Features

How George Bush Destroyed FEMA And Robbed U.S. Taxpayers By JAMES K. SAYRE

Tuesday September 20, 2005

“We don’t care, we don’t care” was the chant of pro-war, pro-Bush hecklers across the street from the Camp Casey peace vigil in Crawford, Texas, in late August 2005. This “we don’t care” chant pretty much sums up the attitude of the Bush Syndicate toward the rest of us in America. Actually, Bush, Cheney and the rest of this idiotic neoconical government believe that the only true function of the federal government is to create private moneymaking opportunities for themselves, their friends, and their corporate contributors. Any activity other than waging aggressive war to invade, colonize and steal other countries’ natural resources falls into the category of “we don’t care.” 

The breaking of the New Orleans levees happened after the massive Hurricane Katrina had passed the city. It was both predictable and preventable. The Bush flood and the slow-as-Texas-molasses-in-January Bush response to it has ripped off the facade of the inept Bush Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its subsidiary, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The upper echelons of both of these massive federal bureaucracies have been staffed by incompetent and uncaring Bush buddies, cronies, hacks, frat brothers, former roommates, horse attorneys, duct tape dudes, political contributors and other miscellaneous nincompoops. In making his appointments to the executive management of DHS and FEMA, Bush gave little if any thought to their actual qualifications in the field of emergency management. 

Over the last several years, Bush and the GOP-controlled House and Senate have poured over one hundred billion tax dollars into the highly touted “Homeland Security.” What did we get as the federal response to Hurricane Katrina? We got homeland stupidity. After the massive flooding of New Orleans, which initially covered about 80 percent of the city, thousands of residents were herded to the Superdome where they were denied water, food, medicine, bedding, toilet facilities, police protection and bus transportation out for several long days. Meanwhile, the Bush gang partied and carried on with their “business as usual” and “let them eat cake” imperial attitudes. George strummed his guitar, raised campaign funds, cut cake with Senator McCain, while Connie Rice did her best Imelda Marcos imitation, shopping for expensive shoes in New York City before going to a Broadway play, while Cheney first went on a Wyoming fishing vacation and then did mansion shopping in Maryland, while Rumsfeld made do with going to a professional ball game.  

In the first several days of the flooding of New Orleans cable news reporters had shown us many searing images of human suffering and had to point out the severity of the suffering of thousands of people in the Superdome to the heads of FEMA and DHS. These two bureaucrats had apparently followed the lead of the ever-clueless Bush by not watching the unfolding disaster being revealed on television. Now we are told that several days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, a Bush staffer had to make up a special cable news DVD to show Bush about the flooding disaster of New Orleans. And this clown brags about not watching television news. Start watching, buster: you claim to be in charge... 

The conduct of the inept corrupt Bush regime in this unnatural disaster is nothing short of criminal. Since the illegitimate Bush regime came to power in January 2001, they have been severely cutting back on federal funds for levee strengthening and levee rebuilding in the New Orleans area. They have also have allowed and encouraged developments in the natural low-lying wetlands around New Orleans. The presence of these wetlands traditionally helped to protect New Orleans from the storm surges that accompany hurricanes. One of the first actions of FEMA after Hurricane Katrina and Flood Bush struck New Orleans was to try to stop almost all of the volunteer, state and federal help from coming into the disaster area. FEMA blocked volunteer help from WalMart, the Coast Guard, the Red Cross, AMTRAK, hundreds of airboats from Florida, the City of Chicago emergency teams, Loudoun County (Virginia) sheriffs, the Nevada police, the New Mexico National Guard, fire fighting planes from the U. S. Forest Service and even the U. S. Bataan, a hospital ship stationed in the Gulf of Mexico. FEMA also stopped or ignored offers of help from foreign countries including Canada, Cuba and Venezuela, over twenty European counties and Asian countries including Iran and India.  

One supposes that volunteer help and aid undercuts the Bush Syndicate’s system of private corporations making bags of money off of the Bush war on Iraq and the Bush expedited flooding of New Orleans. It is troubling to see many no-bid federal contracts being given to large corporations for reconstruction along the Gulf Coast. The concepts of “no-bid contracts” mean that the corporations get to charge their profits as a percentage of costs incurred, so there is no incentive to be thrifty; in fact, it is the opposite, the more money that the corporate contractor spends on construction, the higher their corporate profits. Add to this the fact that Bush just signed an executive order that suspended the traditional requirement of the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 that required federal contractors to pay labor the prevailing wages, instead the federal contractors can now pay workers as little as minimum wage. So the folks who are the poorest and who have suffered the most, again get kicked by Bush. New Orleans should be rebuilt on a cooperative local basis. Habitat for Humanity should be the model used for the reconstruction of the many flood-damaged homes in New Orleans. As many physically-able local residents as possible should be quickly trained and then employed in the reconstruction of their neighborhoods. All of the poor renters who were flooded out in New Orleans should be given title to their newly rebuilt homes and the land underneath them, after the landlords have been properly compensated for the fair pre-flood value of their properties. We owe these people a great deal as some compensation for the years of neglect that they have suffered at our hands.  

 

 

James K. Sayre is an Oakland resident.