brainrow

Yesterday I spent a few hours answering phones for a Red Cross fundraising event. Someone from the local Red Cross headquarters announced that we were “this close” — very close — to having enough refugees from Hurricane Katrina here in town to open up a shelter.

Some of the phone volunteers wondered: is that good news or bad news? It is very good news, we were told. It means people are getting out of the storm-ravaged areas, and into places where they can be helped.

We were told that the Red Cross was not currently providing any help within New Orleans, because the government would not allow them to go in. Apparently someone in the government thought it would send the wrong message if the Red Cross provided water, food and medical care inside New Orleans, and people would start returning to the city. So the Red Cross waits at countless locations outside the disaster area, waiting for the chance to help refugees.

Last January, conservative columnist David Brooks discussed George W. Bush’s second inaugural address on the PBS News Hour:

I guess I’d say the president has meticulously ruled out the possibility that he might be a mediocre president. He is either going to be a great president and get a lot done, or he is going to be a complete failure

The “great president” or “complete failure” question was settled this week, I think.

David Brooks, yesterday on the PBS News Hour:

This was really a de-legitimization of institutions. Our institutions completely failed us, and it’s not as if this is the first in the past three years. This follows Abu Ghraib, the failure of planning in Iraq, the intelligence failures, the corporate scandals, the media scandals.

We have had, over the past four or five years, a whole series of scandals which have soured the public mood. You’ve seen a rise in feeling that the country’s headed in the wrong direction. And I think this is the biggest one, and the bursting one. And I must say, personally, it’s the one that really says, “Hey, it feels like the seventies now,” where you really have a loss of faith in institutions. Let’s get out of this mess. I really think this is so important as a cultural moment, like the blackouts of 1977, just — people are sick of it.

Yesterday I quoted E.J. Dionne quoting William Cohen:

Government is the enemy until you need a friend.

Today, via Wonkette, Chrisafer casts doubt on an old Ronald Reagan applause line:

The ten most frightening words in the English language are, “I’m from the Federal Government, and I’m here to help.”

Not so.

This week should be the watershed for the whole “me first,” every-man-for-himself ideology that has governed this country for almost twenty-five years.

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne:

The sight of rescue workers, the police and the Coast Guard, governors, mayors, and federal officials struggling desperately with the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina brings to mind Cohen’s Law: “Government is the enemy until you need a friend.”

…

You wonder if this summer, with deteriorating conditions in Iraq and now this terrifying act of God, might make us more serious. This is said not to be a time for politics, and we can surely do without the petty sort. But how we pull our country together, make our government work at a time of great need, and share the sacrifices that war and natural catastrophe have imposed on us — these are inescapably political questions.

How can we look Katrina’s victims in the eye, say we care and yet not take account of how their needs should affect the other things government does? I’m sorry to raise this, but can it make any sense that one of the early issues the U.S. Senate is scheduled to confront this month is the repeal of the estate tax on large fortunes when we haven’t even calculated the costs of Katrina? And why do we keep evading a national debate over who is bearing the burdens of a war that has dragged on far longer than its architects promised?

Katrina is the work of nature, but what happens from this point forward is the responsibility of political leadership. Is it possible that in the face of a catastrophe of this magnitude, Washington will not even bother to rethink our nation’s priorities?

Last October, National Geographic foretold the New Orleans disaster. Yesterday, George W. Bush said no one anticipated it. Daily Kos shows that there’s a pattern here:

Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

When did this calamity happen? It hasn’t — yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City.

We can only pray that the Big One — the dreaded massive California earthquake — doesn’t occur while these guys are in charge.

To those suffering in New Orleans, it may seem that the government has turned its back on the city. But that’s just frustration and paranoia, right? Right?

Maybe not. Dennis Hastert, the Republican Speaker of the House, apparently wants to make it official:

It makes no sense to spend billions of dollars to rebuild a city that’s seven feet under sea level, House Speaker Dennis Hastert said of federal assistance for hurricane-devastated New Orleans.

“It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed,” the Illinois Republican said in an interview Wednesday with the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, Illinois.

So, what’s going on here? Did New Orleans vote for John Kerry in the 2004 election, or something?

(The distorted map, called a cartogram, is explained here.)

They thought the worst was over in New Orleans. Then the levees broke, and 80 per cent of the city was flooded.

The ongoing disaster in New Orleans is exposing lots of weak spots and cracks in government policies and in the execution of those policies. We could not prevent Hurricane Katrina. Can we, at least, learn something from this tragedy? Given the current administration in Washington, John Moltz doesn’t see much hope:

These are not people who change policy based on facts.

Ever.

