Katrina: The tragedy of bullshit vs reality

For those who don't believe in what government can do for us, i.e. why we should pay taxes to fulfill our collective responsibility to our society, read this from Boing Boing:

as new orleans, now exclusively populated by a starving, parched skeleton crew of the abandoned descendants of slaves, comes apart at the seams:

the right has gotten their wish. they successfully made government ineffective. this is what happens when you take away the power of government. the point of effective government is to keep this from happening to society. and there is no better poster boy for the ineffectivity of government than the sitting president.

the literal meaning of homeland security is that you secure the land you live on, no? by now the absolute vacuum of leadership is becoming apparent even to TV viewers.

in his eerie disconnectedness to what's going on around him, isn't it starting to seem like bush is heavily medicated? he's *zonked*, right?

And now for a tale of two contrasts. This from Bitch Ph.D:

Juxtapose Bush to the Mayor of New Orleans, who is actually on the ground, who actually feels responsible, who gets the difference between bullshit and reality:
"President" Bush, to Diane Sawyer: I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.
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New Orleans Mayor Roy Nagin: We told everybody the importance of the 17th Street Canal issue. We said, "Please, please take care of this. We don't care what you do. Figure it out."

Interviewer: Who'd you say that to?

Nagin: Everybody: the governor, Homeland Security, FEMA. You name it, we said it.
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Bush: There oughta be zero tolerance of people breaking the l aw during an emergency such as this ... I mean, if people need water and food, we're gonna do everything we can to get 'em water and food. But ... it's very important for the citizens in all affected areas to take personal responsibility....
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Nagin: I am telling you right now: They're showing all these reports of people looting and doing all that weird stuff, and they are doing that, but people are desperate and they're trying to find food and water, the majority of them.

Now you got some knuckleheads out there, and they are taking advantage of this lawless -- this situation where, you know, we can't really control it, and they're doing some awful, awful things. But that's a small majority of the people. Most people are looking to try and survive.

And one of the things people -- nobody's talked about this. Drugs flowed in and out of New Orleans and the surrounding metropolitan area so freely it was scary to me, and that's why we were having the escalation in murders. People don't want to talk about this, but I'm going to talk about it.

You have drug addicts that are now walking around this city looking for a fix, and that's the reason why they were breaking in hospitals and drugstores. They're looking for something to take the edge off of their jones, if you will.

And right now, they don't have anything to take the edge off. And they've probably found guns. So what you're seeing is drug-starving crazy addicts, drug addicts, that are wrecking havoc. And we don't have the manpower to adequately deal with it.
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Bush: There's a lot of choppers beginning to move, and more choppers are on the way.
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Nagin: Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here. It's too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country ... People are dying. They don't have homes. They don't have jobs. The city of New Orleans will never be the same in this time.
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Nagin: did the Iraqi people request that we go in there? Did they ask us to go in there? What is more important? ... But we authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq lickety-quick. After 9/11, we gave the president unprecedented powers lickety-quick to take care of New York and other places.

Now, you mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through, a place that is so unique when you mention New Orleans anywhere around the world, everybody's eyes light up -- you mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need? Come on, man.

Ponder this, children. Ponder this about our preparedness for the next terror attack, for example. And let's hope the powers that be are learning.