How To Reply To Right-Wing Email Lies (my own personal example):
This is the second Hurricane Katrina email I’ve received that distorts or ignores every single fact of the last several weeks involving the storm. Since the people who perpetrate this distortion of facts insist on including your email address in the body of the text, I’ve taken the liberty to include you in my reply.
The governor of Louisiana declared a state of emergency on Friday, August 26th, a full 3 days before the hurricane hit. The Gulf States also requested troops from the Pentagon on the 26th.
George Bush declared a federal state of emergency in Louisiana on Saturday, August 27th. What is significant about this seemingly trivial information? According to the Whitehouse, this is what is supposed to happen once that declaration is made:
“The President's action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe…”
These words were issued August 26th, when Hurricane Katrina was a category 2 hurricane. Bush declared a federal state of emergency the following day when Katrina was a category 3 storm.
On Sunday, August 28th, the storm was upgraded twice; At 2AM it became a category 4, and at 7AM, it became a category 5 storm. At 9AM the same day, Mayor Ray Nagin issued the first ever mandatory evacuation of New Orleans. The Lafayette Daily Advertiser’s headlines that morning were “Forecasters Fear Levees Won’t Hold Katrina.” That afternoon, the president, the head of Homeland Security (Chertoff), and the head of FEMA (Brown) were warned by the National Hurricane Center’s director that the levees would fail. At 4 PM that day, the National Weather Service warned the president “Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks, perhaps longer …at least one-half of well constructed homes will have roof and wall failure. All gabled roofs will fail, leaving those homes severely damaged or destroyed …Power outages will last for weeks …Water shortages will make human suffering incredible by modern standards.”
So, BEFORE the storm hit Bush declared a national state of emergency, approved federal response, and knew the levees would fail. But what makes this so appalling is he’d known the levees would fail for years- The Bush administration cut the Army Corp of Engineers budget for the levee upgrade to prevent failure by 77% since 2002, redirecting that money to the war in Iraq. Bush cut the budget in spite of numerous studies which predicted this exact catastrophe, and it happened exactly as the engineers said it would in 1996, 1999, and 2002. It happened exactly as the five week long 2002 series in the New Orleans Times Picayune said it would (read it: http://www.nola.com/hurricane/?/washingaway/). Exactly as NPR said it would happen in 2003. As the 2004 FEMA exercise (Hurricane Pam drill: http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=13051) in New Orleans specifically detailed. No, this was known long ago, planned for, budgeted for, construction started... and Bush pulled the plug on the project before it was done by underfunding it.
Bush knew the levees would fail long before August 28th. He knew because his borrowing from Peter (our security) to pay Paul (Iraqi security) made sure of it.
But lets not “play the blame game.” Let’s continue to look at facts. We are, after all, members of the Reality-based American working class. We know that facts matter, whether or not the Washington D.C. politicians mismanaging the bureaucracy do.
Katrina makes landfall at 7am, Monday, August 29th as a category 4 storm. At 11am that morning George Bush gave a speech about Medicare in El Mirage, Arizona, and claims he called Mike Chertoff: “I spoke to Mike Chertoff today -- he's the head of the Department of Homeland Security. I knew people would want me to discuss this issue (immigration), so we got us an airplane on -- a telephone on Air Force One, so I called him. I said, are you working with the governor? He said, you bet we are. That's the most effective way to do things, is to work with the state and local authorities.” It was John McCain’s birthday, so two hours after the levees failed, what was President Bush doing? Eating cake:
Also at 11 am, Monday, Michael Brown finally dispatches 1,000 FEMA employees to the region. He gave them 2 days to get there. Two days.
At 4:30 pm George Bush gives another Medicare speech to senior citizens.
At 8 pm Donald Rumsfeld went to a San Diego Padres baseball game.
The next day,11am, Tuesday August 30th, Bush gave a speech on Iraq at naval base Coronado.
At 2pm he played the guitar with the country singer Mark Willis. Off the Louisiana coast, unutilized, sat the U.S.S. Bataan, an 844 ft naval ship with 6 emergency rooms, beds for 600 patients, and the capacity to make 100,000 gallons of water a day.
That Tuesday night, Bush went back to Crawford for his final night of vacation.
Wednesday, August 31st, National Guard Troops arrived in the Gulf States. At this point, two days after the levees failed, Bush flew “back from vacation” to Washington D.C., where he organized a “task force” to coordinate federal response. While he’s organizing his “task force,” the Jefferson Parish director announces their emergency food and water supply is gone. 80,000 people are still stranded in New Orleans. A public Health Emergency is declared for the entire Gulf Coast. While Bush organized his “task force,” Homeland Security Director Chertoff issues a press release that says: “We are extremely pleased with the response that every element of the federal government, all of our federal partners, have made to this terrible tragedy.” [Department of Homeland Security]
At 7pm Condolezza Rice watched “Spamalot” on Broadway in NYC.
