More on our worthless government and mostly worthless media, and what you can do

[tzikeh]

Links from all over, including DailyKos, MakingLight, Newshounds at MetaFilter, and various ljs.

Please don't just read this, fume, and then despair - DO SOMETHING. (DO SOMETHING instructions at the bottom of the post *g*)

"A man from the Evergreen Foundation was on air spinning the myth that the President had to "beg" the Governor of Louisiana to take action. Having been on this show several times I called one of the bookers, Susan Durrwatcher, to alert her to the fact that this man was misrepresenting what happened.  I offered Susan the following objective, documented facts (see timeline below).  Susan thanked me for my "opinion" and said "we just have a different perspective"." (more here)

Firefighters from other states who are called to the devastated areas assume they are going to be helping citizens and clearing and shoring up the cities; instead their jobs are to hand out leaflets and accompany George Bush for photo ops, but not do any actual work while with him. (more here) (and here).

Senator Rick Santorum wants to fine those who did not leave.

"I mean, you have people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out and understand that there are consequences to not leaving."

(more here)

First the journalists were barred from photographing any returning dead from Iraq. Now they are barred from photographing any bodies of victims of Katrina. There are to be no photos of the dead during this regime. Ever. (more here)

President Bush says he'll lead an investigation into... himself. Is it just me, or does that sound like he's going to put his own head up his ass. No, wait ... it's already there. Hm. Possibly he'll go looking for the real culprits with O.J.

Nancy Pelosi talks to a brain-damaged monkey the President.

At a news conference, Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush's choice for head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency had "absolutely no credentials."

She related that she had urged Bush at the White House on Tuesday to fire Michael Brown.

"He said 'Why would I do that?'" Pelosi said.

"'I said because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right last week.' And he said 'What didn't go right?'"

(more here)

Katrina fuck-ups timeline.

Another.

Another.

First-hand account of Katrina and aftermath by two people who lived through it.

And finally in today's round-up of fun facts, these statistics:

• Days since September 11, 2001 that Osama bin Laden has remained uncaptured: 1,454
  
• Days after bombing Pearl Harbor that Japan surrendered to U.S. forces: 1,365
  
• Number of children dying each day from preventable diseases: 27,000
  
• Percentage of the world's population living on less than $2 per day: 50
  
• Cut in funding for foreign development assistance proposed in President Bush's budget: $345 million
  
• Amount charged to American taxpayers by Halliburton to build a movie library for its employees: $152 million

By the by, 2004 was the fourth year in a row that the number of Americans in poverty has *risen*. That would be every year since Bush took office, and that *includes* the rise in poverty before 9/11 (so the spinners can shut up with the "well, 9/11 caused job loss blah markets blah"). The last year in which the number of Americans in poverty *declined*? Three guesses and the first two don't count - that's right, 2000, the last year of the Clinton Administration - which, by the way, saw a constant decrease in the number of families living in poverty to the tune of 25 percent over their eight years - a drop to the lowest poverty levels since 1974. Luckily for Bush, many of the people who lost their homes in Katrina were *already* living below the poverty line, so he probably won't see too big a bump in those numbers next year.

There's oh so much more, but there's only so much I can take of reading this ongoing horror. And for those who say "Instead of pointing fingers, why aren't you helping the displaced and homeless and hungry?" My answers is, gee, I can actually do both at the same time. Keeping two or more ideas in your head at once isn't really that hard for people who know how to think.

What to do? CONTACT YOUR OFFICIALS. Contact your local government. Contact your congresspeople. Contact your Senators. Talk to them. Tell them what you're thinking. Ask them what they're thinking, and what they're going to do about it. And if you are lucky enough to have a forthright, honest, eloquent Senator with heart and integrity, like my Senator Obama, contact them and thank them. We often complain, but rarely applaud.

Comments

[emyrys.livejournal.com]

About the dead bodies --

I watched the oprah show yesterday & today, reporting form the area & they did not flinch from showing the dead bodies. Most were partially or almost all the way covered, but they pointed them out & talked aobut how many there were & what it was like to be there among them. They even had a doctor kneel beside a bloated woman on the street and catalogue what was happening with her decomposing body (she was not covered, but they screened out her face to make her unrecognizable).

I was impressed with the unflinching, plain-speaking coverage of much of what must be the reality down there (even if I cringed at the feeling-like-it's-staged reunion of one family at the Houston Astrodome).

I am in the process of contacting my representatives, and of donating what we can to the local batch of refugees evactuated up our way. Thank you for your pointers to what's happening, and for your icon that's sweeping lj :-).

(right now, though, I'm going to go reread some Harlequin fics).

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

I heard that Oprah ripped the government a new one. How sad is it that of all people, a talk-show host may be the person to get reporters in.

Oh, and the icon isn't mine... can't remember where I got it. All I know is it's free to everyone.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

twistedchick just put up a new post explaining how somebody had run a first para misquote on the story about censorship and keeping out reporters.
Check it out, and breathe a *slightly* deeper sigh of relief--though the bad misquote is scary enough by itself.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/twistedchick/1371262.html
Though, I suspect, if nobody *had* started screaming, it would have started coming true in another one of those Orwellian horrors...

