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Bush to New Orleans: Drop Dead

George W. Bush was in New Orleans to deliver a clear and unmistakable message: Drop Dead. And then, according to various reports, he went off to play golf.

Little in our history can match his administration's astounding non-response to this excruciating human catastrophe.

Before Katrina, even Bush's harshest critics might have found non-credible his leaving tens of thousands of American citizens to suffer and die in utterly gratuitous squalor, disease, hunger and thirst.

Taxpaying American citizens are dying in the heart of a great city because their government can't be bothered to get them clean water. Or a bed. Or to a hospital.

The weather has been clear since Katrina passed. Bush commands the world's most advanced armada of land, sea and airborne vehicles. The resources to save our brothers and sisters are readily available.

But we see our elders, black and white, sitting confused and in pain, dying of heat and thirst and utter neglect in clear, sunny weather while the President of the United States babbles aimlessly and the Secretary of State shops for shoes.

Stup using sports arenas to hold Katrina victims. Use vacant military bases!

Instead of using these sports Arenas, which are owned by Bush's Buddies to house these Black Katrina victims why not use vacant Military bases. These bases have housing, air conditions, self electrical generating unites, water purification unites, supplies, roads, kitchens, etc.. But then Bush's friends would not be getting these high rentals fees!! Would they??

911 in New Orleans

We're told the 911 attacks changed everything for America--that they ushered us in to a new and more dangerous world, where we could no longer afford old illusions. If we take its full lessons, the disaster of Hurricane Katrina challenges us even more profoundly.

If the comparison seems overstated, the death tolls from Katrina may well exceed the number of those lost at the World Trade Center and Pentagon. The projected cost of rebuilding New Orleans and its surroundings is now projected at $25 billion and may even approach the $40 billion paid out by insurance companies worldwide related to the 911 attacks. And while New York City beyond the Twin Towers remained intact, a refuge to flee to and base from which to assemble emergency resources, New Orleans is a sea of desolation, a wet and desperate landscape with no place to hide. New York City and the national economy rebounded relatively quickly from the attacks. The New Orleans projections are far grimmer.

911, we were told, required Americans to place unprecedented trust in their president and his advisors, and to scrap longstanding rules of international

Bush Strafes New Orleans, Where's Huey Long?

The National Public Radio news anchor was so excited I thought she'd piss on herself: the President of the United had flown his plane down to 1700 feet to get a better look at the flood damage! And there was a photo of our Commander-in-Chief taken looking out the window. He looked very serious and concerned.

That was yesterday. Today he played golf. No kidding.

I'm sure the people of New Orleans would have liked to show their appreciation for the official Presidential photo-strafing, but their surface-to-air missiles were wet.

There is nothing new under the sun. In 1927, a Republican President had his photo taken as the Mississippi rolled over New Orleans. Calvin Coolidge, "a little fat man with a notebook in his hand," promised to rebuild the state. He didn't. Instead, he left to play golf with Ken Lay or the Ken Lay railroad baron equivalent of his day.

In 1927, the Democratic Party had died and was awaiting burial. As depression approached, the coma-Dems, like Franklin Roosevelt, called for balancing the budget.

Rev. Jackson Makes Second Rescue Mission into New Orleans

CHICAGO – One day after rescuing about 450 students stranded in dorms and on thoroughfares in New Orleans, Rev. Jesse Jackson returned to the predominantly black city with more buses to transport some of the hungry and desperate citizens who remained in the city five days after it was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

“President Bush has come very late with very little,” said Rev. Jackson, describing the dire scene in New Orleans as looking like “the hull of a slave ship.” “I’m leaving once again from the City of New Orleans and there still is no plan to rescue, nor is there a plan to relocate them. The president has not put together a federal program or a coordinated effort to address this massive crisis. Mr. Bush came today and did what can be described as a ceremonial tour of the area. He would not touch the ground in New Orleans where suffering black people are dying”

Ending the Impunity of the Bush White House

The man in the Oval Office is fond of condemning “killers.” But his administration continues to kill with impunity.

