For those of you who want to heed Bill O’Reilly’s advice that the government can’t protect you, and you should fend for yourself, read up on Fafblog’s plan for emergency disaster relief, including:
Newsday and Time magazine are both doing investigations into FEMA (Fucking Everything More than it is Already) Director Michael Brown’s background, and discovering a bit of resume padding. To put it lightly.
They’re checking each bullet point on his FEMA bio and contacting the businesses, universities and associations he claimed to work for and asking them what he really did for them. The answers are quite a bit different than what’s on his bio.
Among the findings:
Under the “honors and awards” section of his profile at FindLaw.com — which is information on the legal website provided by lawyers or their offices—he lists “Outstanding Political Science Professor, Central State University”. However, Brown “wasn’t a professor here, he was only a student here,” says Charles Johnson, News Bureau Director in the University Relations office at the University of Central Oklahoma (formerly named Central State University). “He may have been an adjunct instructor,” says Johnson, but that title is very different from that of “professor.” Carl Reherman, a former political science professor at the University through the ’70s and ’80s, says that Brown “was not on the faculty.” As for the honor of “Outstanding Political Science Professor,” Johnson says, “I spoke with the department chair yesterday and he’s not aware of it.” Johnson could not confirm that Brown made the Dean’s list or was an “Outstanding Political Science Senior,” as is stated on his online profile.
Hell, look at his entire bio, and I’M more qualified to run FEMA than he is. And I don’t know the first thing about Emergency Management. That might have something to do with the fact that I actually have an I.Q.
It’s an old business myth that the Chinese character for “crisis” combines the characters for “danger” and “opportunity.” It doesn’t. But I’m not sure anyone’s told the Bush administration, judging from this little tidbit in CongressDaily today: “[White House spokesman Trent] Duffy asserted that the vast spending that would be required to address the hurricane’s impact adds to the need to change Social Security, which threatens to strain the budget in coming years.” Ah yes, despite the fact that privatization that would add trillions to the deficit in the short term, at a time when Katrina will already add $100 billion or more to the deficit this year, the time for privatization is now, obviously, in the wake of disaster. Um, no.
Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard said:
“Whoever is at the top of this totem pole, that totem pole needs to be chainsawed off and we’ve got to start with some new leadership. It’s not just Katrina that caused all these deaths in New Orleans here. Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now.”
I think the White House doesn’t realize it’s at the top of the totem pole — the part we’ll be cutting off.
Forget about who did or didn’t fix the levees, how long we knew about Katrina coming, people who refused to evacuate, building below sea level; forget all of that — because it’s just noise from the Republican spin machine.
In the event of a nuclear terrorist attack, your President and Republican-run federal government would do what they did this past week. AND YOU WOULD DIE, like the people in New Orleans.
In the event of a viral biological terrorist attack, your President and Republican-run federal government would do what they did this past week. AND YOU WOULD DIE, like the people in New Orleans.
There would be no warning, there would be no evacuation, there would be no preparation, there would be no one to help you when it happened. The total break down that happened in New Orleans, which is apparent when you listen to the accounts from people first hand; where they didn’t know whether the police were there to help them or hurt them, when they didn’t have information or directions, or any idea how to care for themselves or others, or where to go — that would be YOU IN THAT SITUATION.
And the terrorists, the REAL ones, led by Osama bin Laden, not the fake ones in Iraq, are trying to get nuclear capability or a viral biological capability, while your President is playing war games with our national guard as toys in a foreign country, when they should be here, preparing for a disaster so we don’t all get killed.
Media Matters examines the facts surrounding each of these bogus Republican claims.
1. Bush: “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees”
2. Chertoff strained credulity in defense of Bush, claimed levee breaks and massive flooding came as a surprise — more than 12 hours after local media reported them
3. Brown: “We’ve provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they’ve gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day”
4. Chertoff: “Apparently, some time on Wednesday, people started to go to the convention center spontaneously”
5. Chertoff pointed fingers: “New Orleans officials and the state officials … called for the Superdome to be the refuge of last resort”
6. Chertoff falsely minimized federal government’s role in Katrina response as subordinate to states
7. Wash. Post, Newsweek, Gingrich falsely claimed that Blanco did not declare a state of emergency
8. Gingrich falsely claimed that Nagin could “have kept water pumped out” of city had he ensured that pumps worked
From Metamute comes this story; please read it…
by Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky
Two paramedics stranded in New Orleans in the wake of hurricane Katrina give their account of self-organisation and abandonment in the disaster zone
From a woman with a battery powered radio we learned that the media was talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news organizations saw us on their way into the City. Officials were being asked what they were going to do about all those families living up on the freeway? The officials responded they were going to take care of us. Some of us got a sinking feeling. “Taking care of us” had an ominous tone to it.
Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City) was correct.Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, “Get off the fucking freeway”. A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.
Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated or congealed into groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of “victims” they saw “mob” or “riot”. We felt safety in numbers. Our “we must stay together” was impossible because the agencies would force us into small atomized groups.
In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered once again. Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies.
The next days, our group of 8 walked most of the day, made contact with New Orleans Fire Department and were eventually airlifted out by an urban search and rescue team. We were dropped off near the airport and managed to catch a ride with the National Guard. The two young guardsmen apologized for the limited response of the Louisiana guards. They explained that a large section of their unit was in Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded and were unable to complete all the tasks they were assigned.
From Kazamatsuri via Boing Boing: Two photos taken on the same day last week — one of a grieving New Orleans survivor, the other of President Bush in flagrante photo opp in San Diego.
See also A tale of Two Photos for some other photos taken within hours of one another.
This picture from Monday:
This picture from Monday Tuesday:
Sen. Landrieu Threatens to ‘Punch’ President if He Keeps Hitting Local Response to Katrina
Senator Mary Landrieu, the Democrat of Louisiana (whose father was a mayor of New Orleans), appears to have finally found her voice after offering only cautious criticism of the federal relief effort in the hurricane catastrophe earlier in the week. Today she promised to literally “punch” anyone, “including the president,” who continued to question the local response to the tragedy, considering the gross federal misconduct.
Appearing on ABC’s “The Week” TV program this morning, Senator Landrieu still appeared to be smarting from President Bush’s comments, during his national radio address, that state and local bore a fair share of blame for the slow response. On a copter tour of the area, Landrieu said that if she heard any more criticism from federal officials, particularly about the evacuation of New Orleans, she might lose control.
“If one person criticizes them or says one more thing – including the president of the United States – he will hear from me,” she said on the ABC program. “One more word about it after this show airs and I might likely have to punch him. Literally.”
She burst into tears as she looked at a broken levee. “The President could have funded it,” she said. “He cut it out of the budget. Is that the most pitiful sight you have ever seen in your life? One little crane.”
She also referred angrily to comments Bush had made Friday at the New Orleans airport about the fun he had in her city in his younger days.
“Our infrastructure is devastated, lives have been shattered,” Landrieu said. “Would the president please stop taking photo-ops?”
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.