Antiwar.com Blog

In a well-written account by two communist San Francisco EMS workers on their survival of Hurricane Katrina and Earthquake Government, one realizes something very ironic. In the wake of compounding disasters, ordinary people spontaneously kept a whole city fed, clothed, watered, and in some instances, even powered. At every turn, these civilizational functions were halted by slobbering subhumans with big guns, unlimited funds, and a license to kill — collectively known as the State.

The ironic part is that even these megastatists from one of the most state-ridden cities in the US experienced that the State was their enemy, and that people, even those of comparatively meager means, can provide for themselves and many others, with beneficial effects overlapping and covering even babies, elderly and sick, even in a horrendous catastrophe.

Anyone want to mock the “invisible hand” now?

I’m watching the City Attorney of New Orleans talking specifically about evacuating the city. She just said something to the effect that “At this time there have been no forced evacuations. Force is not being used.”

Well, then who was that frail old lady who was calmly talking to a bunch of cops in her kitchen when the fattest one of them hurled himself on top of her, crushing her into the corner between the wall and the floor, knocking kitchen items all over the place, and then dragging her, crying, out of her own home? Was she just over the border in Metairie? Huh? Her street was completely dry. Were they just trying to drag out somebody white to dispell the racial bias myth?

Thousands are dying because the government is a gaggle of morons and incompetents. They each have ONE job to do, and they’re too stupid to do them even halfway correctly. And then they have the balls to lie about something recorded and broadcast across the world the day before. It even makes an anarchist flinch.

From that glorious libertopia the liberventionists promised us:

Ukraine’s “orange revolution” has lost its lustre, with President Viktor Yushchenko sacking his entire government after its own members accused one another of sleaze, cronyism and debilitating infighting.

His sudden decision came just eight months after he and his team came to office promising to stamp out the gross corruption which had bedevilled previous administrations. …

“We are witnessing a paradox. Many new faces have come to power but the face of power has not changed,” [Yushchenko] said, referring to the previous regime of the Soviet-era apparatchik Leonid Kuchma which was widely regarded as being riddled with cronyism and corruption. “We need to halt disappointment in society and make sure that the ideals [of the orange revolution] are not cast into doubt.”

Love that passive construction. Those new faces who “have come to power” – how’d they get there, buddy? That Yushie is quite the straight talker:

Mr Yushchenko said he had ordered an investigation into allegations that several members of his outgoing government were corrupt. He added, enigmatically, that the accusations were “groundless but very strong” and deserved close scrutiny.

I can hear the disappointment skidding to a halt already.

Oh, and any news on that poisoning? That story dropped right off the edge of the blogosphere. Here’s the latest I can find, from Aug. 30:

An investigation into the poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s president, is making progress, the Novosti-Ukraine news agency quoted Ukrainian National Security and Defense Secretary Petro Poroshenko as saying live on television Monday.

Poroshenko refused to divulge any details in the interests of investigation.

He won’t be releasing any more details, either, at least not in his official capacity. From the Independent article:

Mr Poroshenko was the most high-profile figure to be accused of wrongdoing. Oleksandr Zinchenko, Mr Yushchenko’s chief-of staff and the architect of the orange revolution, resigned from the government on 3 September, accusing Mr Poroshenko, a confectionery millionaire, of using his post to enrich himself, help wealthy businessmen and generally “usurp power”. Mr Poroshenko denied the allegations and resigned before the government was sacked so as not, he said, to obstruct an inquiry.

So many inquiries, so little time! No need to rush that investigation into the alleged ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF THE CURRENT PRESIDENT. But, um, given that Yushchenko knew who did it, when, and where, there should be some indictments a year later, right?

And an ethical question: do pundits who hype the claims and promises of foreign political parties have any duty to pursue the story once the hot babes have gone home?

Why did FEMA block Wal-Mart shipments of water to the New Orleans area?
Why did FEMA block fuel shipments to the New Orleans area?
Why did FEMA cut emergency communication lines from the New Orleans area?
Why wouldn’t FEMA let the Red Cross deliver food to the New Orleans area?
Why wouldn’t FEMA let the people in downtown New Orleans leave?
Why wouldn’t FEMA let others come in to deliver relief supplies or transportation out from New Orleans?
Why did it take the government 5 days to give a “yes” to airlines who had asked to ferry refugees out of New Orleans for free, immediately after the storm?

The problem isn’t that FEMA botched rescue efforts — it’s that they PREVENTED rescue. They PREVENTED survival. They didn’t just “oops!” screw up — they actually CAUSED death by their actions, not through their lack of action. They have actually slapped sanctions on the city of New Orleans and are slowly finishing off any hold-outs. I wonder how many people will die getting shot for refusing to be removed from their own homes?

The best we could have hoped for from any level of government was the get the hell out of the way, but how can they resist the opportunity to absolutely ruin absolutely everything they touch, and then say “See? We needed more money and power”? Breathtaking.

Hat tip to James Redford at ASC.

Steven Plaut, wrong once more.

UPDATE: A fan of Plaut’s splits hairs in his defense. Give it a rest. If you refer simply to “al-Jazeera,” the implication is that you’re referring to the TV network or its Web site. To borrow one of Glenn Reynolds’ stock phrases, Plaut is either lying, or stupid, or both.

Christopher Hitchens:

What I cannot understand is why the people of Baghdad and Basra should be punished for a meteorological catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. We should get out and leave them to their own devices. We need the stuff at home, goddamn it. This has all the charm and beauty of John Kerry saying that we ought not to be opening firehouses in Baghdad while closing them in the United States. It also has all the easy appeal of a zero-sum, provincial, isolationist mentality.

Oh, gawd, call the hate-crimes police! Isolationism! Send in NATO, the UN, the United Federation of Planets – whatever it takes to beat some sensitivity into those callous, overfed Americans! They’re racists, too!

A favorite trope among those who try to politicize the justified outrage over New Orleans is the plight of the slum-dwellers and the dark-skinned, and quite right, too. But it’s highly objectionable to be told, by those who go on in this way, that we should instantly dump the Iraqis and Kurds who are fighting for their lives in a slum that could become another slaughterhouse and plague-spot. There is something degrading and suspect here-why lavish any of our care and resources on the wogs? Does this suggestion do anything to diminish xenophobia and resentment “at home,” at just the time and just the place where we don’t need it? Am I expected to tell a homeless woman in Biloxi that she has just been ripped off by an Ay-rab?

No, you fatally conceited blob of dementia, you can tell those poor white trash in Biloxi that they have been ripped off by Israel-Firsters and Kurdistan-Firsters who wish they would just shut up and vote Republican, or die. The Ay-rabs had nothing to do with it.