Really. They have never, to my knowledge, done this. They have changed policy for political gain or to buy time until the policy can be subverted to their pre-conceived agenda.

This disaster could not have come at a worse time in our nation’s history. The people in charge of this country will not seek to fix, they will not seek to aid, they will not seek to rebuild, they will not seek to heal.

They will seek to profit in whatever way they can.

In the Bush Administration’s notion of economic recovery, the rich get richer and the poor get more numerous:

With the Midwest leading the way, the nation’s poverty rate went up in 2004 for the fourth straight year even as the U.S. economy strengthened, the Census Bureau said Tuesday.

George W. Bush has been president for a little over four and a half years. With four straight years of increasing poverty rates, the Bush record on poverty is remarkably clear.

There is an undeclared War on Poverty.

Via Crooks and Liars: Fred Barnes, a conservative pundit and frequent Bush apologist, has assailed poor people for foolishly living in areas where disasters happen:

Fred Barnes, who supports throwing endless amounts of taxpayers’ money down the rat hole called the Iraq War, says the federal government should stop providing disaster aid to places like New Orleans when they suffer hurricane damage.

Barnes, speaking on “Special Report with Brit Hume” on Monday (August 29), said people who move into such areas should assume the risk themselves rather than expect help from Congress. He noted that earlier in the day he talked to a Republican offical who also noted that as the storm raged, “every half or hour or so, you know, there’s another billion dollars, another billion dollars the federal government’s gong to have to spend.”

This is what terrorists hope for — that fear itself becomes the weapon that kills more than the mortars or the suicide bombs:

At least 600 people have been killed in a stampede of Shia pilgrims in northern Baghdad, Iraqi officials say.

The incident happened on a bridge over the Tigris River as about one million Shias marched to a shrine for an annual religious festival.

Witnesses said panic spread because of rumours that suicide bombers were in the crowd. Many victims were crushed to death or fell in the river and drowned.

They also serve, who only sit and type.

Via Crooks and Liars: finally, some recognition for the brave keyboard kommandos who brave carpal tunnel syndrome and that awful crick you can get in your neck sometimes, and who keep up the drumbeat for George W. Bush’s Iraq Adventure even as the American people turn against it. The Kombat Keyboard Badge:

These awards are restricted to those pundits who advocate the Iraq War, but refuse to serve or have family members serve, when eligible.

Those ineligible include Michael Ledeen, who sent his daughter to work in the CPA in Baghdad, The Bushes, since their children have not taken a clear stand on Iraq, and sadly, Max Boot, who has actually been to Iraq, as has Tom Friedman.

To be eligible, one must have risked nothing to advocate the war, while advocating it [vociferously]

It’s not enough, I think, not to have served or sacrificed for this war. The true keyboard kommando attacks the service and belittles the sacrifice of others.

Update: Turns out the phrase “Keyboard Kommando” is not original to me.

From time to time, this list of questions for the moral arbiters of the religious right circulates via email and in blogs. A couple representative questions from the list:

I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states that he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

My uncle has a farm. He violates Leviticus 19.19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Leviticus 24.10-16) Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair, as we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Leviticus 20.14)

If you live in South Carolina, you may wish to print out the full list of questions and research the answers. The Los Angeles Times reports that a group called Christian Exodus is strategizing a Christian coup d’etat to take over your state:

… Mario DiMartino was planning more than a weekend getaway. He, his wife and three children were embarking on a pilgrimage to South Carolina.

“I want to migrate and claim the gold of the Lord,” said the 38-year-old oil company executive from Pennsylvania. “I want to replicate the statutes and the mores and the scriptures that the God of the Old Testament espoused to the world.”

DiMartino, who drove here recently to look for a new home, is a member of Christian Exodus, a movement of politically active believers who hope to establish a government based upon Christian principles.

At a time when evangelicals are exerting influence on the national political stage — having helped secure President Bush’s reelection — Christian Exodus believes that people of faith have failed to assert their moral agenda: Abortion is legal. School prayer is banned. There are limits on public displays of the Ten Commandments. Gays and lesbians can marry in Massachusetts.

Christian Exodus activists plan to take control of sheriff’s offices, city councils and school boards. Eventually, they say, they will control South Carolina. They will pass godly legislation, defying Supreme Court rulings on the separation of church and state.

“We’re going to force a constitutional crisis,” said Cory Burnell, 29, an investment advisor who founded the group in November 2003.

“If necessary,” he said, “we will secede from the union.”

If you think these people are kidding, you’re wrong. If you think there’s no need to fight them, you should probably get rid of those cotton-poly blends now.

What a surprise — the Bush-Cheney crime wave has claimed one more victim:

A top Army contracting official who criticized a large, noncompetitive contract with the Halliburton Company for work in Iraq was demoted Saturday for what the Army called poor job performance.