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Oh thank you for the link. I'll use it in my next post.

[arallara.livejournal.com]

My answers is, gee, I can actually do both at the same time. Keeping two or more ideas in your head at once isn't really that hard for people who know how to think.

Thank you for this. I've been feeling my frustration with that tired old right-wing attitude (dissent is counterproductive in times of crisis, activists spend all their time and energy complaining and never actualy try to fix anything, etc.) rising and rising, and for some reason today especially I really needed to hear someone say this. Seriously, thanks. Your snark was just the sanity check I needed. :)

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I could help. More is coming.

[kadymae.livejournal.com]

Atavistic horror begins to describe my reaction to "What didn't go right?"

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I'm... every time we think he's said the dumbest thing ever, he just keeps on truckin'.

[thermidor.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting the good info & links.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

np. More to come.

[kirbyfest.livejournal.com]

The "begging the Governor" lie was in the Trib this morning.

I almost threw up.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

I can't stand it. I just don't even know what to do about that anymore.

[frahulettaes.livejournal.com]

have done and will do again.
thanks for the links and keep up the good work...

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the encouragement. It's nice to know people are reading and clicking.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

Thank you--must crosslink and let people come here and check it out.
And yep, I've seen the "What went wrong?" thing boinging all over the place, and I think many o them were pointing back to you...
Thanks, this is a *lot* of work to put it together.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the encouragement. It's not *too* much work, but I figure most people on lj haven't seen most of it, so it's worth posting.

re: Misinformation

[dlusions.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately with the media, even if the correct the 'errors' (meaning, that they intentionally mislead rather than disputing that the data is wrong), the correction will be buried into a lesser read area and appear in smaller type. The damage will have been done...

If lived in the US, I would be doing more than ranting. Have linked to your page here.

Re: Misinformation

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Yeah - they're astoundingly good at hiding their errata notes. I wonder if that's pressure from the guvmint or if they just hate admitting that they suck.

Probably both.

[brak666.livejournal.com]

Ug! Just when I thought Rick Santorum couldn't get any dumber. Sad to say he's my senator. Not that I voted for him or anything. Though it honestly could've been worse. We very nearly ended up with Senator Pat Toomey who's basic campaign strategy was "Arlen Specter is too liberal so you should vote for me instead." *shudder*

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I feel for you guys in Pennsylvania. Especially since I get Barack Obama. It's like opposite ends of the spectrum.

[hakainokami.livejournal.com]

My and my mothers favorite is still some FEMA guy saying how they couldnt get anyone in and we were like... um the media was there in news vans like 2 days before you were- so if news vans have superpowers, why didnt you commandeer them?

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Oh my God, I love that - and I also love your icon. Is it gankable?

[hakainokami.livejournal.com]

Sure I ganked it off other people, no one knows who made it though. (Though definitly someone who said shareing is ok)

We just couldn't figure out how news vans could get in but nothing else could. It made no sense.

[rydra_wong]

for those who say "Instead of pointing fingers, why aren't you helping the displaced and homeless and hungry?" My answers is, gee, I can actually do both at the same time.

And seriously, does anyone imagine that there would have been any government acknowledgement that the response was inadequate (even if they're now trying to pass the blame to others), if it wasn't for the finger-pointing that's already taken place? If it wasn't for the "finger-pointing", even less would be being done right now.

By the way, I had a thought: we seriously need to be getting this information out to people who don't have access to all the net sources of info, because the Bush spin machine is obviously already at work.

As nagasvoice said, you've done a huge amount of work pulling all of this together. Anyone with design skills want to start putting together some leaflets or factsheets that people could print out and give to co-workers, relatives, etc.?

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

That's a terrific idea - we should advertise for people who could do so. They could post a leaflet online and we could print them out wherever we are.

[rydra_wong]

You could post about it - I think there are a lot of people checking your LJ for news (and thank you so much for doing so much work on this, by the way; I'm already way past the limit of what I can face, and I'm not even in the country). The fannish community being what it is, there should be more than enough people with the skills.

There are things like the timeline of events, or a simple point-by-point refutation of the phony "talking points" (no-one predicted the levees would break, it was all the fault of people "refusing" to evacuate, Bush had to beg the governor to take action, blah-de-fucking-blah) which *need* to be out there. And something like a leaflet can make it a hell of a lot easier to get the key points across in a discussion.

Because if not, if this stuff can be covered up - the US is scaring the shit out of me even more than it did before. If they can flat-out lie about major and easily verifiable facts and get away with it, we're into truly Orwellian territory here. Doubleplusungood ...

[buggery.livejournal.com]

Your 'First-hand account of Katrina and aftermath by two people who lived through it.' link is down, as is the entire site where that account was housed is down.

You can see a list of Katrina-related articles hosted at the site here (http://www.google.com/search?as_q=katrina&num=10&hs=NsJ&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=www.emsnetwork.org&safe=images), but even the cached versions Google keeps are not viewable due to the way the emsnetwork.org site is set up -- it appears to be something like an RSS feed, where the content is fetched from servers at the time a particular article is displayed.

P.S. Keep up the good work.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Damn re: link. Maybe they ran over bandwidth or something. I'll look around.

Thanks - I'll keep looking and thanks for the encouragement.