Dress Rehearsal

Hello again,

As most of you know, Ann and I travel a fair amount.  For years, we've been saying "ya know, we really ought to go to New Orleans."  I guess we'll be putting that trip off for a while, if not indefinitely.

Like everybody in the world, I've been watching the TeeVee footage and reading all the commentaries, right and left.  I've read all the lefties like Maureen Dowd and Molly Ivins and Frank Rich, the latter quite effectively equating the situation in New Orleans to the sinking of the Titanic: "New Orleans first-class passengers made it safely into lifeboats; for those in steerage, it was the horrifying spectacle of every man, woman and child for himself." 

And I've read commentaries by typically right-leaning commentators like David Brooks, who departed from his usual endorsement of all things conservative and Republican to note that Katrina represents a "huge cultural moment," coming as it does on the heals of "a string of confidence-shaking institutional failures" like 9/11 and everything about the war in Iraq. 

And I've gotten countless e-mails from my friends all over the country, who are all uniform in their scorn for the man in the White House, or Crawford, or whatever undisclosed location he happens to be holed up in this week.

All of which makes me seriously wonder what I, a mere bystander/viewer with a computer, an e-mail list -- and too much time on my hands --might constructively add to the cacophony of criticism being fired at all levels and from all directions in Katrina's wake.   Well, I do have one fairly simple point to make, and I'll get to it as quickly as possible...

First, the the thing that strikes me as oddly discordant in all the punditry, both amateur and professional, is the quickness with which my philosophical and political compadres rush to lay blame for the whole cataclysm squarely at George Bush's feet.   Clearly, if we're going to point fingers, we're going to need all the fingers of both our hands for this one.  And a few toes maybe, too.

For example: Last night I saw some aerial footage of the flooded areas of New Orleans, and I took particular note of a shot of a vast parking lot of water-logged school buses.  I frankly did not realize the significance of that image until I heard somebody on right-wing talk radio ask this morning, "why were those buses still in New Orleans?  Why hadn't they been used to evacuate some of the people who wound up at the Superdome because they lacked the means to leave town?" 

You'd like to think that an Enlightened Leader would have come down from on high and said, "let's use the school buses."  But that leader could just as well have been the Mayor of New Orleans or the Governor of Louisiana.  When the mayor of New Orleans issued the evacuation order, didn't he know that there were a lot of people in his city who lacked the necessary means to get out of town?  And not all of them poor, mind you: there are plenty of people of means in New Orleans who did not own a vehicle simply because their urban lifestyle precluded the need for one.

Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing kind to say about Bush's role in all this.  I tuned in when he went to New Orleans on Friday; I heard one of the impromptu speeches he made on the scene, and it occurs to me that if George Bush were somehow forced to drop the expressions "workin' hard" and "makin' progress" from his repertoire, the man whould have absolutely nothing left to say.  Every time Bush opens his mouth, that's about the extent of what comes out.  That's what's going to be carved on his tombstone:  "Here lies a victim of the Peter Principal... but he was workin' hard and makin' progress."

The best George Bush could do was act as Cheerleader-In-Chief... which is fitting, considering that his great contribution to life during his tenure at Yale was serving on the cheer leading squad, a fact we often forget while rummaging around in his spotty  National Guard records.

And while I'm at it: Gee, doesn't all this make a great advertisement for the "freedom and democracy" that W is trying  to export around the world through the barrel of a gun?  I can see the Public Service Announcements now:  "Adopt our system and you too can have thousands of poor people starving and dying of thirst in your own streets!"

Sorta makes you wonder if the people in Iraq are seeing the footage from New Orleans on Al Jazeera and saying to each other, "look, some place has got it worse than Baghdad!"

But the real reason I don't think all the blame can be laid at George Bush's feet is because he is in fact the titular heir of a trend in governance that reaches back at least as far as Newt Gingrich's "Contract on America," or, if you prefer, all the way back to Reagan and the earliest iterations of "trickle down economics."  Between Reagan and Bush 41, Gingrich, Tom Delay and now Bush 43, a conservative/Republican ideology has pretty much managed the throttles of America's engines.  It should be clear to anybody viewing the footage from New Orleans that somewhere along the way, the filters through which the great wealth of this nation is supposed to trickle have gotten as clogged as the pumps in New Orleans.

Since I started writing these Screeds last year, I have clung privately to a very simplistic belief regarding the central difference between  conservative/Republican political ideology and that of the liberal/Democrats:  To me, it seems that the Republicans are the party of "every man for himself," while the Democrats,  at their idealistic best, should be the party of "everybody pulls together."

