I keep hearing the term “natural disaster,” that Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst “natural disasters” in our nation’s history, that the devastation in New Orleans is a “natural disaster.” Yes, this is a disaster, and yes, it is natural, given that water likes to flow downhill and much of New Orleans is below sea level.

But this is not a natural disaster. It is a federal disaster and the blame for it sits squarely on President Bush’s shoulders.

For ten years, the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project has been under way, with the Army Corps of Engineers spending $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations. After 2003, federal SELA spending dropped to a trickle. In 2004, Bush proposed spending less than 20% of what was needed for Lake Pontchartrain. The “war” in Iraq, homeland “security,” federal tax cuts — all these things were more important than protecting New Orleans from a “natural disaster.” And now New Orleans is underwater, a federal disaster.

People are dying there. People are starving there. People are trapped there. People are in desperation there. New Orleans is in anarchy. And where is the government? Where is FEMA? Where is any fucking help for these people at all??? We can “rebuild” a country that doesn’t want us there, but we can’t care for our own citizens, we can’t save our own people, we can’t count on our President to do anything more than mouth empty platitudes about how it’s going to be “hard work.”

I am furious and I am disgusted.

If you’ve ever gotten even a smile out of reading these pages, you can pay me back by donating to the Red Cross. Those people in the South need more help than they’re ever going to get from Bush. They need our help. So let’s help them.