connecting*the*dots

Media Matters clearly describes how Fox News is a major part of the Republican Noise Machine.

If you’re a Republican, please read this article in depth. Everything is based on facts and a timeline. You tell me: Who’s spinning here? The President and his cronies talk about not playing the "blame game," so how would you classify the glare on local government?

Here’s my take on the federal governments response:

Pre-hurricane preparation: Failure by the federal government by:
a) Hiring Michael Brown (bi-partisan failure in approving the hire)
b) Moving FEMA under the Homeland Security bucket (stealing funding to support the War in Iraq)
c) Cutting said funding to the development of the levee infrastructure (80% complete is completely incomplete)

Hurricane response: Failure by the federal government by:

1. Not being proactive based on weather forecasters reports describing the size of the impending hurricane as definitely greater than a category 3 (levees only hold back a level 2 based on years of studies)
2. Not immediately responding to local government cries for evacuation assistance
3. Not using all means at their disposal (i.e. Aircraft Carriers) to assist with the evacuation/rescue efforts in a timely manner
4. Not allowing private business to assist (WalMart, Amtrak, UPS, airlines, Greyhounds, etc.)
5. Not allowing volunteers to do anything aside from posing in photo ops or forcing them to endure with the red tape or go home
6. Not knowing what was happening in NO until TV reports informed them.
7. Considering evacuees as threats ("looters/thieves") before considering them people in a desperate situation
8. Locking evacuees into the city of NO and specific staging areas, causing more death and violence
9. Not allowing the media to report what is happening in the streets (i.e. photos of dead bodies)

A local Mississippian speaking to Dick Cheney in the only language he recognizes, live on CNN:

(via I’m. Your. Idle.)

(originally uploaded by ACKemp)

I’ve now come across two separate stories of levees being torn open (or bombed) by the federal government, so the predicted flooding would spare the tourist areas.

I don’t know if either story can be substantiated, but given the fact that evacuees (not refugees) are being held in the city of New Orleans, not free to leave, one has to wonder if there’s a connection. I’m going to refrain from forming an opinion until I hear a few more, separate corroborating stories.

Original stories:
Boing Boing
Versionist.com

Randy Newman’s song Louisiana 1927:

What has happened down here is the wind have changed
Clouds roll in from the north and it started to rain
Rained real hard and rained for a real long time
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline

The river rose all day
The river rose all night
Some people got lost in the flood
Some people got away alright
The river have busted through cleard down to Plaquemines
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangelne

CHORUS

Louisiana, Louisiana
They’re tyrin’ to wash us away
They’re tryin’ to wash us away
Louisiana, Louisiana
They’re tryin’ to wash us away
They’re tryin’ to wash us away

President Coolidge came down in a railroad train
With a little fat man with a note-pad in his hand
The President say, “Little fat man isn’t it a shame what the river has done
To this poor crackers land.”

CHORUS

Chills don’t describe what I feel right now.

There are people out there, right now, blaming the Katrina disaster on Mayor Ray Nagin; the Mayor of a city whose very existence was strangled by the federal government and their budget cuts.

His hands were completely tied regarding preventative measures, and as Mayor, his resources are completely limited in rescue & relief efforts.

Listen to Nagin for yourself (mp3).

George Bush: "No one could have anticipated the breaching of the levees."

Really?

2001
Preliminary Public Health Issues
2002
PBS Special
City in a Bowl
2002
NOLA.com
Washing Away
2003
New Orleans Hurricane Impact Study
2004
National Geographic
Gone With The Water
2004
Independent Weekly
Disaster In The Making
June 2005
New Orleans City Business
New Orleans District of the US Army Corps of Engineers Faces

It took me 10 minutes on Google to find those references. I’ll just chalk up your statement as another lie, Mr. .. eh-hem… President.

But while we’re talking about the levees, let’s discuss what happened to the funding for the Army Corp of Engineers to finish the construction. Apparently, there was a specific article in the Times-Picayune on June 8th of 2004 which detailed the federal cuts for hurricane preparedness and levee construction and improvement in New Orleans. It’s not available on-line, but TMPCafe put together excerpts of the piece here. Here’s a taste:

The Bush administration’s proposed fiscal 2005 budget includes only $3.9 million for the east bank hurricane project. Congress likely will increase that amount, although last year it bumped up the administration’s $3 million proposal only to $5.5 million.

"I needed $11 million this year, and I got $5.5 million," Naomi said. "I need $22.5 million next year to do everything that needs doing, and the first $4.5 million of that will go to pay four contractors who couldn’t get paid this year."

[…]

The challenge now, said emergency management chiefs Walter Maestri in
Jefferson Parish and Terry Tullier in New Orleans, is for southeast Louisiana somehow to persuade those who control federal spending that protection from major storms and flooding are matters of homeland security.

"It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay," Maestri said. "Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

So apparently, occupying a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and had no weapons of mass destruction is a higher priority than shoring up a defense structure to ensure that the largest homeland disaster ever doesn’t occur. Your President, George Bush, moved FEMA into the Homeland Security classification bucket so he could draw potential disaster protection/relief funding into his War for Oil… er… Against Terror.

How’s that for blatant disregard for public safety? How many people are in American jails for simple possession of narcotics, while this man runs loose destroying our nation, murdering innocent people around the world, while lining his own pockets?

