Worst Adminstration Ever
Sep. 2nd, 2005 11:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mbarrick
We all know the Republicans don't care about human lives or the sorts of freedoms one would expect in, oh, say, a republic, and are more concerned with profit, consolidation and abuse of federal powers (a.k.a. turning the republic into an empire), and dog-wagging imperialism... so let's look at where they have failed in these terms:50% of U.S. food exports go out through New Orleans. There are only five nations on earth that produce a surplus of food: the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Ukraine, and Russia. Not only are the people of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama suffering the direct consequences, but soon people throughout South America, Africa, and Asia will have food shortages.
Between 15 and 20 percent of United States' foreign trade comes in through New Orleans. Most of the nation's steel and rubber comes in through New Orleans. What kind of impact is this going to have on the American auto industry? Most of the nation's coffee comes in through New Orleans - expect your morning cup of coffee to get a lot more expensive.
Understanding their own place and importance to the U.S. economy, the port of New Orleans had been requesting federal funds to upgrade the levees since 2001. Not only did the federal government not allocate the money, they reduced funding to a point that the levees were barely being maintained. Remember that prior to his election Bush had never been to any foreign country other than Mexico and didn't even know the name of the prime minister of Canada.
Between 20 and 30 percent of the United States' oil refining capability was (note the past tense) in the affected area. U.S. refining capacity typically runs at near 100%. Americans can expect gas prices to get a lot higher than $3/gal. And remember that it's not just SUV-driving suburban soccer moms that are affected by this. Ships, trucks, and trains need fuel, too, and with the port of New Orleans out of service, ships have to travel farther to reach alternate ports of adequite capacity like Los Angeles and New York, and subsequently goods have to be shipped farther at higher rates. This makes everything more expensive.
The word isn't in yet on how much lumber production in the south has been impacted, but it has been. Lumber prices are up around 15% and rising. 30% of the lumber normally consumed in the U.S. comes from Canada at a price that is artificially inflated 20% by illegal tarriffs. Add the increaces shipping costs from the more expensive fuel on top of that and understand that the price the average person is going to have to pay to rebuild their home is significantly more than it need be.
The cost of the war was already crippling the U.S. economy and driving up a debt so great that GNP barely covers the interest. He gambled with the most important port in the country by diverting federal funds for the levees to removing the rogue dictator installed by Reagan and Rumsfeld and fighting a war his own father avoided as untenable and fruitless, and lost the bet. There isn't one sector of the American economy that is not going to be affected by this.
The hurricane seasons of the last few years should have been ample warning that stronger storms are becoming more common, but remember that Bush doesn't believe the climate is actually changing (whether or not you think the change is the result of pollution or a natural variation, any idiot can see that change is happening). Shoring up and securing the most important port in the U.S. should have been a fundamental matter of national security - infinitely more imprortant to the American people than bringing "freedom" to a foreign nation - but unfortunately for us all, not glitzy enough to meet the political goals of power-hungry politicians too busy reading from Joseph Goebbels' Big Book of Propoganda How-To's (after replacing "Jew" with "Arab").
And with the American dollar being the reserve currency of choice for most of the world, its inevitable nose-dive is going to ruin the economy of most of the world. Countries like China that don't have U.S. currency reserves will prosper. Europe will proser as countries scramble to shift their reserves from dollars to euros (a trend that was already underway). This administration has taken the United States to the point where this disaster could easily cause the country to fall apart like the Soviet Union in the 1990's.
If this doesn't set off a major economic depression, I'll eat my hat (and if it does, I may have to). The irony is, as with the last depression, it is the "Red States" that will bear the worst of the economic damage.
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Very well written and I couldn't agree more in many cases ...
Date: 2005-09-03 01:54 am (UTC)New Orleans knew this was going to happen someday. For many more years than the Republicans were in control of office. Now, I hate the current administration as the next, and you know how I feel about how horrible this is, but one thing that is overlooked is the reality of acting on things timely and properly. Granted, The current administration is crippled in not being able to send enough troops, helicopters, vehicles from the military angle because its wasting them away in Iraq where we do not belong.
The Levees:
Yes, New Orleans has been requesting funds for upgrading the Levys. They Got enormous sums of Money for upgrading the Levys. I Know this. Because my paycheck a few months back, was funded by the Army Corp of Engineers in both Mississippi and Louisiana, to do survey work, along the Levys of the Mississippi, to make sure that the work the military, state, and federal government was going to do on upgrading and fixing the levys would not damage the cultural history of Mississippi and Louisiana. I even became unemployed because one homeowner refused to let us come on her property to check things out before they work on the levys. They could of been the Army assumed control and walked over her individual rights with their right to come on her property and do what they needed - but no, they were respectful of her freedoms, heard her in court, and delaying the levy work for more months. Multiply that by every homeowner along the mississippi, and you can see the levy work delays. Its sad, but true. The Funds for Louisiana as well as Mississippi are for the entire states, not just (1) City. The Mississippi River is a vast river with Levys all the way up its entire course that protect homes, cities, people, wildlife, and cultural resources throughout the middle of the U.S. Everything upstream affects New Orleans, so not only was work needed on the Levys in New Orleans, but everywhere else. It was the stupidity of people residing where they shouldn't be residing, and trying to change the course of nature, and change a river. I visited a handful of "ghost towns" that finally were abandoned along the Mississipp through the course of history after the settlers gave up after flood after flood and came to their senses. Its sad to see, even historically. People don't listen, they will just find a way to fight off nature. I'm not trying to diminish the effect of what happened, it's horrible, and yes the administration couldn't respond amply because of Iraq eating up our troops and resources where we don't belong. But people don't listen. Certainly the poor who wanted to leave, couldn't. Hell, given some weeks in my life if I was doing fieldwork still in Louisiana, I probably couldn't of left. But I honestly believe the majority simply refused to go, or would of ridden it out. People are stupid. Hell, I was planning on driving right on through New Orleans and spending time at my ex's Katrina's right in the zone because sure it sounded horrible, but yeah, its just a hurricane. I've been through a few. That was stupid of me and I'm glad I was turned around when I was, but I was going to find a backroute even with authorities telling me to go back. I was stupid (even though I think I'm an intelligent person). People just don't expect the worse.
