Thursday, September 01, 2005

Start making sense

Crossposted at Daily Kos, My Left Wing, and Booman Tribune

So, Dennis Hastert says rebuilding New Orleans isn’t sensible? Wow--I can think of a *lot* of things that are less sensible than that. How about Bush gutting FEMA? I think *that* wasn't very sensible. As Molly Ivins points out, it wasn't sensible for the Bush administration to repeal Clinton's wetland protection policies and allow developers to drain thousands of acres of wetlands. Molly continues...

Unfortunately, the war in Iraq is directly related to the devastation left by the hurricane. About 35 percent of Louisiana's National Guard is now serving in Iraq, where four out of every 10 soldiers are guardsmen. Recruiting for the Guard is also down significantly because people are afraid of being sent to Iraq if they join, leaving the Guard even more short-handed.

The Louisiana National Guard also notes that dozens of its high-water vehicles, Humvees, refuelers and generators have also been sent abroad. (I hate to be picky, but why do they need high-water vehicles in Iraq?)

This, in turn, goes back to the original policy decision to go into Iraq without enough soldiers and the subsequent failure to admit that mistake and to rectify it by instituting a draft.

The levees of New Orleans, two of which are now broken and flooding the city, were also victims of Iraq war spending. Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, said on June 8, 2004, "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq."

This, friends, is why we need to pay attention to government policies, not political personalities, and to know whereon we vote. It is about our lives.


Know what else makes no freakin' sense at all? The push to eliminate the "death tax". Golly, of course if you ask me "Do you want to eliminate the death tax?", I'd have to say, "Sure! That's just not right, taxing people just for dying!" 'Cept, isn't there *another* name for that boogey-man tax thingie they want to protect us from? Oh, that's right, the *estate* tax. On this petition page at MoveOn.org, it says:

The Senate will vote in September to eliminate the Estate Tax for the richest 2 percent of Americans.

Wow, the riches 2%, huh? Imagine all the stuff we could *do* with that money. Like, oh, I don't know...REBUILDING NEW ORLEANS?! Guess this makes me some sort of socialist or something, but I think if you have an *estate* such that it puts you in the top two percent, then it is your *duty* to do what you can to help the poorest of the poor. Maybe it's my Catholic upbringing talking. From Catholic Social Teaching, Option for the Poor:

"If someone who has the riches of this world sees his brother in need and closes his heart to him, how does the love of God abide in him?" (1 Jn 3:17). It is well known how strong were the words used by the Fathers of the Church to describe the proper attitude of persons who possess anything towards persons in need. To quote Saint Ambrose: "You are not making a gift of your possessions to the poor person. You are handing over to him what is his. For what has been given in common for the use of all, you have arrogated to yourself. The world is given to all, and not only to the rich."

Back to Hastert's comments again...you know what *would* be sensible? Bankruptcy relief.

Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Rep. Mel Watt, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee announced today that when Congress returns next Tuesday, they will introduce legislation to protect the thousands of families and small businesses financially devastated by Hurricane Katrina from being penalized by anti-debtor provisions contained in the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, scheduled to take effect on October 17, 2005. Reps. Conyers, Nadler, and Jackson Lee released the following joint statement:

"We are concerned that just as survivors of Hurricane Katrina are beginning to rebuild their lives, the new bankruptcy law will result in a further and unintended financial whammy. Unfortunately, the new law is likely to have the consequence of preventing devestated families from being able to obtain relief from massive and unexpected new financial obligations they are incurring and by forcing them to repay their debt with income they no longer have, but which is counted by the law.


How do you think *your* congresscritter will vote on that legislation? Maybe you should give him or her a little nudge, and say, "The American people are counting on you to do the *sensible* thing."

Not to mention the decent thing.

17 comments:

  1. Tell it like it is, Renee, Molly and Conyers, et al!

    A real leader would have been on top of this story from the beginning. But we know what kind of leader George Bush is. He is the guy in the foxhole who has wet his pants and is curled in the fetal position.

    No, wait. He wouldn't be in the foxhole to begin with. He'd be at a Club Med with a mint julep in hand while others were fighting for his freedom to be selected president of the United States of
    America so that he could someday squander the American taxpayer's money.

    A leader doesn't duck responsibility or accountability. A leader doesn't eat cake on the tarmac while a city is being destroyed. Real leaders don't go shopping for $1,000 shoes (Condi Rice) while citizens are begging, stealing and grappling for food and water.

    We have a leadership vacuum at the top levles in this country that needs filling. Someone needs to step up to the plate.

