DeLay's Conspiracy

DeLay, in his defense to Wolf Blitzer for his indictment, has claimed that Texas investigator Ronnie Earle and the Democratic Leadership in DC have conspired against him.

His evidence, however, seems to be forthcoming:

DELAY: Ronnie Earle does this to all his political enemies. He did it to conservative Democrats. He did it — and he does it to Republicans. And particularly in my case, he did it in conjunction and working with the Democrat leadership here in Washington, D.C.

BLITZER: Well, that’s an explosive charge you make, that there was some sort of collusion or conspiracy between Ronnie Earle and Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders in the Congress. What evidence, if any, do you have to back that up?

DELAY: It’s very good evidence, that they announced this strategy publicly, they put it on their website and this strategy is in their fund-raising letters.

BLITZER: Who specifically — who announced this?

DELAY: The DCCC, the Democratic Campaign Committee, run by Chairman Rahm Emanuel.

BLITZER: They announced that they were working with Ronnie Earle to get you an indictment?

DELAY: No, they didn’t do that.

BLITZER: What evidence is there they consulted with Ronnie Earle, that they talked to him or they had any dealings with him whatsoever?

DELAY: That evidence is coming. But the point is, they announced the strategy, and it’s very funny that two weeks ago, when Ronnie Earle said publicly that I was not part of the investigation, that I hadn’t been investigated, and then turns around in two days — over the weekend — he now is going to indict me. It is quite obvious, because the Democrats announced this strategy. And we all know how this place works. I’m sure they worked closely with Ronnie Earle on this strategy.

BLITZER: When is the evidence going to be made available? You say it’s coming. When are you going to make that evidence available?

DELAY: When it’s timely.

BLITZER: What does that mean?

DELAY: When it’s timely.

BLITZER: All right. Well, we’ll have to wait and see for that evidence.

Uh... okay, Mr. DeLay. It sounds like the Republican leadership has just jumped off the conspiratorial looney ledge.

Chaos in Iraq: The Constitution Edition

US officials fear that Iraq will descend into civil chaos if the draft resolution of the Iraqi constitution does not pass in the upcoming election. Coupled with the already-in-action ramp up of impassioned violence and attacks in Iraq in the next 75 days, the sitution looks tenuous.

But when you add to that Gen. Meyers' [freshly retired. Good luck with your new life, old man!] assertion that the US has successfully trained 1 battalion of Iraqi forces for battle-ready service, and things look like an awfully depressed shithole over there. We won't be moving out of Iraq any time soon. After 2.5 years of active engagement with the Iraqi forces, we've only trained 1 battalion. 1 Battalion.

To keep your numbers straight, AntiCentoniacs:

• Number of US Soldiers fighting the in the cesspool of Iraq : approx. 150,000
• Number of Soldiers needed to occupy/pacify the country post invasion : 300,000 or more
• Lenght of time US has been training soldiers in Iraq : 2.5 years
• Trained forces that are battle ready : 1 battallion
• Total soldiers in 1 battallion: less than 1000 individual soldiers.

Anybody else not seeing these numbers add up?

So when the violence ramps up, becomes more impassioned; when the vote for the constitution recieves a less-than-wholly warm reception; when the Sunnis reassert their violent intentions against the Shiites, the Shiites and the Kurds begin to have their relationships corrode through regional power struggles, and Iraq, the country that we invaded by choice for inappropriate [and certainly wrong] reasons, descends into a true and terrible civil war...

What is our plan then, Mr. President?

I'll Reimburse You For Your Life

Or maybe I won't.

Anybody keeping count of how many American soldiers who have had a severe lack of adequate protection [body armor, armor for their vehicles, etc] who have been reimbursed once they purchase their own from the freemarket have been paid by the US Military? Yes, this is the adopted US Military policy...

Oh.

None! Zero! Still fending for themselves, and still paying for it over there in Iraqland. Good work US- way to keep up with your promises and vows to your own children sent to war...

Lakes of Fire

Hunter over at dKos breaks down the Blogs for Bush attitude problem re: DeLay's indictment. BfB's comments:

As our Sister Toldjah noted earlier, the "indictment" of Tom Delay is entirely bogus - from what I've read, Tom Delay didn't know about the perfectly legal transaction he is accused of conspiring to make. We have now left entirely the field of normal political conflict and entered a twilight world where fantasy is presented as fact and the only standard of conduct is "will it work?". This is not the actions of a political Party engaged in seeking a majority - it is the action of a Party determined to destroy its opponents entirely and sieze all power for itself...it is, in short, the stuff from which civil wars are made...

I really do urge our Democrats to step back from the edge - you are sitting in a lake of gasoline and you are playing with fire. We on our side will only put up with so much before we start to pay back with usury what we have received. If you can't defeat Tom Delay in the electoral field, then you will simply have to accept him as Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives - and you'd better start accepting political reality before things get really bad.

Now, I really want to attack this asinine reactive attitude to the DeLay indictment, but Hunter holds his own. I do want to say that this is pure backwoods reaction; a kind of childhood game of nannernanner we'll-nuke-you-if-you-blah-blah-blah whining. It's pretty pathetic, really, isn't it. Hunter?

Mark... may I call you Mark? I feel when someone has shown me the insides of their own rectum, we're pretty much on a first name basis... I have some words for you.

Whitewater. Rush Limbaugh. "Drug Dealer" Bill Clinton. Swift Boats.

Vince Fucking Foster.

Playing with fire, you say? Because the indictments ringing Tom DeLay finally reached up that one, final step from his ring of closest advisers to DeLay himself? Because the SEC has launched a formal investigation into the same behaviors by Bill Frist that put Martha Stewart recently in prison? Because one of the single most visible, highest profile Republican money men has been indicted for fraud, is being investigated for client shakedowns, and has his close business associates being investigated for a mob-connected murder?

What utter cowardice. What pathetic anti-American pedantry. What laughable protestation. The crimes of campaign money laundering, of fraud, of conspiracy, the violation of the laws of the nation, to be answered with stern visions of potential gunfire if Democrats have the audacity to pursue it.

This is the world of the Republican Party, split open like a rotting pumpkin. Crime after crime after crime being investigated, all revolving around the Republican money machine. Every seed connected by the strands of money they share between them. Barely-laundered campaign money passed in the palm of every flabby handshake. Every player in boldface, underlined print in the Rolodex of every other.

And still, this same bottom-tier world of flag-waving supporters still obsessed over an extramarital sex act, but offended to the point of sad, blustering threats at the notion that crimes by gilded and worshipped Republicans are really still crimes.

Your party has set aflame the entire political landscape, and now, once burned, you warn sternly from the branches of a burnt-out tree about "playing with fire". You used the ashes of one of the great liberal cities of America, New York City, as war paint for your own sick, racist dreams. You shudder at a burning flag, yet are willing to snip-and-cut basic tenets of the Constitution as needed or convenient.

And now, you're outraged, not by any of the rest of it, not by anything that has come before, but because a few prominent Republican faces have -- shock of shocks -- been indicted in probes that have spanned years of investigation, and interrogation, and deposition. That, you say, represents the underpinnings of a civil war.

You poor, hollow, blood-painted clowns. Cheering the trials and failures of your country with the same pennants and giant foam hands that you wave at your favorite sports teams. Willing to accept the most outrageous of lies, if they are spoken from your favorite talking heads, and soothe your own notions of America for you, and only for you.

And as for the audacity of Democrats speaking up during this process... the redfaced, flatulent fury with which you declare Republicans off-limits to that which you so gleefully hurl yourself...

Welcome to the world of the politics of personal destruction, you tubthumping, chin-jutting, Bush humping gits. Welcome to the nasty and partisan world that Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Hugh Hewitt, Grover Norquist, Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, and a legion of insignificant lowest-rung toadies like yourselves nurtured into fruition daily with eager, grubby hands, and now look upon with dull-faced faux horror.

I know you hate me, and anyone else who dares disturb the thin strands of alternate reality in which George W. Bush is an intellectual giant, Saddam really was responsible for 9/11, the economy is getting better by the minute, and we capture the most very important members of al Qaeda on a weekly basis.

But here's some advice. You'd better start hating me more. This is the world you forged and, unfortunately for you, I'm beginning to take a fancy for it. Welcome to the politics of your own party, finally sprouting from the ground on which you planted the seeds and shat upon them.

Step back from the edge? You poor boy, asleep in the back of the car the whole trip, finally waking up and wondering where you're at.

