By Andy Ostroy

President Bush's campaign mantra in the 2000 election was that he and the Republican Party would "restore honor and integrity to the White House." Five and one half years later, it's utterly mind-boggling the amount of lies, controversies and scandals that have been perpetrated by Bush and his closest aides. It's even more unsettling when we realize the dire straits America is in today at the hands of this incompetent, dangerous administration.

Let's review Bush's impact since 2000 at home and abroad, in no particular order:

1. Lied about WMD.
2. Unilaterally invaded a sovereign nation without provocation and justification.
3. Lied during State of the Union speech re: Niger Uranium.
4. Responsible for pre-9/11 intelligence failures in White House, CIA, FBI.
5. Allowed 9-11 murderers to remain free while diverting precious military and financial resources to his vanity war in Iraq.
6. Lied about Saddam/bin Laden connection.
7. Turned Iraq into a terrorist breeding ground.
8. Lied about nation-building.
9. Opposed creation of 9-11 Commission and Homeland Security Department.
10. Disrespected and alienated the U.S. from French, German and other key allies.
11. Lied to Americans about the real cost of war.
12. Fostered an environment of torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.
13. Lined Halliburton's pockets in Afghanistan and Iraq with fat no-bid contracts.
14. Under-manned and under-equipped our armed forces in Iraq, resulting in unnecessary death and injuries.
15. Ignored the nuclear build-up in both Iran and N.Korea; marginalized Kim Jong Il.
16. Shunned Kyoto Treaty.
17. Lied about effects of man-made pollutants on the environment to support corporate pals.
18. Lied about the insolvency of Social Security.
19. Gave huge cuts to the wealthiest taxpayers.
20. Lied about true cost of health care bill.
21. Lied about Free Trade stand.
22. Bitterly divided the nation along religious, party and sexual preference lines.
23. Guilty of numerous cronyism appointments (Homeland Security, Supreme Court, etc)
24. Rewarded failures of Condi Rice and other cronies with key promotions.
25. Dreadful energy policies lead to record gas and oil prices.
26. Responsible for the largest debt in U.S. history.
27. Colossal failure of preparedness, rescue and relief during Hurricane Katrina.
28. Fostered a culture of corruption among GOP and top leadership (Tom Delay, etc).
29. Allowed Donald Rumsfeld to keep job despite utter failure in Iraq.
30. Presided over the U.S.'s lowest popularity throughout the world.
31. Saw No Child Left Behind fail.
32. Lied last week about Iraqi troop strength during Saturday radio address. Directly contradicted by testimony given earlier in the week by Gen. Abizaid.

This is just a partial list, mind you. One can only imagine what our country will look like by the time he's done. Somebody please wake me up in 3 years. --posted September 8, 2005

The New Orleans Aftermath and an Ugly Glimpse of the Future

By Steve Lendman

The most important and lasting story of New Orleans is not the catastrophe wrought by nature, important as that is. It's the planned and now being implemented one brought to that city and its benighted majority poor and mainly black population by the combined and complicit federal, state and local governments beholden to corporate interests. The overwhelming destruction and human misery and death caused by a natural phenomenon has quickly metamorphosed into an extraordinary golden opportunity for business profit and predation. The brazen and out of control Bush administration has taken full advantage by rewarding its corporate cronies well with lucrative contracts for what they and the major media call "rebuilding." What's really happening is something much different and well concealed that should be exposed as a national scandal. It's exploitive predatory disaster capitalism that's an unexpected "windfall" [excuse the pun] for the usual corporate "favorites" - Halliburton [of course, always first chosen], Bechtel, and the oil, chemical and all other corporations that will benefit from redevelopment contracts plus those to receive large federal subsidy handouts [above the large ones already gotten] . And, of course, all this will be funded, as it always is, mostly by middle and low income taxpayers who receive only the bill and none of the benefits.

To enhance corporate profits even further, the Bush administration has suspended Davis-Bacon Act law which guarantees that prevailing wage rates be paid on all federally funded or assisted construction projects. This will enable contractors to pay poverty wages and be able to employ immigrant or undocumented workers [rather than the now displaced and unemployed New Orleans poor black population] least able or likely to protest. In addition, to assure all evacuated neighborhoods remain that way, even after flood waters recede, as well as to protect local business interests and upper income people remaining or returning and corporate contractors coming in to redevelop, paramilitary "hired guns", some fresh from Iraq, have been hired with license to shoot to kill with impunity anyone "perceived" to be a threat. New Orleans has now become our Baghdad [without the car bombings and strong resistance committed to end the illegal occupation] or "hostile Indian country" for the scattered poor black and Latino residents remaining. And if that weren't enough, environmental regulations have also been suspended in an area desperately needing remediation and already well qualified to be designated a superfund site or toxic waste dump [but never will be].

To make all this happen, according to plan, New Orleans was left extremely unprepared for a natural catastrophe sure to come eventually. There were deliberate and punitive federal budget cuts, an attitude of extreme arrogance and neglect of the majority poor and most vulnerable population that would pay the price, and a flippant disregard for the irrefutable truth about and threat from global warming - a threat confirmed by the most reputable climate scientists including a recent study by an MIT scientist showing that overall hurricane intensity today is 50% greater than in 1970. The price being paid is very high. Poor blacks mainly were assaulted when in desperation they tried to get food and other basic necessities from stores unable to be open, they were routinely arrested, shot and killed in cold blood, and finally "ethnically cleansed" en masse to distant locations where they were treated with disdain. Now most of their neighborhoods [those most wanted for "redevelopment"] have been or will be "appropriated" by the state and city, and these people won't be allowed to return to them. Probably they'll be dispersed to other "ghetto" locations in New Orleans, other parts of Louisiana and other states. Perhaps the most blatant and galling example of arrogance and indifference to the massive human suffering and loss was demonstrated by the Bush family matriarch - Barbara Bush - on the Larry King show when she callously dismissed the great tragedy the displaced people in the Houston Astrodome had endured by saying how lucky these deprived people were to be where they could be cared for better than they were able to do it for themselves before the storm. George Galloway, the British MP, said it best that Mrs. Bush will now go down in history as a modern day Marie Antoinette [the French Queen and wife of King Louis XVI] who when told the French peasants had no bread suggested they eat cake instead. The French Revolution followed in the wake of that arrogance and misrule, just as we had our own shortly before it because of foreign misrule here and a desire for freedom. At some point, as has happened so often in the past elsewhere, oppressed people here may once again rise up to throw off their oppressors.

