All Posts Tagged With: "Katrina"
Treating Flood Victims Equally
Last week all up and down the Mississippi entire towns were immersed under water as levees were breached or destroyed. Throughout the sporadic news coverage you couldn’t help but noticed the unacknowledged elephant in the room. Although none of the reporters mentioned it, the public whispered among themselves what the politically correct news organizations were afraid to discuss. Of course I speak of New Orleans.
I was going to say that it was impossible to watch the horrible results of the century breaking floods without comparing it to the floods in New Orleans except that the mainstream media did just that – ignored any comparison to Katrina. The sad truth is that if someone did do the comparison they would risk being called racist because any comparison of Katrina vs. today’s flood victims would not be favorable to the residents of New Orleans, who just happen to be African American. And God help the journalist who gives a nonfavorable report about blacks, even though it is true.
During the floods tens of thousands of people in the Midwest were homeless as their houses were literally washed away or engulfed to the roof tops in water. And yet there was no outrage at being jammed into relief areas, nor was there any talk of gunshots or rapes or even looting as there was with Katrina. There was some concern about FEMA but there were also a lot of discussions about simply helping out their neighbors and themselves. These displaced citizens talked about rebuilding their towns and communities whereas after Katrina it seemed as if the cry to rebuild primarily came from outsiders, actors, musicians and the like, and not from the residents. Multiple fundraising events were held for the New Orleans residents but you haven’t heard of too many celebrities coming to the aid of Iowans. Nor have you heard of these Midwesterns looking for cash handouts such as initially occurred after Katrina.
Yes, some of the difference is due to local politics, with New Orleans government being known as corrupt and inefficient. I honestly don’t know much about the local politics of the affected towns last week but I doubt if they are as scandal ridden as New Orleans and Louisiana. But the major difference is the people themselves. And that is what no one dares to mention because you would immediately be labeled as racist. Next thing you know you have to apologize to everyone, take diversity training and be reprogrammed to be politically correct in the future.
The sad thing is that the way the politically correct ran to aid New Orleans is the racist action, whereas comparing them to those in the Midwest is an act of equality. Comparing the two groups is saying that both are equal to each other regardless of color. You are granting each the same respect as the other and treating them as equals. Shouldn’t we make a judgment based on character and the actions of a person or group of people with no regard to race? And isn’t that the goal – to treat everyone equally?
On the other hand, those who pleaded and sobbed and lectured the country to assist the residents of New Orleans did a major disservice to them. Yes they needed assistance but these politically correct activists treated the New Orleans citizens as helpless victims who needed to be taken care of. That kind of “help” strips away self esteem and any initiative to help themselves. Think about it. Apparently the politically correct assume that the flood victims in Iowa and elsewhere can take care of themselves but those affected by Katrina couldn’t. How insulting and racist is that?
The Politics of Hypocrisy: McCain slips out from under his rock
John McCain recently slithered down to the lower 9th Ward in New Orleans just to walk a few blocks and tell the American public how appalled he is by the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina. To the area hardest hit by Katrina, he vowed, “never again will a disaster of this nature be handled in the terrible and disgraceful way it was handled.” This is classic political posturing to help McCain look like somebody who might actually have an ounce of empathy for the downtrodden. John McCain was an active member of the Senate throughout the entire Katrina ordeal. To suggest that he was surprised about the Bush administration’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina is hypocrisy at its best. In fact, he helped to shape that response by voting down several measures that would have helped the Katrina victims.
McCain voted against the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Bill of 2006, which would have provided, among other funding, $28 billion for hurricane relief. He also voted against a measure to provide emergency health care and other types of much-needed relief to Katrina survivors, such as access to Medicaid, $800 million in compensation to those providing care to Katrina evacuees, and access to the TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) Contingency Fund for the states affected by Katrina and those taking in Katrina evacuees. If John McCain truly cares about ensuring a more appropriate response to the next natural disaster, then why did he vote – not once but twice – against establishing a commission to provide a “post mortem” review of the response to Katrina? The final insult came in 2005 when McCain voted against extending up to 52 weeks of unemployment benefits to those affected by Hurricane Katrina. These are not the votes of a compassionate conservative.
The ultimate indignity for the people of New Orleans is John McCain using their city as a political prop, painting himself as the ‘kinder, gentler’ GOP candidate and vowing that such a disgraceful response will not happen if he’s elected. That’s great John, but the people of New Orleans are probably wondering just exactly what you’re going to do to help them out of the mess they are in right now. When asked about rebuilding the lower 9th Ward, he fumbled around for an answer that ended up being clear in the end: He didn’t know if he would rebuild it or tear it down if he is elected president. I’m sure it’s a comfort to those who live there that McCain can authorize a $12 billion-a-month war but he cannot commit to providing affordable housing in an area devastated by natural disaster. There’s something wrong about that.
