'Pathetic fallacies' By Michael Kilburn

Michael Kilburn has a regular commentary in the North Shore Sunday, a weekly Sunday newspaper that does a really decent job of digging into stories other newspapers do not cover and in-depth coverage of some of the stories covered only in brief. Being a professor of Political Science at Endicott College, he has some rather astute observations about the current world of manure our political leadership has managed to pile upon us.

A literary device called pathetic fallacy describes nature in sympathy with human affairs; where emotional turmoil or political chaos is highlighted by turbulent weather. Thus King Lear wanders naked and bereft on the heath, lost in a violent storm that mirrors and mocks his deteriorating mental state. As storms rage now in both the Gulf of Mexico and the Persian Gulf, exacting a horrific price in blood and treasure, Americans must finally face the pathetic fallacies of George Bush.

Let us hope that a vast number of us--even a larger majority--are waking up to realize that this man, his gang of hoodlums working with him, his appointees, and the Republican-dominated congress that has not only allowed him to wield unruly power, but endorsed it in most cases, are pathetic... and do not possess one iota of the values that they claimed to give them the moral high ground and the "right" (as in Christian Right) to dominate our political landscape.

In addition to widespread damage and human misery inflicted on New Orleans and the Gulf coast, Katrina stripped bare the ideological pretense of the neo-conservative agenda, tearing the roof off the White House and revealing the appalling human and social cost of this administration's misplaced priorities.

Like I have been saying, the vast majority of our political leaders have forgotten the overall meaning and purpose of our Constitution, our form of government, our way of life, and our fundamental values. Let us hope--and even pray--that it won't be long before most of these opportunistic, greedy bastards follow Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, Randall "Duke" Cunningham, Jack Abramoff, et al., into a small cell at a federal penitentiary... We all know if these folks were not among the rich and powerful they would already have been arrested and booked.

While the true cost of the royal misadventure in Iraq continues to be hidden, spun, and censored, images of suffering in New Orleans and callous disregard in Crawford could not. The week that Katrina hit, George Bush achieved the dubious distinction of the least hard-working president in history. Nearing the end of a five-week vacation at his ranch in Texas, he surpassed Ronald Reagan's record number of vacation days and still has three and a half years to increase his lead.

For days after the event the president blithely continued his vacation, oblivious to the fact that New Orleans was under water and thousands of his constituents were dying. Perhaps he could have taken his expertise in clearing brush to the streets of the 9th ward, now clogged with debris and bodies. He might even have stopped to chat with Cindy Sheehan on the way out of town to explain why his Iraq policy is clogged with bodies as well.

When finally forced to confront the disaster, the federal response was chaotic and mismanaged, ranging from the pathetic to the absurd. (Twenty-four tractor-trailers filled with ice bound for the Gulf somehow wound up in Gloucester. The world watched in horror at the spectacle of people stranded on their rooftops for days as the richest and most powerful nation in history seemed incapable of providing even the most basic relief.

The sad part of this is that with the upcoming hurricane season upon us, neither FEMA, DHS, the Red Cross, nor any other agency is fully prepared for the next big storm. The levees that have been restored are in unsatisfactory condition and many civil engineers believe they will break under even less stress than that caused by Katrina or Rita. The infrastructure along the Gulf, the lower Eastern Seaboard, and parts of Texas remain insufficient. In a recent interview on Good Morning America, Secretary Chertoff blamed the victims and placed the onus for storm readiness on people who still do not have homes restored or their lives sorted out from the mess that Katrina, Rita, the feds and the states made in our Deep South.

When Sri Lanka offers to send international aid to the United States, it's clear we are dealing with political failure on a massive scale. In the absence of a functional government presence, the already desperate situation in New Orleans descended into Hobbesian violence and chaos. There were many acts of individual bravery and the Coast Guard performed valiantly and effectively, but for the most part, the federal government failed in its most fundamental responsibilities.