New Orleans after the natural catastrophe is not an isolated once in a multi-generation event. It's only the most current example of exploitation of the poor and disadvantaged [mainly people of color] that's been ongoing since Columbus [the first western genocidist] arrived over 500 years ago. The only difference in New Orleans is that the development and rebuilding there will be on a much greater scale. In other cities, like my own in Chicago, it's always ongoing. It's called "gentrification" to build upscale residential apartments, condominiums or homes for the privileged or "slum clearance" to build a new super sports stadium or arena or other new corporate development projects. In all cases, it's predatory capitalism supported and/or financed by government for the rich and at the expense of the most disadvantaged and least powerful.

What's happening now in New Orleans and other US cities is also happening around the world. In New Orleans it's "predatory disaster capitalism", in Baghdad it's "conquest and occupation capitalism", and in Haiti it's "coup d'etat and return the poor Haitians to serfdom capitalism" [enforced by "neutral" UN peacekeepers]. And those along with Afghanistan are only the most visible examples of what has and is now happening in developing countries everywhere affected or dominated by US directed policies and actions. Disaster profiteering at home is possible as opportunities present themselves. Its conquest and occupation equivalent abroad is only the alternative chosen after all other less extreme choices have been tried and failed to succeed. In our own cities, "redevelopment" for the betterment of the community is an easy sell [except to those people affected], while abroad similar "development" aid through World Bank and IMF [onerous] loans to developing nations claim to be promoting economic growth which will reduce poverty but, in fact, benefit only US or western corporate interests and an elite few in recipient countries while causing extreme deprivation and increased poverty in the greater population. In both instances, corporate interests and those in power benefit at the expense of the most deprived and defenseless. The result for the mass population is always catastrophic. In this country, it becomes a race to the bottom as wages stagnate or fall, low paid service jobs replace higher paid manufacturing ones and essential social services are reduced or denied. In the developing countries it's far worse and includes the theft of their land and resources and ability to earn even a minimally acceptable living as well as denial of basic needs like essential health care, education and clean water - resulting in mass deprivation, disease and death.

The rise of the extreme neoconservative right and philosophy and practice of so-called "free market neoliberalism" at home and abroad combined with growing and dangerous militarism especially since the 1980s now threatens the security and welfare of people everywhere. At home it's apparent in federal, state and local budget cuts in all categories of social needs, corporate downsizing and exporting of the best high-paying jobs, the slow destruction of organized labor, an even more extreme and dangerous ecological neglect and destruction, an intensified militarization and frequent use of it to wage foreign wars of conquest and police state control here at home, and an overall fundamentalist Christian, military and corporate takeover of the country and systematic disregard of our basic and most cherished constitutional rights. There's a word for that type governance, and it's not a pleasant one. It's called fascism, and if we're not quite there yet, it's surely in sight.

In a nation like ours where almost from birth and surely from pre-school on we're all "assaulted" and programmed to accept the so-called "American way" or "American exceptionalism" as the best of all possible worlds. The dominant corporate media suppress and sanitize all our news and information and act merely as complicit transmission agents for the state and their own corporate interests. And throughout our school years from early on through the doctoral level, we're taught only acceptable doctrine. Throughout our history as a nation, the real story of war and endless conflict, imperial expansion and conquest, and oppression of the most defenseless is never taught and has never stopped. The way we treated black people as slaves, slaughtered our native peoples by the millions and stole their land and resources {both glaring examples of genocide on the most massive scale but never so labeled] are still repeated today in different forms. Instead of slavery, we now have the world's largest gulag prison system {mostly for blacks and other people of color ] and impoverished ghettos. And instead of Indian wars of conquest and mass slaughter, we have bantustan-like reservations on the most inhospitable lands and even greater poverty, disease, hopelessness and cultural genocide. In New Orleans today, the beat merely goes on, and it's the same business as usual story. But let's be very clear what all this really means. What's happening now in its most extreme form in New Orleans [unreported in the mass media and concealed from the public] is what will happen all across the country tomorrow unless enough dedicated good people can find a way to stop it before it's too late - and the time left is very short. If we who care fail, "America the beautiful" will only exist for the privileged few and no one else. --posted October 7, 2005

FEMA Chief Brown Paid Millions in False Claims to Help Bush Win Fla. Votes

By Jason Leopold

Michael Brown, the embattled head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, approved payments in excess of $31 million in taxpayer money to thousands of Florida residents who were unaffected by Hurricane Frances and three other hurricanes last year in an effort to help President Bush win a majority of votes in that state during his reelection campaign, according to published reports.

Some Homeland Security sources said FEMA's efforts to distribute funds quickly after Frances and three other hurricanes that hit the key political battleground state of Florida in a six-week period last fall were undertaken with a keen awareness of the looming presidential elections, according to a May 19 Washington Post story.

Homeland Security sources told the Post that after the hurricanes that Brown and his allies [recommended] him to succeed Tom Ridge as Homeland Security secretary because of their claim that he helped deliver Florida to President Bush by efficiently responding to the Florida hurricanes.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel uncovered emails from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush that confirmed those allegations and directly implicated Brown as playing politics at the expense of hurricane victims.

As the second hurricane in less than a month bore down on Florida last fall, a federal [FEMA] consultant predicted a "huge mess" that could reflect poorly on President Bush and suggested that his re-election staff be brought in to minimize any political liability, records show, the Sentinel reported in a March 23 story.

Two weeks later, a Florida official summarizing the hurricane response wrote that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was handing out housing assistance "to everyone who needs it without asking for much information of any kind."

The records the Sentinel obtained were contained in hundreds of pages of Gov. Jeb Bush's storm-related e-mails the paper received from the governor s office under the threat of a lawsuit.

The explosive charges of mismanagement of disaster relief funds made against Brown and FEMA were confirmed earlier this year following a four-month investigation by Richard Skinner, the Department of Homeland Security s inspector general. Skinner looked into media reports alleging that residents of Miami-Dade were receiving windfall payments from FEMA to cover losses from Hurricane Frances they never incurred.