Swift boats. Aluminum tubes. Niger uranium. "Mushroom clouds". Whitewater.

Vince Fucking Foster.

You can't even see the edge from here. You left it behind a hundred miles back.

So don't give me chest-thumping crap about civil wars, if your politicians are indicted. Don't give me visions of a lake of fire, if all those who find you loathsome refuse to suck at your teats of scientific ignorance in the name of religion, racism in the name of freedom, and corruption in the name of the New World Order.

Get used to the world you have created, and the stench your worshipped heroes have unleashed.

Wow. Thanks for that. I'd say that Hunter adequately points out the scorched-earth policy of the Republicans and how, somehow, they haven't realized that when they scorch the planet they scorch themselves as well.

Their ignorance is not to be admired, by the way. But I assume we all knew that...

The Plame Affair: Miller's Release

Judith Miller has been released from her term in prison for contempt of court after agreeing to testify to a Grand Jury as to her involvement, and potentially her source, for the leaking of secret CIA operative Valerie Plame's name. Eventually, of course, Robert Novak published her name. Karl Rove was fingered [albeit lightly] from Time Journalist Matt Cooper in his testimony, provided as a last resort prevening his own jailing alongside Miller. We shall see in the coming days what kind of information she provides. It is potentially explosive.

The last thing The Administration really wants, politically, will be the Plame Affair back on the front pages alongside their continued fuckups of Hurricane Relief efforts; Tom DeLay's indictment as a federal criminal; and Bill Frist's pending investigation by the SEC.

But in the interest of a better America, how many strikes does one ideology get? We have got to convince the typical American that this Administration, and indeed their entire ideology, is so absolutely corroded of values from the inside, is so corrupt, cruel, and inept, that they must no longer be given power. We can't be held in check by these fools any longer.

Rushing

Those of you who have seen the fantastic documentary Control Room by Jehane Noujaim will recognize Marine media liason Cpt. Josh Rushing. He was the only American who featured prominently in the film, and also he was one of the only characters that exhibited strength, bravery, insight, nuance, objection and conciliation- he was the most human and most humane character in the film. He provided a brilliant sense of relief to the American public who felt that the American War Machine had taken off without them. He was the voice whose tenor changed, who felt doubt and pride all at once, who questioned, debated; he was the American who was ambitious, but also honest. He was fantastic.

After the film gained notoriety, he was barred by his commanders in the Marines from talking about the film. Later, due to other consequences, he left the Marines entirely.

He has now taken a job with a new, English-language station that Al-Jazeera TV will launch this spring.

This television station is a big deal- the station has drawn notable producers and field agents from all major US news networks, and will make a huge impact. Al-Jazeera is a much-hated agent of news because of it's "sedition" and "perspective." It is hated as much by officials in Arab countries as it is by US officials, for the exact same reasons: it insights the infidel enemy. To the US, that means Osama; to the east it means the Americans.

And to the population of Arabs, it is the primary news source: there are 50 million Arabs globally tuning into Al-Jazeera for their news; and none of what they see has any American perspective on it at all.

Rushing will come under intense fire for this choice, but he should be revered, once again, for his appeal to debate and discussion, his desire to head off this problem on the front lines. America sends National Guardsmen to die in Iraq in the supposed war on terror where they will have no effect on building a reputable cause and position to have America's perspectives respected. This is the false front-line of the war. The true front line, the hearts and minds, is in the information and the experience of America. It is in their homes, in their discussions, in their cultural debates. It is also, equally, within ours.

And so as Rushing will inevitably be chopped to pieces for "aiding the enemy" he needs to be understood as the only figure thus far with the foresight to leap head-in and serve his country and the world in these disastrous times. It's a very difficult choice he's made and he will face scorn. And all of that scorn will be in absolute spite of the facts of this conflict. None of it will consider the cultural discord, the diaspora. None of it will grasp the isolation between these strong-willed ideologies. That's what Rushing is jumping into- by his handshake with Al-Jazeera he's positioning himself as the first American face to be seen on that bridge.

We hope him the best, and we hope that he serves as well as he is capable. Godspeed, Cpt. Rushing.

The Photo Release

Pictures of detainee abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison must be released despite government claims that they could damage America's image, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven they "do not need pretexts for their barbarism."

The American Civil Liberties Union sought the release of 87 photographs and four videotapes as part of an October 2003 lawsuit demanding information on the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody and the transfer of prisoners to countries known to use torture. The ACLU contends that prisoner abuse is systemic.

Brutal images of the abuse at the prison have already been widely distributed, but the lawsuit covers additional photos not yet seen by the public.

The photos of American barbarism must be released according to Judge Hellerstein. There were many reasons that America saught to prevent the release of these photos: to dimish the perception of an unjust Invader; to diminish the bad PR domestically; to diminish the growing incidences of America's negligence of Geneva Conventions through the war on Terror.

America didn't want the photos released because they threatened the American Image, which is more important to the marketing of America than the actual actions of the State. This is the great PR, Marketing, Consumerist justification for preventing the world from knowing what happened. Pretty incredible.

And Judge Hellerstein ruled that America's desires to have an untainted image cannot be undermined by America's piss-poor actions. That, in fact, simply by this behaviour your image is tainted- not by pretending nobody can see it.

To America, it's the exposure we fear. To the world, this is simply part of... America.

Roberts Confirmed as Chief Justice

That is all.

Hurricane Aid and Congress

Guess what. All that immediate aid the President promised to Hurricane Katrina and Rita victims: held up. All of that red tape that he wanted slashed away: retied.

And who, do you suppose, is the party who has enacted all of these delays of a $9 billion emergency health care bill?

The Bush Administration.

Accountability: We Demand It. You must provide what you vow to. This is shameful.

Formal Investigations

Bill Frist's sleazy family hospital HMO chain HCA Inc. has announced that the SEC is launching formal investigations into insider trading issues and other financial crimes. HCA Inc. has been one of the most suspected violators of SEC financial regulations of any healthcare facility; perhaps some truths with come to light now about this healthcare "provider" and the ultra-wealth of the Frist family that has benefitted from it.

Atrios also has an interesting point about Frist- that it's unlikely he was stupid enough to just make a trade knowing the world watched his every move. People do stupid things, though... And when the benefit is the difference between losing over $2 million, sometimes greed wins out.

Conservationitives

Anybody else feel like the President's recent call for conservative fuel-usage rings hollow? It sure seems like it to me. Check out Bill's thoughts on dKos:

Well, sir, you could save a few gallons yourself by not flying all over the country in search of the best hurricane photo op aboard your plane, Message I Care One (which burned up 11,437 gallons of jet fuel during yesterday's trip alone). But then again, no:

Scott McClellan: "It's important for the president of the United States to travel to the region and get firsthand accounts of the operations and to provide comfort and support to those who have been affected. ... That's an important responsibility of the president of the United States."

Yeah, it was real important when Katrina hit, wasn't it, Scottie Boy?

Meanwhile, Bush's cronies at the oil companies apparently don't have time to do much conservationializing because they're too busy raking in record profits and screwing the hardworking American "folks"

Yeah.

Katrina and our President: Working Together To Build a Responsible Fuel Policy Since 2005.

DeLay INDICTED: Steps DOWN

The HAMMA has been INDICTED and has resigned his position at the top of the House GOP!

Wow... pretty intesnse stuff.

To Karen Hughes: Not So Fast

Presidential Envoy to Patch Ridiculously Strained Relations Across The World and Official Commissioner to Win Hearts and Minds Among [Not Yet Forced To Be] Democratic Societies Karen P. Hughes faced a stiff crowd of women in Saudi Arabia. Seems they weren't quite so excited to hear some of her ideas on women's role in democratic society and the women's lifestyle changes that will come with it: You'd do well to actually consider the wants and needs of the populations you're appealing to. Because, one thing we don't necessarily want, is what you're offering:

The audience - 500 women covered in black at a Saudi university - seemed an ideal place for Karen P. Hughes, a senior Bush administration official charged with spreading the American message in the Muslim world, to make her pitch.

But the response on Tuesday was not what she and her aides expected. When Ms. Hughes expressed the hope here that Saudi women would be able to drive and "fully participate in society" much as they do in her country, many challenged her.

"The general image of the Arab woman is that she isn't happy," one audience member said. "Well, we're all pretty happy." The room, full of students, faculty members and some professionals, resounded with applause.

The administration's efforts to publicize American ideals in the Muslim world have often run into such resistance. For that reason, Ms. Hughes, who is considered one of the administration's most scripted and careful members, was hired specifically for the task.

