Inside Scott's Brain

One friend I still haven't heard from (UPDATE 10/3- all is well, he's in Houston now too), and there's a jumbo-jet-sized ball of bile in my stomach for the unforgivable response from our federal government. I'm on board with Ray Nagin (NO's mayor) - $8 billion in funds were marshalled in record time to protect the self-serving oil interests of our executive staff by going to war in Iraq, but we couldn't send aid to New Orleans until 'official requests had been submitted'? Fucking A. Sri Lanka got a faster response from our government after the December tsunami than New Orleans recieved. Think about it!

Florida was wiped by hurricanes twice in so many years recently, both events qualifying immediately as disasters requiring immediate and undeniable Federal aid (perhaps due to the impending elections and relative approval ratings?), but while the bodies are stacking up in the Superdome and the Convention Center, Bush mainly posed for photo opportunities and put on his 'sad but compassionate' face. He may have pulled a funding about-face today, but his first comment after Katrina struck was that the hurricane damage qualified simply as an 'interruption of services' that the local government could handle.

Whaaaa?

I guess since Jeb's a Bush, family connections are more important than death tolls - the situation in Florida was far less dire, yet federal aid was nearly instantaneous. If you don't buy that it was familial favoritism, then how can you rationalize the overwhelming lack of parity in responses? One thing's for sure - the skewed priorities of our leadership have become painfuly apparent. The disconnect between what's really happening on the streets and what our 'leaders' are saying speaks volumes. Personally, I think the ramifications to approval ratings had more effect on today's funding about-face- nothing seems to motivate Bush more than when it becomes publicly obvious that no one's buying his bullshit anymore, right or left. This isn't partisan politics, folks- it's United States citizens dying due to gross governmental negligence.

And even worse- there's plenty of facts suggesting that Bush administration funding cuts to New Orleans' waterways played a large part in why the city's flood-control preparedness was significantly unsuited to face the wrath of Katrina. This disaster wasn't a surprise, it was in fact predicted, preparedness plans were drawn up yet funds for them were categorically denied while our military budget soared. That's right- this natural disaster became a national disaster (and an international fiasco) because money that should have gone towards protecting our citizens was diverted to the Iraq war- which ultimately has only served to line the pockets of US oil magnates, and Cheney's cronies at Halliburton who rake in the big bucks cleaning up our mess for a tidy profit - all at the expense of taxpayer dollars.

I'm obviously outraged.

And more than anything, undeniably embarrassed that much like his '7 minutes of silence' at the head of a schoolroom immediately following the first explosion on 9/11/2001, our (barely-elected) village idiot Dubya is still stuck with a thumb firmly up his ass, a dumb grin on his face, and no fucking clue about how to respond in a crisis. And apparently, no fucking clue about how to IDENTIFY a crisis until it's shoved down his throat by outraged citizens. 10.5 billion dollars in aid just got 'promised' today- but only after public outrage forced his hand. And yet, we've been hearing constantly on CNN in recent weeks about how 'more terrorist attacks are imminent' in a not-so-veiled effort to scare the public into blindly accepting our continued occupation of Iraq, while the real judge of character - how far our government really WILL go to protect us - is playing out much closer to home. To quote Newt Gingrich:

"If we can’t respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we’re prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?”

Right on, brotha.
(Never would have guessed I'd be quoting Newt Gingrich in the positive, but apparently the temperature in Hell is dropping by the minute.)

I won't deny for a minute that I didn't vote for Bush, and I certainly don't want to say 'told ya so' to his supporters (I may be opinionated, but I do respect EVERYONE's right to have one), but honestly- even my worst fears in the 2004 election have become a best-case scenario in retrospect. If we were going to elect a 'Big Brother' into office for a second term, at least we should have gotten one who could stand up to a real challenge. This is utterly laughable- I could do a better job than Georgie in the Oval Office, and I'll be the first to admit I'm not qualified for the job.

So heads-up, y'all- if you aren't living in a Red state, or have a Bush as your local governor, you better hope Mother Nature plays nice- because right now oil revenue and fearmongering clearly trumps human suffering- no matter what part of the globe your tent's pitched in- and we're still looking at 3 more years of the same. Someone fetch me an Alka-Seltzer, and quick.

::rant over::