Hurricane Frances hit Hutchinson Island, Fla., about 100 miles north of Dade County, on Sept. 5. Miami-Dade officials described damage there from heavy rain and winds of up to 45 mph as ''minimal,'' according to the Post.

Indeed. A May 14 story in the Sun-Sentinel said: Miami-Dade County residents collected Hurricane Frances aid for belongings they didn't own, temporary housing they never requested and cars worth far less than the government paid, according to a federal audit that questions millions in storm payouts.

Responding to those allegations, Brown held a news conference Jan. 11 blaming the overpayments on a computer glitch and said the disbursements were far less than the $31 million that was cited in news reports and involved 3,500 people. Moreover, to silence his critics who said that Hurricane Frances barely touched down in Miami-Dade, Brown cited a report by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to prove that there were legitimate hurricane conditions there and as a result that a bulk of the payments was legitimate.

But according to the Sun-Sentinel, NOAA had refuted the weather maps Brown claimed to have obtained from them. That report prompted Congressman Robert Wexler to send off a scathing letter to President Bush calling for Brown s resignation.

Bush rebuffed Wexler. However, the DHS inspector general launched a probe to determine how widespread the problems were involving overpayments to Miami-Dade residents. In May, the inspector general released his report. What he found was damning.

The review found waste and poor controls in every level of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's assistance program and challenges the designation of Miami-Dade as a disaster area when the county "did not incur any hurricane force winds, tornados or other adverse weather conditions that would cause widespread damage."

In identifying one of the overpayments, the inspector general s report said FEMA paid $10 million to replace hundreds of household items even though only a bed was reported to be damaged, the inspector general s report said.

"Millions of individuals and households became eligible to apply for [money], straining FEMA's limited inspection resources to verify damages and making the program more susceptible to potential fraud, waste and abuse," the report states.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairwoman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee, said during a committee hearing in May that Brown approved massive payouts to replace thousands of televisions, air conditioners, beds and other furniture, as well as a number of cars, without receipts, or proof of ownership or damage, and based solely on verbal statements by the residents, sometimes made in fleeting encounters at fast-food restaurants.

It was a pay first, ask questions later approach,'' Collins said. ''The inspector general's report identifies a number of significant control weaknesses that create a potential for widespread fraud, erroneous payments and wasteful practices.''

But the most interesting charge against Brown is that he helped speed up payments in Florida and purposely bypassed FEMA s lengthy reviews process for distributing funds in order to help Bush secure votes in the state during last year s presidential election.

Bob Hunter, director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America, who was a top federal flood insurance official in the 1970s and 1980s and a Texas insurance commissioner in the 1990s, told the Post that in the vast majority of hurricanes, other than those in Florida in 2004, complaints are rife that FEMA has vastly underpaid hurricane victims. The Frances overpayments are questionable given the timing of the election and Florida's importance as a battleground state.

FEMA consultant Glenn Garcelon actions certainly lends credibility to questions raised by Hunter.

On Sept. 2, 2004, Garcelon, wrote a three-page memo titled "Hurricane Frances -- Thoughts and Suggestions."

The Republican National Convention was winding down, and President Bush had only a slight lead in the polls against Democrat John Kerry, the Sentinel reported in its March 23 story. Winning Florida was key to the president's re-election. FEMA should pay careful attention to how it is portrayed by the public, Garcelon wrote in the memo, conveying "the team effort theme at every opportunity" alongside state and local officials, the insurance and construction industries, and relief agencies such as the Red Cross.

Gov. Bush received the memo Sept. 30, 2004 shortly before a swell of payments made its way to residents in Miami-Dade who did not sustain damage as a result of Hurricane Frances.

A couple of weeks before Gov. Bush received the memo from Garcelon, Orlando J. Cabrera, executive director of the Florida Housing Finance Corp. and a member of the governor's Hurricane Housing Work Group, said in a different memo to Gov. Bush that FEMA was allocating short-term rental assistance to "everyone who needs it, without asking for much information of any kind," the Sentinel reported.

In addition, "standard housing assistance," of up to $25,600, Cabrera wrote, is "liberally provided without significant scrutiny of the request made during the initial months; scrutiny increases remarkably and the package is far more stringent after an unspecified time."

The DHS audit report found that, under Brown, FEMA erroneously distributed to Miami-Dade residents:

$8.2 million in rental assistance to 4,308 applicants in the county who "did not indicate a need for shelter" when they registered for help. In 60 cases reviewed by auditors, inspectors deemed homes unsafe without explanation, and applicants never moved out.

$720,403 to 228 people for belongings based on their word alone.

$192,592 for generators, air purifiers, wet/dry vacuum cleaners, chainsaws and other items without proof that they were needed to deal with the hurricane. Three applicants got generators for their homes, plus rental assistance from FEMA to live somewhere else.

$15,743 for three funerals without sufficient documentation that the deaths were due to the hurricane.

$46,464 to 64 residents for temporary housing even though they had homeowners insurance. FEMA funds cannot be used when costs are covered by insurance.

$17,424 in rental assistance to 24 people who reported that their homes were not damaged.

$97,500 for 15 automobiles with a "blue book" value of $56,140. In general, the report states that FEMA approved claims for damaged vehicles without properly verifying that the losses were caused by the storm. --posted Semtember 13, 2005

© 2005 Jason Leopold Jason Leopold is the author of the memoir, News Junkie, to be released in the spring of 2006 by Process/Feral House Books. Visit Leopold's website at www.jasonleopold.com for updates.

Hurricane Katrina-Our Experiences

by Larry Bradshaw, Lorrie Beth Slonsky

The following is a message from Tobias Wolff to his father, Robert Paul Wolff, professor in the Afro-American Studies Department at UMass Amherst, and contains an eyewitness account of two friends of Tobias who were trapped in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreen's store at the corner of Royal and Iberville streets remained locked. The dairy display case was clearly visible through the widows. It was now 48 hours without electricity, running water, plumbing. The milk, yogurt, and cheeses were beginning to spoil in the 90- degree heat. The owners and managers had locked up the food, water, pampers, and prescriptions and fled the City.

Outside Walgreen's windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and hungry.

