2005-09-10

Katrina Unmasks Republicans For Who They Are

Welcome to Disaster #2 of the Age of George the Second. As a resident of Jersey City back in September 2001 and someone who worked in NYC and was proud to tell friends and family that I lived "right across the river from the World Trade Center", I was dismayed to hear people bestow upon George Bush the mantle of genuine leadership after the attacks of 11 September 2001. I was appalled that someone who showed up days later and several dollars short could actually be credited with being a leader. In talking with people from around the country, I came to understand that our natural inclination to rally around the President in a time of crisis was what I was actually seeing and though people who were actually here could see what a hollow shell George Bush really was up close, those removed from the danger were too distant to see the chalk outlines.

Bush rose up in the polls and started the war he planned from Day One in his administration, a war that has turned into the morass that this site predicted it would from the planning stages - if what the SecDef did back then in firing anyone who disagreed with his "lean-and mean" approach could be called planning (to this day, the man goes on to do interviews and says incredibly stupid things like, "the commanders have been given all the troops they have requested" and no one ever tallies up the list of former soldiers who called for more troops and were then suddenly eased into retirement days later). Still, a nation traumatized by an attack on our shores and a nation at war decided to stay the course and continue to dance with the horse's ass who brought us to this party.

But now, after the man who ran for re-election by promising the full-faith and credit of his leadership on keeping us safe, has yet again failed to respond to warning received during his month-long vacation and did not act to stave off impending disaster. In August 2001, Bush and his staff ignored a report that said Bin Laden was preparing to attack us. "Who could have known", cried the then National Security Director - apparently oblivious to the fact that it was her job to know. In 2005, Bush played the guitar while New Orleans re-enacted the Great Flood. And here once again is where the failures of the modern Republican Party are laid bare.

For years the Republicans have derided affirmative action, stating that problems would arise were an unqualified Black American placed in a position he or she did not deserve, through an AA program. To-date, no examples of such a situation ever occuring have been brought to light. Still, Republicans have pounded the drums of their phony concerns so loudly, that even popular Democratic politicians like Bill Clinton have talked of mending the programs as though the threat was real. All the while Republicans and Democrats parried back and forth over this non-issue, an ever larger percentage of Blacks remain mired in poverty and unable to even avail themselves of the meager benefits offered by AA programs.

Concurrant with their assault on AA programs, Republicans continued their decades-long war against government provided services, preferring instead to leave people to the whims of "the market" and the kindness of strangers. Decades of slashing government programs, double-speak legislation like No Child Left Behind and funding bridges to nowhere instead of preparing for easily forseen challenges like a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico.

And so today we stand unable or unwilling to tally the dead, unable or unwilling to clearly define who was responsible once again and upon whose shoulders the blame must lie. Even more, today we stand in wonder of what other easily imaginable disasters are outside the ken of this faithless-based administration.

Sphere: Related Content