The Redemption of Michael Brown
Until we’re forced to come face to face with the darkness, we’re really not interested in dealing with it at all. Now that Brownie has, he’s able to move out of this environment, and we’re left onstage. It’s us that’s left onstage. Brownie is able to take his curtain call and leave the space.
Steve Cosson on Open Source
To Listen: Get Adobe Flash Player, or download an mp3 at the bottom of the post.
An American play in three acts.
Everyman?
We didn’t pay much attention to the rise of Michael Brown. We took dark pleasure in watching him get sacked as a Congress fell all over itself to censure him. Now, as he hits the talk shows again and we see video of him doing his job, he’s emerged as an oddly sympathetic figure; certainly not worthy to be head of FEMA, but a credible witness to incompetence and willing, at least, to concede his own part in disaster.
And willing, in his concession, to exact his revenge.
It’s worthy of Eugene O’Neill. Or of Shakespeare. We’d like to think that we examine politics as a collection of issues and choices, but we don’t. We watch it like theater; we look for characters we already understand. Hillary Clinton was and always will be Lady Macbeth. George W. Bush established himself as Prince Hal in 2000, a myth that is only now beginning to lose its shine.
Who, then, is Michael Brown? Playwright Jim Fitzmorris suggested this afternoon that Brown is of King Lear, the unnamed servant who refuses — too late and to no effect — to pluck out Gloucester’s eye. In “Marriage of Figaro,” the lickspittle servant gets the better of his master. Did that happen this week, as the AP’s video reveals a capable-sounding Brown and an inattentive Bush?
What dialogue are we missing, in this play of ours? What speeches to the audience? When do our characters recognize their own hubris? When does the audience recognize its own complicity? (Or do you remember, in April of 2003, tearing your hair out in outrage as Brown was nominated?) Is it a history? A Moliere farce? A commedia dell’arte?
Help us write the script. Below is an act-by-act synopsis; as you post to this thread, please do so in the form of lines from a stage or screenplay.
ACT I
An empire reshuffles its bureaucracy and a man of little consequence — a mediocre lawyer from a small town — is nominated for a great position. Unaware or unconcerned with his own limitations, he accepts. In the distance, a prince fights a war. As the act closes, we hear news of a tempest offshore.
ACT II
The tempest arrives; the man, though satisfied that he has fulfilled his job, is proved incapable. Hundreds die. The empire, shamed and outraged, humiliates the man and demands that he be driven from office. His failure becomes a spectacle. The prince, a friend, stands by.
ACT III
Scapegoated and alone, the man is confronts his own inability. He turns on the prince and the empire that hounded him. He is holding up a mirror…
Lawrence O’Donnell
-
Author, analyst, former Hill senior staffer, producer and writer for “The West Wing”O’Donnell was stuck on the set and couldn’t make it to the show.
Sidney Blumenthal
- Former senior adviser to President Clinton and Washington bureau chief of Salon.com
Jim Fitzmorris
-
Professor, Department of Theater and Dance, Tulane University
Playwright who describes process as “infuriating scoundrels by barely changing them into fictional characters.”
Steve Cosson
- Founding Artistic Director of New York based theater company The Civilians
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March 6th, 2006 at 11:09 pm
Wicked Queen Barbara puts a happy face on the disaster…
“What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle) – this is working very well for them.”
Her son the evil Prince joins in her delusion…
The good news is – and it’s hard for some to see it now – that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott’s house – he’s lost his entire house – there’s going to be a fantastic house. And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch.”
March 7th, 2006 at 1:16 am
In 2004, 3 of the 5 most largest, most expensive huricanes in the history of the US hit Florida in 1 year. Brown was the Director of FEMA for all of them and a Lexus / NEXUS search will fail to find one bad article regarding his / FEMA’s performance during that period.
And in response to peggysue’s post above involving the politics of the situation – the aftermath of Katrina will wipe Democratic machine politics off the map of the Central Southern Coast.
If you look at the demographics of elections in LA, Landreau and most other statewide Dems ahve been elected by the demograhic groups who left NO and will who will never return.
I’m sure that the biggest problem Katrina will cause Rove is that has had to spend alot of time amending his computer model that he uses to predict elections there.
March 7th, 2006 at 3:29 am
I’m just little confused, if we get to write the screenplay, why do get to write the “act by act synopsis? Apparently, you only want people you can riff off your premise? What playwright works like this?