The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized and the windows at Walgreen's gave way to the looters. There was an alternative. The cops could have broken one small window and distributed the nuts, fruit juices, and bottle water in an organized and systematic manner. But they did not. Instead they spent hours playing cat and mouse, temporarily chasing away the looters. We were finally airlifted out of New Orleans two days ago and arrived home yesterday (Saturday). We have yet to see any of the TV coverage or look at a newspaper. We are willing to guess that there were no video images or front-page pictures of European or affluent white tourists looting the Walgreen's in the French Quarter.

We also suspect the media will have been inundated with "hero" images of the National Guard, the troops and the police struggling to help the "victims" of the Hurricane. What you will not see, but what we witnessed,were the real heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief effort: the working class of New Orleans. The maintenance workers who used a fork lift to carry the sick and disabled. The engineers, who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators running. The electricians who improvised thick extension cords stretching over blocks to share the little electricity we had in order to free cars stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing air into the lungs of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks stuck in elevators. Refinery workers who broke into boat yards, "stealing" boats to rescue their neighbors clinging to their roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped hot-wire any car that could be found to ferry people out of the City. And the food service workers who scoured the commercial kitchens improvising communal meals for hundreds of those stranded. Most of these workers had lost their homes, and had not heard from members of their families, yet they stayed and provided the only infrastructure for the 20% of New Orleans that was not under water.

On Day 2, there were approximately 500 of us left in the hotels in the French Quarter. We were a mix of foreign tourists, conference attendees like ourselves, and locals who had checked into hotels for safety and shelter from Katrina. Some of us had cell phone contact with family and friends outside of New Orleans. We were repeatedly told that all sorts of resources including the National Guard and scores of buses were pouring in to the City. The buses and the other resources must have been invisible because none of us had seen them.

We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up with $25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the City. Those who did not have the requisite $45.00 for a ticket were subsidized by those who did have extra money. We waited for 48 hours for the buses, spending the last 12 hours standing outside, sharing the limited water, food, and clothes we had.

We created a priority boarding area for the sick, elderly and new born babies. We waited late into the night for the "imminent" arrival of the buses. The buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute the arrived to the City limits, they were commandeered by the military.

By day 4 our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was dangerously abysmal. As the desperation and despair increased, street crime as well as water levels began to rise. The hotels turned us out and locked their doors, telling us that the "officials" told us to report to the convention center to wait for more buses. As we entered the center of the City, we finally encountered the National Guard. The Guards told us we would not be allowed into the Superdome as the City's primary shelter had descended into a humanitarian and health hellhole.

The guards further told us that the City's only other shelter, the Convention Center, was also descending into chaos and squalor and that the police were not allowing anyone else in. Quite naturally, we asked, "If we can't go to the only 2 shelters in the City, what was our alternative?"

The guards told us that that was our problem, and no they did not have extra water to give to us. This would be the start of our numerous encounters with callous and hostile "law enforcement". We walked to the police command center at Harrah's on Canal Street and were told the same thing, that we were on our own, and no they did not have water to give us. We now numbered several hundred. We held a mass meeting to decide a course of action. We agreed to camp outside the police command post. We would be plainly visible to the media and would constitute a highly visible embarrassment to the City officials. The police told us that we could not stay. Regardless, we began to settle in and set up camp. In short order, the police commander came across the street to address our group. He told us he had a solution: we should walk to the Pontchartrain Expressway and cross the greater New Orleans Bridge where the police had buses lined up to take us out of the City.

The crowed cheered and began to move.

We called everyone back and explained to the commander that there had been lots of misinformation and wrong information and was he sure that there were buses waiting for us. The commander turned to the crowd and stated emphatically, "I swear to you that the buses are there."

We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with great excitement and hope. As we marched pasted the convention center, many locals saw our determined and optimistic group and asked where we were headed. We told them about the great news.

Families immediately grabbed their few belongings and quickly our numbers doubled and then doubled again. Babies in strollers now joined us, people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers and others people in wheelchairs. We marched the 2-3 miles to the freeway and up the steep incline to the Bridge. It now began to pour down rain, but it did not dampen our enthusiasm.

As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander's assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move.

We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City. These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans.

Our small group retreated back down Highway 90 to seek shelter from the rain under an overpass. We debated our options and in the end decided to build an encampment in the middle of the Ponchartrain Expressway on the center divide, between the O'Keefe and Tchoupitoulas exits. We reasoned we would be visible to everyone, we would have some security being on an elevated freeway and we could wait and watch for the arrival of the yet to be seen buses.

All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the same trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned away. Some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others to be verbally berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the City on foot.

Meanwhile, the only two City shelters sank further into squalor and disrepair. The only way across the bridge was by vehicle. We saw workers stealing trucks, buses, moving vans, semi-trucks and any car that could be hotwired. All were packed with people trying to escape the misery New Orleans had become.

Our little encampment began to blossom. Someone stole a water delivery truck and brought it up to us. Let's hear it for looting! A mile or so down the freeway, an army truck lost a couple of pallets of C-rations on a tight turn. We ferried the food back to our camp in shopping carts.

Now secure with the two necessities, food and water; cooperation, community, and creativity flowered. We organized a clean up and hung garbage bags from the rebar poles. We made beds from wood pallets and cardboard. We designated a storm drain as the bathroom and the kids built an elaborate enclosure for privacy out of plastic, broken umbrellas, and other scraps. We even organized a food recycling system where individuals could swap out parts of C-rations (applesauce for babies and candies for kids!).

This was a process we saw repeatedly in the aftermath of Katrina. When individuals had to fight to find food or water, it meant looking out for yourself only. You had to do whatever it took to find water for your kids or food for your parents. When these basic needs were met, people began to look out for each other, working together and constructing a community.

If the relief organizations had saturated the City with food and water in the first 2 or 3 days, the desperation, the frustration and the ugliness would not have set in. Flush with the necessities, we offered food and water to passing families and individuals. Many decided to stay and join us. Our encampment grew to 80 or 90 people. From a woman with a battery powered radio we learned that the media was talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news organizations saw us on their way into the City. Officials were being asked what they were going to do about all those families living up on the freeway? The officials responded they were going to take care of us. Some of us got a sinking feeling. "Taking care of us" had an ominous tone to it.

Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City) was correct. Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the fucking freeway". A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.

Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated or congealed into groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of "victims" they saw "mob" or "riot". We felt safety in numbers. Our "we must stay together" was impossible because the agencies would force us into small atomized groups.

In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered once again. Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies.