McCain’s PR handlers and the mainstream media can spin him any way they want, but his actions are at direct odds with what they want us to believe. In 2001, after being defeated by Bush, he voted against the administration’s tax cuts. From the Senate floor he stated that he could not “in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of the middle class Americans who most need tax relief.” That was six years ago when he had lost his bid for the presidency and was, by several accounts, disgusted with the way the Bush campaign was waged.
It’s 2008 and John McCain is fighting for his political life. Do not ever misjudge his drive to become president. Bush’s tax cuts will expire in 2010 and now Mr. McCain is in favor of making the majority of those cuts permanent (the one exception being the inheritance tax). Nothing has changed about them. The cuts are still weighted to the wealthiest people in America. What has changed is McCain’s situation and whom he must assuage to reach what he no doubt feels is his destiny. It gets even more ugly when McCain is left to think for himself. He also has his own plan to eliminate the alternative minimum tax (originally created to prevent the wealthy from exploiting tax loopholes) and reduce the tax rate on corporate profits. The middle class may not be the only victim of McCain’s tax plan. Some experts are concerned about the nation’s solvency should this plan go into effect.
One other connection here that is rarely made by the mainstream media is the fact that John McCain’s net worth is in the $40 million dollar range. His wife is the chairwoman of the third-largest Anheuser-Busch beer distributorship in the nation. They also have impressive real estate holdings. It is said that McCain and his wife own eight homes. Seems that the McCain family is in a perfect position to reap the benefits of those tax breaks. The media attention McCain receives for his position of wealth is minimal compared to the scrutiny given to John Kerry and John Edwards. McCain’s supporters, of course, point out that it’s really not his wealth. It’s his wife’s. So was John Kerry’s, but that didn’t stop the media from having a field day with it.
Throwing the public a bone
McCain’s extraordinary compassion has inspired him to suggest rescinding the 18-cent gas tax through the summer. It saves the public about sixty cents a day (or $4.20 per week; just about where gas will be per gallon this summer). McCain went on to place his foot in his mouth by acknowledging it’s not much money, but it will provide the American people with a “little psychological boost.” This is absolutely useless to the people suffering sticker shock at the food stores and getting gouged for profits at the gas pumps. By the way, the money for this idea would be taken from funds used to build and maintain our roads and bridges. This money actually does create jobs and stimulate the economy.
While he’s throwing the public a bone with the gas tax, he’s collecting $58,358 a year in tax-free disability benefits for his war injuries. Disability payments suggest that he can no longer perform certain duties. In fact, McCain came back from Viet Nam in 1973 and proceeded to undergo extensive physical therapy to work his way back to fighter pilot status. He then became the commanding officer of the VA-174 “Hellrazors,” the Navy’s largest attack squadron. He did not retire from the Navy until 1981. When his advanced age is mentioned, McCain insists he has the stamina to out-campaign his younger foes. He recently boasted about how he hiked the Grand Canyon with one of his sons, so it’s not clear what disability he is being compensated for. One staffer suggested he’s being compensated for the torture he endured while a POW in Viet Nam. Without belittling Mr. McCain’s ordeal, the question remains what is a millionaire U.S. Senator with no overtly apparent disability doing collecting a stipend funded by the taxpayers?
Things are not as they seem
A good hard look will show that John McCain has degenerated into the political double speak that characterizes the present administration. There is not much difference between his projected policies and the ones Bush has in place now. If anything, he holds even more ‘hawkish’ views than Bush, which ensures the long-term occupation of Iraq and the increased potential of an attack on Iran. His voting record suggests he is anything but compassionate, nor is he an ally of the middle class. When people ask why he is so well perceived by the American people, the standard response is that its because the Democrats are still fighting it out among themselves rather than focusing on McCain. This is a convenient answer, but not the only one. The reality is that the mainstream media is still the primary carrier of information to the general public, and remains committed to the image that they have created for McCain even when the facts dispute its veracity.
What will be in the Bush Library?
There’s a lot of debate about George Bush’s legacy these days. Remember the spin surrounding the administration’s recently renewed efforts on the Middle East peace process? That was all about trying to bring one positive event to Bush’s legacy. Admittedly he hasn’t spent much time brokering peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, but that’s only because he’s been busy orchestrating war in Afghanistan and Iraq. A president only has so much time in a day. While others ruminate about Bush’s replacement, I’m delving into more concrete things, like the Bush Library at Southern Methodist University. What will go into that library? What will best represent the Bush Legacy? I have some suggestions.
