Don't Piss on My Leg & Tell Me It's Raining

Unless you’ve been under a rock these past few days, you know New Orleans is under siege. Not from a natural disaster, not anymore; the hurricane has come and gone. No, the Big Easy is burning with the fires of destruction and despair, hopelessness and inhumanity. The Crescent City will never be the same again.

While I don’t condone the horrific acts happening in the name of loss and frustration — the shootings, the needless looting, and unbelievably enough, the rapes (come on, guys, keep it in your pants for once; you’d think dehydration would impair those things!) — the source of their teeming, howling rage is abundantly clear. The people who remained in the city, mostly poor, mostly black, were told if you can’t get out, come to the Dome where you’ll be given shelter, food & water until the storm has passed and reconstruction begins. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is geared up for Katrina and her aftermath.

Bullshit.

We’ve all seen the scenes and heard the reports of destruction: the flood, famine and fire. But we don’t seem to be hearing a lot from this corrupt administration as to why the National Guard wasn’t in place on Monday afternoon as the storm passed. Why weren’t Guardsmen moving in from Texas as Katrina moved up the coast? Even I can see the logic of trucking in supplies BEFORE need becomes dire emergency, and I don’t make the big bucks.

And okay, let’s say you weren’t thinking quite that far ahead, since storms sometimes blow themselves out before they make landfall and it costs a lot of money to mobilize a bunch of redneck Guardsmen. But when you hear the city’s levees have been breached and water is flooding what’s left of the city, don’t you think it’s time to act? The Netherlands experienced a number of flooding deaths in the late 60’s/early 70’s and have since constructed a levee system that is unparalleled in the world. Don’tcha think, assuming you don’t know how to fix the breaches yourself (nor does anyone in your topnotch administration), you’d ask the Dutch for advice? And come on, people, if I know about the Dutch levees, SOMEONE in that Court of Fools must know too.

And yet he does nothing. He reluctantly comes back from a MONTH-LONG vacation. (Do you get to go on vacation for a month? — ’Cuz I sure as hell don’t.) He tells us lawlessness will not be tolerated, and that he’s told his Attorney General so. He calls up his daddy to tap all his rich friends for a couple of dollars so he can look good. He even thinks he's making everyone feel better by admitting the response was a little slower than it should have been.

And the poor people left down there — and those who been forced to take flight —struggle on.

The eyes of the world are watching us. He’s got to go. He’s a useless, pathetic excuse for a leader. When he could use a disaster (yes, 9/11) to his advantage, he was all over it like white on rice. But there’s nothing for him to gain from Katrina, and so he hides behind whistle stop tours aboard Air Force One, repeating his lies. The aftermath of the storm will not affect the economy ($3.50 a gallon anyone?) The relief results are “not acceptable” (but he’s the commander in chief! He makes it happen!)

In Canada, they would call for a vote of confidence, and he would be gone. Why can’t we do the same?

Update: please check out this site that says all this even better than I can.