FEMA
has been entirely reshaped under the Bush Administration. It’s no longer
designed to meet the needs of a natural disaster but, rather, to advance
the political agenda of the current regime. This is clear by the way that
FEMA employees did everything in their power to undermine relief
operations for the people stranded by Hurricane Katrina. Their orders
simply corresponded with Washington’s intention to put the city under
federal control and to forcefully-evacuate the victims to locations around
the Southwest.
Most of us have
already heard the damning accusations of Aaron Broussard, president of
Jefferson Parrish, Louisiana, who said on Meet the Press that FEMA
had cut off supplies of water, food and fuel to hurricane victims, as well
as, cutting “all of our emergency communications lines.”
Since, Broussard’s
nationally broadcast testimonial, there’s been a torrent of charges
leveled at FEMA. The National Guard was prevented from attending to the
sick and wounded, desperately needed buses were unexplainably returned to
Baton Rouge, assistance was rejected from Chicago and other cities,
helicopter rescue teams were reprimanded for rescuing people trapped on
their roofs, and checkpoints were set up to prevent poor, black people
from leaving the city.
Information
clearinghouse has put together an impressive list of articles that detail
the FEMA obstructions.
*
FEMA won't accept Amtrak's help in evacuations
*
FEMA turns away experienced firefighters
*
FEMA turns back Wal-Mart supply truck
*
FEMA prevents Coast Guard from delivering diesel
*
FEMA won't let Red Cross deliver food
*
FEMA bars morticians from entering New Orleans
*
FEMA blocks 500-boat citizen flotilla from delivering aid
*
FEMA fails to utilize Navy ship with 600-bed hospital on board
*
FEMA to Chicago: Send just one truck
*
FEMA turns away generators
These articles will
help to convince the reader that blocking of aid to hurricane victims was
not a “failure of leadership” or “bureaucratic bungling” as the media has
suggested, but was the intentional policy of the Bush administration. The
administration was executing a strategy to annex local police and National
Guard and put them under direct federal authority. The plan was
temporarily subverted when both the Mayor and the Governor refused to
relinquish their power. The White House then threatened to take over
regardless, invoking little-known presidential orders that allow sweeping
executive powers in a national emergency.
Currently there are
executive orders on the books that permit the President to seize all modes
of transportation, control the media, take over all energy sources,
control all aircraft and airports, relocate entire communities and operate
penal and correctional facilities in the event of a national emergency.
Under the provisions
of Executive Order 11921, “It also provides that when a state of emergency
is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for 6
months…..General Frank Salzedo, chief of FEMA’s Civil Security Division
said in 1983 conference that he saw FEMA’s role as ‘a new frontier in the
protection of individual and governmental leaders from assassination, and
from civil and military installations from sabotage and attack, AS WELL AS
PREVENTION OF DISSIDENT GROUPS FROM GAINING ACCESS TO US OPINION OR A
GLOBAL AUDIENCE IN TIMES OF CRISIS.’” (Friends
of Liberty.com)
FEMA’s
role has changed from one of public assistance in a natural catastrophe to
defense of the political establishment and its economic-military power
base.
New Orleans represents
a fundamental transformation in the way the administration plans to
conduct domestic affairs. The democratic model has been abandoned for a
top-down managerial style with all the familiar trappings of a
dictatorship. The results are plain to see; the city is now under martial
law with armored vehicles and 70,000 military personnel on 24-hour patrol.
At present, the last occupants of the poorer areas are being forcefully
removed from their homes and evacuated while legally-registered firearms
are being confiscated by police.
The city remains under
strict “shoot to kill” orders aimed at anyone either looting or
out-of-doors beyond the 6 o’clock curfew.
Although white,
middle-class Americans seem to be in denial over what has taken place in
New Orleans, many black Americans seem to fully grasp its meaning. Glenn
Ford of
The Black Commentator notes that, “Displacement based on race is a
form of genocide, as recognized under the Geneva Conventions. Destruction
of a people’s culture, by official action, or depraved inaction, is an
offense against humanity, under international law.”
Ford recognizes that
what transpired in New Orleans is just the latest manifestation of ethnic
cleansing papered over by the diversionary braying of the media.
There was no
“bureaucratic bungling” or “failure of leadership” in New Orleans. It was
a perfectly choreographed strategy to purge the city of poor blacks and to
pave the way for lavish reconstruction projects for the wealthy
constituents of the Bush administration.