March 7th, 2006 at 3:30 am
“who can riff off your premise”
March 7th, 2006 at 6:55 am
A Post Katrina Morale Huddle Up for the beleaguered FEMA troops is best expressed as a mini reenactment told by Mary Katherine Gallagher playing the part of Blake from David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross”:
Blake: We’re adding a little something to this month’s sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize?
[Holds up prize]
Blake: Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired.
March 7th, 2006 at 10:22 am
Will the Empire Strike Back! Who will write the script? David Mamet or James Lee Burke?
March 7th, 2006 at 10:24 am
Brown’s realization of His Higher Power: “Nunc Caepit,Domine,Nunc Caepit”
March 7th, 2006 at 11:00 am
Nother:
You have a point, and it’s something we talked about in yesterday’s meeting. The three-act structure won out because providing an assignment with no structure whatsoever seemed too open-ended. If your inner playwright feels confined, feel free to come up with your own. We’re all ears.
March 7th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
You are, of course, free to write whatever play you like. But to answer nother’s question “What playwright works like this,” Shakespeare adapted several of his plays from popular histories; Miller wrote “The Crucible” from an American legend, and Brecht created “Threepenny Opera” from a translation of a two-hundred-year-old English opera. Lots of playwrights start from a loose framework.
March 7th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
I do think that one of the main characters of the play has to be The Subjects. The loyal subjects who were convinced that this royal family would put things ‘right’ in Denmark. Our royal family was elected after all. Twice. (this time around, more if you count the predecessor)
How many people in LA and MS and FL, for that matter, voted for this administration? How many of those who did still feel good about it? And does our character have a change of heart? Does our character see the light? Will our character rise up against the Empire? Or will it just change the nominal head and hope that helps?
I do have a problem with applying the Star Wars metaphor, if that’s the Empire we are referring to. Where’s our resistance? Who’s our Luke/Leia/Han Solo? Much less our Obi Wan.
Or will our play end with the end of elections? Pull the veil off that false sense of empowerment…
Does our play end with hope or despair?
March 7th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
Act III, Scene 2 (good luck on everything up to and after that point, fellow contributors!):
Place: Some scenic courthouse square in Iowa, November 2008. Placards draped prominently reading, “We love you, Brownie!”, “Way to go, Brownie!”, “All the way with Brownie!”
Presidential hopeful Michael Brown, battered but increasingly hopeful, steps up to speak to an unexpectedly huge crowd on the courthouse steps. His opening words are, “Gerald Ford once said, ‘I’m only a Ford, not a Lincoln.’ Surely there must be something as profound that I could say, but I’m just a humble man, and such polished talk doesn’t come easily to me. But I’m here for you!”….
March 7th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
Act I, Scene 1: A large open field with scrub brush and live oaks, in the distance a dog is heard yowling. It is just before sunrise and there is a haze of groundfog. Three men seem to emerge from the underbrush dressed in hunting attire, holding shotguns and leading three horses.
Earl of McCarthy: When do you think we three should meet again? In DC, New Orleans or back here in Texas?
King Reagan: Well, when Afganistan’s done, when they’ve lost and we’ve won.
Cardinal Renquist: Can we make it near sunset this time.
McCarthy: But where?
Reagan: Let’s meet back at the ranch.
Renquist: We’ll catch up with Brownie there.
Reagan: Giddap Trigger.
McCarthy: I hear Ol’ Rove baying again.
Renquist: Let’s go.
All: All is fair when wind is foul. Cover your tracks with fog and filthy lies.
Reagan: Well there you go again.
They disappear in the fog.
March 7th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
Winston: thanks for providing us the predictably consistent view from Fox News Nation. (You do know that we can find this sort of reliable propaganda on our very own TV sets, don’t you?
)
I’m still waiting for your citation of the part of the 9-11 Commission’s Final Report that calls Joe Wilson ‘a liar’, btw, on the Civil War in Iraq thread…nudge, poke, prod…
March 7th, 2006 at 3:37 pm
Hey Winston, love it. I know you’re a talker; now give that comment to me again, this time using dialogue. Who’re the characters? Is the media the Greek chorus?
March 7th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
plaintext: Good one!
Another suitable author that comes to mind is John Berendt who wrote Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and City of Falling Angels both nonfiction that reads like drama.
March 7th, 2006 at 3:51 pm
Act III, Scene One: our little man is holding the mirror, gazing into it despairingly.
