Michael R. Barrick

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.

I am endlessly fond of pointing out that the residents of Paris rioted in the 17th century when the French government decided to formalize the street names and assign numbers to the buildings. This was considered to be altogether too much government interference in the daily lives of people. Now look at us here in our "free countries" of the First World. It's to the point where we can't even imaging how our addresses could be considered an invasion of privacy, so effectively our freedoms have been eroded.

Think about the things George Orwell predicted in 1948 - find one that hasn't come true:

The cameras are everywhere. That doesn't even need explaining. If I cross the border I am photographed. When I take money out of the bank I am photographed. When I buy a pop in the corner store I am photographed. All in the name of protecting me from crime. Big Brother is looking out for me.

The perpetual war. This doesn't even need explaining. America sells weapons to it's own enemies, for chirssake. So does Russia, France, England, and a host of others.

The Lottery. "Voluntary taxation for the mathematically inept". Robbing the poor and stupid to fill goverment coffers.

Newspeak is everywhere. Turn on the news on just about any given day and you're likely to hear of someone being convicted of a "sexcrime". I used to have "Unemployment Insurance" (since I was, obviously, insuring myself against being unemployed), but now it's "Employment Insurance" because God forbid my fragile, out-of-work ego be damaged as I am starving. Not that I was able to collect when I actually was unemployed because I failed to meet the convoluted criteria for collecting on the insurance the government forces me to buy.

The Ministry of Truth. Have you read a newspaper lately? Post-it notes are less yellow. Have you seen "The Patriot" or "Pearl Harbor"? Did you know that the US lost a war and that the White House was burned down by the victorious troops? If the Gulf War was about "democracy" why is it that Saddam Hussein was elected and Kuwait is an absolute monarchy? Meanwhile shit is happening in Afghanistan that would make Hitler blush but you hear next to nothing about it. I could bore you to death with examples.

Go ahead, pick anything. It's happening right now. It's just that it was done so gradually no one really noticed.