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September 02, 2008
Unscheduled Replay
Ever since this amazing Presidential campaign began (right after Dubya's second inauguration) it’s been obvious that the last quarter of 2008 had the potential to become a political watershed rivaling that of 1968. Given that both Labor Day and the GOP National Convention had long been scheduled for September First, an improbable replay of Katrina on the same day became an unanticipated opportunity to watch history being revised in real time.I can’t help noting that the simultaneous cancellation of most GOP opening ceremonies in Saint Paul actually heightened my own understanding of the degree to which greed and the pursuit of financial power have been central to the GOP's denial of global warming and its stubborn denial that petroleum consumption has impacted weather patterns has not impressed many others with an ability to understand the logic of empirical science.
A further irony is that FEMA’s frantic efforts to show how much they learned from Katrina also reminded many of how inept they were three short years ago. Indeed, an important reason FEMA’s job was easier this time around is that New Orleans' population is still only a fraction of what it had been before Katrina.
Parenthetically, I’m able to point out a few of the most grotesque absurdities now evident only because history is being so compressed by technology that its principal actors have such limited time for devising plausible cover stories.
A remaining variable, one that will be tested later this Fall, is the degree to which the American public has overcome its endemic racism.
Doctor Tom
Posted by tjeffo at September 2, 2008 04:54 AM