Brown: “A hell of a job, Brownie.” A hell of a job?! Could he really be that obtuse? Or was he mocking me – could he really be that subtle? He wrote my epigram as he signed my death warrant, speaking those six words. How is it that the foul effluvia of failure do not, will not stick to that man? How such an obviously false declaration reflects poorly not on him, but on me? By those words I will be remembered, by their hollow meaning and the howls of outrage that followed, and not by any of my deeds. Could he have known how neatly he skewered me with his praise? Or was it another of his lucky missteps? It doesn’t matter – I will have my revenge, I will have my say, and I will wash this blood from my hands, if it takes the rest of my life, or his…
March 7th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
“NOLA Darling”
Queue to gradual fade in of Phillip Glass composition.
A scene in a room where we find Brownie and Chertoff standing, facing each other. Our view is through the Errol Morris Interrotron. Both men are holding blackberries. Miss Beasley scampers behind the protagonists at random intervals.
Text begins to scroll across the screen at random positions, right to left. In the background various pictures and graphics fade in and fade out in free association. Flyover pictures of NOLA under water, Grover Norquist sitting in a bathtub, Text from H.L. Mencken’s Bathtub Hoax, Christo’s Umbrellas pounded by a typhoon, Bush playing guitar, A Roy Lichtenstein-esque cartoon of Nero playing a violin under the phrase “Heckava Job”, Anderson Cooper watching dogs chewing on a corpse, John Stewart doing a spit take, A Wikipedia graphic of the term “spit-take”, Senator Mary Landrieu running her handlers through a spanking machine, various Army Corps of Engineer design review documents, Woody Allen backing out of a scene, Mayor Ray Nagin eating a ganache truffle, A picture of Al Campanis and Harry Edwards, various collage edits of the “heckuva job” press conference creating a cubist graphic, the russian roulette scene from “The Deer Hunter”, Jerry Seinfeld eating a black & white cookie, Mayor Quimby jumping on an airplane with a suitcase of loot, a sweaty President Bush boarding air force one, a Montgomery Burns “Excellent” quietly wafting over the Phillip Glass piece, …
Meanwhile a stream of excruicatingly mediocre and banal text continues to pour across the screen:
Which restaurants serve the best hush puppies and catfish, quality of nearby clothing outlets, mojitos v margaritas, will the Interrotron make us look chubby?, an explanation about the recent addition of hunting trip packages with VP Cheney as part of severence settlements, Chertoff and his use of the loopy Lennin look, retaining Fred A. Leuchter, Jr for the 2006 and 2008 Truthiness tour, …
While the ‘action’ continues, Morris quietly decides to shelve the project until it can be integrated into a beer commercial.
March 7th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
Brownie: “I am brown; I cannot drown.”
(Makes you think more about Mayor Nagin’s chocolate comment).
March 7th, 2006 at 4:55 pm
Minor correction of my 3:59 entry. Queue should be Cue…one of several brain f*arts.
March 7th, 2006 at 8:41 pm
Chris
This is very entertaining, but if you want to talk to the people who need to hear more about Bush’s incompetence and outrageous behavior, you have to write your play with Biblical themes. You are simply talking to yourselves – ourselves – when you bring in Sophocles or Shakespeare.
What if Noah had turned a deaf ear to God’s message to build an ark, and then blamed the elephant and all the other animals for drowning themselves.
Dick Gregory
March 7th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
Wonderful! Great idea for a very creative show! It is only for us, unfortunately. Noone is going to be convinced of anything they don’t already know, not by this show. I agree that the Biblical analogy would work best if you decide to take the show on the road.
Fitzmorris is something else! He just keeps going…..
March 7th, 2006 at 9:06 pm
I think tonight’s program was brilliant – the very idea of making a play out of this national drama/tragedy – the way you interspersed actual tapes – the ideas of the very talented program guests – the contributions Brendab picked out (especially Eflake’s) – Chris’s interactions and questions – it all added up to stimulating kind of new art form. I don’t experience a lot of the media so you fill in gaps for me and left me with new information and much to think about. Thanks so much.
Tisha
March 7th, 2006 at 11:14 pm
Nikos – If by propoganda you mean facts then I am guilty. Have you ever read the 911 Commission Report? Well, I can see from Brendan’s comments above he has read Shakespeare, Miller and Brecht and I have a copy of and have read some of the 911 report and the 3 pages with 9 pragraphs and bullet points that say Wilson is a liar, are well dog eared. I only hope that someday, if you ever need a lawyer, he doesn’t “skip over as many details and facts” as some do.
