Katrina a canadian observation

Re-post froma group I belong to

I am sure no disrespect for the victims of Katrina was intended by the person who put the Bush Vacation image together, who and wherever he or she is.

And no disrespect was intended when I posted it.

The image is in my opinion a brilliant, biting commentary on the ENORMOUS, mind-numbing disrespect paid by the White House to those very victims in the past days. As the storm passed and the water flooded in, Bush and Cheney kept on vacationing for days before cluing in that people were demanding their leadership; Condi went on a shopping spree in New York to buy shoes before being browbeaten by a citizen on the street for doing nothing as people suffered, whence she hightailed it back to Washington.

Since then, their priority has been political damage control - saving their own sorry hides and casting desperately for anyone else they can blame - before belatedly pulling together a response that has been a disaster in its own right.

Being that I am a ctizen of Canada, you may say this is none of my business: but when Washington coughs, the world catches cold. The supposed leader of the free world is responsible to all who believe in democracy. We don't hate Americans, but we so wish our friends in America would wake up to the perversion of democracy that is taking place under the banner of "freedom on the march".

New Orleans is a tragedy, and I couldn't agree more that it is not a laughing matter. Rock and Roll Boys posted a tribute with links to where you can help a week ago, with no comment on who is to blame.

The photo in question is a classic example of black humour, a joke intended to expose an absurd response by the established order to a deadly serious situation.

No Vince, no disrespect was intended to you, to your great country, or to the victims of this tragedy with this photo. Nothing like this has happpened to an American city since the Chicago fire of 1871 or the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.

But I imagine that in seeing the image I posted, most citizens of New Orleans would see the image for what it is, and agree wholeheartedly on the sorry state of leadership today that it represents.