Many in this region say they resent the American assumption that, given the chance, everyone would live like Americans.

Hughes' job is to, of course, convince everybody that they do want to, in fact, live like Americans. But it turns out that American cultural imperialism isn't so easy to force. We haven't had any successes so far. It seems as though taking more time to study, consider, and work out cultural differences will be necessary for global survival. American hegemony only gets us so far.

DeLay Indictment Today...?

The Texas Grand Jury has wrapped up their investigation after several high profile arrests, and they've widened the scope of the investigation to include conspiracy. This may pull House Majority Leader Tom DeLay into the net which has caught Jack Abramoff and DeLay's PAC. Rumors are abuzz... will Tom DeLay be indicted with conspiracy charges today?

Frist: Not Reality TV Material

I think he's just too saggy for TV or something, because the networks sure seem to be ignoring the guy. Skewered Stewart, but leave Frist Alone despite his corrupt and fraudulent sale of his family's corrupt, soul-sucking fraudulent HMO stock which netted him an additional several million for his personal finances days before the stock dropped sharply after his family's HMO tanked in second-quarter earnings.

Insider Trading....? YES! good TV Material...? Apparently not - he must just be less domestic than Martha. Plus, when it comes to taking down a shrewd and ruthless American woman so successful at business that she can live the rest of her life as she chooses, America thirsts for blood. When it comes to taking down a cold-hearted demogogue leader of the Senate who happens to be a man...

nah... let's just watch Fear Factor. When Bill Frist forces Rick Santorum to eat a pig uterus on CSPAN, then we'll pay closer attention.

And Then I Saw These

While Brownie continues to play schoolyard pass-the-buck, cover-your-ass, dodge-the-issue, he should take another look at the aftermath of Katrina. I don't doubt that he thinks he was in the right; as any person who is completely inept yet has no concept of their ineptitude will be, he sees no failure in his choices, hesitations, and multiple short comings. But take another look at the humanity, nuance, and fact of Katrina, Brownie. You played a very significant, failing role in this.

The Biggest Mistake

Brownie, former FEMA head, now FEMA disaster-relief-investigation-Consultant, testified before congress that he's discovered the greatest failure in the Katrina response. News Flash: it doesn't have anything to do with checking the testicular areas of thoroughbred horses [which he failed at, as well]. Brownie's biggest regret with Katrina:

He also admitted that he had made "specific mistakes" in dealing with the storm.

He said one was not organising more media briefings.

He added that his "biggest mistake" had been not recognising that Louisiana was "dysfunctional".

Yes. Media Briefings and blame the victims.

Good work. I'm really glad we rehired [correction: never took off of payroll] this piece of shit, eh?

New Orleans Drowning: The Aftermath

From the "I can't believe it so it must be true" file of Americana:

MICHAEL BROWN, former head of FEMA ineptitude, has been rehired by FEMA as a contract consultant to determine what went wrong in FEMA's handling of Katrina.

!!!

Repeat, with italics:

MICHAEL BROWN, former head of FEMA ineptitude, has been rehired by FEMA as a contract consultant to determine what went wrong in FEMA's handling of Katrina.

and bold:

MICHAEL BROWN, former head of FEMA ineptitude, has been rehired by FEMA as a contract consultant to determine what went wrong in FEMA's handling of Katrina.

Weep American Voting Mortals. You have no chance at survival.

And by the way, if anybody is wondering who else is in charge of investigating America's greatest social failure thanks to The Administration's corrupt cronyism [as designed, intentionally, by the Heritage Foundation pre 2000 election]:

Let's talk about David Safavian [best named man in politics], arrested last week after quickly resigning his White House payroll position. Safavian, crony and pal to The Administration regulars, as arrested due to his deep involvement in the Abramoff scandals which have also seen Tom Delay's own PAC indicted [Delay, himself, of course, has nothing to do with any of this...].

Despite Safavian's inexperience and protectioneering of Administration Insiders in this scandal, there's more to the story. Namely, the guy's wife. Now, everybody knows that GOP lawmakers stonewalled any objective Katrina investigation. They had no interest in Republican dirty secrets secreting through the tepid waters of an investigation into what failed in the drowning of New Orleans.

To protect their secrets, they secured a new hire to lead the investigation: Safavian's wife, Jennifer Safavian, Chief counsel on oversight and investigations on the House Government Reform Committee.

Secrets well protected. An arrested corrupt political insider's wife and a shamefully foolish [and failed] equestrian judge. I'm sure they'll penetrate into the deepest secrets of how woefully inept our country performed in Katrina. Good work.

Fuckers.

Morally Major, Majorly Moral

The General is no agnostic, nor is he particularly a pessimist. But it should be noted that he is a culturalist- that the problems of society can often be examined according to the intricacies of the cultures and conflicts within those cultures. And this should be examined closely. It is a condemnation not of religion, but of religious cultures determining societal outcomes. It goes without saying. And yet, it apparently also must be said: Overly religious [ALL religions] societies are worse off. So moral majoricists and political evangelicals, consider what you're really seeking to do to America. [Don't expect this report to hit the American Shores with much acceptance]

RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.

According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.

The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.

It compares the social peformance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality.
...

“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.

“The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”

Conspiracy and 9/11

Just wanted to publicize the most important arrest, investigation, and conviction that's occured in the 9/11 case. There has finally been a vital terrorist arrested and convicted of the worst crime against this country that's occured since mid-century.

Oh yeah. This didn't happen in America. Apparently we're not capable of finding, arresting, investigating, and prosecuting these guys. But thankfully Spain is.

White Collar

We put the satan-woman that is Martha Stewart in prison for doing a similar sale of a company that wasn't her's. It would be a torrid stain on America if we did that and didn't even investigate the sleazy sale of Bill Frist's huge stock portfolio in his family's own sleazy company a week before the stock plunged.

Stop whining. Become accountable, you corrupt sleaze bag.

Oh, and by the way. Any of you think this sounds like familiar tunage from Sleazy Frist, you're all-too-right.

Arresting

Cindy Sheehan, who had the gall to stage a protest in Washington DC at a time when our noble nation is [poorly] at war with ocean weather cycles, has been arrested.

Sheehan, carrying a photo of her son in his Army uniform, was among hundreds of protesters who marched around the White House and then down the two-block pedestrian walkway on Pennsylvania Avenue. When they reached the front of the White House, dozens sat down -- knowing they would be arrested -- and began singing and chanting "Stop the war now!"

Police warned them three times that they were breaking the law by failing to move along, then began making arrests. One man climbed over the White House fence and was quickly subdued by Secret Service agents.

Sheehan, 48, was the first taken into custody. She smiled as she was carried to the curb, then stood up and walked to a police vehicle while protesters chanted, "The whole world is watching."

The Whole World is Watching. It should be one of the key memes of the next election. The whole world has seen the US fail in the war on terror in Afghanistan, fail in the extension of the neo-con wet dream war by invading Iraq, and fail at protecting their own citizens, breaking the core contract of any society. The whole world has watched as this Administration has bankrupted the country while corroding the value of the simple democratic system of the single vote voiced; the world has seen The Administration walk all over our civil rights and scoff at equal legal protections, while pursuing obscene intervention in personal life decisions. The whole world has watched this country make foolish promises it could leave only unfulfilled; and fail to demonstrate the leadership needed at every juncture.

The Whole World has seen it. It's time that Americans see it for what it is.

By the Numbers

Tim Grieve at Salon breaks down the anti-war protests in DC. Check em out:

Crowd counting isn't an exact science. And even at its best, it's not much of a proxy for a well-conducted public opinion poll. But still, isn't it at least a little interesting to compare the numbers generated by the big anti-war protest in Washington Saturday with the two pro-war rallies that came before and after it?

As Jeff Horwitz writes in Salon, the organizers of Saturday's protest "claimed as many as 250,000 demonstrators attended; though D.C. police estimates were more conservative, none pegged the crowd at below 100,000." USA Today said the protest drew "at least 100,000." The Associtaed Press [sic] called it "an estimated 100,000 people." And the Washington Post quoted D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey, who, when asked whether the protest drew at least 150,000 people, said "That's as good a guess as any."

How does that stack up against the America Supports You Freedom Walk and country music concert the Pentagon sponsored on the fourth anniversary of 9/11 earlier this month? There's no comparison, really. While one Pentagon official claimed that the pro-war event drew 17,000, newspaper accounts put the real number at somewhere between "several thousand" and "about 10,000" -- and a good number of those were apparently government employees who had been urged by their supervisors to attend.