ANd Brendan, I missed the show live but it looks like I will have to make time to listen to the podcast version. I am not hip enough to repond in verse but I might be creative enough to do an interesting search to add the the frey. Here it is, how about a limerick about Greek Drama and it looks like it is the oldest surviving one:
The lords of the Persians can’t bear
The tidings from Salamis, where
Their troops went to slaughter
By land and by water.
Thus Aeschylus sings; he was there.
The Persians of Aeschylus (EHS-kee-luhs, 525–456 BC), which won the Dionysia prize at Athens in 472 BC, is the oldest surviving Greek play and the only one that deals with contemporary history. At Susa, the Persian capital, the eponymous chorus of elders, together with the worried Queen Mother Atossa, the saddened ghost of her late husband King Darius, and their defeated and miserable son King Xerxes, ponder the fate of the proud Persian expedition against Greece. Many Aeschylean details—blood on the sea, bones on the shore, Persians speared in the water like tuna fish—derive from the poet’s own experience aboard the Athenian fleet at Salamis (SAL-uh-miss) in 480.
http://www.oedilf.com/db/Lim.php?Topic=531
(And, if you want a great show about an esoteric online effort try looking at the site above. It is self described as “OEDILF
The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form – how cool is that?)
And, if the media are the chorus then who plays the main character Narcissus?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus_%28mythology%29
March 7th, 2006 at 11:18 pm
Brendan – how about the show with the math prof and Dr Livio? I’d give my left “Testiclees” to hear that one!
March 7th, 2006 at 11:24 pm
Winston wrote: “Have you ever read the 911 Commission Report? Well, I can see from Brendan’s comments above he has read Shakespeare, Miller and Brecht and I have a copy of and have read some of the 911 report and the 3 pages with 9 pragraphs and bullet points that say Wilson is a liar, are well dog eared. I only hope that someday, if you ever need a lawyer, he doesn’t “skip over as many details and factsâ€? as some do.”
No, and I keep telling you I haven’t the time!
But look, I can download it — but to save me time please tell me which section has the stuff on Wilson. See the ‘Civil War in Iraq’ thread for details.
If you’ve got the thing open on your desk, this shouldn’t be too much to ask.
Thanks.
March 8th, 2006 at 1:10 am
Here’s a good one that debates all by its lonesome the suppositions of Winston’s first post in this thread:
http://jeffweintraub.blogspot.com/2005/09/another-reason-why-americans-should.html
‘course, my man WSD won’t buy any of it since it’s only one liberal’s opinion, and the pundit’s career didn’t originate in Heritage or another of those rightwing think tanks…
But that’s okay pal. I’m not yet buying your Joe Wilson smear either.
(So tell me where it is the 9-11 Commision’s report, please! If you’re gonna smear him, give me the evidence!)
March 8th, 2006 at 1:30 am
I’ll grant you this much Winston: after listening to the show tonight, Brownie’s a more sympathetic figure. It’s obvious he had to absorb not only the Bushies’ need for a fall guy, but the cumulative ire of a zillion progressive Americans who pilloried Brown in place of Bush and the rest of the administration’s blue-blooded circus clowns.
Poor Brownie speaking so emotively before the committee really tugged at my heart strings.
Which Bush, begging for his freedom before a vindictive World Court, would never do!
March 8th, 2006 at 1:40 am
The moral of the story:
Electing to run the Federal government the party that despises the Federal government is like the College of Cardinals electing an Islamist ayatollah to the Papacy.
March 8th, 2006 at 3:48 am
Nikos, re: 1:30am post. While listening to the show, I began to see this as less of a play and more of the character study by Eliot, J. Alfred Prufrock. Brown sort of comes off as a Prufrock-esque character. http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html
Nikos, re: 1:40am post, LOL!
March 8th, 2006 at 9:38 am
Brownie played by Dan Quale? Cheney shouts Quail!
March 8th, 2006 at 10:49 am
Brown is a martyr like Fastow is just ‘a soldier doing what he was ordered. Can any one tell me when accounatbility will resturn to gov’t? To big business? Was there every any?
March 8th, 2006 at 4:02 pm
Magnificent, wonderful show.
Refreshing and, at least to my ears, so original!
