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16891 [lbo-talk] Chertoff: "Katrina Scenario Did Not Exist" -- rank: 1000

andie nachgeborenen wrote: >I know Chertoff slightly. I think he's being honest. I >doh't think he'd tell what he thought to be a lie if >prompted ina briefing. He was, among other things, a >(really good) US Attorney and a federal appellate >judge, two things that give one an allergy to bald >faced lying. Justin, what he's saying just isn't credible. Precisely what happened in NO was widely forecast. FEMA had to have known it. How could he say that they had no idea of the suf ...

Document Size:	5489
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Sep 4 14:35:07 PDT 2005

16892 [lbo-talk] poll: 45% of Americans have their heads hopelessly wedged up their asses -- rank: 1000

[This si one of the most depressing polls I've ever read. Bush looks to be suffering no political damage, at least on first read. The country is split almost 50/50 on Bush's response to the crisis - and of those who disapprove, just 31% do so strongly. Americans are most distressed about gas prices; 58% have a positive view of search & rescue operations. Almost half say the deployment of resources to Iraq had no effect on the response. Less than half feel angry or ashamed. Two-thirds of Amer ...

Document Size:	22196
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Sep 4 13:50:49 PDT 2005

16893 [lbo-talk] question about poverty statistics -- rank: 1000

stannard67 at aol.com wrote: >Of the cited increase in poverty, a conservative colleague of mine >retorted: "The percentage of Americans 'living in poverty' is >guaranteed to increase in any year where the growth in the immigrant >population exceeds the growth in the native population. Which is >every year. Its a statistical illusion which, if you controlled for >status of immigration, vanishes." But poverty declined for most of the 1990s, a time when immigration was ...

Document Size:	6218
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Sep 4 14:04:34 PDT 2005

16894 [lbo-talk] bush and zero tolerance -- rank: 1000

ravi wrote: >btw, i havent been posting links because i am assuming everyone is >tracking this stuff anyway, but just in case not: there is a lot of news >footage on the net with some decent reporting: there is even one of >geraldo crying. there is ted koppel, paula zahn with the fema chief. >there's the NO mayor's famous radio interview bit. there's the rap >dude's "bush doesn't care about black people" clip. there's some >weatherman/reporter blasting senator land ...

Document Size:	5578
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Sep 4 13:53:31 PDT 2005

16895 [lbo-talk] a liberal tries to understand -- rank: 1000

[this is from Jason DeParle's piece in today's NYT week in review] Even people who had spent a lifetime studying race and class found themselves slack-jawed. "This is a pretty graphic illustration of who gets left behind in this society - in a literal way," said Christopher Jencks, a sociologist glued to the televised images from his office at Harvard. Surprised to have found himself surprised, Mr. Jencks took to thinking out loud. "Maybe it's just an in-the-face version of someth ...

Document Size:	5421
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Sep 4 09:57:58 PDT 2005

16896 [lbo-talk] FEMA: slashing entitlements, getting it back to the states -- rank: 1000

New York Times - September 3, 2005 Leader of Federal Effort Feels the Heat By ERIC LIPTON and SCOTT SHANE WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 - On Thursday night, Michael D. Brown, the federal government's point man for managing the response to Hurricane Katrina, made a remarkable confession on live television. Speaking of the thousands stranded at the convention center in New Orleans without food or water, Mr. Brown said that his agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, had just learned of their plight ...

Document Size:	11921
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Sep 3 18:28:34 PDT 2005

16897 [lbo-talk] world stunned by US idiocy, brutality -- rank: 1000

Carl Remick wrote: >Alexander Cockburn had a good column about this today Wow that was truly great. Reminds me of why I fell for him in 1976. Doug

Document Size:	4788
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Sep 3 17:54:53 PDT 2005

16898 [lbo-talk] world stunned by US idiocy, brutality -- rank: 1000

Chuck0 wrote: >But is there a point where the system just simply breaks? Are they >just going to print more money to finance all of the reconstruction >contracts? I bet the Reps throw lots of money into this, which will be borrowed and go to their friends. Some congressional idiot was quoted in the paper as thinking about tax cuts. Doug

Document Size:	5012
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Sep 3 17:52:24 PDT 2005

16899 [lbo-talk] world stunned by US idiocy, brutality -- rank: 1000

Chuck0 wrote: >I've been kind of amazed that the stock market didn't finish below >10,000 this week. Granted, it had a bad week, but you would think >that these capitalist investors would see the handwriting on the >wall. Leaving aside the $100 billion price tag that may be involved >in saving and rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, wouldn't >the higher gas prices lead to inflation and other instability? The >U.S. trade deficit is high, Iraq costs money, the Empire an ...

Document Size:	5654
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Sep 3 08:24:34 PDT 2005

16900 [lbo-talk] world stunned by US idiocy, brutality -- rank: 1000

Michael Perelman wrote: >Reagan went down also but then recovered. Yeah, but Reagan was the beginning of the present era of militarized neoliberalism. W looks like its decadence. Maybe I'm being too optimistic. Doug

Document Size:	4837
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Sep 3 08:23:05 PDT 2005

16901 [lbo-talk] Re: death tax -- rank: 1000

Michael Catolico wrote: >does anyone know if there is some research/data on how much >inheritance actually passes to heirs annually? Extremely hard to come by. I reviewed the state of the literature in Wall Street, and the consensus was that 50-75% of existing personal wealth was the result of inheritance, or the appreciation of inherited assets. But no one really knows. Doug

Document Size:	4858
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Sep 3 08:20:58 PDT 2005

16902 [lbo-talk] NYC demo -- rank: 1000

What's the diff between "I told you so" and pointing out all the wretched shit that led to this disaster - racism, poverty, environmental degradation, evisceration of the public sector, the idiot complacency of our leaders, etc. This is big stuff, and how do you point it out without "making people sick"? Doug

Document Size:	4669
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Sep 3 08:20:08 PDT 2005

16903 [lbo-talk] NYC demo -- rank: 1000

Scissors MacGillicutty wrote: >Got down to Union Square about 5:20, and didn't see anyone at first. >There was a little Camp Casey there, along with some puppet show >for...well, something. Then I noticed a woman holding a hand written >sign with the URL of the organization Doug posted saying that the demo >was assemblng up at *Times Square*. > >I suppose I should have gone up there, but I didn't. OTOH, I'm peeved >that the org. behind this-RCP or not-didn't get it toge ...

Document Size:	5110
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Sep 3 08:18:07 PDT 2005

16904 [lbo-talk] NYC demo -- rank: 1000

Carrol Cox wrote: >The only reason, _ever_, for demonstrating is to attract more >people for the next demonstration or (better) for the next meeting of >the group doing the organizing. <http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Action.html> So what is the ideology of the activist left (and by that we mean the global justice, peace, media democracy, community organizing, financial populist, and green movements)? Socialist? Mostly not - too state-phobic. Some actvisits are anarchists - bu ...

Document Size:	6280
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Sep 3 08:17:12 PDT 2005

16905 [lbo-talk] Halliburton on the scene! -- rank: 1000

<http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/hurricane_katrina.html> Halliburton gets Katrina contract, hires former FEMA director 1 Sept. 2005 WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 (HalliburtonWatch.org) -- The US Navy asked Halliburton to repair naval facilities damaged by Hurricane Katrina, the Houston Chronicle reported today. The work was assigned to Halliburton's KBR subsidiary under the Navy's $500 million CONCAP contract awarded to KBR in 2001 and renewed in 2004. The repairs will take place in Louisiana a ...

Document Size:	7473
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Sep 3 08:11:41 PDT 2005