Catfish-and-Grits

You have been hearing from the "so-called compassionate" conservative right, on these weekend TV shows, the question of "Why do THESE people stay in a flood plains?". Hey, I guess it is valid question, but one that is misguided.

Most of these conservatives have never visited their downtown projects (every city has them) but feel they can make asinine comments --- like Santorum - (R), congressionman from Pennsylvania, saying there should be a penalty for living in regions more likely to be damaged by natural disaster. Did you ever think that the reason people settle in areas like a flood plain is because of the affordability of housing. The property value of a flood plain, or an area along an earthquake fault line, is lower than a surburban area. 70% of the people who live in povert are African American. I have also heard the terms "animalistic", "uncivilized", "under-educated" roll off of peoples tougue a little to easy. These terms were also used during Slavery and the Jim Crow era (coincident........ I think not......just listen to the disgusting Rush Limbaugh's callers).

Perhaps if we had a "fair and balanced" health care system and an increase in minimum wage by $0.25 every 5 years, people ( not only mega-corporations ) could partake of this "wonderful" economy that's creating nothing but a housing bubble. Katrina has pulled the sheet off of american eyes showing something very ugly about race and economic disparities. And economics branches into education, jobs, and standard of living.

All these republicans don't want to play the "blame game" ( mainly because this reflect bad on them; am I to believe that if Katrina had occured under Clinton, resmuglicans would have this same attitude of no blame....absolutely not....their all hypocrits ). I submit to you that we must help in the rebuilding process, but also assess and analyze Katrina response problems, because I have never trusted the Bush administration to report the truth. I was so glad we had so many reporters on the scene reporting, because if the Bush administration had anything to do with it we would get the "damage control" version of events.

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