The next days, our group of 8 walked most of the day, made contact with New Orleans Fire Department and were eventually airlifted out by an urban search and rescue team. We were dropped off near the airport and managed to catch a ride with the National Guard. The two young guardsmen apologized for the limited response of the Louisiana guards. They explained that a large section of their unit was in Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded and were unable to complete all the tasks they were assigned.

We arrived at the airport on the day a massive airlift had begun. The airport had become another Superdome. We 8 were caught in a press of humanity as flights were delayed for several hours while George Bush landed briefly at the airport for a photo op. After being evacuated on a coast guard cargo plane, we arrived in San Antonio, Texas.

There the humiliation and dehumanization of the official relief effort continued. We were placed on buses and driven to a large field where we were forced to sit for hours and hours. Some of the buses did not have air-conditioners. In the dark, hundreds if us were forced to share two filthy overflowing porta-potties. Those who managed to make it out with any possessions (often a few belongings in tattered plastic bags) we were subjected to two different dog-sniffing searches.

Most of us had not eaten all day because our C-rations had been confiscated at the airport because the rations set off the metal detectors. Yet, no food had been provided to the men, women, children, elderly, disabled as they sat for hours waiting to be "medically screened" to make sure we were not carrying any communicable diseases.

This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm, heart-felt reception given to us by the ordinary Texans. We saw one airline worker give her shoes to someone who was barefoot. Strangers on the street offered us money and toiletries with words of welcome. Throughout, the official relief effort was callous, inept, and racist. There was more suffering than need be. Lives were lost that did not need to be lost. --posted September 14, 2005

 THE STORY OF THE HURRICANE COWBOY WHO FIDDLED
WHILE NEW ORLEANS DROWNED

by Amanda Lang

Why did Bush vacation – cut wood, clear brush, bike, and read -- for days while the world watched Katrina develop, then slam as a category 4 hurricane into the Gulf Coast? Just as he did on September 11, 2001, he froze. They don’t have cable or telephones in Crawford? The unfolding catastrophe has Bush leadership skills, or lack thereof, written all over it. He treats his own citizens with the same contempt and callousness as he does the Iraqi civilians – as “collateral damage.” If a category 4 hurricane is not a “bomb” dropping on American soil, what is? Bush remained on vacation one whole day after Katrina hit, WAITING FOR WHAT? The federal government was ‘missing in action’ and has failed its citizens abysmally. And Congress... where the hell are they? They rushed back to Washington over night for one woman’s feeding tube, but can’t seem to find the way back for a destructive hurricane that most likely killed thousands. Are these Americans too poor or not expounding the right religion to garner attention the Trade Tower victims received? They all sat and watched this train wreck, now they are screwing up the rescue and salvage, probably busy searching for the ‘scapegoat’ du jour. Did the Bush administration and Congress want to create a situation where they could declare martial law? Looks like it.

New Orleans has become a war zone. Martial law declared. Since when is a policy of "you loot, we shoot" appropriate for people just trying to survive until help arrives? THEY ARE DYING. So are they ‘looters’ or ‘survivors’ (like the TV show “Survivor” Americans love to love)? So what if in addition to food, water, diapers, and medical supplies, they take some jeans? They’ve been wearing oil, chemical, and sewer-soaked clothes for days. They’re wading through floating, decaying dead bodies. New Orleans is and will be uninhabitable for three to six months at least, so the merchandise is already a write-off. Think about it? Would you want this merchandise? Let good come from it while it can.

The ‘survivors’ have obtained weapons and are using them. Escaped prisoners riot and hold hostages. People go ‘feral’ displaying ‘pack’ and/or ‘mob’ behaviors when threatened and their lives are in ‘great peril.’ Unfortunately, in America you can find a gun anywhere in virtually any caliber, so chaos reigns. A "loot-shoot" policy only exacerbates the problem. Relief workers received orders to divert efforts from ‘saving people’ to ‘crime fighting’. Why choose ‘property’ over ‘life’? The policy lacks common sense, compassion, or understanding of the survival instinct. CNN has images of people dead and dying on camera. Their reporters are watching people – children and elderly – die before their eyes. The sick, injured, dehydrated, starving, and scared feel abandoned. In the hot, stinking Superdome, where 25,000 refugees await evacuation, fires and fighting are breaking out. Fear, anger, and hopelessness will push conditions to a boil, and more people than necessary will die – mostly the innocent victims of this horrible disaster.

Do we need to request U.N Aid and Peace Keeping Forces? It appears we lack the expertise and leadership to prevent or deal with a major national crisis. Why aren't these convoys and helicopters dropping in water, food, and medicine to these trapped individuals? Yes, conditions are deteriorating, but our National Guard soldiers fly helicopters through Iraq every day taking gunfire for a far less legitimate cause. Is the relief work necessary beyond the Bush administration's capabilities? We do not posses the numbers of National Guard soldiers and relief workers necessary to get this situation under control. Just like Iraq – not enough bodies on the ground to do the job. Bush cut funding to New Orleans hurricane preparations by $72.1 million and gave eight jets to Pakistan – FREE – valued at $36 million each = $288 million. Get the picture. ‘Survivors’ of this crisis sure could use that $288 million and the $5.6 billion per month [this breaks down to almost $186 million a day] or $672 BILLION PER YEAR the Neocons are throwing at Iraq, plus the billions in pork given to corporations this year alone.

Even worse, image you’re a National Guard soldier in Iraq that has family, friends, and property in ‘harm’s way, but are stuck policing the streets of Iraq. The irony of the situation is macabre. You were sent to fight an urban guerilla war based on a 'buffet' of evolving lies and rationales -- perhaps on your second or third tour -- and your family is back home dealing with this mess alone -- homeless, injured, starving, drowning, or dying -- and you are not there and you don't have a clue what their condition is because no one else does. Tragic irony. They face an uncertain future and still may die themselves on a street or road in Iraq. In the news, they hear of over-the-top CEO salaries, while Florida hotels evict refugee families so fans can attend a football game. How would you feel to discover your loved ones where not evacuated, even though it was known a category 4 or 5 hurricane was approaching? Or even worse, they still stuck in the disaster area because at your pay scale, they just couldn’t afford to leave.