Sri Lanka is among the worst organized governments in the world, with a constant state of rebellion and insurgency between the elitist majority ethnic government and the minority Tamil Tigers. If they are offering US help, we are truly in bad shape. The real troubling thing is that they might have been more help than our own government.

Katrina was not just a natural disaster. The effects of the hurricane were compounded by a failure of leadership; the effects of public policies designed to benefit the rich and the corporate at the expense of the majority and future generations; and the black hole of Iraq, which continues to suck into oblivion badly needed American resources and lives. Despite having been reelected on a pledge to keep America safe (unlike that ditherer Kerry, who actually did something for his country), Bush revealed his utter incompetence in taking charge of an emergency situation. The cronyism that placed Michael Brown as head of FEMA, despite having no experience in emergency management (his only leadership role to that point being president of the International Arabian Horses Association), had disastrous results and typically, there was no accountability for his criminal negligence. Instead of being pilloried and fired for his incompetence, Brown was praised by the president ("Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job"), and kicked upstairs to Washington in case he was needed to oversee the response to a terrorist attack. In a fit of integrity or shame, he resigned days later.

This pattern of nepotism does not bode well for our national security, as the CIA and other agencies have also been staffed with political appointees whose competence and judgment are suspect. Finally, the so-called "War on terror" has drained resources from more basic needs and made us all less safe. One reason for FEMA's uncharacteristically shoddy response was that its budget and human resources had been systematically gutted since it was incorporated into the sprawling Department of Homeland Security. Resources had also been diverted from the Army Corps of Engineers' Hurricane Protection Project, with 20 million dollars cut from the levee reconstruction budget in 2005 alone. And the deployment of so many National Guard troops to Iraq weakened their effectiveness in responding to their primary mission, which is emergency response to disaster at home.

The pattern of cutting funding for safety and infrastructure is once again underway. The lack of fundamental and integral leadership, concern for lives and the general welfare has become a Republican trait. It's not that the Democrats would really be any better, but at least they might offer some genuine concern for putting forth a good effort... and the lives and general welfare of our people might take a higher priority to the corporate welfare that Bush and the Republican-dominated congress has promoted these past 6 years.

There is a sad logic to this house of cards, for Bush himself, like Brown, Chertoff, Goss and others, is in many ways a political appointee, crafted and coddled throughout his career by special interests and privilege and placed in the highest office by a constitutionally suspect decree. Bush's 30 year record of driving private and public institutions (and cars) into the ditch now threatens the entire republic and his only political direction is to "stay the course."

Even for those predisposed to give the administration the benefit of the doubt, the utter incompetence of the federal response was shocking. Flyovers, photo-ops, and macho posturing are only a simulation of leadership and political will, and Bush rolling up his sleeves for a television address just insults the survivors. Stalwart court reporters like Newsweek, MSNBC and even Fox News are for the first time beginning to criticize the president's conduct and priorities. Despite the administration braggadocio that, "we make our own reality," it is becoming clear that even Karl Rove cannot fool all of the people all of the time. Two thirds of Americans now disapprove of the president's handling of the crisis in the Gulf. Two thirds also disapprove of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the other Gulf crisis. And nearly two thirds disapprove of the Bush's overall job performance. Like Lear in the storm, it is increasingly clear to most Americans that this emperor has no clothes.

The sad thing is that we have allowed this to be the state of affairs. We have not called for the heads of those responsible. Despite the numerous scandals, failures of policy and practice, the utter contempt for our laws and the destructive attacks on our basic freedoms, we are still not outraged enough to force our congress critters into a call for impeachment of Bush, Cheney, Hastert and Frist... and all of their minions that have helped to make these catastrophes possible.

When Clinton lied about his sexual behaviors, the ultra-conservatives went after him with a vengeance. Quite frankly I would rather have a leader lie to me about his sexual behaviors than about weapons of mass destruction, the readiness of our government to deal with disasters, unwarranted spying and wiretaps, and our ability to provide genuine national security...

Bush lied and so many of our troops have died...

Bush lied and our reputation went into the hopper...

Bush lied and our values were betrayed...