Interesting Times

The Iraqi constitutional mess has slid entirely off the radar of the American public as the disaster of Hurricane Katrina has come into its own. I don't have anything meaningful to say about Iraq because, like the rest of the US citizen-punditry, I've been transfixed by the ongoing political musical-chairs going on in the South. This diversion of attention is probably dangerous, but then waging a long-distance battle for "hearts and minds" was always dangerous. The difficult negotiations between fractious parties that seemed so crucial in the American press have suddenly been relegated to the mid-sections. Who knows what damage to the American goals of democratic process (such fragile hopes to begin with!) will be committed during this hectic time of domestic posturing.

More terrifying is the prospect that the Department of Homeland Security, that megalith into which FEMA was absorbed, is not able to coordinate effective disaster relief. Katrina was not an attack; there are no infrastructrural failures or chemical seepages that were not predicted and modelled. And still, this chaos is what the new DHS delivers? Color me that much more paranoid for the future. Thank God I live in New York City, where the locals are well-funded, paranoid, and essentially add up to a local army--because we have learned that the feds, under this administration, haven't been paying attention to local disaster scenarios. They're willing to give press conferences, however.

And it seems as though posturing is all that this government is able to do in the face of a catastrophe. Most readers of this blog will already know how this disaster was predicted. If anyone tumbles here who doesn't know about the massive governmental failures in the wake of Katrina, I recommend spending some time at Gary Farber's site---which has recently been added to the blogroll.

Again, the good people of Making Light and bOingbOing have done incredible work at coelscing coordinating netroots, in their own ways. If you want real linkage, start there.

In years past, I agonized about what to put on my protestor placard. There were so many stupid ideas I wanted to protest that choosing one seemed difficult; all the specific instances of malfeasance seemed so wonkish. "Remember New Orleans," on the other hand, might tie all the strands together.