And what about this Sunday's pro-war demonstration? Organizers of that event said they hoped to draw 10,000 people to Washington. How'd they do? The Associated Press says Sunday's even drew "hundreds," which was "far fewer than organizers had expected." The conservative Washington Times puts a finer point on it, saying an "estimated 400 people" participated in the pro-war rally that was meant to "counter Saturday's anti-war protests, which attracted as many as 100,000 people. according to police estimates."

The Broken Contract

Michael Ignatieff breaks apart some of the absolute central issues in the flooding of New Orleans after Katrina and the subsequent failure of society that surrounded it. This is a must-read. You will be tested. Ignatieff has struck the cord of what the AntiC has tried to figure out how to communicate: that the failures of the government were much much deeper, more damaging than we could even discuss in some way. That we didn't simply abandon the poor, the black, the struggling, the embattled- that America, in fact, had committed the ultimate societal sin: they had broken their contract with their citizenry- every one of us is both somehow damaged because of this and complicit in it. A contract, invisible but vital for a State, was broken through the worst possible means: indifference.

Some thoughts from Ignatieff [READ THE WHOLE THING!]:

The most striking feature of the catastrophe is not that the contract didn't hold. That is now too obvious to argue about. Many municipal, state and federal officials, elected and appointed, forgot the duty of care they owed to their fellow citizens. Some fled when they should have stayed at their posts. Some promised help they could not deliver. Some failed to rise to the terrible occasion. All of this is now well documented. What has not been noticed is that the people with the most articulate understanding of what the contract of American citizenship entails were the poor, abandoned, hungry people huddled in the stinking darkness of the New Orleans convention center.

"We are American," a woman at the convention center proclaimed on television. She spoke with scathing anger, but also with astonishment that she should be required to remind Americans of such a simple fact. She - not the governor, not the mayor, not the president - understood that the catastrophe was a test of the bonds of citizenship and that the government had failed the test. This failure was perhaps most evident when, on Sept. 1, a full three days after the hurricane struck Louisiana, Washington's top officials were asserting that they had only just learned that in the convention center were thousands of exhausted fellow citizens in the dark, at the ends of their tethers, awaiting an evacuation that had not come.

"We are American": that single sentence was a lesson in political obligation. Black or white, rich or poor, Americans are not supposed to be strangers to one another. Having been abandoned, the people in the convention center were reduced to reminding their fellow citizens, through the medium of television, that they were not refugees in a foreign country. Citizenship ties are not humanitarian, abstract or discretionary. They are not ties of charity. In America, a citizen has a claim of right on the resources of her government when she cannot - simply cannot - help herself.

It may be astonishing that American citizens should have had to remind their fellow Americans of this, but let us not pretend we do not know the reason. They were black, and for all that poor blacks have experienced and endured in this country, they had good reason to be surprised that they were treated not as citizens but as garbage.

Let us not assume, either, that this moment of contempt is over. A week after the disaster, bodies were still floating in the fetid waters. I hope they will have been cleared by the time you read this. Duties of care, not to mention decency, cannot be less controversial than care of the dead. Yet often enough, the only people who took the care to cover corpses, to identify their names, to mark out a place of rest, were not law enforcement officials, who always seemed to have some pressing reason that it wasn't their job, but the storm victims themselves.

Let us not be sentimental. The poor and dispossessed of New Orleans cannot afford to be sentimental. They know they live in an unjust and unfair society. They know their schools aren't much good, that their police protection is radically deficient, that their economic opportunities are few and that their neighborhoods have been starved of hope and help.

Knowing all this, the people of New Orleans still believed that, as Americans, they were entitled to levees that would hold, an evacuation plan that would actually evacuate them and a resettlement plan that would get them back on their feet. They were entitled to this because they are Americans and because these simple things, while costly, are well within the means of the richest society on earth.

So it is not - as some commentators claimed - that the catastrophe laid bare the deep inequalities of American society. These inequalities may have been news to some, but they were not news to the displaced people in the convention center and elsewhere. What was bitter news to them was that their claims of citizenship mattered so little to the institutions charged with their protection.

Conservative Flix: I See [almost] Dead People

Howdy howdy, friends, neighbors, children of all ages. The General has, to some degree, returned. Freshly moved and relatively beaten... The pace of posts may not be as consistent as we all would like, but that's what happens. Sorry bout that. Deal with it.

On to the goods:

Anybody go to the movies this weekend? If so, you likely went to see the romantic yawn-fest Just Like Heaven with a half-dead wandering ghost-spirit Reese Witherspoon. In a recent continuing trend with other media either openly or latently espousing a strange conservative ideology or being adopted by conservative groups for seemingly doing so, AO Scott at the NYT breaks down the conservative relations to the romantic ghost-comedy, and this one looks a lot like a Terri Schaivo wedge issue [Spoiler warning]:

Elizabeth, as it happens, is not dead, but rather in a coma from which she is given little chance of awakening. To make matters worse - and to set up a madcap climax in which Donal Logue rescues the film's faltering sense of humor - she has signed a living will, which her loving sister, urged on by an unprincipled doctor, is determined to enforce. But Elizabeth's spirit, along with Mr. Ruffalo's character, David, has second thoughts because she is so obviously alive, and the two must race to prevent the plug from being pulled, which means running through hospital corridors pushing a comatose patient on a gurney.

Would I have been happier if Elizabeth died? The very absurdity of the question - what kind of romantic comedy would that be? - is evidence of the film's ingenuity. Who could possibly take the side of medical judgment when love, family, supernatural forces and the very laws of genre are on the other side? And who would bother to notice that the villainous, materialistic doctor, despite having the religiously neutral last name Rushton, is played by Ben Shenkman, a bit of casting that suggests a faint, deniable whiff of anti-Semitism? Similarly, it can't mean much that Elizabeth, the ambitious career woman, is sad and unfulfilled in contrast to her married, stay-at-home-mom sister.

- and -

Now, thanks to the culture wars and the Internet, the game of ideological unmasking is one that more and more people are playing. With increasing frequency, the ideology they are uncovering is conservative, and it seems to spring less from the cultural unconscious than from careful premeditation.

Last fall, "The Incredibles" celebrated Ayn Randian libertarian individualism and the suburban nuclear family, while the naughty puppets of "Team America" satirized left-wing celebrity activism and defended American global power even as they mocked its excesses. More recently we have learned that flightless Antarctic birds, according to some fans of "March of the Penguins," can be seen as big-screen embodiments of the kind of traditional domestic values that back-sliding humans have all but abandoned, as well as proof that divine intention, rather than blind chance, is the engine of creation. I may be the only person who thought "The Island," this summer's Michael Bay flop about human clones bred for commercial use, indirectly argues the Bush administration's position on stem cell research, but I have not been alone in discerning lessons on intelligent design and other faith-based matters amid the spooky effects of "The Exorcism of Emily Rose." That movie, by the way, came in a close second behind "Just Like Heaven" at the box office last week, following an initial weekend in which it earned more than $30 million, one of the strongest September openings ever.

The secret conservative movie: here to stay...?

I, myself, am looking forward to all the wonderful conservative films that are on the way. Bring 'em On!

Rita Haunting the Coast

This year has become defined by the names of haunting, brutal storms. Katrina, Rita, potentially Alpha or Beta after the names run out. Everything about this year depends on how we deal with these storms- acts beyond our control, beyond our imagination, the fury of natural events and every failure of technology, politics, ecology, and development exposed by them. It is, in fact, man's imprint which Rita seeks furiously to wipe clean. Or rather, her indifferent spin, tampling across the Florida Keys and delayed in the Gulf, taunting the coast, indifferent, cool, without knowledge of Man's attempts to flee.

There are more storms; they are more violent and vicious.

And now, at least we know the lessons: Leave. Attempt surivival, but don't count on your country to attempt rescue. You may have a chance; but there's no governmental help. The country needs you; we want you, we want to help. But there's little evidence that our political system is ready or willing to help.

Please, please...

Godspeed, Houston...

Operation Offset

It seems that the Conservative Agenda has, in fact, discovered some fat that can be trimmed to aid in the Katrina relief effort, despite Delay's assertions that there's nothing more that can be cut:

At the top of a partial list of the potential cuts being circulated on Tuesday were previously suggested ideas like delaying the start of the new Medicare prescription drug coverage for one year to save $31 billion and eliminating $25 billion in projects from the newly enacted transportation measure.