I’d break it down into “rooms,” the first being The 9-11 Room. That was truly a watershed event, an opportunity both for domestic unity after a tainted election and unprecedented international cooperation. Instead President Bush very quickly reduced it to one giant photo op. Remember that photo of Bush at Ground Zero, holding a megaphone in one hand with his other arm around the shoulders of one of New York City’s finest? The firefighter in the photo is just one of the many men and women who spent days and nights breathing in the acrid smoke and sifting thorough the still-smoldering debris. The photo would certainly illustrate the President’s solidarity with these heroes. But there’s another story he wants to avoid. It’s the story of how the government suppressed the danger of breathing the air in New York in the days following the attacks. In 2006, ninety people died of illnesses tied to 9-11 recovery efforts; that’s up from about twenty. It’s a story about forgotten people, once hailed as heroes, suffering with chronic illnesses and slowly dying in obscurity with little support from the government they so willingly believed in and selflessly served.
Next, comes The Protect America Room with a copy of the U.S.A. Patriot Act, signed into law on October 26, 1991. This historic document marks the birth of the all-out attack on our Constitutional rights, giving the government unprecedented powers to search telephone, e-mail, medical and financial records without a court order all in the name of fighting terrorism. Let’s not forget the Protect America Act of 2007, a law that legitimizes Bush’s illegal wiretapping of his own citizens. According to the ACLU’s web site, it allows for the “massive, untargeted collection of international communications without court order or meaningful oversight by either Congress or the courts.” It’s still unclear which version of the act will be included, the one with or without retroactive immunity for the telecom giants that helped Bush before there was actually a law authorizing the wiretapping. While the bill has been passed without telecom immunity, our imperial president has stated that he will veto that version.
The War on Terror Room would come next. President Bush likes to call himself a “war president.” That timeless photo of the now-free Iraqis toppling Saddam’s statue would have to be included. However, the administration should refrain from using actual war photos. It’s never good to show people on either side being blown up by roadside bombs and/or shot. Instead, they can include a film clip time line of the speeches leading up to the Iraq war…the inspirational ones incorporating the 935 lies Bush and the key members of his administration told to justify the war. The Center for Public Integrity has already done all the work at http://www.publicintegrity.org! Bush should avoid any mention of the other war zone, Afghanistan, and the dismal effort made to capture the real architect of the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
The Domestic Policy Room would have its own Veto Zone. The President can tout his tax cuts for the richest Americans, while the poor and middle class stagger under a sagging economy of his creation. In the Veto Zone, Bush can showcase his tough stand against the “fiscally irresponsible” expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act. This law would have provided health care coverage to 3.9 million uninsured children at an additional cost of $34.5 billion dollars over five years (an increase that would be covered by a 61-cent increase in the cigarette tax and other tobacco taxes). In contrast, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated the monthly cost of the Iraq war to be as high as $12 billion. The total cost of the Iraq war could run up to $3 trillion. Do the math and determine who is truly fiscally irresponsible.
The misinformed won’t stop there. The Disaster Response Room will feature that powerful 2005 Hurricane Katrina speech where Mr. Bush says “the Gulf Coast must be rebuilt with an eye toward wiping out the persistent poverty and racial injustice plain to all in the suffering of the black and the poor in Hurricane Katrina’s wake.” It’s 2008 and many are still displaced and waiting to go back home. Others have given up entirely on ever returning to their home state. Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation is doing more to build affordable housing in New Orleans than our own government. Instead, abandoned buildings are being purchased for conversion to high priced condos. The same thing is happening in Mississippi, where areas are turning into casino havens for the rich. The Bush administration’s version of the war on poverty is displacing and dispersing the poor throughout the rest of the country to fend for themselves.
Don’t forget The Interrogation Room. Here the torture techniques encouraged by this administration, continually honed at Guantanamo Bay and applied to extreme at Abu Ghraib will be hailed as powerful tools in the war on terror. It smacks of hypocrisy that George Bush once cited Saddam Hussein’s cruelty as a justification for removing him from power. Of course, our president doesn’t see himself in that light. He believes it’s his destiny is to bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East, one way or another. He answers to a higher power. The end justifies the means.
Finally, let’s finish the library with The Congressional Mastery Room. The bully president will be shown brazenly breaking many national and international laws and still escaping impeachment, while simultaneously holding a Democratic Congress hostage and preventing any legislation that might actually benefit the American people from becoming law.