Must read--"United States of Shame" (Maureen Dowd, NYT)

[kstewart33]

United States of Shame
Maureen Dowd

Stuff happens.

And when you combine limited government with incompetent government, lethal stuff happens.

America is once more plunged into a snake pit of anarchy, death, looting, raping, marauding thugs, suffering innocents, a shattered infrastructure, a gutted police force, insufficient troop levels and criminally negligent government planning. But this time it's happening in America.

W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn't dry. Bye, bye, American lives. "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," he told Diane Sawyer.



http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/03/opinion/03dowd.html

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Everyone anticipated the breach of the levees, that's why they

begged for money to repair them...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10057.htm
Why the Levee Broke

By Will Bunch, Attytood

09/01/05 "AlterNet" -- -- Even though Hurricane Katrina has moved well north of the city, the waters continued to rise in New Orleans on Wednesday. That's because Lake Pontchartrain continues to pour through a two-block-long break in the main levee, near the city's 17th Street Canal. With much of the Crescent City some 10 feet below sea level, the rising tide may not stop until until it's level with the massive lake.

There have been numerous reports of bodies floating in the poorest neighborhoods of this poverty-plagued city, but the truth is that the death toll may not be known for days, because the conditions continue to frustrate rescue efforts.

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

[Gabi Hayes]

5. ''$250 million in crucial projects remained'''

gee, how much was just voted for that Alaskan bridge to nowhere?

sure wish the corporate media would start hitting this lack of funding angle as hard as they are the looting

[mzmolly]

2. "when you combine limited government with incompetent government, lethal

stuff happens."

One of many great statements made by Ms. Dowd. This is a must read!

RECOMMENDED.

[Arugula Latte]

3. I don't think it's incompetence. I think it's downright vicious greed.

nt

[mzmolly]

4. That gives them too much credit. But I do think it's both.

eom