A reckoning time is here. The ‘Hurricane Cowboy’ has a lot to answer for, as do the ‘knuckled-headed’ Neocons and the ‘do-nothing’ Congress. This tragedy should have been prevented. Hundreds of thousands of Americans lives completely destroyed while Bush fiddled with a guitar, went on a two-day speaking jaunt/fund-raiser to California and Arizona, and ‘read’ a speech, ironically to a group of sailors and WWII veterans:

"This morning, our hearts and prayers are with our fellow citizens along the Gulf Coast," Bush said. "We know that many are anxious to return to their homes. It's not possible at this moment." His heart and prayers may have been there, but his ass sure wasn’t.--posted September 3, 2004

Amanda Lang, PhD conducts research in Organizational and Technological Innovation primarily in the area of New and Strategic Business Development. A former professor, Amanda retired to Georgia and restores and fabricates replicas of vintage, classic, antique wooden boats, such as the '34 Garwood "Gentlemen's Racer" with her husband, while serving as a news editor at www.opednew.com. She is a US Army Veteran, honorably discharged in '79. Her motto: "Hysteria is always one frame of mind away...why not keep it there?"

Letter From Oklahoma: July 4th, 2005 And I Can't Celebrate

by K.J. Lovell

The current wave of change should send a wave of shock through any normal thinking person in America. The changes are daily and growing in gravity. We the people have voluntarily given up our civil and constitutional rights, whether through apathy or simply being too busy to pay attention to current events. We continue to do it daily with no regard to the big picture. Here are ten examples of where we could be heading:

1. No longer can a woman decide for herself if a new child is right for her. She has been relieved of her choice. In an environment that makes it illegal for her to choose her future for herself, she is faced with only two choices: carry the child or seek an illegal abortion. The illegal abortion is a very dangerous proposition which can lead to her own death. Current climate makes people respond that she was going to abort any way so, no harm, no foul . That same twisted mind set makes it ok for pro-lifer Christians to justify murdering abortion doctors. The term "pro-life" suddenly seems to take on an entirely different meaning, I m pro-life, just not yours! . My opinion, for what it is worth, is: not my body, not my choice. Besides, I have too much going on in my life to manage someone else s Life.

2. No longer can reporters maintain the anonymity of their source. They either go to jail for their principles or betray their source. Evil doers want it this way so no one can rat them out . What if the evil doers are politicians? What if the evil is so bad it harms the entire world while people take little notice of what is happening? What if the laws made it such that if you ratted someone out for an actual crime, your job agreement makes it a felony to say anything about your company's wrong doings? We give some criminals a degree of leniency when they provide information that takes worse criminals off the streets. What is the difference between the two? When you can no longer speak the truth for fear of retribution, you are no longer living in a democracy. Our forefathers gave great thought to this when writing our Constitution. They deserve our respect, we must treasure our rights and not give them up one by one without a fight.

3. No longer do YOU have religious freedom, but everyone else does. I don t care if you pray in public, but don t involve me. I might or might not agree with your views. Despite what you may think, preaching your beliefs to me will not change my mind, no matter how many times you do it, no matter how loudly you scream. I am an adult and can make up my own mind, and keep you religious opinions away from my child. I am happy for your right to worship, allow me the same freedom.

4. No longer are you secure in knowing that your home is yours. If the government wants what you have, they are now free to take it. If this benefits the people, I believe in eminent domain. However, if it benefits big business, I do have a large problem with that. People are losing their homes even as we speak so that big business can expand their factories. What if that house was your home? This is serious, and yet it warrants only a small blurb on the nightly news.

5. No longer are we safe in our own homes. Without notice, without warning the government can now break into your house. The government can search your home, your computer. The government can violate your privacy without telling you. And there is nothing you can do about it. Even if you have nothing to hide and done nothing wrong, you should be very concerned about this. Protection from illegal search and seizure is one of your constitutional rights. A right that you should treasure. Our Forefathers knew the government may not always be good, honest and forthright, so in their infinite wisdom they fought to protect us from unscrupulous people in the government. Just because the government says you are not safe unless they take your rights does not make it so. The Patriot Act is an evil piece of legislation that makes you in fact far less safe. The government is so happy with The Patriot Act, that they want to make it permanent and increase it s power. I have to ask, if the original act allows so much, what is left to add to it? Imprisonment for anything deemed illegal or out of the extremist s view of appropriate? Who decides?

6. No longer do politicians feel obligated to tell the truth, or explain their actions. In a democracy, it was not unpatriotic to question authority. In a democracy, the truth was the most powerful weapon we had to combat terrorists. Let me qualify my last statement. The traditional definition of terrorist means those who act to instill fear. So, to me, a terrorist is not necessarily someone who comes from another country and blows things up. A terrorist CAN be a U.S. citizen in a very powerful position. A good administration would address the Downing Street Memo (DSM) scandal and either deny it or admit it. This memo states that the British government was troubled that Bush was going to invade Iraq and was prepared to fix the facts to support that invasion. If you haven t heard of the memo, it is not your fault. Although this was huge news in Great Britain in the first few days of May 2005, the corporate media in America refused to even report it until sometime in June 2005. Over 500,000 private citizens signed a letter to the President, requesting that he and his staff address this issue. When they approached the White House, the secret service refused to accept the letter. In a democracy none of this should have happened. When one reporter asked about the memo in a White House press briefing, he was curtly told that was old news and they went on to the next question. What exactly do you think about an issue so large that it would rock the White House to its very foundation, and they will not even discuss it? If it is nothing, then say so. If it is something, we have the largest scandal in modern history, larger than Clinton s sex life!!!*

7. No longer do many people in this country have ANY civil rights. Blacks had to struggle for many, many years to achieve the civil rights they do have. They were beaten, threatened. Their Churches were bombed. And some paid with their lives simply because of the color of their skin. You can find white, red, yellow, brown and black in a child s Crayola box. Each is different only in color, but when you get right down to it, they are still the same, they are ALL crayons. During the middle of the 20th century, white people created the separate but equal ideology. But let s face facts, it was separate, but definitely NOT equal. In the slave era, blacks were not allowed to marry. It wasn t done. Was that because it threatened the sanctity of the white marriages ? Blacks marrying didn t harm white married people. A simple fact is it didn t affect white people's marriage one bit. Thank goodness they can marry now. It allows them to have spousal benefits. They can file joint tax returns. They can cover each other with insurance. They can receive social security benefits, just like the whites. Personally, who you are, who you love, who you live with does NOT affect me one bit. I never have been the kind of person who looks at everyone he meets and asks, "They act differently than I do, I wonder who they love, I wonder who they sleep with ooh, that is soooo gross." My mind does not work that way, and I bet most of you out in the real world don t think that way either. Let s face it, If you are preoccupied with someone else's sex life, they aren't the ones with the problem, you are. Your private life, like your religion is none of my business, and, like I said earlier, I have way too much in my life to worry about, I can t live your life too. Which brings me to my next point: Gay and Lesbian people marrying simply does not affect me one way or the other, nor does it affect your marriage or your life. If you get upset about them marrying, you PROBABLY have a bigger problem than that.

