Americans, wake up: the country is not safe. Bush failed to defend us from 9/11 (as did Clinton, but that's another story). He has failed to make us any safter after 9/11, despite his bullshit (and I would guess scripted) "I can hear you" moment standing atop the mass grave at Ground Zero; he has, in contrast, made us far less safe after 9/11, plunging us into a foolhardy and unnecessary war, estranging our erstwhile allies around the globe, further destabilizing the international oil market, cutting funding for crucial homeland security tasks like port inspections, and of course deploying thousands of National Guard troops far from home, exactly where they can't be marshalled in a crisis like this one.
And don't even get me started on global warming. What's next year's hurricane going to look like? What city will we lose in 2006?
Don't take it from me. Listen instead to Col. Terry Ebert, director of homeland security for New Orleans, quoted in the Times thusly:
"Asserting that the whole recovery operation had been 'carried on the backs of the little guys for four goddamn days,' he said 'the rest of the goddamn nation can't get us any resources for security.'
"'We are like little birds with our mouths open and you don't have to be very smart to know where to drop the worm,' Colonel Ebbert said. 'It's criminal within the confines of the United States that within one hour of the hurricane they weren't force-feeding us. It's like FEMA has never been to a hurricane.' FEMA is the Federal Emergency Management Agency."
New York bounced back in large part because of New Yorkers' efforts. Remember the squabbling over federal emergency funds? The Feds didn't want to help out; the Feds hate New York and everything it stands for. If the devastation in New York had been any larger, it's now clear that the Federal government and FEMA would have been powerless to do anything about it; Bush got lucky because the destruction, in the end, was manageable, and Guiliani and New York as a whole managed to take care of it, "carried on the backs of the goddamn little guys," while Bush napped, planned wars, and cut taxes for his buddies.
This is the executive leadership of the failed executive, the man who never successfully ran a corporation anywhere but into the ground. How much money went to the restructuring of Homeland Security? And now it turns out they can't keep a single American city from falling into the hands of gun-wielding "thugs"?
(And don't even get me started - again - on what would happen in the case of an honest-to-God terrorist strike right now. You think Al Qaeda isn't watching CNN? You think they're not drawing a little dotted line across our Achilles Heel?)
Hey Democrats, you listening?
Posted by philip at September 2, 2005 04:09 AMhi phil,
thanks for pointing this out. its too bad that
anyone in the US who has the sense to follow your
blog is already aware of this grand bullshit
occuring in our country..."too bad" since the
majority of america is too lazy to give damn about
any of this.
but...on the terrorists...
i do not think that there is a threat of
terrorists to the US. this is just another vehicle to
control us.
yeah, i'm definitely preaching to the converted, and i feel a little silly talking politics sometimes - i'm no expert. but i woke up this morning so fucking exasperated, and so saddened and pissed by what i was reading in the newspapers.
as for the terrorists, i DO believe there's a threat; london and madrid have proven that, as did 9/11. but unfortunately bush and co. just keep making us LESS safe, and more exposed. and that looks likely to continue for a long time. there will always be threats to democratic populations; it's just the identity that changes. (excellent piece comparing early 20th century anarchists w/ 21st century jihadists in the economist a few weeks back pointed that out very well, i think.)
Posted by: philip at September 2, 2005 08:24 AMpreaching to the converted...yes.
but somedays, things just need to be said.
as i feel you are a much more eloquent writer than
most, could you please word properly this feeling
i have of not being represented at all by the
government?
sure, it's simple! "we're fucked."
Posted by: philip at September 2, 2005 09:05 AMWe're just getting a taste of how the US will crumble in the face of environmental disasters, terrorist attacks, and the end of cheap oil. Watching the crisis unfold from a short distance has been deeply disturbing, and friends from NOLA are streaming into my small southern town with harrowing stories and tears in their eyes. But whoa, Philip: jihadists and anarchists have absolutely nothing in common. Anarchists are obviously dead against anything like the world view of Bin Laden -- not to mention the Pat Robertsons and Bushes of the world -- and have never targeted civilians, unlike terrorists. Some of the most hopeful reports from NOLA that have been surfacing show that many people, in the absence of any kind of external authority, will stick up for each other. We can only hope for more of that in the future, because we're learning fast that our government(s) can't protect us, but they can get us killed.
Posted by: john at September 12, 2005 10:25 AMha, democrats? listening?
democrats, republicans. same poison, different intake.
Posted by: shannon premiere at September 28, 2005 07:14 AM