The "Lesson" of Katrina is that the US Government MEVER Lear

The "Lesson" of Katrina is that the US Government NEVER Learns
http://cherylsealreports.bravehost.com/lessonsofkatrina.html

By Cheryl Seal - CHERDAV44@aol.com

The Bush administration is now calling Katrina a "lesson", as are its hold-out pals in the media - FOX, notably, is clinging on like a tenacious dingleberry . If you want to see the big ole Bushie media broom at work, watch NBC's "Today" show as it begins its self-appointed task of sweeping Katrina and White House accountability under its frozen-smiley "well, everything's OK now, let's get back to buying stuff and waving the flag" rug. They were already back to focusing on "9/11 white people" by last Friday.

Yep, we've all been hearing "The lessons of Katrina" line spouted liberally the past few days - the implication being that NO ONE could POSSIBLY have responded differently but they will IN THE FUTURE, because this is just such a dandy lesson.

But wait a minute....haven't we heard this line before? The lessons of 9/11....weren't those "lessons" supposed to have led to better disaster control and prevention? That's what we heard, anyway. That's what FEMA says right on its own mission statement. Instead, America got a bigger and better Patriot Act, which it needed like a hole in the head - or should I say hole in the soul. And WORSE disaster response.

Or how about "the lessons of Hurricane Andrews"....seems like we heard that often enough back in the Bush I regime. But what did we get? More million-dollar homes built in clusters along beachfront storm tracks, to be replaced at taxpayer expense after the next "big one."

Or the lessons of Vietnam.....Man, did we ever hear about THOSE lessons. Everyone seemed to have gotten them down pretty well...everyone, as it turns out, but the people with the power to repeat the mistake and flunk the first test. So here we are again, this time in Iraq - call it Vietnam "dry and dusty."

Or how about "the lessons" of Watergate? We were supposed to have learned that a sneaky, secretive government that considers itself above and/or outside the law is a BAD thing. That despotic, paranoid administrations need to be kept in check. That when the media does its job - a la Woodward and Bernstein - that despotic, paranoid regimes WILL be called to account. But here we are, into term #2 of a despotic, paranoid, secretive government - one that was, in large part, put into power by the media, with help from Woodward.

So excuse me if, when I hear from the Bush administration or the media about "the lessons of Katrina," I reach for a pound of salt and a barf bag.

I've heard it all before. We all have.

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The president did actually say that "Brownie," his pet name for
the FEMA director, was doing "a heck of job" in the aftermath of
the storm. Of course he also said that nobody could have
anticipated that the levees would break. Although dire warnings
from every quarter had predicted exactly that looming danger (see
National Geographic, Oct. 2004, for example), Bush axed their
repair and maintenance budgets. And he put in charge of the
agency that would respond to a major terrorist attack a man with
no experience and no credentials except as a frat boy bootlicker.
Tell your members of Congress that Brown must go NOW, before the
next disaster in the making cripples the rest of our economy.
http://www.usalone.net/fema.htm

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