Katrina four years later

[garthranzz]

This is personal. So just move on if you have anything negative to say.

I want to start by thanking the DU community for the support they gave me, and others from the Gulf Coast, during those difficult days and months. By extension, you also helped my family.

Four years later, I am, ironically, in NJ, visiting my parents - my father is in a VA hospital, his Alzheimer's having been accelerated by the trauma. I've been back, and rebuilding, and in many ways New Orleans, though scarred, is and has been recovering. Of course, it would have been nice had the federal government, the governor or mayor shown any leadership over the last four years, but we've had Republicans in charge (Nagin was a Republican first, got re-elected because of rich white Republicans, Jindal got elected because Blanco, the only one trying to do her job, was vilified by Bush.)

At this moment of reflection, I've got lots of questions. Here are a few:

Why are we still in Iraq?
Why are we still in Afghanistan?
Why is Bin Laden still at large, or not known to be dead?
Why is Gitmo still open?
Why aren't the detainees being tried?
Why are there still secret prisons?
Why hasn't the investigation of Bush-Cheney war crimes, violations of the law, breaking their oath of office (doesn't count, but still..), violation of the Constitution, not begun?
Why aren't Bush, Cheney and Rove in jail?

Why does anyone other than a doodlehead believe that Bush won '04 - or '00?

Why does anyone other than a doodlehead believe Katrina was "the worst natural disaster"? It was a terrible natural disaster, but New Orleans drowned because Bush didn't care and couldn't get his own cabinet to do its job. The drowning of New Orleans resulted from criminal negligence by the federal government before and during, and criminal neglect after.

Why haven't the Democrats figured out that their enemies see politics as a blood sport? (Not all Republicans are their enemies, nor are all commentators?)

Why don't we have universal health coverage already?

Why hasn't Obama done what FDR or JFK would have done on the issue? Why doesn't he realize people want his leadership, his oratory?
Why don't more beck-outs occur?
Why aren't there more honest dialogues? Why are Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Rachel Maddow the only ones who can hold an intelligent, civilized conversation even with those who they disagree with? Why is Keith Olbermann the only one with the verbal dexterity to make commentary interesting?
Why don't the thinking conservatives (it's not a contradiction in terms, at least not always) participate in a debate and contribute something?

(This one may anger some on DU, but I don't care. The truth hurts.)
Why haven't more people realized that Obama's approach to Iran has helped the unrest, as Bernard Lewis said it would?
Why doesn't Obama, and why don't more Democrats, realize that Israel, for all its shortcomings and mistakes and American-like policies, is not the villain of the middle east, that Arabs who want to repeat the Holocaust are? Why don't they realize that teaching five year olds to butcher other five year olds, as the Palestinians do, is not the same as building houses on "disputed territory"?

Why don't we read more? From Dickens to the Shock Doctrine?
Why doesn't poetry matter? (I know the answer to that one, unfortunately.)

Why hasn't New Orleans gotten the money promised to rebuild its infrastructure, etc.?
Why is David Vitter still a Senator - or anything?
For that matter, why are Scalia and Thomas still on the Supreme Court?

Why are teachers underpaid - and often undertrained?

Why isn't there a "lost Beatles album" - or at least a lost "Lennon-McCartney" song?
Why aren't the Beatles on iTunes (that may be remedied soon :)?

Why haven't the Saints won a Superbowl? (That may be remedied this year!)

And rhetorically, since we all know the answer, why is DU such a great website?


I was one of the lucky ones, after Katrina. I had family, friends, resources. But i have occasion to drive by the areas where the unlucky ones lived.
Katrina, four years later, should remind us all that we need to take care of ourselves, but we also need to take care of each other.

[Skittles]

1. one of the true low points of my life

was wondering how bush thought he could bring democracy to Iraq when he couldn't get a scared little girl off a bridge in New Orleans - a true f***ing disgrace