Re: Very well written and I couldn't agree more in many cases ...
Date: 2005-09-03 01:55 am (UTC)Just as I posted during the evacuation of New Orleans, since they simply didn't have the resources to move everyone out in time (or even be 100% that what they expected would truly happen) - they knew, as the governor relentlessly ordered 80,000 body bags just in case.
Just some points to consider ...
Re: Very well written and I couldn't agree more in many cases ...
Date: 2005-09-03 03:53 am (UTC)That's the point, they are. The three biggest ports in the US are New York, L.A. and New Orleans. New Orleans is the best connected of the three. The river connects New Orleans to the heartland of the country. New Orleans has more rail connections than the other ports. It is more centrally located. That's why it is where it is. New York State Governor DeWitt Clinton saw it after the Louisiana Purchase - the Erie Canal was dug to make New York competative with New Orleans lest New York become a backwater as the west was settled. I'm intentially ignoring the immediate human cost, and looking at the implications for the economy and security of the whole country. In that context that one city is and has always been more important than any other city on the river. Florida is nowhere near as important strategically or economically.
The projects to improve the New Orleans levees so that this vital port could withstand a category 5 had been going on since the 1960. The funding started to dry up in 2003, just when new studies in the wake of the 2002 hurricane season were coming out to show that the work remained inadequite.
"It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."
-- Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004.
The science to show what was needed in the light of increacingly violent hurricane seasons was done during this administration. The diversion of necessary funds away from an area genuinely vital to the security and economy of the United States was done by this administration. That article may likely have been part of the "everything we can".
And all that being said, it only redoubles the point that resources should have been marshalled as soon as it was clear the storm was on it's way.
You know me. I do my homework before I spout off. I agree that is was inevitable, but the port is there for a reason, and that reason is important. A president that can't see that isn't worthy of office.
And, by the way, Venice didn't sink. Venice was settled intentially by Roman refugees fleeing the Huns. It was consciously built on a swamp to make it inaccessible to the Huns' mounted armies. And because it worked it was spared a lot of the nastiness of the fall of the western empire and became an important hold-out of the ancient world during the dark ages. But that's a whole big story of its own.
Re: Very well written and I couldn't agree more in many cases ...
Date: 2005-09-03 05:26 am (UTC)before you spout off
motivated to show off your "intelligence"
in the end your vanity is your undoing
were you able to save any life in this one
or did you just preach AGAIN to the converted
liberals are super moronic
Eat me
Date: 2005-09-03 10:44 am (UTC)Real men don't need to bolster their egos with LJ communities like
One of the great cities of your nation is in ruins, and it's ruin will have ramifications you obviously can't grasp, let alone the human cost. Your president is a laughing stock in every nation on Earth, including his own. You are ingnorant of your place in the world and the importance of what is (and is not) happening. You are the problem because you believe the lies and elected the liar. Thousands have died simply to win your vote and that blood is yours to bear.
You are judged on what you do. Have you helped, not just now, but ever? Do you support those you love? Can you? Have you ever been bloodied and bruised for the sale of someone else? Have you ever run in to a burning building to make sure everyone was out safely? Have you ever looked anyone in the eye who has lost everything and given help without expecting or receiving reward for doing so? Have you ever stood up at your on detrement on behalf of those that were too afraid to stand up for themselves? I have.
And don't flatter yourself that this is wholly written on your behalf. This is a general reubuttal for the commonplace ignorance that leads to dangerous faith in despotic liars for which I find you archetypical.
Re: Very well written and I couldn't agree more in many cases ...
Date: 2005-09-03 01:02 pm (UTC)With New York is was only a half-dozen buildings ruined, some local infrastructure, and a communications hub that a replacement was jury-rigged for within 48 hours (I saw it, I wish I had taken a picture of it - the telephone switching handled in the WTC was replaced by a sea of Verizon vans linked by cables, it was impressive). If the levees were blown up in an obstenively millitary action designed to disrupt the port and refineries and the president reacted as slowly, imagine the outrage. The fact that this was an act of God, and the damage is actually worse than what could be accomplished with bombs really doesn't excuse the inaction.
Of course the lives matter, they matter greatly, but even looking at it from a wholly detached, strictly strategic and ecomomic (i.e. millitary) perspective thousands of lives would have and could have been saved incidentally by taking care of the "bottom line" from that detached perspective.
Now, not only is the port badly damaged and in need of costly repairs, but the "human resources" needed to repair and adequitely man the facilites won't have anywhere to live for months.