So recently, on another blog on which I post comments occasionally, I got called a “sick human being” leading a “miserable, hate-filled existence” for suggesting that the federal government, and Bush in particular, bear a groaning burden of responsibility for much of the misery in New Orleans and on the Gulf Coast. Tom, the other commenter, seemed to feel that I had woken up, seen that the levees had failed, and set about immediately to find a way to blame Bush for it, because, after all, that’s what we liberal ideologues live for, to blame Bush for every downed power line, dehydrated infant, and bloated corpse, regardless of his actual culpability. According to Tom (in an e-mail to me), “There’s no way to find culpability before we know the facts so anyone who says their [sic] fairly looking at the facts is just blowing smoke.”
The thing is, although Tom is clearly an extreme case, I suspect we may be hearing this line quite a bit in the coming days. We’re already hearing it from the White House—they don’t want to “play politics,” they don’t want to play “the blame game.” Their metaphors are telling: they’ve so lost contact with the realities of human suffering and deprivation that they are still thinking in terms of play, of games, and they don’t know how to react to any criticism of their negligence except by treating it as though it were another move in a game, a bishop sliding diagonally across the board, a high raise on an early hand. The Bush administration’s language betrays their belief that they’re just playing a mammoth, expensive game of Risk, a game in which the biggest loss so far is that Trent Lott has only one home now instead of two.
Waiting until “we know the facts” is a losing game, as we should all know by now. The facts are there, and the waiting is just a stalling tactic. Whatever conventional wisdom comes to accept as the “facts” is going to be created in a process of debate and negotiation between White House spin, the mainstream media, and agitators on various sides, a process that will in many cases conveniently ignore the truth of the matter. It’s the job of people who care about the truth to bear witness to it, to articulate it loud and long so that it has a chance of standing up against distortion and spin. A good example is the Bush admin’s recent claims that they couldn’t help because Gov. Blanco did not declare a state of emergency and request federal aid until after Katrina struck too late—when in fact she requested in on August 26, two days early. You can see the letter online, and of course it was widely reported in the local news media here at the time. Newsweek and the Washington Post both took the bait; the Post has printed a retraction, but the damage is done, isn’t it? Rove and co. know that all they have to do is muddy the waters enough that Bush can hide on the bottom of the pond until all the fishermen go home. But, if you’ll pardon my extending a terrible metaphor, our job has to be to keep the fishermen on the banks and keep their hooks baited.
By which I mean: it should be clear by now to all but the most blinkered partisan ideologues that Katrina represents a colossal failure of leadership by the White House. (I’m not ignoring that other, local leaders need to shoulder some of the blame as well, but a disaster of this scope is clearly a federal issue, and not just according to me, but according to the Department of Homeland Security). The various lefty political blogs—Eschaton, DailyKos, TPM—have done an outstanding job of documenting Bush’s failures, some of which, like underfunding the levee system, began long before the storm struck. (And underfunding it while funding both the war in Iraq and a huge tax cut—one would have been bad enough, but both?) There’s the Bush admin’s hobbling of FEMA, first by cutting its money and then by appointing Michael Brown, an incompetent crony driven away from his previous job overseeing horse shows, to head up an agency that could have saved thousands of lives. Instead, they wasted their time and resources, at times actively standing in the way of other rescue efforts. This article from Josh Marhsall’s TPM is just the most recent blood-boiling example. (dK follows up on it here.) And of course, this pictorial timeline from DailyKos is particularly damning.
I know people are frustrated because it feels like there’s nothing to do, especially if you don’t live near a shelter or near the affected regions. Here’s what you need to do (besides send money to the Red Cross etc): stay abreast of the White House spin and disinformation campaign, and find out the real facts as best you can. The sites I mentioned above are good places for that, usually. Then, write letters to the editor. Call local radio call-in shows. Wherever you have a chance to speak the truth about this situation in a public forum, wherever you have a chance to counter the disinformation campaign that’s attempting to put the blame everywhere but the Bush administration, do. The whole point of his presidency since 9/11 has been the safety of Americans, and Katrina has revealed what many of us already knew: he’s failed.
Feel free to use this comment thread to post links to articles and resources that you think others might find useful in ensuring that this never happens again. I mean, in addition to talking about stuff, not instead.
