The aftermath of the New Orleans disaster and the almost biblical exodus of Crescent City residents is a cruel reminder that there are forces in the universe far more powerful that those men who claim to rule nations, under God. Why it does always take a tornado a hurricane to remind people that of the vanity of one man, claiming the name of God as his leadership mandate, is a trivial matter to the blind forces of nature?
As has been the case with the Bush administration, the economic injustices of Katrina's rampage along the shorelines of the south will inevitably ignored. Our president will provide disaster relief, and if he needs a boost to his sagging mandate he fly down to New Orleans to pose for a few photo-ops with beleaguered residents to prove he "cares."
As with the suffering of families, of the Iraq war dead, the President Bush has demonstrated he has a very low tolerance for comprehending and empathizing the human suffering of his fellow humans. Bush simply is uncomfortable being around human beings that are in pain. Bush only began his visits to the families of the war dead because the political reality of the war he started forced him to recast himself in the image of a man who "cared."
Bush's interactions with the families of the war dead,is that of a man who has never been around a lot of human misery in his life. At the prearranged "sessions" with greving families Bush simply tells each family, "I can't even comprehend the pain you're feeling" or "I can't imagine how I'd react if one of my relatives died." Bush is simply making the statement that everything is "all about him" because he distances himself from all human misery by saying he can even "comprehend human pain." That's the very reason he recklessly placed American lives in harm way in the first place: Bush simply cannot comprehend human suffering.
It's no wonder that Mr. Bush has a fear of attending a military funeral! Bush is likely to go to pieces, if he's forced to even imagine a similar fate for himself or one of his family members. He'd be sending the wrong signals to the enemy, if he collapes in grief, on the floor at chruch funeral, trying to imagine himself or one of his daughters in the casket.
That being said, there are many economic realities that arise in the wake of Katrina that the president seems incapable of comprehending. By his privileged birthright, Bush is incapable of understanding misery of the humans who must, now face harsh economic consequences of the hurricane named Katrina.
In a manner of speaking, it is anybody who pays taxes or high home insurance rates will underwrite the cost of Katrina, which will subject all of us to economic sacrifices that are beginning to take a toll on those of a less privileged birthright. Many of us are already so financially strained; we live paycheck to paycheck unable to invest in our retirement or our children's education. The wolf has been knocking at our door for sometime already. It is simply not possible for both parents to work two full time jobs in order to "invest in the future." "Investing in the future" is a great advertising tag line, but future is beginning to look pretty bleak for those of us without a large family fortunes.
The entire question of locating property along shorelines has avoided by private sector insurance companies by sometime by redistributing the cost of high risk beach front property into the rate base of all home insurance policy holders. People don't know it; but we all pay a lot higher insurance rates because of frequent damage done to properties done to shoreline property. Insuring beach-front property is a high risk proposition and in the wake of an outright disaster the insurance companies call upon Washington to assist with disaster relief.
Who owns most of the shoreline residential property? Not me, our household income is close to six figures but I'll never be able to afford a summer home with an ocean view. Our family income from two jobs is barely enough to meet the costs of maintaining two cars to commute to work in, our home mortgage payment, the considerable amount of out of pocket expenses to maintain a humble but aging home, food, child rearing expenses, insurance and utilities. That's about the whole cigar, folks....
We'd like to be able to pay more into an IRA account, or a dedicated college education account for our son, or even purchase more "stylish" items of clothing for our professional wardrobes, but it ain't gonna happen on our income. Our credit cards aren't maxed out, but on the rare occasions of financial emergency, like repairing the roof of our house because our home insurance didn't cover the damage from a tree fall, we had to use a credit card. We've long since paid of the principal of that repair, but we're simply paying interest on the interest of the credit card purchase.
In any number of states, wealthy beachfront property owners claim ownership of the shoreline abutting their home all the way to the high tide line, making that shoreline their private property. That ownership claim makes a trespasser of any citizen who uses right-of-way along the beachfront property that abuts the home of the property owner. Ironically the "trespasser" is the very person who pays for the maintenance of the shoreline he's "trespassing" on.
The Department of Forestry and Wildlife is the agency responsible for the costs of shoreline maintenance. In the case of a hurricane or any other natural disaster, however their "private" shoreline property becomes "public", because it is the federal government that bears the very expensive costs maintaining and restoring shorelines in the wake of a natural disaster.Wealthy beachfront owners get free government maitainence of their private homefront beaches, and if disaster strikes there's no need for insurance damages to their private beaches because the "government takes care of them." They're no different from any other "welfare loafer", except they don't have to stand line for their handouts...they're special.
Who lives in on the shorelines of Malibu, Martha's Vineyard, Long Island, Myrtle Beach, Monterey, Nantucket, or any other wealthy beach community? ANSWER: The CEOs, board members and large block stockholders of insurance companies! The same guys that redline the inner city neighbors and the inner suburban communities as high risk areas, and charge higher insurance rates, to people like you and me. No wonder they can afford beachfront homes while most of us struggle to make ends meet.
Economic double standards? You bet, but it gets worse. Those Bush tax cuts aren't tax cuts at all. In reality Bush simply handed the entire Clinton budget surplus over to the wealthy. Sure, some low and moderate income families got enough money from the "tax cut" for a night out at the movies, but the wealthy made out like bandits with six figure and often multimillion dollare refund checks.
Over past 25 years, the hyper wealthy have gone from paying around respectable 40% of their income in taxes, to a ridiculous figure of 5%. Many liberal economists have made the statement that the wealthiest families in America, for all practical purposes don't really pay taxes anymore!
The insurance industry's subsidy of on the rates paid by the wealthy on beach front property is an example of how the wealthy milk the private sector and make everyone else pay the tab. Those of entitled birthright double dip in both the public and private sector till to enrich themselves.
We are living in an oligarchy, no different from the feudal era when the wealthy gave themselves royal titles and demanded tribute from the peasants. It's exactly the type of society our founding fathers fled from to create a federalist democracy. George W. Bush, by virtue of his entitled birthright, is simply incapable of comprehending the misery of the peasants who pay him tribute.
The wealty are no more or less capable of human decency than another class of people. Some members of the entitled class engage in great philanthropic projects like building libraries, museums and educational institutions. Many prominent families attempt to balance the scales of injustice by donating to charities or social causes in name of the poor. Other families have a tradition of political activism on behalf of lost causes and noble enterprises.
George W. Bush does not beleive in the concept of "noblesse oblige", and he doesn't come from THAT kind of family. Simply put, he doesn't care. He keeps a long arm between himself and the human misery of the vulgar classes. For George W. Bush, the death of a loved one or financial tribulations of an average family is something he "can't possibly imagine."
Gavin M. a.k.a. the Populist