Since Katrina hit the Gulf Coast the subject on TV and in the news has been the slow response by FEMA. This may be deliberate on the part of the Bushies. They used 9/11 as a pretext for curtailing the civil rights of many citizens and to legitimize spying on domestic protesters on the groups that they presented a "security risk." We have had calls for more and more forms of ID "Papers, please?" and people have gotten used to being stopped and searched.

Now Katrina has given them the excuse to implement the next step. They purposely slowed the response of the Federal resources knowing that the state and local organizations would be overwhelmed. Although at first glance it would appear that this reflected badly on them, it has led to the result they desired.

They know that their opposition has its strength in the local areas. If the locals were allowed to handle the emergency they would be strengthened and people would start looking more toward organizations like the anti-war coalitions all over the US. They decided to take a hit and allowed people to "force" them to take more power through FEMA. Notice that FEMA in New Orleans is run by an Admiral and though they pretend to be a civilian agency they are run and manned by the military.

With FEMA being touted as THE agency that is responsible for all disaster operations, they hope to take more and more power from the local institutions leaving FEMA, run by die-hard Bushies controlling emergency response for the entire US.

At that point we are one emergency away from a Presidential declaration of emergency which would suspend civil rights, sweep aside local government (especially Democrats) and replace them with FEMA appointed (Bushie) zealots.

At this point it appears that it is working beautifully. The TV and newspapers are full of stories begging FEMA to take over where ever an "emergency" is declared.

FEMA is screwing up so FEMA can get more control?

That's illogical. What happened is FEMA was incompetent because it was a run by a bunch of political cronies. It was slow to act because Republicans, in general, avoid federal intervention. They don't specialize in national-level coordination of anything, and that's just their thing: states rights.

In contrast, Democrats tend to push for federal intervention. That's just a general trend.

The current disaster mainly increased the political capital of the Red Cross, one of the world's largest NGOs. If it isn't already, the Red Cross will become a political target for the right wing. The right are already trying to turn every stupid profit-oriented hobby into a "non profit corporation" (to dodge taxes). They're probably looking at the Red Cross as a potential cash cow.

This isn't a new thing either. GW Bush (the father) was real big on "volunteerism". That's just a call for cutting social spending and foisting the needs of society on "volunteers" who work for free. The younger Bush is really into "faith based charities", which is a way to indoctrinate people into religion in exchange for food and shelter.

The overall goal the right wing have is to turn the idea of social responsibility for the poor and homeless into the idea of "feelgood charity for the middle class." This would reduce overall social spending.

Kanye West had something good to say about this. (Not that Bush hates Black people, which I doubt was the main reason for his inaction. Bush hates poor people more than he hates Black people.) Kanye West pointed out that he felt guilty for shopping before he gave money to charity. The trend will be to capitalize on that bad feeling, to alleviate it by taking peoples' money during tragedies. People will feel like they "did something."

This is called fraud, bilking, and bullshit.

The real answer is better disaster preparedness, not guilt-ridden charity. The best disaster preparedness is better education, especially for poor people, who are always less well-informed and less empowered to act than the middle class. This requires a long-term commitment to valuing this education, and it requires long-term funding, not donations during disasters.

we are one emergency away from the american public beginning to realize that the almighty Murkuh's resources are finite, and we are on the downslope now! say hello to china and india, our future masters. god (supernatural doohickey for which there is no objective evidence) help us!

Without chaos there would be adaptations away from capitalism as clever and long awaited changes are made to adjust the social and cultural framework to cope with dwindeling resorces. We do that sort of thing as a species. Even a worthy replant global restoration movement .

We would build housing with roof gardens and solar passive assist.

There would be social movements towards sane development rather that a race for profits by psychopaths.

This worries the psychopaths.