Not Apple Computers, but
apple as in the blogger at
Veritas, gives her take on Katrina relief ("This great nation..."; there's no permalink to the post). I don't agree with everything she says, but agree with her absolutely on her assessment of the President's response and her social safety net rant:
"Bush's first glimpse was from his airplane (not helicopter) and I cannot think of a better metaphor to illustrate his level of concern. Then he has the nerve to ask people to donate money. What the hell? [...] Fuck that, I didn't tell them to squader billions in Iraq. [...] Should have thought about home first, don't you think? Donate my ass.
"End of the day, my friends, you can understand a society by observing how it treats its weakest members. For a week we watched as tens of thousands of poor, black Americans suffered, slept, lived in their own waste. One week. [...] This is the system we want to distribute to the rest of the world? [...] who would want this? Is this risk worth it? When crisis hits, why would anyone want a government inept and incapbale [sic] of responding? [...] This is the same democracy that protects your freedom to wear halter tops and mini skirts with thongs hanging out and to carry guns. We are so free that the government just doesn't care."
She also makes an interesting point about corporate response to the disaster. Companies like
Wal-Mart and
FedEx stepped into the yawning breach left by FEMA's relief efforts to offer their own. Is that a good thing? I think so. But it highlights the impressive failure of a government that cuts revenues and domestic expenditures, pulling back from commitments on its own shores to consolidate its power abroad. Probably the only domestic program that in recent years has enjoyed significant funding increases is Homeland Security.
She also makes an interesting point about corporate response to the disaster. Companies like Wal-Mart and FedEx stepped into the yawning breach left by FEMA's relief efforts to offer their own. Is that a good thing? I think so. But it highlights the impressive failure of a government that cuts revenues and domestic expenditures, pulling back from commitments on its own shores to consolidate its power abroad. Probably the only domestic program that in recent years has enjoyed significant funding increases is Homeland Security.
2 comments:
Hey Islam,
I'm attending school here in California Berkeley, supposedly a bastion of liberalism in the United States, and I've been extremely shocked by how...(italics) American some people are. I suppose it's naive, but I didn't really expect to meet any people who actually supported George Bush here. But no, there are friendly guys, who seem to be quite smart, who are extremely loyal to Bush. For example, a friend of mine used the words "disloyal Americans" to describe basically all Democrats. This one adult I met, with a degree in philosophy, told me that he thought that we should build a huge dome over the middle east, and that he thought that Islam was a "satanic religion." Being Canadian, I've generally chosen to agree to disagree, but wow.
Will,
Congratulations, man! How's Californ-i-a?
I know it's hard to believe that otherwise intelligent people have an unquestioning allegiance to Bush and his New American Century cronies. It is as baffling to me as scientists who manintain a belief in creationism or creationism 2.0 (intelligent design). They seem outwardly sensible, but they're not. They are magical thinkers, stereotypers, jingoists, and cop-outs, who don't understand that you get closer to the truth not by believing more wholeheartedly but by doubting.
Even Pope John Paul II was sensible enough to recognize the plausibility of evolutionary theory in his 1996 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, though he suffered some criticism for it. Sad.
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