This FEMA Trailer Sure Does Stink
Posted on
Friday, July 20, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
Something at FEMA stinks. We've known this since 2005, of course, when the bodies of dead New Orleans residents started flowing down Canal Street as the survivors of Katrina were left to boil in the destruction of the Superdome. But since those early days, Americans seem to have assumed that FEMA would take care of the problems, would bring New Orleans back from the brink of destruction, despite all evidence to the contrary. Congress seemed totally uninterested in figuring out how such a tragedy could occur on US Soil, at least until the Democrats regained a majority in the House and Senate. Now we know that the stench coming from FEMA smells like formaldehyde.
That's right, FEMA was providing residents of New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast with trailers so full of formaldehyde, the air was literally killing them. For over a year now, FEMA field staff had let the top brass at the agency know of this problem, and for over a year, their pleas were ignored. Not because there was no evidence, because the one time FEMA actually allowed testing of a trailer under living conditions, the trailer was found to have 75 times more formaldehyde than is allowed in the workplace. After that one test found a positive result, they halted testing. Why? According to Rep. Henry Waxman's statement in the video linked above, because FEMA attorneys didn't want FEMA to have to deal with the issue.
What is it these poor, mostly black homeless bums from New Orleans want? FEMA got them a damn trailer for free. They want to be able to breathe in it? If FEMA let those subhumans breathe in their trailers, FEMA might have to actually clean up their city which is still in ruins. That's like... hard and stuff. Oh and it doesn't enrich Republican donors, or land developers looking to scoop up land on the cheap.
I feel it necessary to point out that the preceding paragraph was written with an overdose of sarcasm. But it really does seem as if FEMA and Homeland Security really does want to exterminate the residents of New Orleans. First, we let them swelter in ungodly heat, flood waters and filth for almost a week claiming that entry to the city was impossible, even when we saw hordes of reporters and actors sweltering alongside the city's residents. Then we discovered that the levees were not only not built to withstand a hurricane of Katrina's strength, but were built incorrectly as well. Next, we found out that a private company charged with rebuilding and upgrading New Orleans' flood-prevention pumps was incompetent and incapable of doing so. And now this. The message is clear. Homeland Security and the Bush Administration don't just dislike poor black people, they are actively engaged in trying to exterminate the poor mendicants.
When do they start sending in the trains to collect the unwashed masses?
That's right, FEMA was providing residents of New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast with trailers so full of formaldehyde, the air was literally killing them. For over a year now, FEMA field staff had let the top brass at the agency know of this problem, and for over a year, their pleas were ignored. Not because there was no evidence, because the one time FEMA actually allowed testing of a trailer under living conditions, the trailer was found to have 75 times more formaldehyde than is allowed in the workplace. After that one test found a positive result, they halted testing. Why? According to Rep. Henry Waxman's statement in the video linked above, because FEMA attorneys didn't want FEMA to have to deal with the issue.
What is it these poor, mostly black homeless bums from New Orleans want? FEMA got them a damn trailer for free. They want to be able to breathe in it? If FEMA let those subhumans breathe in their trailers, FEMA might have to actually clean up their city which is still in ruins. That's like... hard and stuff. Oh and it doesn't enrich Republican donors, or land developers looking to scoop up land on the cheap.
I feel it necessary to point out that the preceding paragraph was written with an overdose of sarcasm. But it really does seem as if FEMA and Homeland Security really does want to exterminate the residents of New Orleans. First, we let them swelter in ungodly heat, flood waters and filth for almost a week claiming that entry to the city was impossible, even when we saw hordes of reporters and actors sweltering alongside the city's residents. Then we discovered that the levees were not only not built to withstand a hurricane of Katrina's strength, but were built incorrectly as well. Next, we found out that a private company charged with rebuilding and upgrading New Orleans' flood-prevention pumps was incompetent and incapable of doing so. And now this. The message is clear. Homeland Security and the Bush Administration don't just dislike poor black people, they are actively engaged in trying to exterminate the poor mendicants.
When do they start sending in the trains to collect the unwashed masses?
Labels: Bush Administration, Corporate Corruption, Dick Cheney, Fascism, Government Corruption, Politics, Privatization
posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 3:37 PM
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