NOLA, moolah, and other outrages of today

dr. elsewhere here

This will be brief, as I'm trying to update the leak post, and also don't want to intrude too rudely into Joe's important crossroad. On that note, I'd like to extend thanks to everyone for all the incredibly supportive words you've offered here, though we all know how well he deserves them.

But, did not want 30 August to disappear without acknowledging this anniversary of the other US disaster, the other tragedy, the other expose of the depths to which we have descended under this unspeakably incompetent gaggle of idiots we are forced to call an administration. MISadministration, as we all know.

Iraq is the ongoing reminder every day of the worst we have become as a nation in this world, how horrible a neighbor we now are to the rest of its people, and it only happened because these maniacs of manipulation twisted the "other" disaster, the other tragedy, into its cause, and its cause celebre, shifting the tragedy forever from the events themselves to their criminal exploitation.

Today, though, we are reminded of how, one year ago, a "natural" catastrophe exposed the vast expanse of the criminals' incompetence and moreover, their callous and unnatural disrespect for their own fellow citizens.

The US government preparedness and response to Katrina's assault on New Orleans still stuns; this is the way it is in banana republics, not in America. The once model FEMA reduced to Brownie's fashion fetishes. The once proud US emergency response systems and coordination, including the Red Cross, reduced to cardboard cutouts for the DHS payola playbook. The once renowned American can-do reduced to WTF??

I don't know about the rest of you, but my own response to the unraveling on the Gulf Coast was somehow deeper and darker than it was for 9/11, I think because it just drove home how horribly screwed we really are, on every dimension. 9/11 shocked us, it was so unexpected; who'da thunk folks would fly airplanes into buildings? It was truly horrifying, and a sad loss of innocence. But - for a while, at least - we kept our humanity intact, thanks in large part to the sympathy generated for us the world over.

But Katrina; as horrified as we were watching all that insanity, what pulled me down the most was that it was so damn predictable from this mob of lying, thieving bullies. So. Damn. Predictable.

Since then, it feels on some level like we've all just joined the ranks of the walking dead.

That's grim, and I know there are reasons to hope for better around the November corner. But 30 August, remembering what happened in the days that followed Katrina's landfall a year ago, it is hard not to feel deeply, deeply distressed.

As a nation, we lost far more than our innocence in that hurricane; we lost our humanity.

For an eye-opening memorial that exposes yet another Bush contribution to the disaster, watch Greg Palast's short documentary on how the evacuation planning got outsourced to a private company. It's most excellent, and it will really tick you off.

And to explore the real implications of private outsourcing (read: profit), don't miss Naomi Klein's take-down of the trend in the latest issue of The Nation. Here also is a list she made a year ago of the privatizing plans for NOLA problems drawn up by the House Republican Study Committee (less than one month after landfall; they wasted no time, but oodles of moolah).

And, last but not least, take the two minutes to watch this heartbreaking video collage, set to Aaron Neville's touching rendition of Randy Newman's Louisiana. It delivers the sentiment we all need for this, the saddest of days.

And, never ever forget.