As the Republicans gather in St. Paul reminders of what their Counterrevolution has done to America hang over the convention like inky clouds rolling in the sky, flashing warning bolts and cracks of thunder that herald a coming storm.
First, as another Hurricane heads for the Gulf Coast and reporters question whether the levies will hold; we cannot help but be taken back to the greatest human-caused disaster in American history–Katrina. The blame for not maintaining the levies and the flood control system probably should rightly be assessed to both political parties, for neither appropriated the money needed. The Democrats triangulated it away or decided to build bridges to nowhere in Alaska rather than fix New Orleans.
But like an insurance claim in which fault is assessed by percentage, a majority of the damage for Katrina rightly belongs to those people who will be celebrating in St. Paul. Their budget-slashing meant there was little chance New Orleans would receive the protection experts recommended it have. The larger policy decision–to cut back funding across the country for America’s infrastructure–has received little attention from the mainstream media and bloggers alike, but it is a debt the country and the next administration–whether that of Barack Obama or John McCain will have to pay. Katrina is only a symbol for a much larger problem; wages of neglect that have become wages of sin.
Under the Counterrevolution, America has become like a house whose owner has decided to defer maintenance while instead squandering money on questionable priorities and failed to save for the inevitable rainy day. The famous grasshopper of Aesop’s fable has nothing on the Republican Counterrevolution. So much was wasted on tax cuts for the rich who fiddled away their money on $1,000 bottles of wine and a war in Iraq while the deficit grew larger and faster under George W. Bush than at any other time in American history.
Less generally recognized is that these wages of neglect mark a deliberate decision. The Republicans have trumpeted that America needs less government since the days of Barry Goldwater and in Katrina and the other events described below we found out the consequences of that misguided philosophy. Cutting back on government is a bit like cutting back on maintenance of that house.
The consequences of this are a house that is in bad shape. The roof leaks, the furnace needs replacing, duct tape covers dripping plumbing, wiring has become dangerously unsafe, and windows and doors are broken. The Republican Counterrevolution’s doctrine that tax cuts for the rich would trickle down somehow increasing government revenue so those repairs could be made was about as ridiculous as hoping to maintain your house by buying a lottery ticket each week. This ridiculous assumption became a tragedy when Katrina hit New Orleans.
It was not that George W. Bush did not have warning. During the summer of 2004, while George was running for his second term, more than 250 federal, state and local officials representing 50 agencies including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the states of Mississippi and Louisiana gathered to watch those changing colors model a hurricane hitting New Orleans. The simulation data told the toll of the storm they named “Pam.” Packing 120 mph winds and dropping 20 inches of rain, Pam destroyed half a million buildings, leaving in its wake 30 million tons of debris and 237 cubic yards of hazardous waste. The human toll ranged from 25,000 to 100,000 deaths. Half the population became trapped in attics, on rooftops and in makeshift refuges.
As they watched Pam unfold, the participants concluded evacuation would be a major problem since an estimated 100,000 households in the area did not have a car. The survivors would need 1,000 shelters to remain open for months before it might be safe to rebuild. Search and rescue operations would require 800 searchers.
What happened after Katrina hit New Orleans played out live on television screens across the world, showing people everywhere the dark side of the Counterrevolution. But like many a disgrace, this nation has been quick to forget Katrina, to put New Orleans in some back closet where it can be forgotten. Yet, if nothing else, this election should be about Katrina, for the Republicans gathered in St. Paul will be spouting the same “less government is better government” philosophy that brought us Katrina.
We need to be reminded of Katrina and the lack of attention to New Orleans and its displaced people when we watch that convention and when we cast our votes this November. Remember the pictures?
Suddenly the faces of poverty stared from the front page. A crowd of African American women huddle around a slumped figure with a white sheet draped over her shoulder. A woman in a head scarf and striped t-shirt extends a hand in comfort, trying to assure the exhausted and overheated victim all will be OK. Behind her another woman holds her hands to her mouth in a mixture of shock and grief while a man near tears watches with two boys whose faces betray their anxiety and confusion. A second photograph: a large man holding a tiny baby over the shoulder of his football jersey pulls back a blanket to reveal the corpse of an old man as thin as a concentration camp victim slumped in a chaise lounge. Behind him lies the Superdome crowd that became a symbol for this disaster. To the side of the picture a woman walks towards the camera as she shouts at the photographer in frustration. There are no white faces anywhere. A third picture: an African American woman with her dress draped over her shoulder swims through water colored like a stained glass window by oil, dragging an overnight bag and bottles of water. A fourth: a young man with his foot in bandages lies on a cot clutching a bottle of water as vehicles drive by without even acknowledging him.
Then we see picture after picture of the crowds. Some huddle on bridges and overpasses that remain above the water, waiting for the rescue that is not coming. Others who have been fortunate to escape lie in makeshift camps that eerily resemble the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression. At times it seems more reporters and celebrities can get into the city than aid workers. Somehow they manage to bring Harry Coniff to the Superdome but they cannot get anyone out. As rescue plans stall somewhere in the ether, the Dome becomes a perverse tourist attraction for media photographers who fly over it and drive around it, but take no one out with them. Treated worse than zoo animals the people make their anger known.
Those images should be seared into our memories as we watch those delegates dancing in the aisles, for they will be dancing on abandoned houses of New Orleans and the abandoned people who can never come back and those who never will come back. As if this is not enough, up the river from where the Republicans are meeting lies another GOP-created disaster, nothing less than deliberate murder committed because Republicans thought it more important not to raise taxes than to fix bridges.