8. We are no longer respected by the rest of the world, and, unlike you and I, the administration does not care. Enough said on this.

9. No longer do we have a free press. Years ago, journalists prided themselves on covering news. When Nixon broke the law, it was news. It was covered, and some form of justice was served. As a somewhat informed and very curious adult, I am forced to turn to the internet and Free Speech TV for news that doesn t involve non-stop Michael Jackson, Laci Peterson, or Natalie Holloway stories. Yes, that too is news, but I am FAR more concerned with news that concerns millions, not just a hand full of people. I am far more concerned with stories like the Diebold computer programmer who testified he wrote the voting machine program that changed election results and then deleted itself.

10. I am concerned when I see Liberal Hunting licenses and Gitmo luxury resort t-shits. Although attempts at crude humor, they conjure up history lessons for me. In the 1940 s they issued "Jew" and "Jap" hunting licenses. These "permits" have been around, mostly circulating on the far right, but they've been increasingly making their way into broader circulation. The people sporting such stickers, no doubt, will contend that it's just a joke -- as though such a fig leaf could disguise the violent attitudes and beliefs required to find it humorous. Next they'll argue that stickers saying "Hitler Needed to Finish the Job" are just meant to be funny.

There are historical antecedents to this particular motif from right-wing hatemongers as well. The Klan and Aryan Nations, for instance, used to commonly circulate similar "nigger hunting license" "jokes" (some dating back to the lynching era).

And, lest we forget, it's perhaps helpful to observe what happened to the targets of these previous "hunting licenses." We may comfort ourselves with the easy dismissal of such as crude humor. But they are a signal of something much deeper, and much more dangerous.

This is how propaganda works: Circulate ideas on the popular level first, perhaps disguised as "humor" until they become part of a broadly popular "conventional wisdom." Seemingly "outrageous" ideas gradually gain broader acceptance, leveraging the populace toward the movement's agenda. Then, when these notions are enunciated at the official and most powerful levels of government, any outrage that might be voiced is easily ignored. (Indeed, Rove's recent remarks are notable for being part of one of the most successful propaganda campaigns of all time.)

These campaigns played a decisive role in the way American journalists covered the misbegotten decision to invade Iraq, an invasion we now know was based on false pretenses. ...

And these are the reasons why I am not sure if I should celebrate, or mourn today. --posted July 4th, 2005

KJ Lovell was due July 4th but was born in Plainview, Texas on July 8th, 1964. Currently living in Duncan, Oklahoma, "former home of Hell-a-burton." His politics have been formed by how his family was been treated under Reagan and Daddy Bush.

  *"I was glad that we took the action we did," Blair told the House of Commons when asked about the so-called Downing Street memo. His comments came a day after President Bush rejected suggestions that Washington set a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and urged patience." Washington Post, June 29, '05

Is Gotham Worth Saving?

by Daniel Patrick Welch

Summer is here. The choking ajajas of Baghdad coat everything in a pale yellow dust. Meanwhile, back at imperial headquarters, the sandman effect of the Summer movie list coaxes Americans back to sleep, our attention spans and consciences soothed into complacency, in contrast to the suffocating Sumerian sandstorms. Kick back and enjoy your popcorn in the artificial bubble of petroleum-driven, air-conditioned bliss, while the bubble outside shows signs of bursting. Batman Begins debuts in this atmosphere, and although no comic strip dystopia can quite capture the grim specter of America's decline, Christopher Nolan's morbid depiction is more than mere fantasy.

No astute observer will have missed the implications of doom for the ruling cartel of Gotham. Criminal power, even at its height, is surprisingly vulnerable-—at least in Movie Magic. With their hands on all levers of power, Gotham’s mob elite have thoroughly corrupted every level of the social order and filled it with hacks and butchers who respond only to money and power and the unstinting abuse of both, so much so that ordinary citizens can do little more than cower in fear. It is left to a superhero, a district attorney and the only cop not on the take to save degenerate Gotham from itself, against all odds.

Parallels to Bush's America are unmistakable. With control over all three branches of government, a compliant, sycophant press, and Americans too scared, dumb or oblivious to think, the Bush cartel would seem poised to build its house of cards as high as the heavens. Worse, "opposition" party spinmeisters hit the circuit to reassure Gotham's weary masses that they would have done things differently: Bush should have listened to the generals who told him he needed more troops. I get it: I was against the war, and it should have been a much bigger one. Huh? Is Gary Oldman the only ordinary citizen not on the take? Who can stomach this crap?

Yet all is not smooth for the thugs who haunt Gotham's halls of power, about which more later. One new antagonist provides an even more interesting twist. The League of Shadows has decided that Gotham is beyond saving, and must be destroyed. The resulting chaos will destroy the allure of Gotham once and for all, and allow something newer and purer to rise in its place.

The remarkable insight of this astute analogy is that this argument over whether Gotham is beyond saving takes place only between Batman and his mentor-turned-nemesis in the form of Liam Neeson. As Gotham goes about its daily grind, rotten to the core, no one in the bubble is aware that the debate has moved beyond the tired minutiae of what passes for life in the Belly of the Beast.

Similarly, Americans still allow themselves to be suckered in by the lurid pageant of TV "news," exploring the intricate details of Michael Jackson' private life while completely ignoring their lying jackass of a president and the never ending crimes of the unelected regent who somehow now wields state power at his side. Talking heads go on at length about the propriety (or im-) of Dick Durbin’s comment comparing the concentration camp at Guantanamo to those of the Nazis. Never mind the fact that historical analogies are always wrong by definition; the only "accurate" analogies are mathematical ones, like 1 is to 2 as 2 is to 4, and so on. Durbin's real sin was illuminating the world outside the bubble, where Americans are not always seen as the White Hats.

