, like a lock groove at the end of a record, "changed everything") and nothing has changed in terms of our preparedness to deal with a mass casualty, mass infrastructure disrupting event. This kind of event (natural though it may be instead of "terrorism" based) is exactly what the freshly minted Department of Homeland Security was supposed to be preparing for. It's obvious to anyone with eyes that their preparedness stops after all the people with means to escape have been advised to do so. This is so much worse than 9/11 because we had several days warning of the actual impending event, not to mention decades of weather studies that warned of the catastrophe that would occur with a Category 4 or higher hurricane in the Gulf region. Everyone could see the giant thing heading straight for us on the weather map. Of course, after the either profoundly stupid or intentionally misleading and manipulative statement that "no one anticipated the levees would fail", the president will appear in photo ops hugging victims, what's left of the National Guard that's not in Iraq will roll in and shoot some looters, everyone will hurry on line and pull their credit cards out of their wallets to help the cause, but nothing will really change. The day after the "Labor Day" holiday Republicans will dominate the Congress' time with the repeal of the aristocracy tax, ensuring that a few thousand young Americans will never have to work a single day in their lives, thanks to the lucky and ruthless "business decisions" made by their forebears, and the whole process will repeat yet again with the next storm or terror attack.
