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.