Katrina aftermath.

GratisNet: "After watching Bush, Haley Barbour, Mississippi Governor, and others on the television in the aftermath of Katrina, I have a few thoughts.

It is clear that Bush has no more compassion or concern for the devastation of lives and property in New Orleans and the towns along the gulf coast in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. His demeanor and words serve to, once again, demonstrate that George W. Bush is a man without empathy, a man who cares only for himself and for those who can (and do) something for him. In short, he is a disgrace and totally unsuited emotionally, ethically, morally and intellectually to sit in the office of President of these United States.

Barbour, when reminded by a reporter that the strength of Katrina was hardly a surprise and asked if the government should have done more to get people to safety, bridled and cut off the reporter with a curt, 'Do you want to argue with me or do you want to let me talk?' This in response to some cutting and appropriate questions as to the level of concern displayed by state and federal officials in the days when NOAA was declaring Katrina to have the potential to be among the worst storms to hit the US in the past 100 years. Local officials pretty much did everything they could do to get their people to heed the warnings, but there were many who did not have the money to buy a tank of gas so that they could get themselves and their families out of harms way. The poor section of Biloxi, MS known as The Point comes to mind and it was totally devastated and no one has any idea how many residents got out before Katrina hit. No one knows how many were swept away by the surging waters. No one knows how many are buried in the rubble. In short, no one knows the magnitude of the tragedy in The Point. In truth, likely no one in the Bush Regime cares about The Point, or the many other poor and predominately Black areas of the Gulf Coast communites hardest hit by Katrina because if the people there voted at all, they did not vote for Bush.

I hope that all those people who clamored for tax cuts will now come to an understanding of where the cuts in spending were made so that they could keep more of 'their money.' In New Orleans the tragedy of Katrina is intensified by the failure of the levee system. The Army Corps of Engineers knew of the deficiencies of the levees and had a plan of action to strengthen and improve upon them, but because of Bush and his tax cuts, the Corps had the funding for repairing the levees reduced to 20% of that which they required to do the job. Repairing the levees may not have prevented the breakdowns in the system that have occurred, but then since the repairs were never undertaken in the past 4 years, we will never know, will we? I suspect that the 'I've got mine and the hell with you' crowd will not think about the damage their greed helped to intensify. Listening to comments from some of these people and the business of denial is already well underway. It wasn't our fault, it was an act of God. Yes it was an act of God but it was made worst by the act of GREED that was the foundation of the tax cuts.

The governors of the states hardest hit were limited in getting their National Guard activated becuase a sizeable portion of their Guard, along with the trucks and other heavy equipment that could help in the rescue, recovery and cleanup, are presently in Iraq trying to protect Iraqis while the job of helping with the disaster that has befallen their communities goes on with inadequate resources. Bush couldn't be bothered with the tragedy unfolding in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, he just had to get in a couple of more days in Crawford and then go off to California for what was, essentially, a PR (read political) speech, rather than focus on getting help to the people hard hit by the ongoing disaster caused by Katrina and the unpreparedness of federal and state governments.

While Katrina was among the strongest storms to ever hit America and a disaster of major proportions, it is dwarfed by the disaster that is the little man occupying the White House and his incompetent, ineffectual regime.

Of one thing you can be sure, that since the magnitude of the disaster has grown expotentially, somewhere in the bowels of the West Wing there is a group of people trying to put together a strategy in which the blame for this disaster can be placed on the back of Bill Clinton."