The list also proposed eliminating the Moon-Mars initiative that NASA announced on Monday, for $44 billion in savings; ending support for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, $4 billion; cutting taxpayer payments for the national political conventions and the presidential election campaign fund, $600 million; and charging federal employees for parking, $1.54 billion.

"What House conservatives will demonstrate through Operation Offset is that there is more than enough room in the federal budget to provide for the needs of the families affected by Katrina without raising taxes," said a House Republican aide who is working with lawmakers on the proposals and who insisted on anonymity because the package would not be made public until Wednesday.

This is an incredible list. This has absolutely nothing with financing the drastic issue of Katrina relief, and it's incredible that some of these things are on the list. They want to end prescription benefits and CPB funding- stalwarts of the conservative agenda. When, in fact, the elective war that they've pushed this whole country in would finance Katrina relief itself- ending the war ends that drain of funds.

As Kos mentions, the sheer fact that the Conservatives are more willing to put important American programs on the line for Katrina relief, and not sacrifice anything [or even realize that a sacrifice is needed] for their Invasion, is disgusting.

Katrina- yet another reason that the Conservative Ideology can shit all over this country while pretending to care about it.

The problem with this is that America is simply getting walked all over in a time of Tragedy. AGAIN. We have GOT to assert our needs, our desires. We have got to say that given the choice between a 2-war, one disaster period where solving any of the three is doomed, and pursuing a 0-war, one disaster period where we can absolutely solve the needs of Americans, we demand the second. We demand accountability. We demand that liberalist values of compassion, understanding, and cooperation be extened to Americans for once. We absolutely demand it.

Peace Day

Today is the International Day of Peace. It should be a moment of reflection and awareness, a time to consider each of our social privaleges and capabilities, and to consider ways we can each work to foster peace internationally and locally.

The International Day of Peace "is meant to be a
day of global cease-fire, when all countries and all
people stop all hostilities for the entire day. And
it is a day on which people around the world observe
a minute of silence at 12 noon local time. [...]And
let us pledge to do our utmost to carry out the
important decisions on peace taken by last week's
2005 World Summit."

- Kofi Annan,
United Nations Secretary-General

One Day to Consider Peace. It's not enough. But it's a start.

Light Blogging

Likely to be considerably light blogging for the next 7-10 days on the AntiC. Just letting you know. The General is packing and moving Eastward. Quite the adventure!

Don't forget to support our friendly neighborhood co-conspirators, fellow Centoniacs. When Jigs and L.E.Rone's post up this week, give them lugubrious comments!

Woo!! [psieu! psieu!]

FEMA and Inexperience

The question is why didn't you tell the public, way back then? That's when it could have made a difference...

Invasion

Despite Venezuela's immediate and generous repsonse to hurricane Katrina, relations between the US and Venezuela teeter on dangerous. Anybody out there who supports America's current attempts at a two-war, one disaster stance think that this is a good idea?

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Friday he has documentary evidence that the United States plans to invade his country.

Chavez, interviewed on ABC's "Nightline," said the plan is called "Balboa" and involves aircraft carriers and planes. A transcript of the interview was made available by "Nightline."

He said U.S. soldiers recently went to Curacao, an island off Venezuela's northwest coast. He described as a "lie" the official U.S. explanation that they visited Curacao for rest and recreation.

"They were doing movements. They were doing maneuvers," Chavez said, speaking through a translator.

He added: "We are coming up with the counter-Balboa plan. That is to say if the government of the United States attempts to commit the foolhardy enterprise of attacking us, it would be embarked on a 100-year war. We are prepared."

Chavez has been attending the summit of world leaders at the United Nations in New York this week. On Thursday, he denounced the U.S.-led war in Iraq and told other leaders they should consider moving the U.N. headquarters out of the United States.

To prove U.S. intentions to invade Venezuela, Chavez offered to send "Nightline" host Ted Koppel maps and other documentation.

"What I can't tell you is how we got it, to protect the sources, how we got it through military intelligence," he said.

In the event of a U.S. invasion, Chavez said the United States can "just forget" about receiving any more oil from his country.

In Case You Were Wondering...

The percentage of successfully investigated, indicted, prosecuted, and completed cases of Terrorism in America? Well, if you count Jose Padilla, somewhere around 0.05%.

Case in point:

The great Thrax Attax of 2001. Shortly following the 9/11 attacks, a horrifying string of biological attacks using anthrax [a strain which likely came from within American laboratories] was perpetrated. The Perp? Still running free. In fact, we still know next to nothing about these attacks.

The War on Terror: Protecting America at Home and Abroad!

The Blame Game: No Blame! (Blame the Environmentalists!)

The feds and The Administration, fresh from their "don't play the blame game" stint, due to millions of Americans asking why they didn't do a damn thing in the aftermath of Katrina, have decided to switch gears. Any Commie-Pinko-Hippies who legally opposed the building or maintentence of the levee system on New Orleans for "environmental reasons," they would like to point out that you hate America and that you support terrorism and that you're responsible for the failures of the levees and the lack of food airdrops and the horrible conditions at the Superdome and the rapes. Your fault. Damn hippies:

The Clarion-Ledger said Friday it obtained an internal Justice Department e-mail sent out this week to U.S. attorneys that asks: "Has your district defended any cases on behalf of the (U.S.) Army Corps of Engineers against claims brought by environmental groups seeking to block or otherwise impede the Corps work on the levees protecting New Orleans? If so, please describe the case and the outcome of the litigation."

Cynthia Magnuson, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, told the newspaper she could not comment on internal e-mails.

The newspaper quoted unidentified federal officials as saying the query was prompted by a congressional inquiry.

Shown a copy of the email, David Bookbinder, senior attorney for Sierra Club, said: "Why are they (Bush administration officials) trying to smear us like this?"

And so, once again, with The Administration's attempts at rebuilding public support for their moronicisms, they're also attempting to subvert any actual investigation and understanding into what happened. They are, of course, ignoring the fact that New Orleans is an environmental disaster as well as a humanistic one. 4 Superfund sights were flooded. New Orleans is the central location now of the worst oil spill to have ever occured in America.

And, in fact, as the immutable Times-Picayune reported on the same day that Brownie retired from FEMA, Sept. 13, the levees themselves likely weren't even the real problem. All the levees remained intact for the most part. However, the floodwalls, which were built out of thick slabs of concrete and should not have faltered, burst in 3 places and caused the massive flooding of the cities.

If The Administration were serious about any of this, about really understanding what went wrong, they wouldn't stoke political blame. They'd be investigating, instead, those construction companies; they'd be seeking to information about the systems that contractors hired by the Army Corps of Engineers and why there seem to have been significant structural flaws in that work.

But they don't care. Pass the buck, cover your ass, do whatever you can. Except for solve the problems.

The Lights in New Orleans

The President, last night and this morning, projected the need, desperation, and desire to rebuild. He noted the vast inequalities, the disparate poverty, the sense of isolation and abandonment, and vowed to engage in the most dramatic reconstruction the world has seen. He offered hope and engagement in the wake of the disaster. Bishop T.D. Jakes, speaking before the president this morning, engaged in an evokative metaphor:

"Katrina, perhaps, she has done something to this nation that needed to be done," Jakes said. "We can no longer be a nation that overlooks the poor and the suffering, that continues past the ghetto on our way to the Mardi Gras."

But we must continue to be keenly aware. A President must project hopeful leadership. That he is doing so now, when he was incapable of doing so one week ago, reeks of political need in slumping numbers. We must recongize this. We have to consider: is the President's end to genuinely rebuild a great American city that he neglected in crisis, or is it to rebuild vitally lost political capital? Will he convince America that he is genuine, or will they regard his negligence as damning?

One only needs to go to the Actions of the President to understand where he really is in this whole affair. When it comes to The Administration's on-the-ground speeches, they have no permanent answers. They have only their PR team. Always remember: the actions of the government prove their intentions. Therefore, the inaction of the governement then and their trifles now, prove their intents. We turn, via Atrios, to NBC's Brian Williams:

I am duty-bound to report the talk of the New Orleans warehouse district last night: there was rejoicing (well, there would have been without the curfew, but the few people I saw on the streets were excited) when the power came back on for blocks on end. Kevin Tibbles was positively jubilant on the live update edition of Nightly News that we fed to the West Coast. The mini-mart, long ago cleaned out by looters, was nonetheless bathed in light, including the empty, roped-off gas pumps. The motorcade route through the district was partially lit no more than 30 minutes before POTUS drove through. And yet last night, no more than an hour after the President departed, the lights went out. The entire area was plunged into total darkness again, to audible groans. It's enough to make some of the folks here who witnessed it... jump to certain conclusions.

and:

Early reaction seems to be this: there will be local anger in this region (and many may find this frustrating) at the very portions of the speech meant to convey real and rare contrition on the part of the President. The anger may be in reaction to the government denials (of any major problems) and reassuring statements during that initial week of hell in this city. It truly appeared to be, as some branded it, a split-screen reality. During one particularly devastating briefing, Secretary Michael Chertoff appeared to be delivering a sunny and in-control message, especially when juxtaposed with the chaos that MSNBC, for one, was showing in the other half of the screen.