How pompous and disrespectful is this guy?

George Bush, Governor of Texas, giving the "one finger victory salute" before he addressed the state.

George Bush, President of The United States of America, flipping off the press and anyone watching.

No, Fuck You Georgie Boy. WHEN WILL THIS POMPOUS, INCOMPETENT, MURDEROUS, CRIMINAL, COKE-HEAD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE!?

To the House and Senate: Your constituents are becoming furious. It’s time to relieve this man of his power.

Take your time watching this clip. Feel Charmaine Neville keeping a level head regarding the role cause and effect had when it came to the rapes, murders and random shootings she either witnessed or experienced herself.

Listen to her.

Accountability. Now.

(via Idleatwork.com)

Michael Brown, Director of FEMA, needs to be fired. Now.

I’m not one for firing individuals to placate a populace; that’s the bullshit move of governments and corporations throughout the annals of history.

The difference with this Michael Brown firing would be its basis in explicit evidence of inept preparation, leadership and execution. The 2004 National Response Plan (pdf) outlines his (the Federal Government) responsibilities in situation of natural disasters.

Brown’s non-existent plan for evacuating the under the poverty line populace of the New Orleans area once Hurricane Katrina hit the radar, is a scathing example of poor leadership. While a death count was unavoidable due to years of overlooking the issues surrounding the integrity of the city’s levees, his analysis-paralysis greatly added to the numbers.

If Brown were on the ball, doing his job as outlined, he would’ve factored the impoverished population of New Orleans into the evacuation plans. He didn’t. People without the means to leave were left behind to drown, floating about town in a watery grave. And if Brown wasn’t the ultimate decision maker in this scenario, then he needs to step up and expose the machine which was responsible.

President Bush has no recourse but to fire Brown and launch an immediate investigation into the preparation model for potential natural disasters in this region and across the rest of the United States. Even Michelle Malkin is calling for his dismissal.

Accountability. Now.

People are people:

except when people:

are viewed as less valuable than certain people:

If New Orleans has become "The Lost City," then what does this tragedy say about America? Why were hundreds of thousands of people knowingly left in harms way over the past forty years in New Orleans since the last major hurricane? You do the math.

Apparently, Kanye West did well in algebra, statistics, urban planning and business.

(originally uploaded by Antifluff Superstar)

While I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment from the left blogosphere, nothing that the Bush administration has done (or not done) surprises me.

Why?

Because a large percentage of the American public will continue to allow themselves to fall into the trappings of the Bush administration’s lies, no matter the dark alley we are led to.

It’s called fear.

And even though Bush’s overall approval ratings are unbelievably low, his hardcore support continues to be there in force for one simple, but powerful, reason:

The wealthy and powerful stick with the wealthy and powerful to keep and create more wealth and power.

Only when it is not in their best interests will they act otherwise.

These strategic relationships — private industry to public service and back — provide vast resources and networks in keeping the masses in consume and desire mode, while providing each other the cover of a shared vocabulary to continuously spin themselves clear of criticism.

And when I say consume, I don’t necessarily mean eating drug-laced poultry or purchasing unnecessary material products.

This administration has perfected the consumption of propaganda regarding what it means to be an American — or more precisely — they’ve generated clear symptoms of an anti-American as any person who dissents from the party line.

Back To The Future State

Towards the end of the Athenian Empire, Socrates was sentenced to death because he had the bad habit of questioning his surroundings. He was viewed as dangerous, particularly because of his ability to influence the youth of his time.

So he was offed with a swig of hemlock.

Thankfully, we’ve evolved as a society to where outspoken voices such as Noam Chomsky can debate the origin and potential results of foreign policy, while question the motives of all parties involved without the possibility of being put to death by the rulers of our times.

Dissent forms priceless threads of discourse that are necessary to continuously evolve a moral Republic.

But there are other ways to silence a person in this modern age.

Chomsky is a rock star overseas for his political essays and speeches, but he can barely get an interview from the mainstream American media. So without sentencing good ol’ Noam to death, the collective will of the US media — with editors focused on advertising dollars and corporate sponsorship — has created a passive method of forcing hemlock upon our independent minds.

So, how does this tie back to our government?

The very freedoms and rights that our soldiers are fighting to protect have already begun deteriorating through conglomerate ownership of conglomerate media empires.

Unless voices with challenging perspectives are able to creep into the media conversation and the periphery of the average American, middle-America will continue to be ripe for rallying support by the serial spinners of big business and government.

Unless this administration is held accountable to the illegal war and domestic messes they’ve birthed, I can’t envision where this degradation of our moral fiber will end.

It’s almost as if each move the Bush administration makes that concludes without legal or mass public recourse, they consciously create an even greater climate of fear and mistrust within our own society to further propagate their unimpeded actions.

Moving Forward

So, how can we each work towards breaking this unnatural ecosystem of immorality as a nation — breaking through the spin climate of Karl Rove and President Bush’s managementof “global extremism?”

• Either turn off your TV or remain an active participant with critical, deconstruction of the media
• Use the web to find and connect with real people that share your perspectives
• Meet and share ideas off-line, in the real (leave the web for connections and community discourse)
• Influence non-political citizens to become involved in making a difference
• Most importantly: Walk your talk in the daily choices you make in your own life

/soapbox