This week marks a sad and tragic anniversary for the United States of America. One year ago this week, starting in the early morning hours of the 30th of August, I sat down and wrote out what I thought was the beginnings of a plan that would help this Nation move towards a more rapid recovery from the Gulf Coast devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. You can read those thoughts in a diary I posted
here.
I did not and do not join in blaming the Bush Administration and the Rubber Stamp Congress for the formation and land fall of Hurricane Katrina, but I will never forgive this Administration and their puppets in Congress for failing to act on their word and for refusing to convene a true bipartisan commission to bring to light all that went wrong with the local, state and federal response to one of the most deadly and costly natural disasters in the nation's history.
I will never forget that President Bush went to New Orleans shortly after the city was reopened by elements of the US Army to stand in front of the Saint Louis Cathedral and promise to rebuild that devastated city. He stood before America and gave his word, and then he walked away from that promise like he has walked away from so many other national commitments: commitments to education, health care, National Security, the poor, the middle class, an energy policy, the military, Veterans, and much more. In fact, the only commitment that he has kept has been to the ultra-wealthy, or, as he famously described them in his own words as, "my base".
And the Rubber Stamp Republican Congress has gone along with the White House every step of the way as it walked away from these commitments. First the Majority Party in Power refused to allow for a full and open BI-PARTISAN investigation of the debacle of a response to the natural disaster. Then they refused to force FEMA to complete basic actions such as relocating thousands of trailers from Arkansas and other sites to the impacted areas. And then they passed laws attached to funding bills that abrogated environmental laws, labor protection laws, and many other basic provisions of the Judicial code in order to spend time casting blame on local and state officials and thereby insulate their Party's leaders like Tom Delay and his pals like Jack Abramoff.
It was and continues to be a twisted sorry tale of miserable incompetence. I listened in the early days of the Bush Administration when he stated over and over again the he did not believe in nation-building. I just never thought he was referring to the nation of the United States of America! Some will read my words and dismiss what I am saying as exaggeration and partisan attacks on the President and his pals in the Congress. And to you I say, "Fine, don't believe me. Go to New Orleans yourself and see that even a year after the devastation caused by this disaster even the basic repairs to the levee system are not yet complete. Even the basic reconstruction to vast stretches of New Orleans neighborhoods has not even started." In fact, so much time has gone by that the stories are legend.
Unless you are an insurance company benefiting from the Federal protection of a misguided Insurance commission that has ruled in favor of Mother nature when it was found in Mississippi that water from floods caused the damage and not wind damage you would think that the government was against you instead of for you. Many have looked at the progress in the more rural Mississippi Gulf coast and stated, "Look what can be done without government help!" And to you I ask why is it that we value the absence of true government leadership and help instead of treasuring a competent government? Why? Because there are a group of White House and Congressional leaders who think that the private sector can do anything better than anything the public sector can do. I disagree.
These are the same White House political strategists that calculated the impact of destroying Davis Bacon fair wage laws so that huge reconstruction companies, given first shot at all those no bid contracts, could underpay workers (including thousands of illegal aliens) and steal work from Union Members who went to New Orleans to find work in the rebuilding effort only to discover that they had been usurped by all those no bid contracts. It's business done incompetently on a scale that dwarfs anything seen in this country before. Well, lets say that it rivals the gross waste that we see from Halliburton in Baghdad.
My opponent stated in an interview that on the night Katrina hit he felt "helpless" because he was in a position of "power" and yet there was nothing he could do. Well, I was not in a position of "power" and I spent the night calling duty officers aboard the ships of the Atlantic fleet in Norfolk, Virginia and Mayport, Florida to capture a sketch of how long it would take for elements of the Atlantic Fleet to get upriver to New Orleans -- a deep water ocean going port. Unfortunately, the same incompetence and lack of understanding of the military's ability to help that my opponent suffers from was rampant in the White House as seen by the excessive delays in actually ordering the Navy to react and start the process of getting Fleet units into New Orleans that could act as Command platforms; feeding and providing shelter to the initial cadre of rescuers.
While my opponent sat feeling helpless, I sat down and put thoughts on paper (well, actually in electrons on a computer) calling for actions and programs that could have jump-started the rebuilding process in a real and meaningful manner instead of staging yet another empty promise political show. If you believe that government is the enemy, as the ultra-right wing of the Majority Party does, then you will create a government that is an enemy to the very people that look to Washington in time of National emergency for leadership and help.
We need to act now to stop this misguided Bush agenda and replace the people-hating anti-government neocons and their allies in Congress with a far more progressive set of leaders who believe, like I do, that a Government of the People, by the People and for the People is something that should not perish from the Earth.
We must hold them accountable. Act Now by donating time and/or money and voting. Here are links to my pages:
Donate:: Volunteer:: Vote.