    I guarantee you it will not be George Bush.

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  2. Molly is correct. They had an expert on NBC last night saying the same thing about the wetlands destroyed by development and how that helped the hurricane do the damage because there was no longer a buffer. Trees are wonderful things. They are here to help us and protect us. We need to treat our environment with respect, or this is the kind of thing that happens.

    Of course, they probably didn't care because it was mostly non-white people.

    Same racist things happen in Arizona.

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  3. The decent thing? When has any politician ever done the decent thing, except on the very rare occasion when the decent thing also coincides with the politically advantageous, expedient thing?

    Having said that, I really hope this bill gets through. It'll be a crime and sin if it d oesn't

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  4. Hey uinen--good to see you here!

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  5. Seen on dkos:

    Fats Domino Found in New Orleans

    One of rock 'n' roll's chief architects has been rescued from the rubble of New Orleans. Fats Domino, who had been unaccounted for in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, was plucked from the flooded city by a helicopter late Thursday. He was reported to be in good condition. An APB went out for the musician and his family earlier in the day.

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  6. Condi was at the theatre or symphony while the rest of the white house was meeting today regarding the flooding.

    Fats Domino is missing, by the way.

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  7. Renee, I hadn't seen your post and posted that...but am glad to read yours that he is okay.

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  8. So a reporter says no one is and charge and no one is organizing getting food and water.

    My thought is, the people who sent the buses...why did they not load the buses with food going and and people going out?

    I fricken don't get it.

    Any why can't they air drop in those inflatable boats food supplies like they do all over the world?

    I am seriously thinking they WANT these people to die, as morbid as that sounds. If I were a pilot I would fly in myself.

    Heck, that is what Oler should volunteer for. And anyone who owns a plane.

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  9. If you can stand it, there's a front page diary on Booman Tribune about people having to abandon their pets.

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  10. Renee,
    Did you just get trolled???

    And by someone without an orginal thought.

    Egad!

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  11. Renee, I see you caught the troll post, lol.

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  12. Has anyone noticed their webistes or emails working slower today? I noticed this site and my email is much, much slower as well as regular sites. I bet the internet traffic is more today than it has been in years because of the flooding and people trying to help or get info.

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  13. It was "comment spam", Cheryl. They seem to come in twos. I've zapped at *least* four of them today. To avoid it, I can change the settings and not allow anonymous posting any more, or I can set it so that people have to verify that they are indeed human by typing a word that appears on the screen before they continue. I hate to make this site *less* accessible, though, when it's already a challenge to *get* people here sometimes.

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  14. Well, removing anonymous might not be so bad, because they can still do 'other' to get in if they can't sign in. I use the other function all the time when I post links.

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  15. Waiting for a Leader

    Published: September 1, 2005

    "George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration: a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast. He advised the public that anybody who wanted to help should send cash, grinned, and promised that everything would work out in the end.
    We will, of course, endure, and the city of New Orleans must come back. But looking at the pictures on television yesterday of a place abandoned to the forces of flood, fire and looting, it was hard not to wonder exactly how that is going to come to pass. Right now, hundreds of thousands of American refugees need our national concern and care. Thousands of people still need to be rescued from imminent peril. Public health threats must be controlled in New Orleans and throughout southern Mississippi. Drivers must be given confidence that gasoline will be available, and profiteering must be brought under control at a moment when television has been showing long lines at some pumps and spot prices approaching $4 a gallon have been reported.

    Sacrifices may be necessary to make sure that all these things happen in an orderly, efficient way. But this administration has never been one to counsel sacrifice. And nothing about the president's demeanor yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis.

    While our attention must now be on the Gulf Coast's most immediate needs, the nation will soon ask why New Orleans's levees remained so inadequate. Publications from the local newspaper to National Geographic have fulminated about the bad state of flood protection in this beloved city, which is below sea level. Why were developers permitted to destroy wetlands and barrier islands that could have held back the hurricane's surge? Why was Congress, before it wandered off to vacation, engaged in slashing the budget for correcting some of the gaping holes in the area's flood protection?

    It would be some comfort to think that, as Mr. Bush cheerily announced, America "will be a stronger place" for enduring this crisis. Complacency will no longer suffice, especially if experts are right in warning that global warming may increase the intensity of future hurricanes. But since this administration won't acknowledge that global warming exists, the chances of leadership seem minimal." click

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  16. ABC is now covering the racism issue and what we have been linking to with calling black people looters and white people shoppers/finders.

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  17. SEASHELL11 HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!



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