Globe LTTE: * Administration is a national disaster

[paineinthearse]

Excerpt: "Whether our national inability to mount a swift and effective recovery effort is caused by inexcusable incompetence or deliberate malign neglect of the poor, one thing is clear: The Bush administration is a national disaster, one created by ineptitude, cronyism, and horrifying moral values masquerading as leadership..."

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2005/09/10/administration_is_a_national_disaster/

Administration is a national disaster
September 10, 2005

I AM DISTURBED by media coverage of the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the poorest residents of New Orleans. Those trapped in the city were so poor that they lacked the wherewithal to flee the city. They are also now described as ''lawless," ''looters," and participating in ''the breakdown of civil society" because they have survived.

When I look at the images of this ''looting" more closely, I see desperate people scavenging whatever food and water they can find because they are hungry, and no one has come to help them. I see women frantic for diapers and milk for their babies, men grateful for flashlights to light the darkness, young people wading in dangerously toxic waters urgently seeking medicine for the ill displaced residents of the city. What would be a ''civil" response to a society that has the ability, but not the willingness, to provide shelter to the homeless, food for the hungry, care for the ill? Word choices like ''lawless" and ''looting" blame the victim; they suggest that we expected the poor people of New Orleans to starve and die politely, because we value damaged property more than their human lives.

As I look at these images, I cannot help but question our Department of Homeland Security's inability to fulfill its mandate to provide a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to a crisis, especially one that was predicted in advance. Is its inaction a political strategy related to the poverty, race, and voting patterns of its victims? Or has the Department of Homeland Security revealed itself as utterly incapable of preventing or responding to any kind of threat, terrorist or otherwise?

Whether our national inability to mount a swift and effective recovery effort is caused by inexcusable incompetence or deliberate malign neglect of the poor, one thing is clear: The Bush administration is a national disaster, one created by ineptitude, cronyism, and horrifying moral values masquerading as leadership.

MISTINGUETTE SMITH, Northampton

[NMMNG]

1. Excellent LTTE, nominated