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Edited on Sun Sep-04-05 10:31 PM by joemurphy
Dear Senator Lugar
This is the fourth letter I have written in the last six months or so. My first expressed my outrage at the Iraq War and the absence for its justification. My second dealt with the hearings you conducted on the Bolton nomination. My third dealt with Karl Rove and the despicable "outing" of Valerie Plame And now we have this one.
Frankly, I'm near despair about what is happening to our country under its so-called Republican stewardship.
For the past week I have watched a hurricane develop in the Gulf of Mexico and then sat transfixed in horror as it destroyed a city near and dear to my heart -- New Orleans, Louisiana. The whole experience has been so bizarre and surreal to me that I know I will be unable to cogently express to you the horrible sense of loss, anxiety, and frustration that I now feel. I had my first year of law school at Tulane University in New Orleans. Tulane is now closed. There will be no fall semester for its students. The city that I once loved so much is now in shambles.
I have since spent a lot of time on the Internet, my TV on all the while, reading and watching reports of the devastation. It has been profoundly sad and nauseating for me to watch this latest nightmare unfold. I felt I had to write you, as my Senator, to try to impart to you, as much as I can in written words, my present sense of outrage and bitterness about what has just happened.
Where was government in all this? Where was our President? Where was his administration? Where were the people we pay to plan and prepare for things like this? I'm not talking about the New Orleans mayor and the Louisiana governor. The spin to blame them and not the Bush Administration may work on some benighted idiots, but it doesn't work on me any more. Where was FEMA? Where was the National Guard? Where were the big boys that handle all of our catastrophic emergencies?
A city -- a beautiful and culturally unique American city -- has been destroyed. By all accounts, with a just modicum of planning and a comparatively small expenditure of money, it need not have happened. Now, close to a million people are destitute in the most absolute sense of the term. Their houses, jobs, and businesses are destroyed. Thousands are dead. This will now take billions of dollars to correct. The exact human toll has not yet even begun to be reckoned.
Why wasn't the human suffering following the flood mitigated? Why wasn't the country prepared for this? This was a hurricane! Not a dirty bomb! Not a goddamned anthrax attack! It was a hurricane! A terrible, awful, but still altogether predictable NATURAL event.
So this is where all our spending on "Homeland Security" has gone, eh? This is our federal emergency "management"? What in God's name are you and your fellow Senator's doing up there? Where is oversight? Where is competency? Where is planning?
Who permitted this nitwit, this total incompetent, Michael Brown (the former President of the Arabian Horse Association), to direct FEMA? Whose idea was it to put his predecessor, Joseph Albaugh (Bush's former campaign manager) in control before him? What were, and are, Tom Ridge and Michael Chernoff being paid for?
Why was our President so late in making his presence felt? Why was our Vice President off fishing while an epic Category 5 storm was barreling directly towards New Orleans? Why was Condoleezza Rice shopping for Ferragamo shoes and attending plays while a major American city was being destroyed? Such concern! Such empathy!
And where was the leadership? Who is responsible for this travesty of management? Is this the vaunted "compassionate conservatism" I've heard so much about over the past 5 years?
And where was Congress? So many managed to come back on short notice when a ridiculous vote to prolong the sad life of Teri Schiavo was needed. But you and others couldn't come back any earlier than you did when the crowds at the Superdome were expiring from heat, lack of water, and lack of sanitation?
Please be forewarned. Please do NOT let us hear that your response to the past week, when Congress is resumed, is a vote to repeal the estate tax, to cut dividend taxes, or to press on with Social Security privatization schemes. The lack of compassion for the poor and the downtrodden that has already been exposed for all to see over national television in the New Orleans "rescue" operation over the past few days is already beginning to sink in. If you have any human sensitivity in you I strongly suggest that you don't foolishly go along with the other Republican idiots that apparently want to continue with business as usual and now make that lack of compassion even more apparent.
Please do the sensible things -- the things that you and any thinking person knows need to be done now. Do all you can for New Orleans and its citizens. Extricate us from Iraq. Clean house in FEMA and hold people like Brown accountable! But, most of all, for God's sake, don't engage in any more crass tax cuts for the wealthier citizens of this country. We have a lot of rebuilding to do in New Orleans and we need to pay for it. Demonstrate that you care about the sort of the people that put you in office -- not just the wealthy. And if our sublime President, his Neocon friends, and the omniscient Grover Norquist don't like it, just tell them to remember New Orleans and that they can go straight to hell.
Sincerely
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