TOP 13 MOST SHAMEFUL STORIES TO EMERGE FROM THE KATRINA DISASTER
13. The Bush administration's failure to fund the upkeep and maintenance of New Orleans' levee system, despite repeated warnings about their state of disrepair and about the potentially catastrophic consequences of this dereliction. As an added irony, Dubya and Co. cut funds four years ago, immediately after getting a report detailing this threat.
12. Doctors having to give lethal overdoses of morphine to patients who couldn't
evacuate, out of fear that if they were left behind, they would either drown in the slowly rising waters or be raped and eaten by the roving gangs of post-Apocalyptic mutants whom the American people were told had taken over the Big Easy within minutes of the levees bursting.
11. Finding out that the Red Cross -- which kicked up a very public fuss about how the Department of Homeland Security had stymied their efforts to bring food, water and general assistance to ravaged New Orleans -- had actually agreed in advance to withhold aid from the ravaged city. Seeing as the Red Cross was the first organization to step in and start begging for donations once the disaster struck -- as they
always are -- it kinda makes you wonder where the money went. The fact that the head of the this organization is a Bush appointee doesn't exactly soothe yer old pal Jerky's concerns, either.
10. The federal government's unconstitutional and downright fascistic attempts to block our journalists from documenting the results of their massive failure. I know it isn't pleasant to see bloated, fly-blown corpses baking in the heat of the open city, especially when they're being gnawed apart by starving mutts, but goddamnit, it's the truth. And FEMA, who failed so miserably at protecting Americans from nature's wrath, have neither the obligation, the prerogative, nor the right to try and protect us from the truth.
9. Speaking of FEMA's "job", aren't they meant to assist
Americans in times of disaster? If so, why are they wasting time helping the Preznit set up photo-ops? If you ask the fifty firefighters who were commandeered by FEMA and diverted from their rescue mission in order to provide an element of "realism" to one of Dubya's speeches by standing behind him and twiddling their thumbs as he spoke, I'm pretty sure they all think their time could have been used a lot more productively.
8. I guess we shouldn't be surprised that Dubya has outsourced the task of recovering New Orleans' dead to a company with which he's had ethically and legally questionable ties for decades, but of all the questionable companies Dubya's had dealings with, did he have to pick the one with a history of body dumping? It's almost enough to make you think they're trying to hide the real bodycount.
7. Big Dick Cheney personally issuing a directive that forced utility workers to restore power to one of his energy industry crony's oil pipeline facilities before they could finish restoring power to rural hospitals and water associations was pretty fuckin' shameful.
6. Also shameful is the sad fact that fifty evacuees who eventually made their way to Texas have passed away in the ensuing weeks… and can you blame them?!
5. Not so much shameful as bone-chilling is Preznit Dubya's contention that his massive failure of competence and character in the face of this natural disaster makes it obvious that HE NEEDS MORE POWER!!!
4. FEMA's inexplicable and multiple sabotages of relief efforts remains the second greatest mystery of the New Orleans Flood, with the greatest mystery being the shoot-out on the Danziger Bridge. On Meet the Press two weeks ago, Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard was reduced to tears as he described FEMA's unimaginable behavior: "Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst storms ever to hit an American coast, but the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history. We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn't need them. This was a week ago. FEMA... we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. The Coast Guard said, Come get the fuel right away. When we got there with our trucks, they got a word. FEMA says don't give you the fuel. Yesterday... yesterday... FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in,
he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, No one is getting near these lines." Will any of this insanity ever be explained? Maybe, but only if Americans insist on getting an explanation.
3. As if the Keystone Gestapo excesses of the federal and local authorities weren't bad enough, someone at the DHS came up with the brilliant idea of bringing in Blackwater Inc., the people who brought you Abu Ghraib, to lend a "helping" hand. As a survivor was overheard to say: "We needed food and water and they sent us men with guns."
2. Another shameful consequence of Hurrican Katrina's passing was how it brought into sharp relief man's filthy, rotten, stinking inhumanity to his fellow man.
1. The absolute worst part, however, has been
the lying… the cavalcade of pathetic ass-covering and blame-shifting by people who know they fucked up, but dread having to face up to that fact and have vowed to do everything in their power to avoid having to do so.