Now, as Glenn Ford
says, “the right to return” for the people of New Orleans will be blocked
by “facts on the ground” that will preclude any future homecoming. It’s
likely that the measly $2,000 stipend that Bush has offered the relocated
residents will be the only reparation they see from Washington.
Mike Whitney
lives in Washington state, and can be reached at:
fergiewhitney@msn.com.
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* Bush and Third World
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* Imploding the Empire:
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George Bush -- The Man With a SNAFU Plan by Sheila Samples
*
Emphasizing the “Ass” in Compassionate Conservatism by Ken Sanders
*
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*
The Green Zone by Patricia Goldsmith
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Lessons From Hell by John Chuckman
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What Do You Mean, It’s “Like” Living in a Third World Country? by Mark
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The Real Heroes and Sheroes of New Orleans Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie
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The All-Too American Tragedy of New Orleans by Paul Street
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Rodney King in New Orleans by Mike Whitney
* Katrina:
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*
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*
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*
They Are Dying at This Moment by Brandy Baker
*
Zero Tolerance: Bush Gets Tough as New Orleans Suffers by Jack Random
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Global Warming & Widespread Blackouts, Just as Deadly as Terrorism by
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*
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Other Articles by Mike
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* Jose
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Paved the Way for the Imperial Presidency
* The New
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* The
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*
“Transformation”: How Rumsfeld Smashed the National Guard
* The Lords
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*
Robertson’s Fatwah: “A Whole Lotta Smitin’ Goin’ On”
* Turning
Cindy Sheehan’s Victory Into Defeat
* “My Son
Died for Nothing”
* "Shoot to
Kill": Tony Blair’s First Trophy
*
Greenspan’s Role in the Housing Bubble
* Failing in
Iraq
* Revving Up
World War III
* Pretty
Hot in Crawford, Pretty Hot in Hell
* Straight-Shootin’
George Galloway
* “Operation
Community Shield”: Comrade Chertoff’s Preemptive Crackdown
*
Kristallnacht: What Happens When the Public Says Nothing?
* Burying
Blair: Post-Mortem for the British PM
*
“Withdrawal” from Iraq?: Forget About It
*
The
Globalization of State Terror
* Tom
Friedman: Fabricating the Roots of Terror
* Doomsday:
The Final Months of the “Housing Bubble”
* John
Roberts and the National Security State
*
Guantanamo: the Calculus of Human Misery
* Did
Greenspan Know About the London Bombings Two Days Before?
* Another
Casualty in Rumsfeld’s Information War
* Genesis
of an American Gestapo
* Bush's
Orgy of Carnage
* Goodbye
to Sandra Day O’ Connor . . . and Good Riddance
* The
Rumsfeld Solution: “Liberating Iraq, One Journalist at a Time”
* Show Your
Independence on the 4th -- Burn a Flag
* "Up in
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* More
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*
Incinerating Iraqis: The Napalm Cover-Up
*
Guantanamo: The New-World Icon
* The Bush
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* The
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* Operation
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* The EU
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* Protecting
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* What Was
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* Free Jose
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* Alberto
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* Tom
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* Gods,
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* A
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* The
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*
Free Speech
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* Why
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* More
Madness at the Bush News Conference
*
Ratzinger’s Plan to Hide the Pedophiles
* Let’s Let
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* Pope
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* The
Purveyors of Violence: The NY Times in Falluja
* Screw You,
Paul Volker!
* Pope TV
and the New World Media
* The
Economic Tsunami: Sooner Than You Think
* Destroy
Abu Ghraib!
* Terri
Schiavo and the Battered Judiciary
*
Railroading Moussaoui
* The
Wolfowitz Appointment: A Red Flag for the Coming Wars
* “Economic
Meltdown” -- Sorry, but We’re Toast
* John
Bolton and the Road to Tehran
* Clearing
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*
Challenging
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* Jose
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* Crushing
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* Europe to
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* The
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*
Assassinating Al-Hariri Fits Washington’s Plan
*
Washington’s Plan to Foment Civil War in Iraq
* Condi’s
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* Folksy Tom
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* Government
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* The
Desperate State of the Union
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Election Fiasco
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Up the “Window of Opportunity”
* KGB
Chieftain Finds Home at Homeland Security
* Bush’s
Grand Plan: Incite Civil War
* Pink Slips
at CBS
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