I think I speak for many, many people when I say we are living in very scary times. Sure, things have been scary for a long time on a number of fronts, but before the bad stuff seemed isolated and controllable.
But since Katrina, I've walked around with a feeling of doom about this country that I can't shake. Rita has, of course, magnified it, and now I'm wondering: Can this country recover from this presidency?
No, I'm not blaming the hurricanes on Bush. However, his steadfast refusal to do anything about global warming is arguably a contributing factor to the bathtub-like temps in the Gulf. (I was on the Alabama gulf coast a couple of weeks before Katrina hit, and I can tell you that the water was far from refreshing - it was literally like being in a lukewarm bathtub.)
I think Rita will serve on us a crippling economic blow. Friends of mine are already reporting that gas will be $4.50 a gallon by this afternoon. For the first time in my life, I saw in a gas line in Nashville last night and filled up on premium, because that's all that was left. People already on the edge will not be able to afford to go to work. Consumer prices will react to rising fuel costs and create further hardships for people on fixed incomes. Are we seeing the seeds of the next Great Depression in our lifetimes?
Meanwhile, this administration does next to nothing to encourage alternate energy; an energy bill being crafted in Congress will encourage more refineries but not force better gas mileage. If those refineries are built on the coasts, as most are, they will shut down in the event of a major catastrophe just like the existing ones have.
The feds, meanwhile, are bungling the already wrongheaded effort to provide housing to Katrina evacuees. As a fair housing advocate, I find the idea of huge shantytowns for evacuees pretty offensive anyway. Housing could probably be provided much more efficiently, cheaply and humanely by providing Section 8 vouchers to evacuees who qualify for them and then providing incentives for developers to build housing that will accept those vouchers. Congress could help by amending the Fair Housing Act to require landlords to accept Section 8, at least until this crisis is over. Meanwhile, New Orleans will gentrify, and all those people who were there and can't or won't go back need permanent homes.
I won't continue to blather on and on about all the other areas in which this administration is royally fucking up, but the bottom line for me is this: I used to have a (rather naive, I suppose) view that no matter who was president, there were enough smart people in government with enough knowledge of history to keep this country from going over a cliff entirely. After this administration's reaction to Katrina, I no longer feel that way. At this point, I would not be surprised to find us in a major recession, and for the first time in my life I feel that I have a very real chance of being unemployed for the first time since I was in high school. I don't feel safe here.
And it's not because this administration is merely incompetent - incompetence is knowing the ideal outcome but lacking the ability to bring it about. No, this administration is wilfully leading this country to its doom because the rethugs in charge simply don't care about the long-term well-being of this country, only about lining their pockets while they've alive (and being able to leave all that ill-gotten gain to their kids, free of taxes).
A Democrat in the White House in 2009 will be too late to stop the bleeding. Congressional majorities in both houses after 2006 might help a little, but Bush does a lot of his damage with end-runs around Congress (like the Davis-Bacon suspension).
Am I worrying too much? Not enough? Please, someone tell me we're going to be okay eventually. Right now, I just don't see how.