New Orleans refugees

Bit by bit, I think the news media is getting it. I'm not sure if government officials have got it yet.
This is a disaster.
There was a bit of a "blame the victim" thing starting up yesterday in places in the media and the blogosphere, to the effect that people in New Orleans should have known better than to stay behind so anything that happened to them was their own fault.
But the magnitude of this disaster has overwhelmed that excuse. Aaron Brown was going on tonight about how uncomfortable he was calling his fellow Americans "refugees" -- but finally concluding he had to use that term because that is exactly what they are. Joe Scarborough and David Schuster on MSNBC were talking about how many people in Biloxi died because they didn't have $20 for a tank of gas and so couldn't leave town. The New York Times editorial ripped Bush a new one:

George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration: a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast. He advised the public that anybody who wanted to help should send cash, grinned, and promised that everything would work out in the end. We will, of course, endure, and the city of New Orleans must come back. But looking at the pictures on television yesterday of a place abandoned to the forces of flood, fire and looting, it was hard not to wonder exactly how that is going to come to pass.

I think the media are beginning to ask, and in increasing strident tones, "What the hell are you doing to help?"
Personally, I am tired of hearing FEMA people talk endlessly during TV interviews about how nice they are to have come so far -- I want to ask them "Yes, but what are you getting done? Are you making these people's lives easier or are you harassing them with BS red tape?"
In Houston, apparently, the Astrodome will be open to refugees -- but only the refugees who came from the New Orleans dome, not any refugees who got to Houston on their own but now have no place to stay. And there seems to be a lot of fuzziness about how that evacuation is being done and how long it will actually last.
And I hear the FEMA director talk about how people don't have any money, and then he calmly announces that they really should get some from somewhere, like maybe from the Red Cross -- so I guess it was OK for the American government to hand out cash in Baghdad, but not in New Orleans.
Joe Scarborough had a very sensible idea tonight (the polarity of the earth is reversing, I know, but he DID!). He said people close enough to the disaster area should just load up their trucks with supplies and drive down and drop them off, then turn around and go get some more. I guess this is what people were doing during another recent disaster that Joe covered in Pensacola, Florida, and these acts of kindness made all the difference to the desperate people there.

Don't you know me, I'm your native son?

Now it will hit the fan: Editor And Publisher reports on Times-Picayune stories about how the Pentagon transfered to Iraq some of the funds which the Army Corps of Engineers wanted to use to improve New Orlean's levees -- the ones now breaking.
Watching CNN and MSNBC coverage today was heartbreaking. The beautiful, historic city of New Orleans survived the story but is now dying because of its infrastructure. Hundreds of people will die with her. Armando is also asking why the levees failed.
Broken levees in New Orleans:


People escaping:


People waiting for rescue. Look at the oil slick on the water surrounding this house:

Great line of the day

"The Rolling Stones are about to go out on tour. Tickets are $100 a piece. But the good news is -- Medicare will kick in half." --Jay Leno, from Late Night Political Jokes

What an awful guy!

'Venezuela to sell cut-price heating oil to U.S. poor' Oh, that Chavez, what a terrible guy! How dare you sell stuff cheaper to the poor -- why, they might start to think that everyone should do this. Its positively COMMIE!

Monster mash

In 'Got Morals?' Dibgy notes

Breaking treaties, throwing off old friends and partners, ignoring our own constitution and the rule of of law creates an impression that the United States is unreliable, immoral and aggressive. It makes us less safe. Only shallow people think that our country can fight off the whole world. Only delusional people would want us to try. Our moral authority is not an impediment that we can or should toss off when it is inconvenient. It is an absolutely nevessary component of our national security.

Well, duhhh!
As obvious as it is, I guess it still needs to be said.
It occurred to me the other day that the Bush administration has created a monster -- an America which believes the president can do whatever he wants, and the administration can do whatever it wants, regardless of court rulings (ie, Gitmo) and treaties (ie softwood lumber). This may come back to bite the Republicans in the ass someday.
As for the rest of us, living next to the 400 lb gorilla has never been as much fun as it looked, but it becomes even more challenging when the gorilla thinks he can just take whatever he wants from any of the other cages, and throw his garbage everywhere too.
He did the mash
He did the monster mash
The monster mash
It was a graveyard smash
He did the mash
It caught on in a flash
He did the mash
He did the monster mash

Smoke Out

Barb promotes the Mark Emery Smoke Out: Come out! Come out! Wherever you are!! to a demonstration to stop the extradition of Mark Emery and the Vancouver Three.

Another smart dog story

I love stories like this AFP storyWell-trained dog bags a free ride home

When Archie the black labrador lost his owner on a lonely Scottish station, he proved his well-trained pedigree and jumped aboard the first train home. Not only did the dog catch the right train, he got off at the right station, the Mail on Sunday newspaper said. Owner Mike Taitt lost sight of Archie at Inverurie station, near Aberdeen in eastern Scotland, and was hoping someone would spot his tag and return the much-loved mutt. "He is a very intelligent dog," Taitt said. "When he could not find me, he simply took the right train home. He's been on that train before. I am convinced he knew it was the right one. But who knows?" Closed-circuit television footage shows the dog waiting for his master at the station before watching the Aberdeen to Inverness train pull in. Unable to find his owner, the black labrador decided to avoid a long walk home by nipping aboard the 20:38. He got out at the right stop, Insch, twelve minutes along the line to the bemusement of signalman Derek Hope. "There was a train conductor standing with Archie on the platform saying he had got on at Inverurie but didn't have a ticket," Hope said.