13. The Bush administration's failure to fund the upkeep and maintenance of New Orleans' levee system, despite repeated warnings about their state of disrepair and about the potentially catastrophic consequences of this dereliction. As an added irony, Dubya and Co. cut funds four years ago, immediately after getting a report detailing this threat.
12. Doctors having to give lethal overdoses of morphine to patients who couldn't
evacuate, out of fear that if they were left behind, they would either drown in the slowly rising waters or be raped and eaten by the roving gangs of post-Apocalyptic mutants whom the American people were told had taken over the Big Easy within minutes of the levees bursting.
11. Finding out that the Red Cross -- which kicked up a very public fuss about how the Department of Homeland Security had stymied their efforts to bring food, water and general assistance to ravaged New Orleans -- had actually agreed in advance to withhold aid from the ravaged city. Seeing as the Red Cross was the first organization to step in and start begging for donations once the disaster struck -- as they
always are -- it kinda makes you wonder where the money went. The fact that the head of the this organization is a Bush appointee doesn't exactly soothe yer old pal Jerky's concerns, either.
10. The federal government's unconstitutional and downright fascistic attempts to block our journalists from documenting the results of their massive failure. I know it isn't pleasant to see bloated, fly-blown corpses baking in the heat of the open city, especially when they're being gnawed apart by starving mutts, but goddamnit, it's the truth. And FEMA, who failed so miserably at protecting Americans from nature's wrath, have neither the obligation, the prerogative, nor the right to try and protect us from the truth.
9. Speaking of FEMA's "job", aren't they meant to assist
Americans in times of disaster? If so, why are they wasting time helping the Preznit set up photo-ops? If you ask the fifty firefighters who were commandeered by FEMA and diverted from their rescue mission in order to provide an element of "realism" to one of Dubya's speeches by standing behind him and twiddling their thumbs as he spoke, I'm pretty sure they all think their time could have been used a lot more productively.
8. I guess we shouldn't be surprised that Dubya has outsourced the task of recovering New Orleans' dead to a company with which he's had ethically and legally questionable ties for decades, but of all the questionable companies Dubya's had dealings with, did he have to pick the one with a history of body dumping? It's almost enough to make you think they're trying to hide the real bodycount.
7. Big Dick Cheney personally issuing a directive that forced utility workers to restore power to one of his energy industry crony's oil pipeline facilities before they could finish restoring power to rural hospitals and water associations was pretty fuckin' shameful.
6. Also shameful is the sad fact that fifty evacuees who eventually made their way to Texas have passed away in the ensuing weeks… and can you blame them?!
5. Not so much shameful as bone-chilling is Preznit Dubya's contention that his massive failure of competence and character in the face of this natural disaster makes it obvious that HE NEEDS MORE POWER!!!
4. FEMA's inexplicable and multiple sabotages of relief efforts remains the second greatest mystery of the New Orleans Flood, with the greatest mystery being the shoot-out on the Danziger Bridge. On Meet the Press two weeks ago, Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard was reduced to tears as he described FEMA's unimaginable behavior: "Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst storms ever to hit an American coast, but the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history. We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn't need them. This was a week ago. FEMA... we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. The Coast Guard said, Come get the fuel right away. When we got there with our trucks, they got a word. FEMA says don't give you the fuel. Yesterday... yesterday... FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in,
he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, No one is getting near these lines." Will any of this insanity ever be explained? Maybe, but only if Americans insist on getting an explanation.
3. As if the Keystone Gestapo excesses of the federal and local authorities weren't bad enough, someone at the DHS came up with the brilliant idea of bringing in Blackwater Inc., the people who brought you Abu Ghraib, to lend a "helping" hand. As a survivor was overheard to say: "We needed food and water and they sent us men with guns."
2. Another shameful consequence of Hurrican Katrina's passing was how it brought into sharp relief man's filthy, rotten, stinking inhumanity to his fellow man.
1. The absolute worst part, however, has been
the lying… the cavalcade of pathetic ass-covering and blame-shifting by people who know they fucked up, but dread having to face up to that fact and have vowed to do everything in their power to avoid having to do so.
