Mitch,

The "welfare society" did not ignore New Orleans half as much as the "smaall gov'mint" mentality.

The stark reality is that the ignorance of real civic policy, the inadequate resources to care for and secure the poor in that city was certainly not an outcome of the welfare state.

I think the Nation sums it up pretty well http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/12/opinion/main837150.shtml

and although I don't agree with everything, I absolutely agree that it was clear that our indifference and contempt caused many deaths. Someone should be held accountable, I know you won't ever hold the President accountable, but he should be. More than that, though, the American people should be for buying into something for nothing politics for 25 years (aka I'll buy your vote with tax differments). We also are to blame for not understanding that after 25 years of conservative, pro-business dominated government, the only ones left to blame are the conservatives, and because we put them in power, ourselves.

PB

"Someone should be held accountable". Ok PB, I hold you accountable.

Is that why parts of DC have yet to be rebuilt after the riots in the 60s? And given that the Democrats have dominated Congress since then (and arguably still do), how do you explain their commitment to "conservative, pro-business dominated government" that has left so many urban poor entirely dependent on public housing, food stamps, and government welfare checks? And not just in New Orleans, of course, but throughout the nation?

Could it be because the New Deal and the Great Society institutionalized welfare having defined need as a function of availability? And through confiscatory tax policies, prohibited private investment in the very communities a Democratic Congress has pretended to serve these past 40 years? Is that why the United States capitol itself is still surrounded by urban decay, dysfunctional public schools, and centuries old sewers and water mains? You know, like New Orleans? Baltimore? Philadelphia? Los Angeles? Chicago? Minneapolis? and every other American city governed by an entrenched bureacracy dominated by the Democratic Party?

Mitch is right about Bill Clinton in that he was dead-on in much of his domestic policy solutions, which were largely based on coordinating government assistance with private investment. But isn't it interesting that it was not until 1994, when the Gingrich "Contract With America" captured the House that many of his proposals were later passed into law? Without a Republican Congress, Clinton would never have been able to "reform welfare as we know it." His own party opposed him. Just why is that exactly?

What struck me was how so many people just sat there and waited for somebody else to do something. Long term dependency on government seems to breed a culture of passivity.

Anybody ever notice how few screeds that start by putting the word "gov'mint" in somebody else's mouth, have anything in them worth reading?

PB, we don't doubt that you truly believe that liberal philosophy is kinder and more supportive of the poor.

But the record shows that your preferred methods - money, more money, or lots of money - simply don't work. True, the money creates bureaucracies, and entitlements, and a FEELING that something is being done, but this needs to be about more than simply giving liberal thinkers warm fuzzies. Results count, and your course hasn't produced any. We've spent - what? - six trillion or more on anti-poverty since LBJ, and we have more poor then ever before, and now they're not only poor, they're genetically programmed to stay poor, through generations of training.

We admire your earnest desire to help. Problem is, you're just not any good at it.

Spending on social progams hasn't done ANY good?
SS didn't reduce senior poverty?
Head Start hasn't helped?
I suppose it would have been better to just have people fend for themselves as another poster suggested the folks in NO do?
I worked with poor elderly in the 80's, funded by the EVIL Gov't, and without the help people would have died.
But what the hell, the rich need more tax cuts, Mr. Burns needs ANOTHER million dollars.
The right just doesn't care.

Exactly what has Headstart accomplished, slumpyb?

And I'm FAR from rich and still appreciate a tax cut....in fact, taxes could be slashed to the bone as far as I'm concerned. If every one of these programs were cut it would not matter a whit except to those that are employed and make a living off their faux care for others. What you really want with higher taxes is socialism. Yep, worked swell wherever else it's been tried, hasn't it?

Interesting that the "resolute" President, the President who doesn't respond to polls, has fired his FEMA Chief, admitted mistakes that he denied a day earlier, and is clearly reeling from the impression he screwed the pooch.

It's equally interesting that whites, for some reason, don't hold him very accountable.

Bill Maher said it well, "The President says God talks to him, well maybe he's telling you George, 'take a hint!', it's time to go."

This is the worst natural disaster in our history, and this President fiddle while the city burned, his mother made comments Marie Anne Tuinette would have applauded (Seems like they are fortunate), if impeachment was right for a man who let his intern perform oral sex, then what's right for a man who showed such disdain for the safety and welfare of his charges that he pretty much didn't care to be bothered while they drown?

Blame anyone you want, but ultimately, after 25 years of saying less is more, and that the "Gov'mint" is the problem, your neglect of civic responsibility has come home to roost. I doubt very much, given people's natural short term memory, anything will change much, after all, our votes can be bought with tax deferments our kids have to pay for, but in the end, it turns out actually doing stuff as a people (outside of killing foriegners) is needed, or maybe you are hoping the Red Cross will put out your house if it's on fire?

PB

"for a man who showed such disdain for the safety and welfare of his charges that he pretty much didn't care to be bothered while they drown?"

Don't you get tired of spouting sheer stupidity, PB?

Oh, btw, Colleen, just for openers, we are the lowest taxed Western Country on the planet, taxes HAVE been slashed to the bone.

