Cover your ass, republicans- it's your only hope- if you think Bush's speech tonight solved your problems, you're sadly mistaken- throw up as much dirt as possible- and hide... I'm not going to address his rhetoric, in any way, tonight, because it was all, well- bullshit. Seriously- not one, single word that he spoke tonight, will bear any resemblance to the events that will follow, in coming days, weeks, months, and years. It was all scripted, engineered to placate the standard media whores (In particular- Wolf Blitzer nearly creamed his pants, breathless, recounting the "points" of Bush's speech, tonight- that guy has serious problems.)

Here's the real deal:

Bush's "Enterprize zones" will be wild-west territories, that will be fought over by major corporations, in which privately-owned property will be handed over to major coproations, under the guise of "eminent domain". A few bits will be thrown to (christian) "faith-based" organizations, but overall, expect vast swaths of monoculture strip-malls, corporate farms, and wal-marts to crop up, in the affected areas. Incentives, such as tax cuts, will be given to the corporations, while the rest of the people are left to scrabble for survival.

New Orleans will no longer be the impoverished city it once was- under the Bush plan, it will be turned into a dishonest, Disney shadow of what it once was. An overwhelming majority of the poor that left, will never return, and the slums will be magically transformed into a disingenuous playground for the rich tourists, who are sure to return. (The one upshot of this, is that the poor, blue voters of the former New Orleans, will be spread, accross the south, hopefully, tilting the balance, in times to come.)

How will the two above points come to pass? Easy! Bush, along with his republican majority in the congress, decided to waive the prevailing wage exemption, in the affected areas. What does this mean? Basically, it means that those who are left in the area, desperate for work, in the wake of a disaster that has destroyed their jobs, are generously given a chance to work for 12 hours a day to build this corporate Disneyland for less than 9 bucks an hour (federal overtime restrictions notwithstanding- also passed by Bush, and his republican cadres.) This means that this playground for the rich, will be built by those most desperate for employment, at a wage that is slightly above the poverty level. Sweet, heh?

And lastly- I have no doubt that Bush will, as he has in times past, shove a few more nails into the coffin of the "small government" legacy, left to the conservative movement, by Reagan, and spend as much money as it takes, to cover his ass, while the federal defecit continues to break records, over the next few years. At the same time, he'll continue to press for greater and greater tax cuts, leaving a debt that will take generations of democratic presidents to fix.

Now- as exciting as this latest and greatest failure of the Bush bowl has been...

Previous failures continue to arise- specifically, today, the recent insurgent bombings in the "land of Success" formerly known as Iraq. Last I checked, around 170 have died, in just the past 48 hours, in the land of peace and democracy that the neocons assured us would arise, when we invaded...

I hate republicans- I really do. Notice that, yesterday, when the vote came up to call an independent commission to investigate government actions, in the wake of Katrina, EVERY REPUBLICAN VOTED AGAINST IT- even the delegation from Louisiana? New republican slogan- "cover your ass". Sick, sick, sick, bastards to a man. Who cares, anyway, what happened down there, after all? Hell- considering the republican rhetoric over the past three weeks, one would figure that it was all the fault of Mayor Nagin and Governor Landrou- you figure the republicans would LEAP at the opportunity to prove it- if the facts backed them up- but, well- oops!

BUSTING THE "FLOODED BUS" MYTH
From Have Coffee, Will Write

I think I would be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t seen the above photo. And the image of all those school buses up to their hubs in flood water is a justified focus of rage of those who ask the legitimate question: why weren’t they used to ferry people out of the path of the storm. By my count, there are 300 buses in the photo.

I’ll be generous and assume that’s half of them.

Let’s say that on Saturday, 27 August, when Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco declared a state of emergency, the following happens. I don’t know the precise time of the order, but I’ll be kind and say it was issued sometime before dawn on the 27th. Let’s say 0300.

At 0300 then, phone calls go out to the 600 bus drivers, who were put on standby alert the day before. They are ordered to report to the lot no later than 0500. Now these men and women will have heroically kissed their families goodbye, trusting that their spouses and children will pack up the family car and drive north to safety. They are met in the lot by 600 police officers and sheriff’s deputies who will literally ride shotgun on each bus.

At 0600, the drivers roll out to a predetermined pick up spot and open their doors. They are on a tight schedule. In order to have any chance of moving enough people out of New Orleans, they must load their passengers and roll quickly. Assume it takes them 30 minutes to load and that they close the doors and pull out by 0800 Saturday morning.

