Happy National Preparedness Month

There's irony and then there's irony:

National Preparedness Month is a nationwide effort held each September to encourage Americans to take simple steps to prepare for emergencies in their homes, businesses and schools. National Preparedness Month 2005 is being co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the American Red Cross. Throughout September, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the American Red Cross will work with a wide variety of organizations, including local, state and federal government agencies and the private sector, to highlight the importance of emergency preparedness and promote individual involvement through events and activities across the nation.

Look here -- and note the blonde-haired white girl, looking all safe & comfortable. Hmm... I didn't see many blonde-haired white girls in the Superdome, so... Hey, job well done, Homeland Security!
This call, however, puzzled me:

The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.

Oh, wait, I get it: no Red Cross = more dead people = fewer living people, making the evacuation, when they finally got around to it, that much easier! Brilliant!
Yes, die Heimat is in the good hands of Michael Chertoff, who, days after Katrina hit, had no idea that thousands of people were in the New Orleans convention center -- and has the balls to blame the media [UPDATE], the local government, and the impoverished residents who could not evacuate. Un-fucking-believable. I guess he now qualifies for a promotion in this Bush administration.
BTW, if you were wondering, VP Dick Cheney has been hard at work -- making sure the cleanup and rebuilding contracts go to Halliburton. Sound familiar?
Krugman, once again, nails it:

Ideological cynicism about government easily morphs into a readiness to treat government spending as a way to reward your friends. After all, if you don't believe government can do any good, why not?
***
[The Bush administration's contempt for FEMA] reflects a general hostility to the role of government as a force for good. And Americans living along the Gulf Coast have now reaped the consequences of that hostility

Put another way, under BushCo, government is indeed a force for good, but "good" is defined in terms of the wealthy white Christian male in the mirror.
As Mike Whitney writes, the poor & black

were left to face the rising waters and the government neglect without any prospect of real assistance. When you can't buy your way out, you're left to rot; that's how the "invisible hand" of the free market operates. The message is clear: if you have nothing, you are nothing.

New slogan for the GOP: "If You're Brown, It's Trickle Down or Drown"