Name: Tess
Home: St. Louis
Is the buck stopping?
Well, knock me over with a feather:
Bush Takes Responsibility for Katrina Flaws
I give him a certain amount of grudging respect for that.
According to Newsweek, Katrina could derail the Bush agenda. Let's hope so. I find it ironic that this is the man voters thought would keep them safe.
Now if only the Democrats could get their act together and come up with some strong candidates for 2006 and 2008. . . .
Bush Takes Responsibility for Katrina Flaws
I give him a certain amount of grudging respect for that.
According to Newsweek, Katrina could derail the Bush agenda. Let's hope so. I find it ironic that this is the man voters thought would keep them safe.
Now if only the Democrats could get their act together and come up with some strong candidates for 2006 and 2008. . . .
posted by Tess | 6:42 AM
4 Comments:
right, as you're a professional, might I enlist your opinion on this post of my blog about writing? http://claysnovel.blogspot.com/2005/09/show-dont-tell.html
I think it's way past too late to give Bush even "grudging" respect for taking responsibility. The train has departed. The ship has sailed. True character is shown through actions, not words, and there is nothing Bush can merely say to undo his callous and irresponsible initial reaction to the Katrina disaster. When Bush stops the profiteering of his crony companies in the reconstruction windfall, when he fires ALL the political hacks he appointed to crucial government offices, when he offers to rescind his tax cuts for the wealthy to fund public works projects and anti-poverty measures everywhere they are needed, when he begs the forgiveness of poor and black people of the Gulf Coast with a commitment to change federal priorities, etc., etc., maybe then I will contemplate that he actually means something.
By the way, as a card-carrying environmental historian, I have to endorse the point some have made that few "natural" disasters are completely natural. Hurricane Katrina is a perfect example of the intertwined causation of human/natural disasters, taking a combination of nature's potent forces (themselves most likely exacerbated by human fossil fuel burning activities) and more recent human action, such as cutting back levee funding, neglecting FEMA, sending the national guard troops to Iraq, etc.
One final note: I belatedly gave a comment on a much earlier posting from Labor Day. (I'm a little behind on my blog reading...)
Christian Left: I think it's the soft bigotry of low expectations (to borrow Molly Ivins' mocking use of Bush's term). I expect Bush not to acknowledge any mistakes at all, so I was shocked when he actually took responsibility for something. I agree that his words don't come close to making up for his past actions.
In answer to your other post, I haven't read The Price of Motherhood, but I've read about it.
Tess
Rebuilding Gulf States is just another way for the wealthy to get wealthier
President has proposed a $200 Billon dollar rebuilding effort for Gulf States affected by Hurricane Katrina without any kind of real responsibility to victims or how we are going to pay for these efforts.
Think about it! The government just failed and willing admitted this failure and now we are going to support a $200 Billon dollar government rebuilding effort. If various individuals at work fail and mess up a department do they suddenly overnight get their act together? At the end the day the poor will still end up poor and the wealthy will end up wealthier. Big business in the local areas as well as business tied to government rebuilding efforts are what is the driving force behind these kinds of decisions and not the victims.
The rebuilding of the Gulf region will take years. These people need help, jobs, and a future today not in years. It would seem logical to just help them with being transported in other parts of the U.S. wherever they wish. They can then get on with their lives immediately.
The other thing to note is that much of the area was below sea level should not have been allowed to exist in the first place. Remember the analogy if we build our home with straw then it will blow away if we build our home with block it will weather the storms.
Now if we go and rebuild this region the same thing can happen all over again. Even if we rebuild it to withstand 200 MPH winds and 24 feet of water. What happens when the First 250 MPH hurricane is one day discovered and a storm surge of say 40 feet returns one day? Seems like if we know this area has and is a problem then we should steer clear of rebuilding efforts.
Seems to me that before we go marching down the path of speaking for the hurricane victims we should ask the victims themselves what they would like to do? Instead we are making presumptions that there will be people to fill these rebuilt areas when it is finally done.
Now the question might be why are we speaking for them without asking the victims what they want? The answer is simple it’s once again about focusing on big business making money off the whole deal. Sorry but I am not interested in personally funding a place that supports the cause of getting drunk and gambling life savings away. The people that are truly the victims here have only been enslaved in the jobs that support these kinds of efforts. Give them a chance by letting then migrate out!
This is a slam in the face to the victims. We have over 1 Million people homeless right now. Would you or anyone else want to live this way over the next few years? Allowing the people to spread throughout different parts of the U.S. is a sure way to allow these people not to be discriminated against. Keeping then confined to a region is the opposite!
I say take a survey and ask the victims themselves what option they would prefer. Option 1 be transplanted to other parts of the country and get on with their life today. Option 2 wade out the long and wrenching rebuilding efforts and maybe someday have a place they can call home and eventually suffer similar circumstances?
Gary Archer
Valrico, FL
CEO www.newautoseeker.com
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