The city of New Orleans is in ruins and its people in chaos from Hurricane Katrina. Perhaps 100,000 American citizens are currently trapped in convention centers, hospitals, and other areas of shelter many of them currently being beaten, raped, and murdered --with no food, no water, no sanitation, no communication, and no way out. When the police tried to restore order to the city they were beaten back by angry mobs. Many police officers have walked off the job.
An evacuee inside the convention center told CNN that women and small children are being raped and killed. He called it genocide. A New Orleans official is calling the situation a "national disgrace." A promise from Congress of a paltry 1,400 National Guard troops is worse than a bad joke.
Meanwhile George Bush has scheduled some more face-time before the cameras. Besides leaving his vacation three days after the disaster struck and fiddling with some no-name musician that no one has ever heard of, he is now saying nothing about how he is going to help, he even joked about sitting on Trent Lott's new porch (once he rebuilds his house) as if this crisis is a joking matter.
Now he is flying over New Orleans in a helicopter in a made-for-TV, scripted event that will do nothing for anyone on the ground. If he isn't dropping water to these people or helping them get out he should stay out of the area and stop trying to revive his dying political legacy.
The right-wing is claiming to be putting politics aside and to be wanting to help out all Americans. They are begging for the American people not to assess blame and to get with the cause. Are they sincere?
Not for a second.
The right-wing is incapable of putting politics aside. Their plea for mercy and unity is right out of their 9-11 playbook, and they are already spinning to blame liberal Mayors, Governers, and townspeople for this disaster. This is another disaster by this administration, which could have been mitigated. Giving them time to spin and distort will only add to their revisionist goals.
Every time they fail because of their misguided priorities, their blind-followers make incessant calls for unity even though these are the very same people whose modus operandi to gain power is to divide this country, (gay and anti-gay, immigrant and anti-immigrant, pro-life and pro-choice, atheist and Christian, even, pro-American and anti-American).
These types of people go on to warn other Americans that to question them would be unpatriotic. Will Americans fall for that guise again?
It remains to be seen.
The reason the right-wing is begging for unity and to not question why this happened is simple --their misguided priorities led to the gravity of this disaster and the amount of death we see. Just like 9-11 this administration is in over its head and it is largely due to their neglect that this tragedy is as bad as it is.
Already the media has reported that New Orleans levee money was diverted last year to the war in Iraq. We also heard that there is not even close to the number of National Guard troops in Louisiana that local officials need to restore order. We currently have over 100,000 National Guard troops in Iraq, and as wonderful a job they are doing there, they simply cannot get back here if Bush does not have the intestinal fortitude to call them back to save American lives.
The right-wing is begging you to donate to the Red Cross, the same organization they called "socialist", "communist", "liberal", "anti-American", and "pro-terrorist" --what a joke. They are feigning compassion for poor African-Americans who they intermittently call "welfare cases", "crack mothers", "ghetto babies", and "a drain on society". These are the same "affirmative action cases" these people despise, since 90% of them voted for John Kerry.
These are the same people whose official chant (in response to Cindy Sheehan's protest or the Democrat's efforts to preserve Social Security) is: "I DON'T CARE".
Over and over again they say, "I DON'T CARE," about any American that disagrees with them.
I tend to believe them when they recite this chant, like Pavlovian dogs. Liberals do care sincerely about Katrina's victims and they don't need Red-Cross mocking, African-American berating, Conservatives to lecture them about compassion, or to have a compassion-comparison contest with the party that wants to cut and run from Social Security, use the National Guard to protect foreigners, and promote school-vouchers, so their rich, white kids won't have to go to school with the same people that are the victims of this tragedy.
That's why I know they "really don't care" about anything, unless they perceive it will hurt them politically --and this will. Then, they pretend to care and call for unity. For that reason, their calls for compassion and unity are merely opportunistic utterances in defense of an inept administration that once again is letting down the American people.
By all means, do everything in your power to help the victims, but don't waver in the face of political opportunists who call for compassion and unity when they are clearly people who do not subscribe to such philosophies. This is one of the biggest NATIONAL disasters in American history and a national response is called for, but it has not yet occurred.
To hear Republican apologists blame local Mayors or Governers, who had the National Guard pulled away from them and into Iraq and who had begged for more resources to re-build the levee wall for years, is insulting. One of the best thing Americans can do on behalf of the victims of this tragedy (once all the danger has passed) is to assess blame exactly where it belongs, with George Bush and his Republican enablers.
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