At 8pm FEMA director said “I must say, this storm is much much bigger than anyone expected.”
OK, enough facts. Now I must respond to the email at the bottom of page which has me so angry I’m firing off this email (on my Sunday night off, too, I might add). I did a little research on the author. It’s written by Bill Whittle, a two-bit blogger who made waves with an essay about “tribes” in which he sings the virtues of himself and his friends, and uses crappy analogies, and calls Democrats “pink” and claims Republicans are the only “realists.” He is a Hollywood TV editor who (his words here) “gets paid insane sums of money to do a cake job while much better people than me do this every day, for peanuts.”
In Bill’s essay, Tribes, he asks “Have you not met and talked and laughed with people who were funny, decent, upright, honest and honorable of every shade so that the very idea of racial politics should just seem like a desperate and divisive and just plain evil tactic to hold power?” Or to paraphrase (cut-to-the-chase): Don’t talk about racism- it doesn’t exist except in the minds of those darkies who have ambitions of political power (think: Jesse Jackson, Barack Obama, Martin Luther King, NAACP).
He also wrote (harsh language warning- sorry): “Only a few minutes ago, I had the delightful opportunity to read the comment of a fellow who said he wished that white, middle-class, racist, conservative cocksuckers like myself could have been herded into the Superdome Concentration Camp to see how much we like it. Absent, of course, was the fundamental truth of what he plainly does not have the eyes or the imagination to see, namely, that if the Superdome had been filled with white, middle-class, racist, conservative cocksuckers like myself, it would not have been a refinery of horror, but rather a citadel of hope and order and restraint and compassion.” White middle class conservative = good, poor black victim = bad. To be blunt, Bill Whittle is a white-supremist.
Other things about Bill Whittle: He’s a right-wing conservative who warns frequently that he’s got a gun and knows how to use it. Every woman I know refers to guys that proclaim things like this as having “small penis syndrome.” For meat eating, liberal, gun owners like myself- who work for a living- who don’t feel it necessary to announce to the world “I have a gun,” this guy makes us want more gun laws. He’s a loose cannon who has a gift of being able to write, but he uses his gift to spread rascist, anti-American rhetoric. He’s a fringe radical.
Which would explain why he hate’s New Orlean’s mayor Ray Nagin so much: A black Democrat who had the nerve to say “I don’t want to see another goddamn press conference… get off your asses and do something.”
Bill seems inclined to compare Hurricane Katrina to 9-11. Let me give you an example of how irrational Bill’s logic is, by giving you an extrapolation of his logic: Insurance companies would declare a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina an “act of God.” How are Saudi Arabian Terrorists like God? Well, with Bill’s logic, 9-11 and Hurricane Katrina were both horrible acts- therefore, God is a terrorist. Doesn’t quite work, does it? For those of who walk on two legs, anyway. The only comparisons between 9-11 and Hurricane Katrina is the economic situation of those affected. Destruction of the power-brokers in the twin towers was used to launch two wars and the creation of the largest bureaucracy ever created (Dept. Homeland Security) while destruction of New Orleans launched too little, too late and cost “Brownie” another job.
Now, lets contrast 9-11 and Hurricane Katrina more. Ground Zero in NYC was about a square mile. Ground Zero in Louisiana was approximately 40,000 square miles- larger than Great Britain. In NYC, there were grocery stores, taxis, military bases, hospitals, transportation systems, police stations, fire houses, hotels, pharmacies, etc. still functioning after the towers were hit. People had homes to go to. In Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida everything in the storm ravaged area was devastated equally. The flooding in New Orleans was just part of the storm’s damage. Mr. Bill Whittle seems to think Ray Nagin should have been able to pull his buses out of the floodwaters where they were buried and put them to use. Bill thinks, quite callously, that “New Orleans law enforcement whining about wet shoes and helping themselves to the happy period of lawlessness” is the best way to describe uniformed first responders using supplies from flooded New Orleans’ grocery stores to provide infant formula to dehydrated babies “looting.”
Excuse me, but Bill Whittle is an asshole. I will descend to his sorry level, though, and say that if I had a chance to get my hands on Bill Whittle I’d go to jail for beating the ever-living crap out of him. I would. He’s a racist and a sexist. He’s a partisan political hack spreading lies and disinformation to help cover the fact that while people were suffering our elected representatives and their appointed officials ate cake and played the guitar and watched Broadway shows and baseball games. These same elected officials ran for office under the pretense of National Security, no less.
I’m not stockpiling ammo and MRE’s because I’m safer, Bill Whittle… I’m stockpiling because this is a fault zone and FEMA sucks. The entire federal government is mismanaged and corrupted all the way up into the Whitehouse and I have neighbors that might need my able-bodied help. Little old ladies and families with children. And according to your crappy essay, that makes me like you… part of your “tribe,” but you’re wrong. You justify hating people and try and make them less human so the evil ideology you preach doesn’t keep you up at night. You’re in denial. You’re sick and poisoned. People like me who work for a living and have worked in the neighborhoods you so easily dismiss as “not my tribe” know you for what you are: a tool of rich white folk. And yeah, I’m white, but not like you. I’m nothing at all like you.
