I was forced to watch Faux News

Turns out the only 24-hour “news” channel at Stephanie’s house on basic cable is Fox. (She hardly watches TV, so she doesn’t have a full package). No wonder so many lower-income people who can only afford basic cable have such a skewed idea of what’s going on in the world.

While we were watching the “sunshine and roses, the president is Hercules” version of what’s happening in New Orleans last night, apparently they locked people in the Convention Center and wouldn’t let them leave. Reporters are pleading for help and crying on camera.

Meanwhile, Bill O’Reilly’s talking point last night was “the government is not responsible for protecting you. You should not rely on the government to take care of you. Learn to fend for yourself.”

Really, Bill? So what’s the point of government, then?

They keep blaming the mayor, the governor, the “people who refused to leave.”

All of that is irrelevant — the point is that we had a disaster in a major city the completely wiped out the city, and thousands of people died, not because of the disaster itself, which they survived, but of thirst, heat stroke, violence, lack of electricity. They died of the AFTERMATH.

In the event of a terrorist attack, this is exactly what would happen, and there would be no way for them to shift the blame onto the victims of the tragedy. That’s a crime for which the president ought to lose his job. Bush is a living example of the Peter Principle in action.

Yesterday I was listening to some co-workers discuss New Orleans, and one of them was making jokes about how stupid the people of NOLA are and how they deserved to have it happen. He was trashing people who are donating to the relief effort, saying that we shouldn’t reward the people for living in a city below sea level and refusing to leave.

And it occurred to me that if something like this happens here in Indiana, that jackass guy is the one who would end up getting me killed. That’s handy information to file away for future reference.

This Post Has 9 Comments

  1. lisa

    “how stupid the people of NOLA are and how they deserved to have it happen”
    that’s utterly shocking.
    i was heartened to see newt gingrich criticizing the president and the disaster response.
    also, to counterpoint the above, a co-worker of mine who used to be a staunch republican and big jesse helms fan thinks that bush should resign. not just because of this, but for many reasons.

  2. Missy

    I have a small idea. There are thousands of refugees from katrina. They are being sent all over the us. Here in Massachusetts they are going to possibly set up 2000 people in a convention center. What if we had sponsor families? People who have room to foster families temporarily?

  3. Steph Mineart

    I believe there are efforts like this underway; I CNN mentioned on the air that there’s a website where you can sign up to be a sponsor for a family, amidst a listing of many other “how you can help” ideas. I didn’t catch the address though, but I’ll bet they have links to it from the CNN website.

  4. Julian

    “move on” has set up a website to couple up people who have some extra room with those in need it’s http://www.hurricanehousing.org/
    I’m really disturb with all the victim blaming that has been going on. It’s not necessarily even a matter of them not getting out. People seem to ignore the fact that even though it was New Orleans one of the more progressive areas of the south, it’s still the south, the poorest part of the country. In N.O. the people that have money build on higher ground because it’s safer, these people couldn’t afford that and they can’t afford cars or a way out. A lot of these people were waiting on buses to get them out but there were so many of them and the city didn’t have enough buses, they couldn’t move fast enough. They’re blaming the mayor but he was the one that was trying to get help before and after this happened, I applaud him for that. For years he has been trying to get funding to cut down on the severity of this inevitable disaster. We knew that this could happen, it was Bush that was ignoring it, he was the one that denied the city that money and he was the one that cut state funding and while the mayor tearfully begged for help, HE was the one that remained on vacation for two days AFTER the storm hit. If anyone is to blame it’s the government, their negligence and slow response.

  5. Ian Jackson

    Reminder…
    The Office of Homeland Security, in 2002 declared that the month of September was, get this…
    National preparedness month. Assholes!

  6. Ian Jackson

    Having lived in the Greater New Orleans area for several years before I began my 11 year stint in the Army in the 82nd ABN (Joined there), this flooding danger existed, and was well known. It floods in heavy rains there. I have walked in flood waters on the West Bank up to my waist, not once but 3 separate occasions. For Chertoff, Brown and Bush to claim “nobody could have predicted this” is bullshit. This is blatant criminal negligence.

  7. Steph Mineart

    Yep, and it’s coming out now that Chertoff and Brown were both briefed by the National Hurricane Center before the storm hit that the levees could be breached and the city flooded.
    Fucking liars, both of them.

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