Hurricane Katrina

Although I have done versions of this before, this was inspired by a Daily Kos Diary:

This is what happened Monday, Aug. 29, 2005...the day Katrina hit, John McCain's 69th birthday...the day America realized that Republicans don't give a shit about Americans.

Hurricane Katrina:

I remember the radar images from the weather channel the night before landfall. I remember distincly watching it and thinking, "My god...that's going to be bad." I also remember thinking that the government had better be ready to get people out and to deal with the situation.

I was right...it was going to be really, really bad. I mean THIS bad:

While Mississippi and Louisiana were getting slammed by Hurricane Katrina and Americans were dying, THIS is what Bush and McCain were doing:

From CurrentTV comes this amazing footage from WITHIN Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans:

As if we don't already know, today is Trent Lott Appreciation Day. While this is a great step forward for mankind, Lott, featured above rocking his signature hip hop dance move, deserves so much more than one day of Appreciation. Because Lott is so much more than a mere mortal and senator. Did you know he was also

1. a misunderstood STD: Of course Lott is an STD (Strom Thurmond-defending); and outspoken segregationist. But Trent is no racist, and is as opposed to racism and Strom Thurmond was opposed to miscegenation. He is actually color blind. Lamenting the Sunni/Shiite hoopla, Lott said: "It's hard for Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what's wrong with these people. Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me." See! Like Steven Colbert, Lott doesn't even see color, or ethnicity!
2. a salt of the earth working man One of the many exploited workers in Washington D.C., and part of the great Capitol Hill to K street migration, Lott recently left politics in search of a better life and a living wage as a lobbyist. Luckily, and purely coincidentally, by stepping down before the end of the year, Lott avoided a law, that was about to come into effect, requiring that senators wait two years after retiring before they start lobbying their former colleagues.
3. a martyr: as if the abject poverty faced by senators weren't enough, Trent's economic woes were only worsened by Hurricane Katrina. Nobody felt Trent's pain more than the President himself, seen here either trying to hold back tears or looking at a pretty molding on the ceiling, who said:
   
   

AND WILL THEY SAY nobody could have foreseen the weakness of the levees?

For the first time, Washington D.C. has collected data on H.I.V. and found that in the nation's capital, the "modern epidemic"—as the Washington Post calls it—is now primarily one affecting blacks.

The numbers most starkly illustrate HIV's impact on the African American community. More than 80 percent of the 3,269 HIV cases identified between 2001 and 2006 were among black men, women and adolescents. Among women who tested positive, a rising percentage of local cases, nine of 10 were African American. [...]

The District's AIDS rate is the worst of any city in the country, nearly twice the rate in New York and more than four times the incidence in Detroit, and it has been climbing faster than that of many jurisdictions. [...]

—Study Calls HIV in D.C. A 'Modern Epidemic'; More Than 80 Percent Of Recent Cases Were Among Black Residents

And big propz must go to the woman who dares try and change the world, as well as shout out the truth as she lives and sees it:

Some time ago I wrote about a progressive, Gary Anderson, running for Mississippi state insurance commissioner against an incumbent who favored insurance companies over average Americans. This left many victims of Katrina without recourse if their insurance companies tried to refuse to pay out what the victims deserved. My friend from Mississippi, who knows many Katrina victims, sent me this report on the 2nd anniversary of Katrina's landfall:

Most of the people who DID receive money from the insurance companies received only a fraction of what it would cost to replace what they lost. There was the on going battle of wind vs water issue. That even Trent Lott had to deal with. He sued state farm and they settle out of court kind of quietly... However, when Bush visited the coast he promised Trent that he would rebuild his waterfront house. I think it would be interesting to look into what really happened in that case. No one I talked to was happy with the insurance settlements that they received. Now premiums are so high that many people can only afford the basic coverage. Insurance companies were boasting at how much money they gained last year, mainly because they didn't pay the proper amount of money to the people who lost their homes in the disaster. Also, many people have not had the money to fix or rebuild their house and today is the 2 year anniversary.

Liza's recent article on a humorous side to Republican Joe Barton's (TX-6) opposition to healthcare for Amreica's children rang a bell for me. I remember this Joe Barton. His current crusade is denying Amrerica's children healthcare, but in the past he has been cold-hearted in a different way. He was one of the Katrina 11, the 11 Republicans who voted “No” on the bill that Congress approved and Bush signed to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. These are the cold-hearted bastards who would willingly see Americans die for the sake of more tax cuts for the wealthy and for Halliburton profits.

Joe Barton is one of those cold-hearted bastards. Only now his target is also America's children. But that isn't even new. Barton was one of the Republicans who worked to block the Combating Autism Act in 2006. His actions were so deceptive and so awful, that Don and Diedre Imus (no left wingers themselves) were pissed off and offended. So Barton has a history of right wing extremism when it comes to helping America's children.

But Barton is more than just a cold-hearted bastard. He is also anti-science. He has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from oil and gas industries then, as chairman of the House of Representatives' Energy and Commerce Committee, he proceeded to go after climatologists whose work helped us understand global warming. Joe Barton has been bought and sold by the oil industry and has become one of their main attack dogs against scientists.