And I searched for a photo of Archie but couldn't find one on the web.

Shorter Brooks

Winning in Iraq: THIS strategy will WORK, I tell you!

Great line of the day

From the Binghampton, New York newspaper storyPeaceful siege makes chicken hawks squawk.

In an example of a great mind getting right to the heart of a matter, [Fox commentator] O'Reilly wrote last week: "No one in their right mind would want Michael Moore, George Soros or Cindy Sheehan calling the shots in the war on terror." Granted. Then again, could they botch the job any worse than the people now calling the shots? [emphasis mine]

Next year country

This National Post story - Klein must share: expert is simply unbelievable. "Thomas Courchene, senior scholar at Montreal's Institute for Research on Public Policy and a professor at Queen's University, said yesterday a portion of Alberta's projected $7-billion surplus should be shared with the other provinces."
Now I haven't checked with anyone because I don't want to ruin my amateur standing, but I think we have a formula for this. It is the federal-provincial equalization formula and it makes sure that the "have" provinces share with the "have-not" provinces.
If Ontario falls into the have-not category, then Alberta will share with them (unlike, say, Newfoundland, who negotiated their own deal outside the formula).
Now, I realize it is contrary to the rules of the universe that Ontario would ever fall into a "have not" category in comparison to Alberta, but take it from me, folks, from a province which has bounced back and forth depending on resource revenues, being a "have not" province is no shame -- its just the way things are that particular year.
There's always next year.

Chickenhawk is as chickenhawk does

I'm not sure that I was very clear about what I meant in my recent post about America's new chickenhawk policy in Iraq.
First, let's define chickenhawk. A chickenhawk isn't just someone who supports a war, or someone who evades the military during a war. Rather, a chickenhawk is someone who does both -- who vocally and 'hawkishly' promotes a war, to the point of deriding the patriotism of anyone who opposes it, but who then deliberately finds excuses to chicken out of fighting in it. Thus the term "chicken'-'hawk'
Bush was chickenhawk about Vietnam, defending it in college debates but then getting Daddy to arrange a spot for him in the National Guard so he wouldn't have to go and fight overseas. Cheney was another vocal Vietnam supporter, who engineered five deferrments because he had better things to do with his life than fight the war. Most of the top people in the Bush administration can be called chickenhawks because they derided the patriotism of the anti-war protestors while also purposefully avoiding fighting in Vietnam. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with any American boy who avoided the Vietnam slaughter any way he could -- just don't go around at the time, or 30 years later, boasting about what a big-time patriotic war supporter you were!
Second, let's look at the reason Bush now gives for keeping the war going in Iraq. As he said in his weekend radio address "if we do not confront these evil men abroad, we will have to face them one day in our own cities and streets . . . the safety and security of every American is at stake in this war . . . By advancing the cause of liberty in a troubled region, we are bringing security to our own citizens and laying the foundations of peace for our children and grandchildren." So Bush's policy now is that war in Iraq must continue so that terrorists will stay in Iraq instead of attacking Americans in America.
Third -- and now we reach my point -- to me, this is a chickenhawk policy, both cowardly and cruel.
Bush is promoting a war in which Iraqis will die so Americans don't have to. He is saying that innocent Iraqi men, women and children should continue to deal with terrorist car bombs and suicide bombers and mortar attacks and gun battles, so that Americans can stay safe at home. The only Americans who risk death are the American soldiers unlucky enough to be stuck in Iraq as bait.
Now, I am not saying that this is a policy that Americans either want or endorse. Americans in general have always fought their own battles. But Bush and his gang are chickenhawks -- always have been -- so its not surprising that they would come up with a policy which turns all Americans into chickenhawks too.
Bush has said numerous times since 911 that he thinks his job is to keep Americans safe -- I am sure he is quite sincere in thinking that he is doing his job if he can get terrorists to kill Iraqis instead of Americans.
But I ask, and the world should ask -- who gave Bush permission to use Iraqis as human shields? How cruel it is for America to force Iraqis to fight and die, just so that Americans themselves can be safe. Only a coward could come up with such a policy.

If you cannot remember their names . . .