Finally, Bill says “In a third world country, people living in stacks of garbage, searching for food and water happens EVERY STINKING DAY. That is the NORM.” No Bill, it is not. Get out. Travel. Get outa Hollywood. Go see for yourself. Having had an amazing time in a third world country, far away from the tourist-infected areas, I can say quite truthfully “Bill, you’re an ignorant ass.” But even if they did live in stacks of garbage (which they don’t), that wouldn’t make what happened here any less devastating. People still would have no homes. Insurance still wouldn’t cover for flooding. People’s loved one’s still would not be alive. They still wouldn’t have a car. A job. Proof they paid their taxes. The new bankruptcy laws wouldn’t make their nightmare become even more of a nightmare when they have to face the fact they have nothing left but debt and no way to pay for it. No, Bill, in the third world country of Cuba they had a category 5 hurricane land a direct hit and Castro had moved his people to high ground. They lost no one. And we expect The Technically Advanced Democracy of The United States of America to do better than some third rate piss-ant communist island. We paid for security, we expect it, and apologists like you make the Bush administration’s pathetic response to Katrina even more pathetic.
For some of the reference material:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Hurricane_Katrina#Before_landfall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Hurricane_Katrina
http://www.thinkprogress.org/katrina-timeline
To get a “taste” of Bill Whittle’s hatemongering: http://bamapachyderm.com/archives/2005/09/05/heads-up-bill-whittle-lays-down-the-gauntlet
The email I received:
Found this and said, " wow="">
Somebody who is capable of thinking clearly wrote:
"So, on one hand, we have a very blue city – New York – confronted, out of the clear morning of a perfect fall day, with no warning – with a terror attack, and they march toward the sounds of screams and falling bodies and die by the hundreds. One the other hand, we have New Orleans law enforcement – also blue – whining about wet shoes and helping themselves to the happy period of lawlessness that followed an event that had been expected for no less than seventy-two hours.
In New York, we had a governor who got every available resource on the ground as fast as it could get there, and in Louisiana we have a governor who...cried. Governor, your job is to not cry. Your job is to be strong. We have plenty of civilians crying. You want to cry, cry in the car on the way home like everybody else did four years ago. Crying Governors, race-baiting mayors and looting police do not a Finest Hour make.
In New Orleans we have a mayor who left some 400-500 buses sitting fueled and underwater in the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool saying that evil white conservative America was selling out his people within 24 hours of the catastrophe, from a safe and dry and adequately toileted location, while four years ago we had a Mayor who ran to the site of the disaster so quickly it is a full-blown miracle he was not killed when a building collapsed literally on top of his magnificent, combed-over head.
Now, much has been made of the fact that Ray Nagin is an incompetent, race-baiting black man, and Rudy Giuliani, who was neither, is white. Also, feminists are upset that people dare attack Governor Blanco because she is incompetent, weak, indecisive, and also a woman. And no doubt there are salivating long-haired, short-cortexed idiots just waiting for this to be over so they can sail into the comments section and tell me what a racist and misogynist I am.
Well, here’s the news flash: Nagin isn’t incompetent because he’s black. He’s incompetent because he’s incompetent. Condoleeza Rice is black. Colin Powell is black. Ted Kennedy, a man well-acquainted with rising water crises is as white as they come. Kennedy is incompetent; Rice and Powell are two of the most competent people on the planet.
This is about tribes, all right: not black and white tribes, but rather a battle between the capable and the culpable.
Same holds for Governor Blanco. She’s not weak because she’s a woman, or because she’s a Democrat. Truman was a democrat. The Buck stopped there. She’s weak and indecisive because that is the individual she is. I wish history could work with variables: I’d love to see what Margaret Thatcher would have done in such a case. It would not only have been better, it would have been good. That woman was tough. She could be Grey as granite. And, for this, the Pink Tribe despises her.
Now it may come as a shock to those foreign luminaries who come to lecture us on how an American city leveled by forces roughly equivelent to a nuclear explosion reduce it to something "like a third world country."
This difference being lost on them seems to be this: in an American city there is garbage on the streets and people wander around looking for food and water, AFTER BEING LEVELED BY A CAT 5 HURRICANE, which is the storm swell of the Dec. 2004 tsunami, plus winds, extending inland not for two or three miles but for two or three HUNDRED MILES. In a third world country, people living in stacks of garbage, searching for food and water happens EVERY STINKING DAY. That is the NORM.
It may come as a bit of a shock to these worldly sophisticates, who are so quick to point out how parochial and ignorant we simple folk are, that the United States of America has local, state and federal governments! And that this is the order in which crises are dealt with!
-Bill Whittle