The official, Bunnatine H. Greenhouse, has worked in military procurement for 20 years and for the past several years had been the chief overseer of contracts at the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that has managed much of the reconstruction work in Iraq.

…

Ms. Greenhouse’s lawyer, Michael Kohn, called the action an “obvious reprisal” for the strong objections she raised in 2003 to a series of corps decisions involving the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root, which has garnered more than $10 billion for work in Iraq.

…

Known as a stickler for the rules on competition, Ms. Greenhouse initially received stellar performance ratings, Mr. Kohn said. But her reviews became negative at roughly the time she began objecting to decisions she saw as improperly favoring Kellogg Brown & Root, he said.…

Right, yeah, a buffer. The Family had a lotta buffers.

—Willy Cicci in The Godfather, Part II

On Monday, on his television program The 700 Club, Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, the democratically-elected president of Venezuela. On Wednesday’s edition of The 700 Club, he denied he’d said “assassination,” and said “I was misinterpreted by the AP, but that happens all the time.” Later on Wednesday, Robertson wrote on his website, “Is it right to call for assassination? No, and I apologize for that statement.” Later on the same web page, he makes arguments to justify assassination, and closes by saying “the incredible publicity surrounding my remarks has focused our government’s attention on a growing problem which has been largely ignored.”

The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that Pat Robertson’s assassination tango wasn’t about Hugo Chavez or Venezuelan oil at all.

Since Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced her retirement, Robertson has made a great show of his “prayer offensive” to open three more vacancies on the Supreme Court. Because the Constitution gives Supreme Court justices lifetime tenure, there are only three ways to create a vacancy: death, resignation or impeachment. On The 700 Club, Robertson said, “We ask for miracles on the Supreme Court.”

The 700 Club is seen by hundreds of thousands of viewers. I don’t know how many of them share Robertson’s extremist religious and political views. Right now, I believe Robertson is thinking he only needs one.

In the hard religious right, there are small but significant pockets of support for people who murder doctors and bomb clinics, and a handful of people willing to carry out such crimes. By advocating assassination, and by attempting to justify assassination even as he apologizes for mentioning it, it seems Pat Robertson is trying to get a message to some of those people. If any understand and take up his coded challenge, Robertson’s protected by a lotta buffers.

Media Matters observes that Pat Robertson isn’t the only right-winger dreaming of assassination and murder.

I think they’re a little bit unfair to Bill O’Reilly, though. As creepily detailed as his imagery of decapitating Michael Kinsley is, I don’t think he’s actually advocating murder here, in contrast to the other conservatives cited.

In Iraq, American soldiers are digging through scrap yards to up-armor their military vehicles with improvised “hillbilly armor.”

On the home front, this veteran brought protective equipment of his own to a George W. Bush speech on the topic of Iraq.

Good old American ingenuity.

Some years ago, when Gary Hart was running for president, an astute observer noted that he seemed to be imitating some of John F. Kennedy’s tics and gestures on the stump. I can tell you that Gary Hart was not the only politician of his generation to adopt some of Kennedy’s mannerisms. On The Simpsons, Springfield mayor Diamond Joe Quimby didn’t start out as a caricature of the Kennedys; he started as a caricature of small-time politicians who modeled themselves on JFK.

If you see enough film of him, you can eventually see that much of Kennedy’s speaking style was in imitation of Franklin D. Roosevelt. I suspect Roosevelt borrowed something from Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, or other successful politicians of that era. We all borrow something from the people we admire. The person we become depends, in part, on our choices of from whom we borrow.

When I hear the deep resonant voice of James Earl Jones, I always hear an echo of the great actor Brock Peters, who died today. Peters’ voice could send shivers down my spine. His face could be used in a dictionary to illustrate the word “dignity.”

His most important role was probably Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird. Watch it.

Wow. I thought I was being nasty yesterday, poking fun at Pat Robertson’s prayer vigil asking God to remove three Supreme Court justices. I felt a little guilty for being so mean. But now, I’m worried.

The Lord, you see, moves in mysterious ways His wonders to perform. Sometimes that takes a while, and Pat Robertson is not always a patient man. Apparently he is adopting the doctrine that
the Lord helps those who help themselves:

Pat Robertson, host of Christian Broadcasting Network’s The 700 Club and founder of the Christian Coalition of America, called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

The Bush Administration says it supports democracy around the world. Chavez was democratically elected by the people of Venezuela. But Venezuela has oil, and that changes things.

John Moltz asks, “What does Pat Robertson have to do to get de-mainstreamed?” (Rated ‘R’ for strong language.)