Hurricane Katrina: Bush Negligent Homicide
Friend of mine wrote this; gave me permission to steal it.
Where in the hell is congress? Where is Senator Harkin? Barney Frank? Nancy Pelosi? Maxine Waters? Where is Moveon.org? Where is the outrage over the unnecessary devastation in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi?
Most of the deaths, injuries, and destruction are the consequence of negligence of the Bush administration before and after Hurricane Katrina.
FEMA warned of the potential disaster in New Orleans as long ago as 2001, but the Bush camp diverted funds to prepare for and prevent the disaster to the war in Iraq.
The Bush Administration had a four-day warning that a category 5 hurricane was barreling into the city, and all knew fully well the consequences would be just as severe as they were, in fact they believed they might be even more severe. Even so, there was no evacuation plan of any kind to remove residents, no response plan, no National Guard ready to deploy, no convoys of supplies for days, no fleets of medical staff with semi-trucks of medical supplies, generators, medicine, etc.
The only evacuation plan presented was "get in your own car and get your own hotel room with your own credit card." 150,000 people were left behind, mostly poor and Black who didn't have those resources. They had four days. It would have taken 500 buses making three six-hour round-trips each to have taken these people to safety. Everyone who wanted to leave, and most of these people did want to leave, could have been evacuated in less than 18 hours. Why weren't these buses provided? Was even one public and free bus provided for the poor?
Why weren't hundreds of convoys making their way to the city immediately after the hurricane? Even when the water became problematic, why weren't water and supplies air-dropped? If we can air drop supplies into a war zone thousands of miles away in a few hours, we can sure get them to Louisiana.
Where was homeland security? How is it remotely possible that a sniper taking a shot at a helicopter can halt a rescue mission? Why did it take the Army and the National Guard to get there?
People are dying by the scores by the hour, not from injuries incurred during the hurricane, but from dehydration and lack of medical supplies.
Where is FEMA? If this is the top of their game, what's our fate if we have a really large metro catastrophe with millions trapped or injured?
Why hasn't Congress called a special session already? And not just to approve appropriations but to order FEMA, the Guard, and the Army to do something? They moved more quickly over Terry Schiavo.
Which brings me to the point, I think we all know. Congress, corporate America, and the Bush right care more about one brain dead and blind woman from an affluent family than they do about 150,000 poor, mostly healthy children, and mostly Black.
Maybe it's just me, but I think it's wrong for a mother to put her baby into the arms of strangers to save its life or worse yet watch that baby die when it was so preventable.
If this isn't enough to wrench people into action and the streets for justice, I really don't know what is.
Call, write, email, and scream at your representatives. Now. Before more people die.
Politics
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