“They can go into Iraq and do this and do that,” Martha Madden, former secretary of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, said on Sept. 1, “but they can’t drop some food on Canal Street in New Orleans, Louisiana, right now? It’s just mind-boggling.”

The policies are matters of priorities. And the priorities of the Bush White House are clear. For killing in Iraq, they spare no expense. For protecting and sustaining life, the cupboards go bare.

The problem is not incompetence. It’s inhumanity, cruelty and greed.

Media outlets have popularized some tactical critiques of U.S. military operations in Iraq. But the administration is competent enough to keep the military-industrial complex humming. It’s good at generating huge profits for “defense” contractors, oil companies and the like. First things first, and first things last.

Why shore up levees when the precious money it would take can be better used for war in Iraq? Why allow National Guard units to remain

Global Warming and Widespread Blackouts Are Just as Deadly as Terrorism

Two years ago this month, a Blackout plunged 50 million people in Northeastern U.S. and the Canadian province of Ontario into total darkness for more than a day, wreaking havoc on the U.S. economy. Now, it's the devastation in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi wrought by Hurricane Katrina that has killed hundreds, perhaps thousands of people.

The common thread in both disasters is that energy and environmental experts sounded early alarms about the potential for catastrophes like this unless the White House immediately took the necessary steps to upgrade the country's aging power grid to stave off widespread power failures, and in the case of Hurricane Katrina, backed the Kyoto protocol, which aims to curb the air pollution blamed for severe climate changes that is no doubt the reason Katrina turned from a relatively small hurricane to a destructive monstrosity due to high sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the National Weather Service.

While supporting the Kyoto treaty would not have done anything to prevent an act of God like Hurricane Katrina or the destruction left in its

Solidarity Forev ... ooops, make that, Solidarity Later

Organized labor is weak, but unorganized labor is a hell of a lot weaker. That's what's splitting the AFL-CIO. You may think this is none of your beeswax, but if you work in this country, you owe labor, big time. And I'm talking to you, white-collar worker.

This is not about the old stuff ? 40-hour workweek, unemployment insurance, health benefits, safety regs, etc. This is about right now, today. The money that controls this administration is out to screw you ? it's your pension on the line, your salary on the line and your job on the line. If your company can replace you cheaper, you are gone, buddy. And this administration is pushing jobs overseas just as fast as it can.

The split is not a case of good guys versus bad guys ? it's good guys versus (we hope) some better guys.

Real consequences

AUSTIN, Texas -- Like many of you who love New Orleans, I find myself taking short mental walks there today, turning a familiar corner, glimpsing a favorite scene, square or vista. And worrying about the beloved friends and the city, and how they are now.

To use a fine Southern word, it's tacky to start playing the blame game before the dead are even counted. It is not too soon, however, to make a point that needs to be hammered home again and again, and that is that government policies have real consequences in people's lives.

This is not "just politics" or blaming for political advantage. This is about the real consequences of what governments do and do not do about their responsibilities. And about who winds up paying the price for those policies.

This is a column for everyone in the path of Hurricane Katrina who ever said, "I'm sorry, I'm just not interested in politics," or, "There's nothing I can do about it," or, "Eh, they're all crooks anyway."

New Orleans after Katrina

Tuesday night, as water rose to 20 feet through most of New Orleans, CNN relayed an advisory that food in refrigerators would last only four hours and have to be thrown out. The next news item from CNN was an indignant bellow about "looters" of 7-Elevens and a Wal-mart. The reverence for property is now the underlying theme of many newscasts, with defense of The Gap being almost the first order of duty for the forces of law and order. But the citizens looking for clothes to wear and food to eat are made of tougher fiber and are more desperate than the polite demonstrators who guarded The Gap and kindred chains in Seattle in 1999. The police in New Orleans are only patrolling in large armed groups.

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