FEMA's disgrace

Now the agency has announced that, due to revelations of alleged cases of post-Katrina fraud, it is cutting the benefits for future disaster victims from $2,000 to $500.

Wow.

What a society we live in. It must be ever so convenient for the conservative Republicans running FEMA for the Bush administration to have had that recent GAO report about people who used their relief money to go to football games, purchase "adult erotica products," and alcohol. We should remember, too, that the GAO is the investigative arm of Congress, controlled by conservative Republicans.

None of whom, of course, would have ever gone to a football game, watched porn, or had a drink...

The judgements implicit in the current government witchhunt against storm survivors are rich with racism and classism. I'll say it here, because I fear no one in the major press outlets is going to get involved with this issue. I hope I'm wrong about that, and some prominant columnists take this on, but if not, you can count on this blogspace to monitor FEMA's crimes against the good people of the Gulf Coast.

I had the privilege of meeting many East Biloxi residents last winter. Their average annual income was around $10,000. They'd lost everything they owned in the storm. The government aid they received helped them buy clothes for their kids, food to eat, tents and air mattresses to sleep on.

Was anyone drinking? You better believe it. The traumatic aftermath of this storm appears to have helped an entire generation of locals discover the benefits of self-medication, or maybe they were already indulging before Katrina, I'm not sure.

If FEMA's current initiatives to (1) hunt down people occcupying trailers "illegitimately" and throw them out; (2) cut benefits for future storm victims by 75%; and (3) play politics by blaming the victims for their poverty and lack of options all succeed, it will represent a major historical stain on this nation's record.

This is not an America I could ever feel any loyalty to; it is instead a cruel, selfish and uncompassionate society. Consider this: If the way we treat the neediest and most vulnerable among us is an indication of our collective moral character, given what is happening right now to the people of the Gulf Coast, we have none.