Starbuck's wrote:
Gould,

You have never responded to my posts about the importance of local and st=
ate
governments being the front line defense in emergency situations. Did you
rethink your position and decide it is important that all local and state
governments learn from the disaster so it does not happen in another area?

We need to make sure the mistakes of New Orleans, Louisiana and FEMA are =
not
repeated. If we focus all of our attention on FEMA and Bush, it is for
political gain, and not because anyone is really interested in correcting
the problem.

Since you did not respond, I had the feeling you agreed your original
position was made in haste.


You apparently missed my observation that when an entire region is
wiped out the local and state governments often lose the resources
required to muster an effective response and that's exactly why help
needs to be brought in from the outside. (That and the fact that
somebody needs to coordinate efforts when the disaster goes beyond the
city limits, the county line, or even an individual state border).


wrote in message
oups.com...

PocoLoco wrote:
On 14 Sep 2005 08:01:13 -0700, wrote:


wrote:
This is good stuff.

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Wednesday, September 14, 2005


Printable Version
Email This Article

Mark Morford
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Who is this guy?


--------------------------------------------------------------------=
------------
The Storm That Ate The GOP - Who will pity the soulless Republic...
09/14/2005
George W. Bush Still Rocks! - Stop criticizing! The rich man's C...
09/09/2005

Burning Man Defies Katrina? - In the wake of epic tragedy, how c...
09/07/2005







Can you hear that? That low scraping moan, that painful scream, that
compressed hissing wail like the sound of an angry alligator caught =
in
a vice?

Why, it's the GOP, and they're screaming, "No, no it can't be, oh my
God, please no, this damnable Katrina thing is just an unstoppable PR
disaster for us!"

After all (they wail), who woulda thought dissing all those poor bla=
ck
people and letting so many of them die in filth and misery in the
Superdome while our pampered CEO president enjoyed yet another vacat=
ion
would cause such an ugly backlash, such harsh criticism of the
glorious, rich-=FCber-alles GOP creed?

Who knew it would lay bare our deeply inbred agenda of social injust=
ice
and civil neglect, and our systematic abuse of the country? This sto=
rm
thing is so not the thing we need right now because, oh my God look,
just look! We've been so golden! We've had the run of the candy stor=
e!
We have been gods among swine!

Can you hear them? Hastert to DeLay to Frist to Santorum to Rove to
Cheney to Bush himself, across the board and all down the snickering
party line they keen, "It's not fair! We've been planning this regim=
e,
this overthrow for 40 years! We've worked so damn hard to drive a we=
dge
into the culture and an ice pick into the heart of the nation, worki=
ng
like demons on meth to mangle this country's economy and sense of pr=
ide
so as to boost corporate profits and lock down our wealth and empire=
!"

And now Katrina. And now a furious backlash we never predicted that
could very well spell the death of our wanton free-for-all gluttony.
Damn you, Mother Nature! Damn you, uppity female!

Just listen. Isn't that Dick Cheney, lying awake at night as the
leeches drain his soul, muttering his woes to a well-narcotized Lynn=
e?
"Dammit, Lynney, what went wrong? We've got the House locked up and =
the
Senate locked up and we can cram through any law or any referendum or
toxic Patriot Act we like with next-to-zero outcry and no discussion=
on
the floor ..."

We're successfully stuffing the lower courts with hundreds of
homophobic neoconservative misogynist appointees and now we even own
the Supreme Court -- the Supreme Court, pudding-thighs! -- and even =
the
increasingly impotent California governor is more in our back pocket
than we imagined. We've had the whole goddamn country under our thumb
for five years, squirming like a stuck rat as we make out like robber
barons.

What a run we've had! We've threatened major media into numb complia=
nce
and we run the FCC the way a pimp runs a cheap hooker and we've got a
loudmouth right-wing pundit manning nearly every ideological outpost=
in
every corner of the media globe while millions of stupefied 'Murkins
still believe Fox News is a genuine source of integrity and honesty.
Look at us go!

And don't forget, to back it all up and shore up the base, we've got=
so
many hate-spitting pseudo-religious bonk jobs broadcasting their bile
across roughly 1,600 militant Christian Midwestern talk-radio shows =
it
would make Jesus himself cringe in pain, and even that soulless cret=
in
Pat Robertson is comfy enough to start suggesting we assassinate
foreign leaders who dare to dis BushCo.

Look what we've accomplished! We launched two brutal, devastating,
unwinnable wars. We've let Osama bin Laden run happy and free for ov=
er
four years, and counting. We just passed an obscene $12.3 billion
energy bill that ensures our heroin-like dependency on foreign oil f=
or
the next two decades while misinformed 'Murkin GIs die in Iraq
protecting us from $5 gallons of gas. Damn, we're good!

We torture innocent detainees in Iraq and abuse inmates at Guant=E1n=
amo
and chip away at women's rights and demonize homosexuals, and we str=
ip
the forests and gut the Clean Air Act and pollute the water and
devastate the economy and cut welfare spending (whew!), and still the
lemming people think we're gods because we keep them wrapped in fear
and a whole pile of carefully orchestrated Rove-ian lies. We are, in
short, f--ing geniuses.