There will be the predictable chatter about the White House advance team's choice of the backdrop... one of the truly beautiful places in the Quarter (indeed in all of New Orleans). The other choices, a friend in politics points out: were devastation (a downer but real) or desolation (a compromise location that would match the reality on the ground here tonight).

Service Me, Condi

The man is, after all, only human.

My favorite part of The Note is... well... the note.

At the greatest convention of all world leaders that's occurred since the end of the second world war, during a period of great, dramatic crises domestically and internationally, the president of the most powerful superpower that has historically existed leans over to the secretary of state of that same nation, amid discussion of world leaders of such vital importance as eliminating extreme poverty and the ongoing need for international security from fanaticism and terrorism, and scribbles:

I think I MAY NEED A BATHroom break?

is this possible?

Rove Rebuilds America

The Administration's issue: how do you solve the problem of Katrina?

You send Karl Rove to rebuild.

This is not an error. The Administration is essentially replacing one unqualified [fired] horse edjudicator who had no credentials to deal with a disaster with an entrenched Republican idealogue who has made his living running and winning the dirtiest campaigns in American politics.

And so, this simply proves that The Administration has never had any intent on taking the needs of Katrina seriously- they simply want to be able to spin the problem without dealing with the problem to forge the beastly problems into a more favorable light for Bush. Ridiculous and horrifying. These fuckers just simply DO NOT CARE about Katrina, about those who have been displaced and killed, about those who have no future left.

These fuckers DO NOT CARE about you and I, about voters, about anything other then themselves. They simply DO NOT CARE.

FUCK YOU.

While We're At It

Fresh off the GOP party-line Senate vote killing any investigation into the government's failures as a nation that can respond to catastrophe [ the vote was strictly party-line. Every Republican save one voted that America has no right to know why their government disaster response is inept.], the House Republicans also voted to end any hope of an investigation. This one, the potential inquiry to hold The Administration accountable in the Plame Affair investigation.

House Republicans derailed Democratic attempts on Wednesday to force the Bush administration to surrender documents on prewar intelligence and the disclosure of the identity of a CIA operative.

Democrats have introduced several "resolutions of inquiry" to compel President Bush and members of his Cabinet to release all information relating to communications with British officials before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and the Valerie Plame case.

The White House has taken heat since the disclosure this year of the "Downing Street memos," British documents that suggest the Bush administration had made up its mind by 2002 to invade Iraq. Administration officials also have been interviewed by a special prosecutor in his quest

But what America has really lost is that next round of Republican tax cuts, particularly Trent Lott's oh-so-desired Estate Tax which affects only the topmost miniscule percentage of Americans- the richest. Apparently a tax cut will help the deeply impoverished, nearly abandoned evacuees who have lost everything. More than, say, bankruptcy protection, which the Republicans had already ripped away.

America: What a selfless, transparent, compassionate, disinterested democracy looks like. Particularly in times of national crisis! Buy yours today!

The Washing Away of the Bush Presidency

Sidney Bluemthal at Salon.com [click through for the daypass] chronicles the disconnect and disservice:

Bush's America is gone with the wind. It lasted just short of four years, from Sept. 11, 2001, to Aug. 29, 2005. The devastation of New Orleans was the watery equivalent of a dirty bomb, but Hurricane Katrina approached the homeland with advance warnings, scientific anticipation and a personal briefing of the president by the director of the National Hurricane Center, alerting him about a possible breaching of the levees. It was as predictable as though Osama bin Laden had phoned in every detail to the television networks. No future terrorist attack would or could be as completely foreseen as Katrina.

Bush's entire presidency and reelection campaign were organized around one master idea: He stood as the protector and savior of the American people under siege. On this mystique he built his persona as a decisive man of conviction and action. In the 2004 election, a critical mass of voters believed that because of his unabashed patriotism and unembarrassed religiosity he would do more to protect the country. They also believed that his fervor must be strength. The criticism of Bush that he was overzealous, simplistic and single-minded only served to reinforce his image.

The deepest wound is not that he was incapable of defending the country but that he has shown he lacks the will to do so. In Bush's own evangelical language, he revealed his heart.

...
With each of his three trips (so far) to survey the toxic floodwaters of New Orleans, Bush drifted farther out to sea. On his most recent voyage on Monday, asked about his earlier statement -- "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" -- he said, "When that storm came through at first, people said, Whew. There was a sense of relaxation." In fact, the levees began to be breached even before the eye of the storm hit the city. Queried about the sudden resignation that day of Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael "Brownie, You've Done a Heck of a Job" Brown, Bush told the press, "Maybe you know something I don't know."...

...
Poverty, previously unmentionable, has increased about 9 percent since Bush assumed office. The disparity between the superpower's evangelical mission to democratize the world and its indifference at home is a foreign policy crisis of new dimension. Can Iraq be saved if Louisiana is lost? Bush's credibility gap is a geopolitical problem without a geopolitical solution. Assuming a new mission, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wears her racial identity to witness for Bush's purity of heart. So long as Bush could wrap himself in 9/11 his image was shielded; he could even justify Iraq by flashing the non sequitur to his base. But once another event of magnitude thundered over his central claim as national defender, the Bush myth crumbled. It would take another event of this scale to begin to restore it. But it would also require a different set of responses from Bush. Now his evocation of 9/11 only reminds the public of his failed promise.

The rest of the Bush presidency will consist of his strained efforts to cobble his myth together again while others cope with the consequences of his damage. The hurricane has tossed and turned the country but will not deposit it on firm ground for at least the three and half years remaining of the ruined Bush presidency.

Already Pronounced Dead

As the stories from New Orleans continue to be told, we're reminded at just how bad everything was, and how much work we have yet ahead of us. This American Life has been telling some of the more graphic and incredible stories, and reporters continue to expose the conditions of the people affected by the flood, evacuation, and rescue effort. The Wash Post also has another haunting story of the Convention Center conditions:

"It was as if all of us were already pronounced dead," said Tony Cash, 25, who endured three nights of hunger, violence and darkness at the convention center. "As if somebody already had the body bags. Wasn't nobody coming to get us."

No one has been able to say how many people died inside the convention center; police, military and center officials estimate the number is about 10. Nor has there been any attempt to document the number of assaults, robberies and rapes that eyewitnesses said occurred from the time the first people broke into the convention center seeking shelter on the afternoon of Monday, Aug. 29, and when units of the Arkansas National Guard moved into the center on Friday, Sept. 2.

But even without those numbers, what happened in the convention center stands as a harsh indictment of government's failure to help its citizens when they needed it most. That futility was symbolized by the presence in the convention center for three of the most chaotic days of at least 250 armed troops from the Louisiana National Guard. They were camped out in a huge exhibition hall separated from the crowd by a wall, and used their trucks as a barricade when they were afraid the crowd would break in.

Breakdown

There are growing incidents of New Orleans evacuees coming into conflict with their new surroundings. The most noted at this time include students transfered to new schools; typically high school and college males.

As we've discussed before, there are core differences between 9/11 and Katrina, things that we must seek to understand in order to heal from Katrina [and 9/11!]. These are not absolutes. The effect of Katrina, the true devastation, came from the lack of any effort during the aftermath. The utter break down of an American City came as a shock to us all, and we watched it all unfold, piece after piece crumbling before our eyes. The city fell into chaos as each staple of a society unfolded. First, the storm, then the flood, then power, sewer, food, water, and finally, in the end, law, morals, order, peace, hope. All broke apart.

And so we can't be surprised that such conflicts come when evacuees move between communities, seeking some place to settle.

In Houston, a high school has had huge fights and problems with evacuees and locals, possibly from rival gangs. In Boston, two New Orleans evac'd students studying at Boston University because of the flood were stabbed in an argument.