What a gutted FEMA does: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/6/20384/50289
Relief delays caused by Bush’s visit to the affected region: http://mediamatters.org/items/200509060010
delays?
how about the relief station being a stage prop that was abandoned after the prez and the cameras left?! PLUS bush is going to be the one that heads up the group to see just who failed! HA! I gotta remember that one when i screw something up at work.
i posted a few stories related to this yesterday on polly and the mooch.
to me, the scary stuff isn’t just related to this hurricane. if THIS is what 4 years of prep after 9/11 produces, we’re in trouble. hurricanes are tracked for weeks in advance. if this level of failure exists, could you imagine if someone dropped a “Dirty Bomb” in Seattle or Chicago, irradiating the city and forcing an evacuation without any such warning? this is a failure.
Ah! Hadn’t checked P&tM in a few days—you’ve been all over this! Keep the updates coming!
And, how’s your house? How’re you?
Thanks for this, Prof.
The AP is reporting that “[t]he top U.S. disaster official waited hours after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast before he proposed to his boss sending at least 1,000 Homeland Security workers into the region to support rescuers.” http://clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050907/NEWS0110/50907010/1260
http://www.thinkprogress.org/katrina-timeline
This is an interesting list of facts. its a timeline of Katrina starting from 8/26. anyone trying to make sense of all of this should read that timeline and make their own minds up as to who (if anyone) dropped the ball.
Via Tom Tomorrow, Chris Floyd’s analysis of some strange gaps in Bush’s emergency declaration:
http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=103&Itemid=1
The wheels come off the whole “Bush told Nagin to evacuate” story:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200509060011
i’ve been trying to slightly tune everything out for the past day or so, save porkchop barbour’s mema address this afternoon. it’s taken me days and days to sort through the basest of emotions and even gather basic conversation points. but no. no. thank you, prof, for so succinctly saying what needs to be screamed from rooftops everywhere incessantly: we can’t snooze on this one. it’s become a matter of life and death, literally and sadly. i’m about to raise my freak flag a few more feet, and up my dosage of pepcid.
as far as frustration goes, if i may offer a small personal anecdote:
bush came to jackson about a year ago (maybe longer?) to a fundraising function at our mississippi coliseum. it was in the papers the week before, but i wasn’t attending, of course, since i rarely spend $200 for a plate of warm roast beef and potatoes, but i forgot and was headed back into town from vicksburg right when his motorcade was traveling from the airport in pearl to downtown jackson. at first i thought it was a bad accident, cause cars were at a standstill and we couldn’t merge onto the interstate that would take me two exits past downtown and home. all told, i spent a good hour and a half going 12 miles out of my way in crawling traffic at sundown, not knowing how far out of town i’d have to go before i could double back and meet my friends at the bar. of course, due to security issues, there’s no forewarning of when the president’s gonna come through your part of town, so everything just kinda shuts down for awhile. and it’s all for photo ops and canned speeches to canned audiences.
for him to shut down the airspace and go into those neighborhoods to take pictures and offer symbolically to help someone clean up their yard simply makes me vomit. in my mouth.
it’s kinda like when someone spills wine or coffee on your nice shirt at a restaurant and they insist on freaking out and apologizing and blubbering and running and helping and all that? and you simply want them to bring you the club soda and a napkin and then let you handle it? that’s how i feel.
[...] again
katrina: cut through the spin
PrettyFakes: “Outrage and Action” Waiting until “we know the facts” is a losing game, as [...]
FEMA bans photography in disaster zone:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_09_04.php#006449
Another timeline, this one collaborative:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/katrina-timeline.php
Jon Stewart rocks, rolls:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/8/82129/91396
More on the “Bush begged Blanco to take action” lie:
http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/9/7/141812/3897
A good discussion of NO’s evacuation plan, and a defense of Nagin:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/7/15129/07517
Clarion-Ledger issues light criticism of the Bush Admin (it’s not much, but it’s OURS, folks, and this is rare!):
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050908/OPINION01/509080309/1008/OPINION
you may need a salon membership or not to view it. but if you have a couple of minutes check out this medley of sound bites:
http://anon.salon.speedera.net/anon.salon/reporter_gone_wild.mov
uh…did you see where that guy told Cheney (live on TV on the Miss. gulf coast) to go fuck himself? ahh….made my day…and i haven’t had much of a reason to say that. i’m taking this all a lot harder than i’d imagined.
just saw it.
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/08/cheney-runs-into-trouble-with-the-locals/
Sadly, not unbelievable:
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/14/katrina-excuse/