The best the Democrats can hope for in the short term is to regain control of the Senate in 2006.  From there, perhaps they can reclaim the White House in 2008.  But in order to do that they are going to need a clear, simple message that both paints the Republicans into the corner of their hypocrisy and clearly defines the ideals that the Democrats hope to restore.  Katrina has handed the Democrats precisely the opportunity they need to crystallize both sides of the debate.

If the Democrats (or any opposition party) are going to reverse the deteriorating trends of the past two-plus decades, they have got to adopt a simple message, one that they can say over and over again without confusion or embarrassment.

So repeat after me: 

The Republicans are the party of "every man for himself."  In New Orleans, we have seen the ultimate realization -- the utter moral bankruptcy -- of that ideology.  Vote for Democrats, and "Let's All Pull Together."

Admittedly, it could be a hard sell.  As Frank Rich pointed out, "every man for himself" worked fine for the large majority of New Orleans residents -- the roughly 80%, or 400-thousand, of the city's half-million residents who managed to load up their SUVs, fill the tanks with $2.50/gallon gasoline and head out of Dodge.  But even those people had to be appalled, once they got wherever they were going, to turn on their TeeVees and see the fate they had narrowly escaped. 

The political pendulum in America began swinging to the right with Ronald Reagan's election in 1980.  It kept swinging right through the Clinton years ("The era of big government is over..."), and the arc accelerated with the attacks of 9/11.  With Katrina and its aftermath, I think (well, hope) that history will record that the pendulum has reached the zenith of its swing to the right. 

The pendulum has to start swinging back in the 2006 mid-term elections.  If it doesn't, then I share the unspoken fear that a lot of people felt as they watched their TeeVee screens last week: that what we saw in New Orleans was just a dress rehearsal for the fate that awaits the rest of America after another decade or two of "compassionate conservatism."

Anyway, that's my opinion, and it should be yours, too.

--PS

Comments

[Ed]

Is GWB personally responsible for the sludge like relief response. Yes and no. He appointed a guy who had been fired from running horse shows to run FEMA. That's kinda really dumb.

But then there's this other thing. GWB has a 474 jumbo jet at his disposal. He has a couple of helocopters as well. He has a big commissary in the White House and being Commander in Chief can walk right onto any military base, straight into the warehouses, and pick up as many MRE's or any other damn thing he wants and put it on that 747. On Wednesday he flew to NOLA and could have taken a plane full of food and water. Instead he flew over looking out the window like he was playing sim-disaster. The following friday, two days later he flew that same 747 back to NOLA from the White House and once again came empty handed. Not even a few packs of hostess cup cakes. He had all the resources at hand to bring some relief into the disaster area. He had access no one else could get. He did nothing. Nothing. Oh, and on the Thursday in between the Wed and Fri... He played golf.

Yes, while he may not be solely responsible for the bureaucratic mess of FEMA and of calling up the Guard... he is personally responsible for having the means the access and the ability to do some good and he... well, he played golf didn't he.

Ed

[Tim]

Paul,

That's the best piece you've ever done.

You and I are completely on the same page. I think my piece blames conservatives and not just GW for the disastrous response to the disaster.

I write these things only because I can't find anybody else writing with the same venom I hold for these crooks and con artists. However, in the wake of NO, the rest of the pundits appear finally to be catching up with you and me.

Maybe I can quit now. That would be nice.

And I agree that finally, the right wing wave has crested.

As I've been pointing out constantly, the right brings death and destruction on a grand scale. They are the apocalypse.

Years from now we'll be talking about this little passage, this 9-11, Iraq, New Orleans trifecta the way people talk about the Great Depression or Watergate. Another GOP disaster. Oh, and throw the price of gas in there too, cuz it ain't comin down fast.

They are victims once again of their own stupidity and greed.

And I too have always wanted to go to New Orleans. At the very least, it will be cleaner sometime in the next year or two, when it opens back up for business.

But I think we as a nation should move it. Enough's enough.

Best,

Tim

[W.G.]

I just received this e-mail message, forwarded from " a retired NYFD officer in robust health and trained in dealing with disasters. His wife is a RN and a certified nurse practitioner. "W.G." writes:

In the last week, I have been living in a fury, exhausting my full range of foul language, watching the walpurgisnacht developing in New Orleans. How shamed one is to be an American, can we really be this stupid and cowardly as a people? What is our tax money for but to slop pigs! New Orleans is our Portrait of Dorian Grey come due.