This post certainly isn't intended to place blame- those who are responsible [in Houston, surely students from New Orleans are involved negatively; in Boston the students from New Orleans were clear victims] must be held accountable to their actions in these situations. But we also must seek to understand it. When an entire society rips at the seams like we witnessed in New Orleans, the effects will be drastic and far reaching. To some extent, this country has become psychologically scarred; Katrina was both the memory of an impoverished, racially charged past resurging from the depths, and a new problem of empathy and political accountability bubbling up into the consciousness.

This problem will have huge effects. The South East Asian tsunami, as massive as it was, had an inevitability to it. There is little that humanity can do with such horrifying scale.

But in New Orleans, the failures were in the aftermath: society crumbled in New Orleans because we sat idly by and let it do so. We spoke of values of compassion and acted upon values of indifference. That is the pain that will endure in this country for years.

Frances Newton

Tonight, Frances Newton was executed in Texas for the murder of her family. She was the third woman, and first black woman executed in the state since the end of the Civil War. [Executed, not lynched, the other sickening American form of capital "justice" which destroyed so much in this country.]

Problem is, she very very likely was innocent. They said her motive was money- insurance money to the tuen of $100,000. They said she kileld her husband and two children in cold blood for blood money. Hours before she was put to death, the Texas Supreme Court denied her final appeals unanimously, clearing the path to her death.

Her case is complex; but she has staunchly maintained her innocence and her defense has been able to produce compelling evidence that raises doubts to the narrative of the prosecution. Coupled with a fiercely terrible public defender in the early days of her case, whose sad incompetence led to her initial conviction, and Newton faced the ugly side of a cold American justice system.

The President of the American Bar Association had written to Texas Gov. Perry to request a Stay of Execution. The mercy to prevent death, as is the trend among Texas Governors, fell upon deaf ears.

Longstanding ABA policy states the importance of providing all criminal defendants with qualified, competent counsel and protecting the innocent from wrongful execution. An abundance of caution should be exercised whenever there is doubt. Last December, you agreed to a 120 day delay of Ms. Newton's execution because you were persuaded that such doubt existed.

Some testing was impossible because the evidence had been contaminated. More testing has been requested and compelling new evidence has been discovered since December.

We are not in a position to comment on the merits of the new evidence. That is a role for officials in your state. But we believe that carrying out the execution of Francis Newton without a full review of this new evidence is inconsistent with principles of fundamental fairness and due process. Because reasonable doubt exists, we urge you to vacate her execution date so that the newly discovered evidence can be tested and properly evaluated by Texas courts.

Thank you for your consideration.

Respectfully yours,

Michael S. Greco
President
American Bar Association

She has passed on, hopefully to a higher place. In the wake of her death, she may well be proven innocent of the crimes; and her death may well have been sadly in vain. Yet another notch in the belt of the American Death Penalty...

Senate GOP Kills Investigation into Katrina

Those self-protecting sleazebags all voted to kill an independent investigation on the Katrina disaster and the disastrous response to it. dKos has the scoop.

Keep in mind that if you staunchly vote to refuse an objective inquiry with objective oversight, then you have something to hide.

And in this case, it's clearly incompetence, cronyism, and a neo-conservative GOP controlling terrible policy choices. It's got to be maintained. These guys are playing the save your own ass game, and all their asses have to be on the line.

-----
AMERICAblog has the full list. And it literally is FULL. Every single US Senator who is Affiliated with the GOP voted against an investigative body except for LA Senator Vitter, who abstained from the vote. And every Democrat voted for an investigation.

Which Senate "Activists" are acting according to the majority interests of Americans, and which are attempting to stonewall against the interests of the country? Seeing as how 75% of Americans say they want a full, comprehensive investigation into the failure of our government concerning Katrina, I think it's pretty clear that the Republicans care very little about us. They don't care about Katrina's victims, and they don't care about 75% of the country.

Katrina's Ideology

As though any of us doubted it, The Administration is quietly and subversively using the Katrina disaster as a means to further their ultra-conservative agenda.

Think Progress has the scoop. Check it. Examples that they're pushing forward with:

• “SEPARATE BUT EQUAL” EDUCATION
• REFUSAL TO EXPAND ELIGIBILITY FOR HEALTH CARE
• LOWER WAGES FOR HURRICANE RECOVERY CONSTRUCTION WORKERS
• LOWER WAGES FOR HURRICANE RECOVERY SERVICE WORKERS

Fantastic. There are disturbing patterns that we should have been able to detect and criticise long ago. But we never learned our lessons. Shortly following the 9/11 disaster, The Administration pushed forward a slew of conservative agenda-items.

The problem, of course, is that The Moral of this whole event needs to be that ramming home a conservative social agenda is what has stripped people of powers, controls, abilities, and safety nets when disaster strikes. The erosion of liberal society [not politically "Liberal" society, but rather, that system of ethical societal choices], as Lakoff suggest, is to blame. Further eroding those factions because of the hurricane won't help anything.

Hunger Strike Expands

For those of you taking count, the Guantanamo Bay Hunger Strike continues. It has actually increased to include up to 1/4 of all detainees there.

The number of Guantanamo Bay detainees taking part in a hunger strike has swelled to about a quarter of the prison population over the past month, according to Pentagon officials.

Since August 8, the number of detainees refusing food has slowly increased from several dozen to 128, according to the Pentagon.

Eighteen prisoners are in medical facilities forcibly receiving nutrition intravenously or through nasal tubes, Pentagon officials said.

18 are forcibly receiving nutrition. Absolutely incredible. We spend so much time and effort keeping people alive: Terri Schaivo, anti-abortionists, those uncharged foreign terrrists.

This hunger strike is an incredible story. They're striking because of inhumane conditions, and we'll find out what the outcome is. People have starved themselves to death on their own terms...

Siezing Control

"Can you imagine how it would have been perceived if a president of the United States of one party had pre-emptively taken from the female governor of another party the command and control of her forces, unless the security situation made it completely clear that she was unable to effectively execute her command authority and that lawlessness was the inevitable result?" asked one senior administration official, who spoke anonymously because the talks were confidential. [Note the Fear of the "female." We're not talking about taking Presidential control of a National Natural Disaster, we're talking about "seizing" control from a woman. -GS]

And now, thanks to Atrios, we learn that this was never even really a problem. In fact, Gov. Blanco, the women the Feds were so afraid of, was basically completely blown off. What they've portrayed as an anti-female perception issue really turns out just, simply, to be an anti-female issue!

We now know that Blanco did everything she needed to and more to get federal government help (which commander codpiece could've and should've provided even without prompting). And, we also now know that Bush was very concerned about the plight of Haley "Possibly the Worst Man in America" Barbour, and not so concerned about Louisiana. At some poiny deliberate negligence is indistinguishable from malice.

She says that two days after Katrina, desperate for help, she couldn't get through to Bush and didn't get a callback; hours later, she tried again, and they talked.

...
Barbour hasn't had to wait hours to talk to Bush. In fact, Barbour said in an interview with USA TODAY, the president called him three to four times in the wake of Katrina. "I never called him. He always called me," he said.

I mean, can you imagine how it would look if the Federal government simply chose not to accept calls from the governor of Louisiana because she was a She-Democrat instead of a He-Repub?

Pretty B.A.D.

Bankruptcy

New US bankruptcy laws could add to the woes of Hurricane Katrina victims as they struggle to rebuild their lives, a politician has warned.

Bankruptcy Code changes which make it harder for Americans to wipe out their debts take effect in a month's time. Democratic Senator Russ Feingold says people driven to bankruptcy by hurricane damage should not be "test cases" for the new code. He is proposing a bill that would give them another year under the old law.

However, it faces opposition from senior Republicans who say the bankruptcy changes will not affect people who have been completely ruined financially.

Ehhhhxcellent. We just can't stop screwing these people.

We need to understand all of these issues BEFORE they arise and better push our government toward responsible stewardship through their careers. In March, the great folks at dKos compiled all sorts of data on this bankruptcy bill and how it would screw Americans while it was being turned into law. And here we are: in a hugely devastating crisis that has struck the already poor and indebted, these people will be broken down for YEARS to come.

We MUST be prescient, aware, predictave; we most demonstrate to our population that the government's actions have HUGE consequences. And that, in these circumstances, the people they will screw the most will invariably be the poorer Americans. Unreal.

We must translate all of this good work into serious action and awareness. This is yet another serious issue that the federal government has caused great strife for their own gain.

Bodies on the Street Near Burnt Out Cars

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani says that by the turn of the calandar, the US might be able to pull up to 50,000 troops from Iraq.

