Accountabilty

I haven't posted for a bit cause I have been out of the country. Katrina hit while we were in Britain and we marvelled at how a bad situation went to hell so quickly and how the government at all levels failed to prevent the massive death toll. The point of government is to protect it's citizens and prevent the kind of death we saw in the aftermath.

Since then there has been a lot of talk about who is responsible for the inadequate response and the unnecceasary death toll.

Let me offer my response.

If you voted Republican, then you are. I think we are too easily able to create a cognitive disconnect between our actions and the consequences. It is waht allows leftists to protest Nike in China without conecerning themselves with how the workers at the factory will survive if Nike leaves. It allows us to avoid hard thinking on issues and making decisions that are not easy. Yah, it sucks that children work. It's easy to condemn a sweat shop, demand it close and then let the "liberated" children die because their only source of income just left town.

Similarly, it's easy to vote for Bush and then be shocked when things turn out bad. You know what, love him or not, his actions are completely, 100% consistent with his stated poloicies, approahces and track records. One reason I have truned so hard on him is that I supported the war in Iraq. To me that means I seriously understood innocent people would die. I accepted that knowledge because I was convinced that the greater good was at stake. But Bush lied. It was not. And I believed him, and because I made the mistake of believing him people who shouldn't be are dead.

If you voted for Bush, you voted for a course of actions that hobbled our goverments ability to prevent death. You voted for the decision to "privatize" disaster planning in Louisiana. You voted for a policy of appointing political allies to policy posts, such as FEMA. You knowingly allowed this to happen.

So take accountability. And stop blaming Bush. You voted for him. Blame yourself.