From The Ramparts

"US authorities ignored warnings that New Orleans was vulnerable to a hurricane nightmare and slashed funding that could have saved the city as spending on the war in Iraq soared, experts said. Four years ago the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) warned a major hurricane or flooding in the Big Easy was among the three catastrophes most likely to hit the United States, along with a terrorist attack on New York. But instead of boosting funding to the centuries-old city of 1.4 million people that lies below sea level, authorities cut funding for hundreds of millions of dollars of critical work to bolster and repair the levees that keep the waters of the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain at bay. ‘This was a disaster waiting to happen,’ said John Rennie, editor-in-chief of US science and technology bible, Scientific American. ‘For years there has been a multitude of warnings that critical work on rebuilding the levees has been lagging and that the city was particularly vulnerable but these warnings effectively went unheeded,’ he told AFP. Rennie's magazine warned in 2001 that a degradation of the city's levee and pumping systems, new building developments and inadequate evacuation routes had put New Orleans at serious risk of a human catastrophe in which more than 250,000 people could be stranded and thousands killed." AFP www.afp.com 09-02-05

There is an old saying, "the dirt comes out in the wash", meaning sooner or later the facts will be discovered by effort. The wash in this case is the unwillingness of the AmeriKKKan public to continue believing the Bu$h administration’s lies and B.S. When asked why the federal government was so slow in responding to the category five hurricane that hit the US Gulf Coast and submerged the city of New Orleans under water, George W. Bu$h responded, "No one anticipated the levees would break." As usual the corporate media gave Bu$h free pas by not calling him on his obvious lie. I say obvious lie because the Federal Emergency management Agency (FEMA) issued a report in 2001 predicting one of the three most probable disasters that would befall AmeriKKKa would be a direct hit on the city of New Orleans by a major hurricane. FEMA, a federal agency, said this and the hurricane scenario was at the top of their short list of predictable disasters along with a terrorist attack on New York and a major earthquake in San Francisco. Not only did FEMA predict such an event, Science American a very influential scientific journal also warned in 2001 the neglected levee and pumping systems in New Orleans, along with inadequate evacuation routes and infrastructure put New Orleans at risk for as many as 250,000 people stranded and thousands killed. Plus the Times-Picayune won a Pulitzer prize for their five part series on the dangers posed by antiquated levee and pumping systems, poor engineering and inadequate funding for emergency preparation for a major breech in the systems. So just as Bu$h said, "no one thought terrorists would use airplanes as missiles" and that his administration was not warned about 9-11 when ample evidence to the contrary exists ,although it was the intention of the 9-11 Commission to whitewash these facts from the public consciousness and record, (see recent revelations about Operation Able Danger) now Bu$h is claiming ignorance of any warnings about this problem. Let’s not forget the National Weather Service warned of the intensity and severity of the storm days before it hit inland and the storm was also tracked and plotted by the national intelligence and military satellites, so the outrage of many AmeriKKKans at the pathetic response of the Bu$h administration is well deserved. Unlike during 9-11 at least the media is not falling for the Bu$h administration’s okey-doke; although they are not challenging him on his lies directly, like they did Bill Clinton when he lied about his relations with Monica Lewinsky.

Michael Brown the head of FEMA has come under blistering criticism and rightly so. He is a political hack who has demonstrated a total ineptitude and callousness for the whole world to see. Brown’s ineffectiveness and Bu$h’s continued support for him are additional reasons why there is growing public indignation, even by white folks who normally could care less about the plight of poor black people. Just as he hasn’t fired, demoted or chastised anyone for the massive intelligence, military and civil defense failures of 9-11, Bu$h again demonstrated his real values and class loyalties by protecting his fellow Yale alum Michael Brown. The Republican spin machine is working overtime in a vain attempt to undo the perception (reality) of callousness and insensitivity on the part of the Bu$h cabal. Now all of a sudden the images and reports it the mainstream media are softer and show more whites being rescued and cared for. The media is also showing a less hard edge by the National Guardsmen and active duty military, depicting their humanitarian interaction between the victims as opposed to pictures of emotionally distressed blacks, unsubstantiated reports of rapes, murder and looting in an obvious attempt to demonize the poor folks trapped in New Orleans while Bu$h was playing a guitar, Cheney was hiding in Wyoming or Condoleezza Rice was frolicking on Broadway and shopping for shoes (similar to Nero fiddling while Rome burned). Hurricane Katrina has revealed the bitter ideological and class divisions in AmeriKKKa, an insensibility and a "let them eat cake" mentality of the upper classes. Most conscious black folks knew this class and cultural schism existed all along, but it took Hurricane Katrina to reveal it to the world.

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