Zum ersten mal seit 37 Jahren mußte 2004 die Instandhaltung der Dämme in New Orleans nahezu eingestellt werden, weil die Bush-Regierung wegen der Kosten des Irak-Kriegs die Mittel dafür strich:

"On June 8, 2004, the emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, complained about a lack of funding for the levees, a long stretch of which had sunk by four feet: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us." The money never came through, and last year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers "essentially stopped major work" on the levee system that has now been breached. "It was the first such stoppage in 37 years." Additionally, federal flood control spending for southeastern Louisiana was "chopped from $69 million in 2001 to $36.5 million in 2005," Knight-Ridder reports, even as "federal hurricane protection for the Lake Pontchartrain vicinity in the Army Corps of Engineers' budget dropped from $14.25 million in 2002 to $5.7 million this year." The cuts were strenuously opposed by Louisiana representatives, who "urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House."

Mehr (und viele Links) dazu hier .

Wo Begriffe wie "Gemeinwohl" und "öffentliche Hand" im neoliberalen Diskurs als Schimpfworte gelten, weil doch die unsichtbare Hand des "shareholder value" und eine "deregulierte" Wirtschaft alles viel besser regeln - da muß man sich nicht über mangelnden Katastrophenschuitz nicht wundern. Chris Floyd kommentiert in Counterpunch:

"But as culpable, criminal and loathsome as the Bush Administration is, it is only the apotheosis of an overarching trend in American society that has been gathering force for decades: the destruction of the idea of a common good, a public sector whose benefits and responsibilities are shared by all, and directed by the consent of the governed. For more than 30 years, the corporate Right has waged a relentless and highly focused campaign against the common good, seeking to atomize individuals into isolated "consumer units" whose political energies ­ kept deliberately underinformed by the ubiquitous corporate media ­ can be diverted into emotionalized "hot button" issues (gay marriage, school prayer, intelligent design, flag burning, welfare queens, drugs, porn, abortion, teen sex, commie subversion, terrorist threats, etc., etc.) that never threaten Big Money's bottom line."

Mike Ruppert meint, dass das Desaster in New Orleans nur ein Vorspiel dafür ist, was überall geschehen wird, wenn demnächst das Öl ausgeht. Schon jetzt können die Riesentankschiffe ihren einzigen Entladehafen in Louisiana nicht mehr nutzen:

"Bottom line: my assessment is that New Orleans is never going to be rebuilt and that US domestic oil production will never again reach pre-Katrina levels. The infrastructure is gone, the people are gone, and the US economy will be on life support very, very quickly. If people are griping at $5.00 gasoline what will they do when it?s $8.00? $10.00? Start shooting (the wrong people)? How difficult is it to rebuild in that kind of social climate? And if US oil production does not soon exceed pre-Katrina levels then the US economy is doomed anyway. It?s a catch-up game now. I think it?s quite likely that the Bush administration is responding so ineptly in part because it is in a complete crisis mode realizing that the entire United States is on the brink of collapse and there?s very little they can do about it. The Bush administration doesn?t know how to build things up, only blow them up. They aren?t worrying about New Orleans because they?re frantically triaging the rest of the nation and deciding what can be saved elsewhere."

Lokale Nachrichten aus dem Krisengebiet: www.nola.com

P.S.: Und wie kommentieren die bushophilen Neo-Konservativen vom American Spectator das Desaster, dass noch nach fünf Tagen Zig-Tausende ohne Hilfe sind ? Schwarze, Multikultur & political correctness sind schuld! :

"New Orleans was ripe for collapse. Its dangerous geography, combined with a dangerous culture, made it susceptible to an unfolding catastrophe. Currents of chaos and lawlessness were running through the city long before this week, and they were bound to come to the surface under the pressure of natural disaster and explode in a scene of looting and mayhem.(...) Like riotous Los Angeles since the 1960s, New Orleans has been a wasteland of politically correct dysfunction for decades -- public schools so obviously decimated vouchers were proposed this year (and torpedoed by the left), barbaric gangster rap culture no one will confront lest they offend liberal pieties, multiculturalist frauds who empower no one but themselves, and cops neutered by the NAACP and ACLU."

P.P.S.: Anders als die bushistischen Labtop-Bomber hat sich Jesse Jackson selbst ein Bild gemacht und fuhr mit einem Bus in die Stadt: auch nach fünf Tagen warten immer noch Hundertausende auf eine Transportmöglichkeit aus dem Krisengebiet:

12:11 P.M. - Rev. Jesse Jackson: 300,000 yet to be rescued in the city. Grambling and Southern University are being used as places of refuge for some evacuated college students.

The Reverend said he went into the city last night on a bus, and was surrounded by evacuees begging for a ride out of town. Jackson said the people tried to form a human chain around the bus in order to stop it so they could board it.Jackson said 120,000 people in New Orleans make less than $8,000 a year, and are without private transportation. Thus, they had no capacity to leave the city, and no place to go even if they could leave. Jackson said the lack of an overall plan--and leadership--has lead to further disaster in the city.

Beitrag von: broeckers