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Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people: Justice Hugo L Black.
The Cheney/Bush living legacy of social injustice, political corruption, economic inequity, racial discrimination and moral hypocrisy is clearly seen in Louisiana and dimly envisaged in Iraq.
Hurricane Katrina fully exposed the soft and corrupt underbelly of the Cheney/Bush administration and the media, for the most part, has let them get away with it. Multiply the Cheney/Bush administration's Katrina failures by ten and your looking at Iraq.
Fortunately, the Center for American Progress has noted this ongoing deception and issues a call for justice.
Allen L Roland
Stand Up For Justice
by Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney,
Amanda Terkel, and Payson Schwin / American Progress Report
January 30, 2007
In his 2006 State of the Union address, President Bush spoke of the hurricane disaster recovery on the Gulf Coast and pledged to "stay at it until they're back on their feet." In his 2007 State of the Union address -- delivered one week ago -- Bush failed to once mention the "struggle to rebuild." Last year, Katrina took up 165 words of the speech. This year, the recovery effort did not receive a single line out of 5,652 words. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) said the omission was quite fitting and spoke volumes about the priorities of the administration. "I just think it points to how far down the recovery has fallen on the president’s agenda because there are some positives that he could've mentioned," she said. Yesterday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee held a field hearing in Louisiana to discuss the reconstruction efforts. As the hearing commenced, a protester yelled, "Stand up for justice!" Panel member Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) noted, "There is not a sense of urgency in this administration to get this done. You get a sense that will has been lacking in the last several months." Frustrated Louisiana residents feel betrayed. One displaced Katrina survivor described his reaction to Bush's State of the Union snub: "I almost broke my TV, knocked it off the stand." Joe Aguda, another Katrina victim who now lives in a FEMA trailer, said his reaction was simple. "We've been forgotten," he said.
FEDERAL AND STATE BOTTLENECKS: In an interview with National Public Radio yesterday, Bush expressed no regret for omitting the Gulf Coast from his State of the Union, and instead claimed, "Our response to the Katrina recovery has been very robust." That is not the view shared by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who last month visited Washington, D.C. and said the federal government was "abandoning its legal obligation to help his city recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina." Yesterday at the field hearing, Nagin added, "The reality is that it has been 17 months since Katrina, Rita and the flooding that followed and citizens are tired, frustrated and angry. Worst of all, they are losing hope. We need systemic, meaningful change now." Much of the growing tension between state and local officials in Louisiana stems from delays in a federal program that reimburses local officials for a host of infrastructure projects, including road repairs, public building construction, and debris removal. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) "has paid Louisiana roughly $5.1 billion to reimburse local officials for infrastructure projects following Katrina, but only about $2 billion of that money has reached communities 16 months after the storm" due to cumbersome audit procedures. State officials, too, have been slow to meet the demand. As of Jan. 18, FEMA "had agreed to pay for $334 million for infrastructure repairs in New Orleans, but Louisiana had forwarded only $145 million to the city. State officials have said city leaders failed to provide required documentation." Additionally, only 300 of more than 100,000 applicants for the state's homeowners aid program have been administered.
AN ECONOMIC DISASTER AREA: The Institute for Southern Studies aptly described the current state of Louisiana as "largely an economic disaster area as a result of Katrina." Congress has allocated more than $110 billion on recovery efforts in the Gulf region, but there are still 62,000 people living in FEMA trailers, and the devastated 9th Ward of New Orleans "remains all but vacant." A federal judge recently ruled that the Bush administration "violated the Constitution when it eliminated short-term housing assistance" for Katrina victims. The effort to provide housing for displaced Katrina victims has been "a failure with many causes, including institutional neglect, lack of funding, and poor planning, decision making and execution." Beyond housing problems, the reconstruction of the broken levees "has slowed." Residents are in such desperate need of health care that a recent free health clinic drew thousands of uninsured registrants. New Orleans is also "facing an unprecedented mental health crisis -- and the city has no way to deal with it."
OVERSIGHT NEEDED: Yesterday's field hearing was an important step by Congress to assert some oversight over the rebuilding efforts. But important questions about the White House's negligence remain unanswered. Former FEMA chief Michael Brown said that in a still-secret videoconference shortly after Katrina hit New Orleans, he warned presidential aides that 90 percent of the city was being "displaced," but was greeted with "deafening silence." Brown also suggested "party politics played a role" in White House decisions to act in the aftermath of Katrina. In the last Congress, under conservative leadership, both House and Senate committees sought copies of the White House's Katrina records, but the administration declined to turn over messages between the president and his top advisers. While the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee possesses subpoena power over some of these documents, the chairman -- Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) -- has "quietly backed away from his pre-election demands that the White House turn over" these potentially embarrassing documents. “Katrina was perhaps the government's biggest failure ever,” said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight. “For the Congress not to be willing to stand up to the White House and demand to know who's accountable is a total abdication of their responsibility."
Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on Conscious talk radio www.conscioustalk.net
Cartoon courtesy of Steve Benson / Arizona Republic |