Barbara and I have been trying for the last four or five days to volunteer for medical crew anywhere in the Gulf. The Volunteer FD knew nothing. The Red Cross finally answered their phone and said they would take our information and maybe would call back in a WEEK. I laughed and hung up.

Barb then tried to organize something at Bayhealth, knowing that they have unused mobile units, perfect for the situation. After a couple of days, they said that the authorities in LA were accepting only units of one hundred ten personnel or more, none less. The Hospital demurred and said they would notify her if they did anything, the implication being no.

She called her nurse practitioner's professional organization who quickly put her on to one government disaster agency to whom she sent her credentials. She has been waiting two days on this. MedScape listed another agency to whom Barb sent her credentials. She is waiting one day on this. All medical people she has talked to warn not to go there freelance and find a hospital, as I would as a last resort, because of malpractice concerns.

WHAT A TOTAL, HORRIBLE FUBAR!

Where are the patriots?

[dan jacobs (farnsworth list)]

hello Paul and all,
I agree that all the blame for the new orleans flood is not on geo w bush~(small letters for a small man).But i need more info on this funding of the dam project that "the white house" dropped from the budget, the dam broke and added to the problem
.A BIG MAN would have been involved as soon as possable and involved in the desision process from the prep on.I think anything over a cat 2 should have federal involvement from prep on so the reasoures and brainpower can come into play maybe overseen by the nat. weather service a good fed. agency with great staff because some states don't have their shit together to be left in charge of something like a cat. 4 hurricane!
I hope here in Pa. Ed Rendel (dem) would do a better job ( i like ED he straighten up philly big time if John Street doesn't screw things up, now in Pa. ed's doing a good job im not sure about the no helmut on motorcycles law but...).
But back to george w bush~(the "w" is that for wienie) he is so slow to react to anything: bombings, hurricanes..ect so if people want to blame him for katrina i say let them!
I liked Ronald Reagan, i'm sorry, but he did a great job with ussr, i didn't always agree with him but he got things done ( Bill Clinton is my favorite) i would like to paraphase dem. Floyd Benson "i knew Ronald Reason and you sir are no Ronald Reagan" these bushes have been riding his coat tails all these years the man is dead, time to stop the b.s. and smell the coffee!it's burnt~thanks i feel better, dan jacobs

[Dub Campbell]

Well, Old Perfesser, you've done it again. You have saved me countless hours of composition time so I can do more interactive things such as get to know my new German Shepherd adoptee. I simply could not agree more with what you have written in this week's screed. And so it goes, for some time now, that I only have to read... and leave the writing to you.

Of course, I won't really stop writing my thoughts... but you and I have so much in common, politically, socially et all, that I do find it amusing that our "views", yours and mine, seem to pull together a stereo image of what is going on. For example, the "departure" of David Brooks' usual right-leaning comments and the emergence of a new and truly compassionate note of conservativism. It's so sweet of him to tell it like it is, for a change.

Yes, if there is any blame to place, it should be spread among a number of people and their agencies, and not only at the feet of Junior Bush. But Junior's lack of genuine concern, coupled with his inept gray matter and his 'longer than dirt' response time to everything important, should earn him a bigger slice of responsibility for this aftermath of human suffering than anyone else in that 'pie of liability'.

As soon as those announcements of eminent disaster were announced, local, state and federal action should have combed every street with bullhorns and door knockers, making damn sure that all people were evacuated as soon as humanly possible. Yes, and every parked school bus and every other large capacity vehicle available should have been called in to get the job done.

This type of thing is not all 20/20 hinesight either. Disaster preparedness is not a new phrase and officials knew this 'thing' would happen some day. To top it all off, Junior's administration even took most of the funding away from repairing New Orleans' levy! That's sick. So, give Junior a bigger piece of blame and save the rest for others who failed their calling also.

Perfesser, I hope too that the "pendulum" is ready to swing back to the concerns of actual people and away from material things and the greed that accompanies them and the whole right-wing ideology we're facing today. It is critically important that we take the 2006 elections seriously and for cryin' out loud, let's put some heart and leadership back into our government...then and in 2008! We have all seen a plethora of mistakes from which to learn, from the Bush administration alone. Nope, no brain-fart shortage in that department.

Dub

PS Keep them screeds coming, Perfesser. I need the company in thought.