Bush says No Way. We "will not waiver."

"For President Talabani and his fellow citizens, the day Saddam (Hussein) was removed from power was a day of deliverance, and America will always be proud that we led the armies of liberation," Bush told reporters at the White House, the Iraqi leader by his side.

After meeting with Bush, Talabani backed away from an earlier claim that as many as 50,000 of the 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq could begin leaving his country by the end of the year because Iraqi forces are prepared to replace them.

"We will set no timetable for withdrawal, Mr. President," Talabani said. "A timetable will help the terrorists, will encourage them, that they could defeat a superpower of the world and the Iraqi people."

And to join in the chorus, a massive, horrible suicide bombing occured within 24 hours of these speeches in Baghdad, killing nearly 100 and injuring hundreds more. Two hours earlier, another spectacular attack occured in Baghdad.

Enjoy your chaotic country, Mr. Talabani. All us Americans are proud that we could lead the armies of liberation and usher in such a glorious peaceful certain time for you and your people. We just wish our leadership was actually able to help you attain that.

-----
UPDATE: 8:07 AM GS

Looks like a massive coordinated attack has occured. There were some 12 explosions across Baghdad and current numbers put the dead at 152.

Then And Now: A 12-Day Experiment

If by "disaster," Condi is referring to the disconnect between the ultra-rich out of touch members of The Administration who, like Nero, nonchalantly vacationed while Katrina sank New Orleans, than Condi is right.

I present to you: NOW [13 September]

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the people who were stranded in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina are evidence that race and poverty can still come together "in a very ugly way" in parts of the "Old South."

"The United States should want to do something about that," Rice said in an interview Monday with the editorial board of The New York Times. "There are still places that race and poverty are a huge problem in the United States, and we've got to deal with that."

And then there's the problem of: THEN [1 September]

Did New Yorkers chase Condoleezza Rice back to Washington yesterday?

Like President Bush, the Secretary of State has been on vacation during the Hurricane Katrina crisis, with Rice enjoying her downtime in New York Wednesday and yesterday. The cabinet member's responsibilities are usually international, but her timing contributed to the "fiddling while Rome burns" impression given by her boss during the disaster, which may have claimed thousands of lives.

On Wednesday night, Secretary Rice was booed by some audience members at "Spamalot!," the Monty Python musical at the Shubert, when the lights went up after the performance.

Yesterday, Rice went shopping at Ferragamo on Fifth Ave. According to the Web site www.Gawker.com, the 50-year-old bought "several thousand dollars' worth of shoes" at the pricey leather-goods boutique.

A fellow shopper shouted, "How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!" - presumably referring to Louisiana and Mississippi.

Ahh yes. This disaster did front-page the terrible conflicts that certain areas of America experience with poverty and race. But, Madame Secretary, we at the AntiCentenarian ask you: Why don't you recognize your part in that conflict? When you seek to eliminate racial conflict and when you seek to eliminate the terrible poverty that exists in America, then we'll take your word. Until then, you're just dropping cash on thousand dollar pumps, and you can lock it up.

Your integrity is compromised by your social ineptitude and lack of compassion.

Golddigger

five days in this mother fuckin attic
can't use the cell phone i keep gettin static
dyin cause they lyin stead of tellin us the truth
other day the helicopters got my neighbors off the roof [off the roof??]

it's coo' cause they say they comin back for us too
that was three days ago, i don't see no rescue
see a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do
since God made the path and i'm tryin to walk thru

swam to the store tryin to look for food
corner store's kinda flooded so i broke my way thru
i got what i could but before i got thru
the news said police shot a black man tryin to loot. [tryin to loot??]

wha? don't like black people.
george bush don't like black people.
george bush don't like black people.

THE LEGENDARY K.O. Remixes Kanye West to great effect

We Will Not Stand Idly By

Naomi Klein has been listening to the stories of Katrina. She's set out to interview those individuals who have risen above the catastrophe and will work to build their own communities of reconstruction:

I’m really happy that Malik has the attention he rightfully deserves. The people on the ground here are in a fight to get the help they need and he’s the leader they love. I’ve heard people repeat over and over again that he averted people from dying, he helped them to eat, he helped them to be calm and he brought everyone together. They put aside their differences and became a community over night. He talked about the armed white men in the streets pulling their guns on every black man they could see. He talked about their efforts to calm everything and how it worked.

The man pictured above [see website - GS] interrupted the interview to speak at length about how Malik basically saved his life and the life of the community with no outside help. He talked about the hell of the Superdome and how it was suicide to go inside. He actually took over the interview with his emotional response but everyone was listening to him. Cameras were rolling.

...
She’s filming for a documentary and I believe one of the main issues the film will address is the idea of displacement during natural disasters. I asked her what she meant and she discussed a number of subjects. One of them was how such actions could be viewed as colonialism (would this be called neo-colonialism?). Authorities often use disasters as a reason to rebuild “worthwhile” economic developments rather than homes for the displaced poor who once lived there. Perhaps this is the future of the parts of this city.

Klein has some interesting thoughts on the manipulation of a natural disaster that operates against the interests of those that have been most effected. In a piece entitled "Let the people rebuild New Orleans," Klein espouses the need for those who live in New Orleans to determine what it looks like, what it lives like; not those external interests like Haliburton who will work for development that is not in line with Baton Rouge Rep. Baker.

Klein's thoughts: Be careful how you aid these people. The more you impose what you think they need upon what they need, the more you engage in a form of disaster-based neo-colonialism. And letting them be self determinate might benefit everybody involved more thoroughly.

On September 4, six days after Katrina hit, I saw the first glimmer of hope. "The people of New Orleans will not go quietly into the night, scattering across this country to become homeless in countless other cities while federal relief funds are funneled into rebuilding casinos, hotels, chemical plants.... We will not stand idly by while this disaster is used as an opportunity to replace our homes with newly built mansions and condos in a gentrified New Orleans."

The statement came from Community Labor United, a coalition of low-income groups in New Orleans. It went on to demand that a committee made up of evacuees "oversee FEMA, the Red Cross and other organizations collecting resources on behalf of our people.... We are calling for evacuees from our community to actively participate in the rebuilding of New Orleans."

It's a radical concept: The $10.5 billion released by Congress and the $500 million raised by private charities doesn't actually belong to the relief agencies or the government; it belongs to the victims. The agencies entrusted with the money should be accountable to them. Put another way, the people Barbara Bush tactfully described as "underprivileged anyway" just got very rich.

Except relief and reconstruction never seem to work like that. When I was in Sri Lanka six months after the tsunami, many survivors told me that the reconstruction was victimizing them all over again. A council of the country's most prominent businesspeople had been put in charge of the process, and they were handing the coast over to tourist developers at a frantic pace. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of poor fishing people were still stuck in sweltering inland camps, patrolled by soldiers with machine guns and entirely dependent on relief agencies for food and water. They called reconstruction "the second tsunami."

There are already signs that New Orleans evacuees could face a similarly brutal second storm. Jimmy Reiss, chairman of the New Orleans Business Council, told Newsweek that he has been brainstorming about how "to use this catastrophe as a once-in-an-eon opportunity to change the dynamic." The Business Council's wish list is well-known: low wages, low taxes, more luxury condos and hotels. Before the flood, this highly profitable vision was already displacing thousands of poor African-Americans: While their music and culture was for sale in an increasingly corporatized French Quarter (where only 4.3 percent of residents are black), their housing developments were being torn down. "For white tourists and businesspeople, New Orleans' reputation is 'a great place to have a vacation but don't leave the French Quarter or you'll get shot,'" Jordan Flaherty, a New Orleans-based labor organizer told me the day after he left the city by boat. "Now the developers have their big chance to disperse the obstacle to gentrification--poor people."

Here's a better idea: New Orleans could be reconstructed by and for the very people most victimized by the flood. Schools and hospitals that were falling apart before could finally have adequate resources; the rebuilding could create thousands of local jobs and provide massive skills training in decent paying industries. Rather than handing over the reconstruction to the same corrupt elite that failed the city so spectacularly, the effort could be led by groups like Douglass Community Coalition. Before the hurricane this remarkable assembly of parents, teachers, students and artists was trying to reconstruct the city from the ravages of poverty by transforming Frederick Douglass Senior High School into a model of community learning. They have already done the painstaking work of building consensus around education reform. Now that the funds are flowing, shouldn't they have the tools to rebuild every ailing public school in the city?

Wow... Give it to em, Ms. Klein.