But now, this. Now BushCo's spineless Katrina response and our party=
's
obvious contempt for lazy poor people who don't own SUVs and
Lockheed-Martin portfolios means Dubya's ratings have plummeted below
40, as many of his precious pet agenda items head for the Dumpster,
including the gutting of Social Security and the gutting of Medicare
and even more tax cuts for his wealthy cronies. Damn you, Mother
Nature!

Even the media has stepped it up, taken off the kid gloves and begun
hurling angry, pointed questions at BushCo for the first time in four
years, ever since we muzzled them with one part threat and one part
Rove and all parts corporate stranglehold. Hell, the damn media was =
on
the ground in New Orleans within 24 hours of Katrina, beating our
untrained monkeys from FEMA by three days. Who the hell do they think
they are?

Ain't it a bitch? And now there are those who say the impermeable
fortress o' pain known as the GOP might just lose the South next
election due to its obvious lack of care for the lower classes, unle=
ss
we can somehow scare them poor people into not voting again, or tell
them if they vote Democrat they won't get any health care or food
stamps or relief money or any of Barbara Bush's patronizing
rich-grandma cookies. Hey, it worked last time.

So goes the GOP lament. Of course, it's not all bad (they say). Hell,
the oil companies are as giddy as schoolgirls at being able to false=
ly
jack up prices to over whopping 70 bucks a barrel, despite a recent
(temporary) glut of supply. Halliburton is squealing like Jenna Bush=
at
a kegger at scoring the contract to help rebuild New Orleans'
infrastructure thanks to the fact that the former head of FEMA is no=
w a
Halliburton lobbyist, and the GOP plan to decimate FEMA and militari=
ze
emergency efforts is going -- pardon the pun -- swimmingly.

But something has shifted. Something is ugly and toxic in the water.
This is what, I imagine, the GOP overlords are asking each other over
cocktails and baby seal kabobs and whale-blood transfusions: Do you
think the people are finally beginning to sense it? Are they finally
waking up? You think they know that the fact that Bush is finally
taking a modicum of responsibility for his administration's failure =
--
something he never, never does -- is a sign of true GOP desperation?=
Do
you think they recognize that BushCo isn't really spending a dime on
Katrina relief, that the $52 billion they just crammed through Congr=
ess
without any discussion isn't actually going toward repairs and
rebuilding at all?

You think people sense that all of it, every single dime, is going
toward -- you guessed it -- PR? Spin control? You know it's true. Ev=
ery
government truck and every National Guardsman and every aid package =
and
every miserable FEMA agent you see is merely in place to try and sho=
re
up Bush's miserable poll numbers, his dwindling support. Hell, it's =
the
only reason Bush -- or his party -- does anything for the "good" of =
the
nation.

But holy crap, it sure is expensive. It sure is annoying. It sure ta=
kes
the GOP off its game of warmongering and finger-pointing and padding
the pockets of the rich and pulverizing the economy like a ... like a
... yes, OK, like a hurricane. Damn you, Mother Nature.


Morford expects far too much from Katrina. The sheeple will get back in
line and once again do as they're told very quickly. Those who don't
believe that God's Plan for the United States centers around a far
right theocracy will at least dutifully repeat that "There's light at
the end of the tunnel, and we'd be so much worse off with the Democrats
in charge." Count on it.

Watch for the GOP to net an additional 3 seats in the Senate next year,
and increase its majority in the house. This is a new day, when a
political party does not rise and fall with the poll numbers of the
point man, but rather depends on the vitality of its spin machine and
the complacency and/or control of the media.
We haven't seen any more effective control and manipulation of the
media since the
heydays of communism and nazism, and the media is now so much more
intensely present in all aspects of life that it is propaganda, not
policy or debate, that shapes the future of the US.

The GOP is alive and well. Within two weeks, most people will be
marvelling at the low death toll and congratulating Bush on a job well
done.......(forgetting entirely that the FEDGOV sat on the sidelines
and didn't do any job at all for several days afer the flood began).
While sloganeering "Remember 9-11" and marching with "Support Our
Troops" signs, the majority will soon turn on the Democrats for daring
to try to use a national calamity to advance their political position.
Just watch. Few things are as rare as "common" sense.

b'asskisser, Moore, krause, and now Gould!

Should the President have disregarded the Posse Comitatus Act?

Should he have invaded NO using the Insurrection Act?

Or should he have just disregarded the shooters and sent in the unarmed
FEMA
folks to the Superdome and Convention Centers where the local government
wanted
to let folks die?
--
John H

"All decisions are the result of binary thinking."


I guess I don't really know, but none of those questions relates to my
opinion that the newspaper columnist is wrong about Katrina damaging
the long-term propects for the GOP. Aging people become increasingly
self centered, cautious, financially reluctant (particularly when
retired on a fixed income), and nervous about security. You guys have a
lock for another 25-30 years. Don't worry. :-)