Just in case someone is actually reading this ...

I should take the chance to plug one of my other ventures, Progressive News Digest [ http://www.rationalreview.com/pnd ]. This week's edition is first dedicated to wrapping up the off-the-mainstream coverage of the devastation in New Orleans and points north and east, with a 26-item set of blurbs on that subject, from all over the political spectrum. Then it goes on to summarize the week's other top news stories and commentaries. Here is my own "lead" to the e-mail issue:

After the flood ...

Yes, this edition of Progressive News Digest opens with a "special section" -- just in case you need a summary of the week's (and the year's and century's so far?) "top news story": The collision of The Big Easy, with Katrina and its waves. New Orleans has not exactly been "walking on sunshine" this past week, but the biggest tragedy (on top of the very real ones of death, destruction and disruption of normal life) may be how cleverly the authorities are managing to CYA and finger-point at each other, in avoiding responsibility for this very preventable catastrophe. Just for starters:

(1) The diversion of FEMA funds in early 2002 (to "fight terrorism" -- aka subsidize Halliburton and other Iraw War profiteers), funds that were supposed to be used to shore up the levees in the New Orleans delta region, those very same levees that burst and overwhelmed the entire downtown of the city this week.

(2) The conscription for overseas duty of some 35% of the National Guard troops, who could instead have been either preparing for the storm (even in the 3-4 days they had critical warning it WAS coming, or during the past two years while there was still a clear and present danger that one hurricane of sufficient force might devastate the place.

(3) Once things began to get crazy, authorities prevented private citizens from taking matters into their own hands, even to the point of stopping and confiscating buses trying to leave the city limits.

(4) Any citizens, or tourists, attempting to leave the city ... were re-routed to the Stupordome, whose facilities were already breaking down, so that IT has been being evacuated for the past two days.

(5) Meanwhile, in the "looting" category, there have been POLICE officers found engaging in this behavior, while those who are not looting, have walked off the job of enforcing what little law ("martial" as far as the lack of limits on tactics is concerned!) there still is in the city.

I could go on (including the note that citizens who have attempted to HELP the situation are being turned away at GUNPOINT!) but the following links say it better.

For more, visit:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/progressivenewsdigest

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