People Are Mad As Hell and Unwilling To Take It Anymore

A seismic rift developed between the classes in America this past week, the results of which may be unclear at this juncture but are sure to be as devastating to the body politic of the United States — and perhaps beyond their shores — as the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the American South.
This past week, as tens of thousands of New Orleans’ citizens awaited rescue from the cataclysmic effects of Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. government — woefully miscalculating the level of destruction they would face — failed to respond in a timely, humane, responsible and competent manner to one of the most devastating domestic crises in American history.
As conservative columnist David Brooks writes in his incisive New York Times essay …

On Sept. 11, Rudy Giuliani took control. The government response was quick and decisive. The rich and poor suffered alike. Americans had been hit, but felt united and strong. Public confidence in institutions surged. Last week in New Orleans, nobody took control. Authority was diffuse and action was ineffective. The rich escaped while the poor were abandoned. Leaders spun while looters rampaged. Partisans squabbled while the nation was ashamed. The first rule of the social fabric — that in times of crisis you protect the vulnerable — was trampled.

Katrina means that the political culture, already sour and bloody-minded in many quarters, will shift. There will be a reaction. There will be more impatience for something new. There is going to be some sort of big bang as people respond to the cumulative blows of bad events and try to fundamentally change the way things are. Reaganite conservatism was the response to the pessimism and feebleness of the 1970s. Maybe this time there will be a progressive resurgence … All we can be sure of is that the political culture is about to undergo some big change.

To point out just how incompetent and staggeringly ineffectual the Bush administration was in its response to the rapidly deteriorating situation in New Orleans, CNN’s Tom Foreman set about to examine what is being said about Katrina today by Department of Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff compared to what was said in the past. Chertoff Fact Check consists of video clips of the various positions taken by DHS Secretary Chertoff and FEMA Director Michael Brown before and after Katrina struck.
The response by the Bush administration to the needs of its citizens can be characterized as cruel and heartless and assuredly nothing less than incomprehensible and unforgivable. In words that haunt the soul, Aaron Broussard, President of Jefferson Parish, appearing Sunday on Meet the Press, said, “the cavalry never came.” You can read the transcript, but the video is so much more powerful. The video is accessible by clicking on the permalink here, and then clicking on one of the video links.
As a coda to tonight’s post, VanRamblings offers another video, one of the harrowing pieces of television reportage as you’re ever likely to see watch. The video is accessible by clicking on the permalink here, and then click on either one of the video links. While Aaron Brown on CNN stated, “We have turned the corner,” Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera and Shepard Smith reported on the thousands of people trapped in what Geraldo called “this Hell on Earth” at the convention center. No one had been bused out. Shepard was on the I-10 and is devastating in his description of the “hundreds and hundreds and hundreds” of people denied exit, all of whom were left without food, water or medicine, for days.