As readers of this blog know, I have issued two in-depth reports on the disaster criticizing flaws in the inspection methods, the decisions of the Pawlenty Administration, and infrastructure funding by the Bush Administration. Here is what I wrote:
In a report on the bridge collapse, Minnesota Public Radio pointed out:
In the legislative session that ended in May, Gov. Pawlenty vetoed a transportation funding package that included a seven-and-a-half-cent-a-gallon gas tax increase to pay for new road and road construction as well as for the maintenance of the current infrastructure.
In essence the GOP sold us the equivalent of the Titanic and now the Titanic has hit an iceberg–for the second time if you count Katrina. That is why I am angry. Those deaths did not have to happen. I am even more angry because they happened for the basest of reasons–greed. Billionaires received their tax cuts and we got Katrina and bridges falling into the river. Tax cuts don’t fix levees or bridges.
Like Katrina, the bridge disaster had plenty (should I say Pawlenty) of warning. I believe this blog was the only source I know that quoted the following paragraph from the actual bridge inspection report:
The long term plans for this river crossing need to be defined with replacement, redecking, etc. Due to the “Fracture Critical” configuration of the main river spans and the problematic “crossbeam” details, and fatigue cracking in the approach spans, eventual replacement of the entire structure would be preferable.
What leaped out to me were the references to the gusset plates which the investigation of the disaster singled out as the cause:
Panel Point #4 (East Truss Stringer Joint): Connection gusset plate has a weld overlap. (p. 20)
Panel Point #11 (East Truss): Section loss: at gusset plate bottom chord. (p. 23)
Panel Point #11 (East Truss): Pitting: inside gusset plate connection at L11. Stringer #3 has two bolts missing at the floorbeam connection. (p. 23)
Panel Point #13 (East Truss): Bottom chord gusset plate has section loss, flaking & pack rust. (p. 24)
Panel Point #9′ (West Truss): Truss bottom chord/sway frame connection (gusset plates) has section loss, pitting, heavy flaking rust. (p. 37)
Panel Point #8′ (West Truss Pier #7 Stringer Joint): Truss bottom chord/sway frame connection (gusset plates) has section loss with heavy flaking rust. (p. 37)
Panel Point #7′ (West Truss): Wind bracing gusset plate, at stringer #14 has loose bolts. (p. 38)
Note the number of times the words “section loss” appears.
But if you want to know the real consequences of the Counterrevolution Just go the Association of Civil Engineers “Report Card” to find a detailed explanation of the seriousness of our infrastructure problems:
It is estimated that it will cost $9.4 billion per year for 20 years to eliminate all bridge deficiencies. The annual investment required to prevent the bridge investment backlog from increasing is estimated at $7.3 billion. Present funding trends of state departments of transportation call into question future progress on addressing bridge deficiencies.
On top of these two disasters came a third reminder in last week’s Census report on American poverty. As reported by the Brookings Institution the report noted:
Poverty declined every year between 1993 and 2000, reaching its lowest level ever for black children, but then increased during the recession year of 2001 as well as in 2002, 2003, and 2004. The rate then declined slightly in both 2005 and 2006.
The 2007 data showed:
median household income edged upward and the number of Americans without health insurance decreased by more than 1 million.
However, a panel of Brookings experts found little cause for optimism. Senior Fellow Rebecca Blank pointed out the latest statistics are a bit misleading:
The Census numbers are a distributional story and the real growth has been at the top.
Blank went on to say:
2008 as I noted is by every measure going to be a worse year. These numbers are going to deteriorate.
Ron Haskins, Co-Director of the Brookings Center on Children and Families also pointed out:
Children’s poverty did increase and for those of us here at Brookings who study poverty, that probably is at least as important if not more important than the overall poverty — that children’s poverty we’re really concerned about and it did increase significantly this year so that’s an important part of this study.
Blank then laid out what the Bush Administration has cost America’s families:
The result in 2007 is that median income is $325, real — adjusted for inflation, below where it was in 2000 at the peak of the last cycle and we’ve not recovered. Poverty is 1.3 points higher than it was at the end of the last cycle, child poverty is 1.8 points higher, and
single female-headed poverty is 2.9 points higher.
On Monday the Republicans will grant George W. Bush, the architect of these disasters, a podium from which to speak. Those introducing him will trumpet the last eight years as if they represented a golden age. Yet by all rights George W. Bush should be standing in a dock facing a judge not up on a podium telling lies.
Better to wait until after he has spoken to detail these charges, but when you watch on Monday think about the three that hang around his neck like a dead and reeking albatross. The true equation of tax cutting and budget cutting is not merely about an American infrastructure that resembles a ramshackle house. It is that by choosing to reward the rich while ignoring America’s roads, bridges, electrical grid, energy deficiencies, river levies, transportation needs, communications upgrades, technology expansion, the crops we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink and the gasoline we put in our cars, the Republicans have left behind not merely a mess, they have left behind dead bodies, people who have died because of the neglect of the last eight years.
It is bad enough people are dying in Iraq because of a questionable war, but Americans are dying at home because of questionable priorities. That is the true tragedy of the Counterrevolution. Those delegates have blood on their hands and no amount of parting will wash it off.
Crossposts: ,My Left Wing, The Wild, Wild Left
Print Posted by: liberalamerican