As to mattering a whit, perhaps you need to open your eyes and look at the lack of facility for dealing with Katrina, or maybe the unfunded schools.

As for socialism, in reality socialist democracy is a far more effective economic model than is monopolistic democracy (what we have). If you feel China is free market, your pretty sadly mistaken, but what's more, the GDP of Euro is in excess of the US, and candidly, given our huge rate of borrowing, as well as the fact that both the US Gov'mint and FANNIE MAE are 7 Trillion in hock, maybe it's OUR system that is broken. Beyond that, since when do we have such low taxes that we can't find a few hundred billion to give to KBR, or through the loser Social Security Scam, to the investment community (800 Billion over 30 years).

All you right wing nutcases talk the same line, small government, it's never small enough, but you sure as heck want either protection, or will stand up for paying exhorbitant fees (user access fees, fees to corrupt organizations) through the government or enacted as legal fees on which you have no say, by that government.

You generally think that anything the government does is bad, when in reality it's just a scape-goat, you think if your taxes were lower you'd live better, when in fact, it would be mostly a zero sum game. Taxes only matter when they impede the ability to invest capital and achieve a reasonable (not rapacious) return. Greenspan and O'Niell, as well as Volker, understood that. Instead though, you see the Government as your boogey man, the thing holding you down, the damned liberal elite keeping you from getting ahead while they give handouts to the lazy, but the truth is, you hold yourself down, it's just easier to hold someone else accountable. AS for elitism, the Bush's wouldn't let you dine in their garage. The entire Republican establishment (with a very few exceptions) is old guard, and old money, or it's sychophants who've been welcomed in because of their "loyalty" (read willingness to do dirty work). The elitists run things, that's certain, and while you condemn them out of one side of your mouth for trying to "tell you how to live", you embrace them vicariously, hoping some day to become a member of that crowd (somehow - maybe the lottery). Rather than embracing Christ's words that it is what you do to the least of me, you do to me, you shun the poor, and say it's thier own damned fault, while you idolize the Pharisee.

The fact is outside South Africa, the US is the least economically mobile country (among developed nations) in the world. There is less class movement here than nearly anywhere else on earth, funny what your free market bullcrap comes to. Capitalism left unfettered leads to monopoly and abuse of labor, that fact is irrefutable when you examine emperical evidence.

So yes Colleen, bully for you that you are not rich. The odds are VAST that you won't ever be, and the folks in Washington have no intention of letting you become so unless you chose to start a business in which they have no interest, you get hugely lucky, and you don't piss someone powerful off. My suggestion instead is to actually have concern for those in your class (presumably middle), to recognize that tax policy is not anything like a sound economic policy, nor will cutting it do more for you than cutting services you may need, and we as a country absolutely need. If you chose to return to the 1880's, that's your call, and you can shout for it, but I'll send you the rancid beef, the 80 hour workweek, the lysteria, and the company store (Walmart), and then you can tell me what a grand old guy Andrew Carnagie err I mean Dick Cheney is for not taxing you too.

When are you folks going to wake up to the fact that you are being used? When will you realize they'll NEVER overturn Roe V. Wade, it's too important for thier retention of their base. They are more concerned about taxes on the upper 1%, and have shown it over and over again, than they are about you. They willingly took off the table a 1% reduction in the 17% bracket to get the cuts at the top end.

Whatever, you want to believe the country can run in anarchy, well, you'll get your chance to see, because this country is tapped out, we have no more credit, and our markers are coming due.

PB

" . . .then what's right for a man who showed such disdain for the safety and welfare of his charges . . ."

"Charges"? Your choice of that word, to me, makes it clear for what kind of nanny-state you strive. That's not the role of the President of the United States - if you want nose-wiping from birth to death, look to your locals.

And, "disdain"? Communications were a clustermess, yeah, and the locals really, truly screwed up what was supposed to be their jobs - and then spent so much time butt-covering that no real fix ever got made to their original mess - but to impute that all to Bush is just wishful thinking on your part.

I'm guessing that you would like a world where the feds move in casually and quickly and take over the role of our local governments whenever they deemed it desirable. I wouldn't, for many historical reasons, and apparently neither would a lot of other voters.

Many of us are more than willing to hold Bush accountable. When we see evidence that he's screwed up, that'll happen. You've not given that evidence here at all, so don't decry the lack of condemnation of him on our parts.

PB-Your post is a load of adolescent VOMIT. Can I ask what you do for a living? And why do you live in this country? EVERYWHERE else is so much better but somehow people keep a-coming to this last bastion of backwardness and no opportunity. God help you-you're a fool.

Who's "Marie Anne Tuinette" ?

Marie Anne Tuinette is the goddess on planet Wharko responsible for harmonizing the intergalactic tonalities of the Wharkites, which are then beamed throughout the universe, picked up by the wire services, and transcripted for broadcast and publication in America by the Wharkanettes, which are then amplified and repeated by the Wharkos on the internet.

Where've you been?

C'mon Colleen, surely you see the boats jammed with desperate people that daily flee Florida for Cuba. Surely you see the thousands that daily escape into Mexico and the crowds begging for visas at the consulates in our major cities. What's wrong with you?

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