Americans go about their merry way, oblivious to hatred of them mounting on the four winds and across the seven seas. Foreigners, that remarkable yet still human species of non-American, do not share the same illusions, and some day we will have to wake up to the reality that the debate has long ago moved beyond our narrow world of runaway brides and sanitized, bloodless wars. Without the approved filter, all these horrors are seen in a different light-—the light of day, the light of truth—-than that sanctioned by America’s mythmakers. Guantanamo, the destruction of Fallujah, the torture at Abu Ghraib and Baghram (yes, torture—not abuse, as it is euphemistically labeled in American press accounts, as if the torturers were bad parents who need to be slapped on the wrist by the Division of Child Services)…all these images hazy to those in the bubble have been clearly building a cohesive image for those around the world looking in, the image of a bullying, out-of-control, violent society with a pack of dangerous, power-crazed lunatics at the helm of the Ship of State.

Since I often have the privilege of having my work translated, I have contacts in dozens of countries around the world, who remind me of the truth that the American penchant for self-deception is tottering on the edge. This one, like all bubbles, is as flimsy as it is transparent. My wife and I watched with dismay as our foreign friends recoiled one by one, fleeing their adopted America in the wake of such grim foreboding. The election seemed to be the last straw, as even Yankeephiles desperate to forgive the people while condemning their government finally gave up. "You’re on your own," they seemed to say—-and who can blame them—-as the very real question loomed (beyond the grasp of most Americans) of whether Gotham was beyond saving.

Yet, as with Gotham, all is not running smoothly for Bush, his Rasputin Karl Rove, and their fraternity of liars, thieves, cheats and misleaders. There is a sense that something is wrong, deeply wrong, in Bush’s tightly scripted bubble world, a profound sense that "it" is over…whatever "it" is. For those holdouts who still doubted this, a palpable panic swept the country recently in whispers from coast to coast, and shook the spectrum from libertarians to communists as the Supreme Court effectively abolished private property in the heart of capitalism. Municipalities can now seize private homes to make way for private development. The way is now paved (and yes, I do mean that literally) for the blissful monoculture of chemlawn landscaped hell, one highway strip of Home Depot after WalMart after another as pesky citizens are bulldozed out of the way (and yes, I mean that literally too).

No wonder a CNN/Gallup poll finds Americans "generally in a funk;" Poor Jimmy Carter: if only he had used the Teutonic Funk instead of the faggy French "malaise," people might have listened to him way back when. Despite Rove’s bag of evil tricks, the people remain unconvinced that Social Security should work to enrich Wall Street. America's working class and minority youth are proving to be far smarter than Pentagon planners and their hatchet men recruiters counted on. Bolton is reviled as the caricature he is, while dropping poll numbers force ever growing cracks in Bush's façade. Is enough enough? Will the outrage ever erupt, and the citizens of Gotham rise to the occasion? Or is Gotham beyond saving? Impeachment whispers are growing as the Downing Street Memos ooze through the firewall of American oblivion. Of course, impeachment is hardly sufficient for war criminals of this magnitude, but it is a necessary starting point for the reckoning that must come if rationality is to prevail. Exposes like Bush's Brain are gaining currency, and Rove's wicked and illegal hand on the levers of power is coming ever so faintly to light. As a sort of throwaway guest character on the cartoon American Dad, Rove cameos as a sort of evil priest whose very presence freezes the fishbowl, who burns in church and transforms into a flock of bats when his "work is done." Cartoons may not influence state power, but hey—-funny is funny.

Outside the bubble, bright spots are easier to find. Latin America is, thankfully, in full-blown rebellion as at no other time in the last 25 years. Hugo Chavez' Venezuelan revolution is sitting on newly discovered oil reserves, assuring either the dream of using the country's vast oil wealth to benefit the poor, or a US invasion—-but not both. Incidentally, the Citgo buycott to encourage support for Chavez' agenda is an interesting and promising internet-driven campaign. And European voters were unimpressed by the prospect of NAFTA-like globalism, and rejected the neoliberal agenda in decisive polls in France and The Netherlands.

Militating against all hope, of course, is that Bush's minions are not susceptible to self-doubt. The Lebanese guy at the store on the corner says even Bush isn’t stupid enough to start another war with Iran. But stupid, I remind him, has nothing to do with it. Bush's handlers had the good sense to build his base among fundamentalist End-of-Days zealots. Just as impervious to reason or criticism as their Thoughtless Fearless Leader, these dangerous wackos are so convinced that they are Doing God's Work that they think they can do it better than Him. These crazies are actually searching for the biblical red heifer to sacrifice on the Temple Mount. Poor Israelis who cast their lot with these armageddonite Christo-fascists. The only need these Rapture hasteners have for Zion to exist at all is so that it can be consumed in a ball of flame as they, The Chosen, are called to their Maker. With friends like these, who needs enemies? In this light, it is all the more understandable that they are ready to throw caution to the wind as the rest of us suffer eternal fire.

But the real reason the Big Question is out there is the same reason why Durbin's Nazi analogy falls flat. All hubris must be punished by a fall. Rome was sacked; the Nazis were defeated, decisively and militarily, and forced at gunpoint by occupying powers to sculpt a "new" society—-one without an army or imperial ambitions. Wounded pride is hardly the type of whooping America needs to mend its ways, though the insanity of the ruling clique may yet be enough to wreak sufficient havoc to learn from. Half-assed defeats are dangerous, and yield no lessons that stick. Aborted Reconstruction was never able to reform the slaveocracy, yielding instead a hundred years of lynching, the Klan, and the greatest wave of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. So what's it going to be? Can Gotham save itself? Only time will tell whether Americans wake up and seize the salvation of Batman, or face that of the League of Shadows and Liam Neeson. --posted 07.03.05

© 2005 Daniel Patrick Welch. Reprint permission granted with credit and link to danielpwelch.com.

Writer, singer, linguist and activist Daniel Patrick Welch lives and writes in Salem, Massachusetts, with his wife, Julia Nambalirwa-Lugudde. Together they run The Greenhouse School. Some of his articles have been broadcast on radio, and translations are available in up to 20 languages. Links to the website are appreciated at danielpwelch.com.