A full-sized school bus can carry approximately 60 adults. I’ll be again generous and assume that an additional 20 children could be carried on their parent’s laps. Of course there’s no room for more than minor luggage — perhaps something half the size of what airlines allow as carryons — and no pets

So, for the first run out of town, our 600 bus drivers and 600 law enforcement personnel have 48,000 passengers. That’s a very respectable number. The busses drive north, assisted by a disaster-plan-mandated bus lane that additional police are maintaining so that the busses, which have to make a return trip, don’t get trapped in traffic.

Where do the buses go? Houston was one obvious choice. Distance? Approximately 350 miles from New Orleans. At say an average speed of 50 miles an hour (remember those special bus lanes?) that’s a seven hour drive. Figure two highly efficient refueling stations: one at the midpoint and one at the end point.

If 150 buses, carrying 12,000 evacuees (approximately the number the Astrodome was able to handle) make that trip, I don’t think that a drive time of seven hours plus another two hours for refueling and bathroom visits is unreasonable. Total drive time, nine hours one way, 17 hours roundtrip. Where do the other three, 150-bus convoys go? Good question. A glance at the map suggest that Memphis, Little Rock and Birmingham could be candidates with about the same drive time.

The cities have pre-positioned cots, water, food and medical supplies for their 12,000 guests who are processed by efficient city and state personnel.

The 600 buses that left New Orleans at 0800 with 48,000 passengers Saturday morning, roll back into the Big Easy at 0100 Sunday. The buses are met by another 600 drivers and their accompanying law enforcement personnel. The buses refuel and now, under pressure from the approaching storm, are at the Phase II collection points by 0300.

Another 48,000 passengers are loaded and by 0500 the buses roll again. Another nine-hour drive later, the buses unload their passengers. It’s now 1400 on Sunday. In two hours, the National Weather Service will issue a special hurricane warning. There are still people in New Orleans that must be gotten out. The bus drivers refuel and head back for one more trip, arriving in an already rain drenched city at 2100 Sunday night.

The bus drivers switch off one last time with the original drivers and law enforcement personnel. Water is beginning to wash over the levees. The buses are back at their pickup points by 2300 Sunday and the last of the citizens to be evacuated thankfully climb on board. The doors close one last time and with police escorts clearing the way, the last of approximately 100,000 citizens without cars or other transportation escape their doomed city.

In less than 48 hours, the heroic bus drivers evacuated as many as 144,000 people, from a metropolitan population of approximately 1.3 million. Depending upon plans, somewhere between four and 12 cities will be caring for at least 12,000 and perhaps as many as 36,000 refugees each.

That’s the fantasy.

Anyone who has ever taken part in disaster planning or in any military action knows that no major city in the world is capable of pulling something like this off. Should the buses have been used? Hell yes. Would they have made a difference? To the people who got on them, they would.

Would they have provided The Answer? Not a chance.

There is only one organization in the world with the budget, personnel and mandate to come even close to something like this: The Federal Emergency Management Agency. And we now know how ready it was.

(my own addendum):

estant christian ones) are the only salvation for those who are betrayed by a republican govenment that doesn't care one whit, for human life.

The Bush bowl tried to cover their ass, in this regard, by casting off Brown- that didn't work, so, now, Jesus Jr has decided to accept responsibility for failure of the federal government (of which, FEMA is a part.)

So, Again, let's stop the "blame the victims" game, shall we, you few remaining freeper lurkers? You've been silent, since the day Cindy Sheehan rolled into town, and effectively castrated your beloved leader, but I know you're still out there.

Aww- look at the little, wee "president", standing before the cameras, and warbling out a few, tepid, dishonest PR talking points that don't even sound good, much less amount to a hill of beans. If he's responsible for the gross failings of the federal government in this regard, he needs to leave, before his propensity for gross negligence and criminal dereliction of duty kills again.

But dig this- Here's what Bush is gonna do: He'll use this as an example to forward the conservative philosophy (that has snce become a self-fulfilling prophecy), that "This proves that that Big Government isn't the answer." He'll argue that this is why we should give even BIGGER tax cuts to the rich, and why "faith-based organizations" (mainly prot Oh- he'll also balloon the federal defecit, with unfunded mandates to all levels of the government, ever maintaining the brilliant republican strategy of shutting the barn door, months after the horse has disappeared over the horizon.

This article emerged, today, showing that a bipartisan committee found that the Louisiana governor actually did exactly what she was supposed to do, under the circumstances, leading up to Katrina.

So, I guess it's all Mayor Nagin's fault, now- right, freepers? (Oh, and of course, it'll ALWAYS be Clinton's fault.)

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 6th, 2011 at 1:48 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the feed. You can trackback from your own site.