Right-wing politicians react to Katrina: Redux
You mean there's more?
Yep.
This time featuring Dick Cheney (who, like Mr. Morris, does a damn good job of living up to his name), Trent Lott (who proves just how much Bush loves African-Americans), and religious wackos of all stripes (who seem to consider Katrina one of their holy crusaders).
While the good people of New Orleans are starving to death in a ruined city or living under squallid conditions in refugee camps, often travelling without knowing which state the're being shipped to, Crashcart has taken it upon himself to shop for yet another stately manor in a posh resort town along Maryland's Eastern shore. But are you really that surprised?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...090401391.html
This fine Southern gentleman says it better than I ever could: Fuck yourself, Mr. Vice President!
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/09/08.html#a4856
Meanwhile, Our Dear Leader decides to make light of Mississippi's plight by discussing the future of his good friend Trent Lott's house: "Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house ... there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch." Gee, Mr. Bush, wasn't it African-Americans who were hardest hit by this catastrophic storm? And was it not Senator Lott who stated that America would be better off had every state followed South Carolina's lead in voting for segregationist candidate Strom "Sir Lynch-a-Lot" Thurmond during the 1948 Presidential election? Hmmm...Yep...I think Bush is just suffering from a bout of cognitive dissonance and really does care about the plight of Black people. *snickers*
Anyways, here's the link:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...101329,00.html
Just for a bit of morbid fun, let's close things off with some comments from the fundamentalist peanut gallery: Prepare to be more disgusted than ever.
From prominent anti-abortion activist Steve Lefemine --
"In my belief, God judged New Orleans for the sin of shedding innocent blood through abortion," said Lefemine, who e-mailed the weather map to activists and put a message on the answering machine of his organization, Columbia Christians for Life.
"Providence punishes national sins by national calamities," it said. "Greater divine judgment is coming upon America unless we repent of the national sin of abortion."
Meanwhile, Kuwaiti official Muhammad Yousef Mlaifi wrote that "It is almost certain that this is a wind of torment and evil that Allah has sent to this American empire." in Arabic newspaper Al-Siyassa. The headline? "The Terrorist Katrina is One of the Soldiers of Allah ... "
Michael Marcavge, head of the Southern Baptist-endorsed fundamentalist organisation Repent America, seems to consider Katrina one of the weapons in God's homophobic arsenal:
"We take no joy in the death of innocent people, But we believe that God is in control of the weather. The day Bourbon Street and the French Quarter was flooded was the day that 125,000 homosexuals were going to be celebrating sin in the streets. ... We're calling it an act of God."
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsourc...&date=20050904
As disgusting as these comments have been, the bottom of the barrel comes from an unlikely source: Jewish extremists, who have traditionally been less vocal and less animated than their Christian and Muslim cousins.
Ariel Natan Pasko, a fairly mainstream Jewish analyst, had the following to say:
"America's support for the expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif in Gaza ran counter to G-d's plan, and it's clear that His 'payback time' came swift and furious, as Hurricane Katrina uprooted whole communities along America's Gulf Coast."
and
"Water is a symbol of 'chesed â?? kindness' according to the Torah, and the Torah itself is likened to water, according to Jewish tradition. Since America had no compassion for the Jews of Gaza, water was used to punish America just as the flood in Noah's time."
Even more disgusting, the former Sephardi (i.e. European Jew) chief Rabbi of Israel, Ovadia Yosef, made comments with some particularly nasty racist overtones.
"There was a tsunami and there were horrible natural disasters. It's all a result of too little Torah study Over there [Louisiana] is where black people live. Do blacks learn Torah? 'All right,' said God, 'let's bring a tsunami and drown them.'"
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...=1006953079865
These comments are especially shocking, given the mass persecution that Jews have suffered throughout their history, culminating in the Holocaust, and given that among White demographics in the U.S., European Jews like Rabbi Yosef were by far the staunchest supporters of Martin Luther King Jr's Civil Rights movement...
Just sickening, really. This bastard's spending eternity watching graphic Holocaust videos at Chez Satan (Sorry conservatives: The devil's a Frenchy.) as retribution for his unrepentant racism and for his love of human suffering.