Current TV is running some amazing footage from Hurricane Katrina today. They have five segments, adding up to an hour long program, filmed by Doug Kiesling, a freelance Weather Journalist. My wife and I watched it from 7-8 AM. It is next on at 11 AM (then presumably 3 PM, etc.).

Doug went to New Orleans to cover Hurricane Katrina. And he did cover it, driving around the city throughout the entire storm, filming it as it happened. The footage is amazing. The first segment shows New Orleans the day before Katrina hits when many still thought the hurricane would miss the city and few people were taking it seriously enough. The second segment covers the hours just before the storm hits. Doug talks with levee personnel and people who stayed on as the hurricane approaches. Up to that point, his footage is interesting, but not really amazing. It is from the third segment on that it is hard to look away. The third segment is filmed along Canal St. DURING the hurricane. No one else is on the road other than the police as debris flies around and the water rises. As Doug is filming, he begins to realize just how bad things are getting and decides to get the hell out. The fourth segment shows his attempts to get out as flood waters occasionally reach OVER the hood of his truck. Whatever kind of truck he had, it performed amazingly under conditions you are NOT supposed to be driving in! Finally he escapes and reaches his hotel. The fifth segment shows the aftermath and tells the horrible statistic that 20% of New Orleans' population were so poor they had no resources to evacuate the city. They were stuck there...abandoned by our government.

This diary was originally written once the lessons of Hurricane Katrina had sunk in a bit. This week is the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Two years ag...I remember watching on the weather channel as a category 5 hurricane was bearing down on the Gulf Coast and thinking, "THAT is going to be really bad."

But no one in the Bush Administration seemed to think that. They thought about celebrating John McCain's birthday, buying shoes in NYC, vacationing...while one hell of a hurricane was bearing down on America's Gulf Coast.

The people of America's Gulf coast didn't matter to the Bush Administration. Those people we watched die of neglect in New Orleans died because Republican America considered them insignificant...worthless...useless.

I think the political strength of any group comes down to three things: money, votes and volunteerism. These three things win elections, so they get the attention of both political parties. The low voter turnout among blacks is a problem, and I think this low voter turnout hurts the community. Neither party puts that large a premium on the black community because of this low voter turnout. Of course it is more complicated than that--there are vested interests that don't want a change in the status quo. But imagine the effect it would have if there was a nearly 100% voter turnout in the black community. In some areas like NYC and Virginia, for example, this would make the black community very important in elections and their needs would become higher priorities for both political parties.

Bush and the current Mississippi Insurance Commissioner are trying to tell America that all is well with the victims of hurricane Katrina...our wonderful insurance companies have taken care of all that, right?

Wrong. Most victims of Katrina have still received little help and Insurance Companies are doing their best to keep from paying. Their lives can't get back to normal because many still don't have homes. They are losing what little they have left while hotels and casinos are buying land that used to be homes.

Change may be on the way, but we need to help. Last week was the Democratic Party primary for Mississippi Insurance Commissioner. In this primary there were two candidates. One was heavily funded by the insurance companies while the other, Gary Anderson, is pro-consumer and was funded by people like you and me with the help of Democracy for America.

Gary Anderson won the primary. He now goes on to the general election in November. If he wins, he will try to help Katrina victims recover rather than protecting insurance companies.

Here is a statement from Gary Anderson:

Jackson, Mississippi - Democratic Insurance Commissioner Candidate Gary Anderson responded to George Dale's lies today at the State's Capitol Building. Anderson referenced Dale's latest TV ad in which he claims that 99% of all insurance claims have been settled.

"George Dale is either lying or in denial about the percent of Katrina claims settled. Ask Mississippians in the south if 99% of lives are back to normal, ask Mississippians across the state if they feel they have been treated fairly - they will tell you they have not. Dale is making a desperate attempt to link me to different groups but the truth is he knows Gary Anderson is on the side of Mississippi's insurance ratepayers", said Anderson at the press conference.

Many months after Katrina hit America's Gulf Coast, exposing the racist incompetence of the Bush Administration as they left thousands of poor, black American citizens to die, I talked to a former co-worker of mine from Mississippi whose parents lost a great deal in Katrina. She talked of her mother's post-traumatic syndrome and the way inadequate insurance payments were made and inadequate help came from the government and many people simply couldn't afford recovery and so had to sell cheap to real estate developers who were aiming to build luxury hotels. Her story, which I cannot do justice, was a pretty damned good summary of much of what is wrong with America under Bush and the extreme right wing branch of the Republican Party...the one that promised to reduce government until it could be drowned in a bathtub. Seemingly they didn't care that thousands of Americans would drown in the process.

Even as Katrina refugees are being faced with eviction from their trailers by a government that STILL doesn't give a shit about them, one tiny hopeful milestone has been reached...and we can help expand that tiny glimmer of hope. From Habitat for Humanity:

Habitat for Humanity reaches a milestone in the hurricane-recovery effort with the construction of its 500th hurricane-recovery home along the Gulf Coast.

Just months ago, Habitat for Humanity and the Operation Home Delivery program marked the anniversaries of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, a commemoration that acknowledged the historic storms’ destruction and looked ahead with hope to continued progress along the Gulf Coast. Now, Habitat has reached a significant construction milestone in that recovery effort: This week, the walls were raised on Habitat’s 500th hurricane-recovery home, just outside Mobile, Ala.