It's been a rough week in this country. Once again Bush is showing his talent for driving a company into the ground. After this week's hurricane debacle even die hard republicans I know are having a tough time defending this guy. Bush's policies are pretty much responsible for defending the work that was to be done on the New Orleans levies and dismantling the organization FEMA had become under Clinton. Here's an excerpt from the NY Times on some of the ways the new FEMA "helped out":
When Wal-Mart sent three trailer trucks loaded with water, FEMA officials turned them away, he said. Agency workers prevented the Coast Guard from delivering 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and on Saturday they cut the parish's emergency communications line, leading the sheriff to restore it and post armed guards to protect it from FEMA, Mr. Broussard said.
Can you imagine the balls on these people to turn back trucks full of relief supplies? If you're not going to fix things then at least don't get in the way. It's just so sad. I personally believe that anyone living in those areas deserves a refund on their federal income taxes for failure of services. Your taxes are a sort of covenant that the government is going to help you out in times like this and if they don't deliver then what were they taking your money for? I made a donation this week to the red cross at http://www.redcross.org/. Not big money, but everyone should try to just give something.
You know I get a little nervous putting anything political like this on my blog because I'm worried that it might generate some kind of FBI file or something on me. I wonder if there isn't some watch list I'm being thrown on for publicly thinking that this thing was screwed up. Isn't it sad that we have to feel that way nowadays; being scared of retribution for criticizing government? I think it's a pretty big warning flag on the state of our free society. I don't think anyone felt like that before Bush. Now it's practically expected.