I have my own Statue of Limitations for when an historical outrage should be answered with a derisive "get over it!"
I believe that history is Officially Over when it happened to relatives whose names you can no longer remember.
I thought of this again when I read Driftglass's hypothesis that Iraq is another example of the American tendency to fight the Civil War again and again:

. . . war always shows up brightly in the emotional spectrum, and certain wars – lost wars -- burn like the fire of a thousand suns. Some people (most notably and locally, certain Red State citizens) obsessively re-fight them over and over again, generation after generation. Losers forever stand on the neck of history, jumping up-and-down, demanding a do-over. And when the banner the losing side fought under was hateful and repulsive, the lies and delusions that the defeated use to radically revise and prettify a murderous history and ideology into a glorious and noble “Lost Cause” also get passed down, father to son, like hemophilia. So look at the brief and bloody history of Iraq and note that...
...it is a war began by a Southern President.
...it is a war began by rich men and fought by the poor.
...it is war sold to Americans as a Noble Cause.
...it is a war of pre-emption against a hated enemy that we were told we HAD to attack before it was too late.
...it is a war sold on the defense of our “way of life” rather than a specific, measurable, strategic objective.
And come the 2004 election -- an election was all about Iraq -- look how the nation split, right down the Mason-Dixon Line.

If this is correct, then the Civil War now falls well beyond my Statute of Limitations rule -- it happened to the great-great-great-great grandparents of the soldiers now in Iraq.
It may be surprising to our American friends, but many other countries in the world are actually somewhat ashamed of their wars -- war is usually just a failure of diplomacy and, even when successful, most people aren't very happy to have had to fight them. They blame them on their leaders, and often boot these leaders out of office as soon as they can once the war is over.
But Americans show a tendency to romanticize their wars, and Iraq is no exception. So maybe Driftglass is correct, that Iraq is just another metaphorical do-over. And if so, I would ask just how many people have to die so the good ole boys can whoop and holler? How high does the price of oil have to go and how far into the tank does the world economy have to sink before the do-over lust is satisfied? There's a limit to how many generations the world can continue to tolerate this egotistical self-indulgence.
America, get over it!

Great line(s) of the day

From the Smirking Chimp: Phil Rockstroh: 'Listen up, you Christo-Fascist bullies':

. . . The time is long past due the rest of us ceased our cowering and stood up to you Christo-fascists bullies. The hour has come round that we look you straight in your bulging, true believer eyes, and told you that we've had it with your smugness, with your blood-drenched crusades, with your victim mentality . . . It's high time someone told you outright that you must be suffering from holy water on the brain, if you think we can't see you for what you are: a klavern of counterfeit prophets waxing psychotic for other cretinous hypocrites. Also, you can cease playing the persecuted party, whenever someone stands up to you -- because we're no longer buying that ploy. . . . When did the golden light of the sun abandon its position in the eastern horizon and begin rising, each morning, from out of your silly, neo-Iron Age asses? . . . every last one of you Apostles of Perpetual Psychosis -- listen up. Given the self-evident fact that your beliefs bring little relief to your own troubled souls and have, on the whole, served to engender tragedy worldwide, don't you think it's time you gave it a rest for while. In other words, this is a polite way of suggesting to you that you shut your pie-in-the-sky hole and take stock of the things you're saying -- because your utterances are becoming sicker and sadder, by the hour. If not, you could, at least, in the words, of Tom Waits, 'Come down off the cross -- we can use the wood.'

Glory, glory

Brian Gable, Globe and Mail

The 400 lb gorilla as emperor

Pogge notes Lloyd Axworthy's latest rant -- Time to redefine ties with U.S. I'm not sure whether I agree with Axworthy's advice, to dump NAFTA and pursue global trade instead, but I can certainly agree that the 400 lb gorilla is throwing its weight around:

. . . we are dealing with an American political system currently steeped in the ideology of "empire." It recognizes few rules, adheres only to those treaties that are expedient to basic interests, and believes that the only political currency that counts is the exercise of raw power. In its mildest form, it practises a la carte bilateralism, co-operating only when it wants to, and when it suits short-term domestic or international objectives. In its bad days, it simply follows a strategy of "take no prisoners," "damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead," "don't tread on me," "America First," or any other of the clichés used by ultra-patriots. These are the extant policy directives from the White House. While most Canadians responded with dismay to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, few could quite grasp that the same cavalier, imperial attitudes exemplified in Washington's rejection of various agreements on disarmament, its fierce opposition to the International Criminal Court, its indifference to climate-change warnings, and its undermining of the U.N. would prevail in our continental relationship as well. There is a chronic and dangerous failure to fully appreciate the shift going on in the political demographics of the U.S. and how this change affects attitudes not only toward Canada but also to the broad U.S. approach to its international role. The reality is that political power is shifting to the south and west of the United States, bringing with it less understanding or interest in our country and certainly an anti-internationalist notion that the U.S. can and should go it alone. Growing, as well, is the attitude — especially prevalent amongst congressional Republicans — that the U.S. should legislate extraterritorially to compel other countries to abide by its decisions. Anyone who thinks that neighbourly proximity brings favours or privileges is living in a dream world. In the changing landscape of U.S. politics and policies, Canada lacks the necessary traction . . . Let's face it: This is a painful and uncertain time in our relations with the United States. Muddling through from crisis to crisis won't work. Neither will listening to the chorus of continentalist claptrap promoting more U.S.-Canada integration — look no farther than the present disputes to see where such policies have landed us — or the calls for protectionism and retaliation that can still be heard from the Left. It's time for new policies and tough action to shift our trade and security strategies away from a preoccupation with continental matters to a more global footing.

I think we will need more than just new trade policies to deal with this challenge.