Ignorance + Tax Cuts = Chaos

In 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency ranked a major hurricane strike on New Orleans as "among the three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country," directly behind a terrorist strike on New York City.

In 2002 two Louisiana reporters wrote an article predicting everything wrought by Hurricane Katrina.

Yet we have been caught unprepared. Why? 1) No one wanted to spend the money to prepare and 2) most people spend more time watching American Idol than in educating themselves about the issues they face as citizens in a Democracy and 3) we have no real leadership.

While Katrina was targeting New Orleans, President Bush decided to continue his vacation, stopping by the Pueblo El Mirage RAP and Golf Resort in El Mirage, California, to hawk his Medicare drug benefit plan.

On Sunday, President Bush said, "I want to thank all the folks at the federal level and the state level and the local level who have taken this storm seriously."

And this is the problem we have with President Bush and why he is such a terrible President. He is a figure head for corporations, not a leader of people. He delegates and remains blissfully unaware of the consequences of his actions.

President Bush is the pretty boy, the likeable guy recruited to get the votes for all the hard-nosed corporate defenders and empire builders who wanted to get control of the government.

Bush is not a bad man, he's an unaware man. He can't see the forest for the trees, so he believes in giving the okay when others want to cut them down.

According to AmericanProgress Report, two months ago, President Bush took an ax to budget funds that would have helped New Orleans prepare for Katrina. The New Orleans branch of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suffered a "record $71.2 million" reduction in federal funding, a 44.2 percent reduction from its 2001 levels.

Reports at the time said that, thanks to the cuts, "major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. ... Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now."

In addition, since The Gulf Coast wetlands form a "natural buffer that helps protect New Orleans from storms," slowing hurricanes down as they approach from sea, President Bush pledged to uphold the "no net loss" wetland policy his father initiated.

He didn't keep his word. Bush rolled back tough wetland policies set by the Clinton administration, ordering federal agencies "to stop protecting as many as 20 million acres of wetlands and an untold number of waterways nationwide."

Last year, four environmental groups issued a joint report showing that administration policies had allowed "developers to drain thousands of acres of wetlands."

The result? New Orleans may be in even greater danger in the future: "Studies show that if the wetlands keep vanishing over the next few decades, then you won't need a giant storm to devastate New Orleans -- a much weaker, more common kind of hurricane could destroy the city too."

On top of this, President Bush gutted the agency responsible for developing hurricane responses. Again, from American Progress Report (which has links to confirm their statements)

Forward-thinking federal plans with titles like "Issues and Options in Flood Hazards Management," "Floods: A National Policy Concern," and "A Framework for Flood Hazards Management" would be particularly valuable in a time of increasingly intense hurricanes.

Unfortunately, the agency that used to produce them -- the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) -- was gutted by Gingrich conservatives several years ago.

As Chris Mooney (who presciently warned of the need to bulk up hurricane defenses in New Orleans last May) noted on August 29th, "If we ever return to science-based policymaking based on professionalism and expertise, rather than ideology, an office like OTA would be very useful in studying how best to save a city like New Orleans --and how Congress might consider appropriating money to achieve this end."

Of course we all know much of our National Guard - our first responders to a national disaster - is in Iraq.

Roughly 35 percent of Louisiana's National Guard is currently deployed in Iraq, where guardsmen and women make up about four of every 10 soldiers.

Additionally, "Dozens of high water vehicles, humvees, refuelers and generators" used by the Louisiana Guard are also tied up abroad.

"The National Guard needs that equipment back home to support the homeland security mission," Louisiana National Guard Lt. Colonel Pete Schneider told reporters earlier this month.

"Recruitment is down dramatically, mostly because prospective recruits are worried about deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan or another country," the AP reported recently.

"I used to be able to get about eight people a month," said National Guard 1st Sgt. Derick Young, a New Orleans recruiter. "Now, I'm lucky if I can get one."

President Bush continues to help fuel global warming which contributes to the earth's "need" for hurricanes to equalize temperatures. In fact, he still cannot grasp that a call to conserve gas, drive smaller cars and develop alternative energy sources would be in our best interest. Certainly we see it is madness to drill in the Gulf of Mexico considering the trend of more and stronger hurricanes.

Yet, there was no call for conservation during his speech today.

As the Progress Report has noted, data increasingly suggests that human-induced global warming is making these phenomena more dangerous and extreme than ever.

"The hurricane that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service," science author Ross Gelbspan writes. "Its real name is global warming."

AP reported recently on a Massachusetts Institute of Technology analysis that shows that "major storms spinning in both the Atlantic and the Pacific ... have increased in duration and intensity by about 50 percent" since the 1970s, trends that are "closely linked to increases in the average temperatures of the ocean surface and also correspond to increases in global average atmospheric temperatures during the same period."

Yet just last week, as Katrina was gathering steam and looming over the Gulf, the Bush administration released new CAFE standards that actually encourage automakers to produce bigger, less fuel efficient vehicles, while preventing states from taking strong, progressive action to reverse global warming.

Bottom line, neither President Bush nor 80% or our electorate understand what's at stake with these decisions. They don't understand the science behind Global Warming, stem cell research or evolution.

In fact, according to the article Scientific Savvy? In U.S. Not Much one out of every 5 adult Americans believes the sun revolves around the earth, a concept disproved in the 17th century.

Our nation elected President Bush and elected him, mainly on a platform of tax cuts, not on facts about how he would proceed once he got in office.

Just as those who bothered to open their eyes could see the havoc that a category 5 hurricane like Katrina was going to cause, so did many people foresee the damage George Bush would do as President.

Still others of us saw the disaster that would grow out of waging an unwinnable war in Iraq.

One wonders if the average American is beginning to understand that a $300 tax cut is not a reason to elect a President. The irony is that the small cuts most people got were simply shills to cover the mammoth cuts for the rich and super rich.

But it's for sure we have an information deficit in this country that is even less amusing than our National Debt.

How do we counter a media that fills our minds, not with helpful information and facts, but with pap and misinformation that keep us ignorant and focused on "being entertained?"

How do we resurrect education as a valued goal when there seems to be open hostility to education - and especially science - as "elite" or "snobbish?"

How do underpaid teachers educate an unwilling population of children seduced by the mindlessness of television from reading and critical thinking?

These are huge challenges. We need to keep blogging and trying to spread the truth, as we understand it. In addition, we need to concentrate on brainstorming answers as opposed to complaining.

Meanwhile, donate to the Red Cross if you can.

Also, if you can offer housing to those displaced by Hurricane Katrina, MoveOn.Org is working to match up housing with those who need it.

Keep the faith.