I love the metaphore that the Katrina hurricane is a ‘revolution’. Katrina was probably a turning point for the Bush era. The connections are fascinating.
Just great. Thanks,
!
March 8th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
Sharp as a tack, that show.
In the best dramatic contribution to a blog that’s been podcast category the award goes to eflake.
I await: Katrina, The Opera
March 8th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
That was probably one of the best Radio Open Source episodes of them all; great work guys.
March 8th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
Nikos – there is no depending on other’s opinions here just pages and qutoes from the report, if you want to read them yourself. I did because I beleive NO ONE unless I get to fact check it myself
Page 39 and going through page 47
“Some CPD, [CIA Counterproliferation Division] officials could not recall how the office decided to contact the former ambassador, however, interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD employee, suggested his name for the trip. The CPD reports officer told Committee staff that the former ambassador’s wife ‘offered up his name’ and a memorandum to the Deputy Chief of the CPD on February 12, 2002, from the former ambassador’s wife says, ‘my husband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.’�
“The former ambassador had traveled previously to Niger on the CIA’s behalf … The former ambassador was selected for the 1999 trip after his wife mentioned to her supervisors that her husband was planning a business trip to Niger in the near future and might be willing to use his contacts in the region …�
March 8th, 2006 at 11:27 pm
Wonderfully innovative radio and blog–you initiated the beginning of a new art form with this program!
March 9th, 2006 at 12:01 am
Winston, I jumped right into the 9/11 Commission’s Report on the pages you cited — but found no mention of Wilson.
Then I checked the table of names at the Report’s end, and Wilson is absent.
Are you sure you don’t mean the Senate Foreign Intelligence Commitee’s report?
Please let me know on the ‘Civil War in Iraq’ thread, where this dialogue more properly belongs.
Thanks.
March 9th, 2006 at 3:50 am
David and Brendon, I apologize for the bluntness of my earlier post. I had written something the first time you put the show up earlier in the day and was about to post it – but than you changed it. I’ve been mad at myself the last two days (I’ve been working) for writing the blunt post without elaborating. I think that my reaction to your new show premise was defensive because it felt like you were leading the witness. I was not opposed to the idea of the 3 act play; it was just that your “act-by-act synopsis� felt a little too defined. We all know this is a left-leaning show and most of the bloggers are left-leaning. I just felt that if I happened to be a right-leaning person who came to ROS for the first time on March 6th, I would have the impression that my perspective would not be welcomed. I want our community at ROS to welcome immigrants of all stripes – even red. ROS is above preaching to the choir and I know that. I see ROS as presenting more questions than answers. I guess it just felt like you were giving us the answers upfront and asking us to rearticulate them in clever ways.
I want to emphasize, I am having so much fun on the ROS train ride, I punched my ticket for this expedition with all my heart and I’m enjoying the new vistas outside my window every day. I just get worried about the dangers of boxing ourselves in. I see ROS as less about changing others peoples minds, correcting the wrongs of society, and venting our frustrations; I see ROS more about welcoming curious people to come together, each with a zest for substance, each with a unique view from their little corner of wonder, enabling us all to view the world with new eyes, new enthusiasm, and new empathy.
With all that said, as I look back two days later at your synopsis, I see that my post was reactionary, the synopsis was more open-ended then I had first felt.
I appreciate all of you looking for different ways to traverse the new frontiers of this blogosphere, and I look forward the road ahead.
March 9th, 2006 at 5:23 am
I’ve missed so much! This is my kind of playing and I missed the play date.
I wonder if we could have an ROS retreat where we spend a whole weekend creating a play out of some piece of our current events…..
Of course, we’d all have to check into a hotel, and stay in our individual rooms where we do nothing but post on the blog all weekend. Still, imagine what we could come up with!
And what would the play about the ROS blog community be about……
March 9th, 2006 at 11:49 am
Blogging, nother, means never having to say you’re sorry.
March 9th, 2006 at 11:50 pm
Brendan!
Please.
As a proud and founding member of the ROS Mea Culpa Club, I take some exception to your laugh-inducing exculpation. Apologizing feels good – it’s gauging how profoundly to abase oneself that’s the tricky bit!
Nevertheless: thanks for the absolution. You’re an admirable referee.
March 10th, 2006 at 12:03 am
btw nother: I wasn’t daring to speak for you, but only for predictable offenders like…me. Your posts – even the one for which you apologized – aren’t in the same objectionable league. (So relax.)
And I wish you’d post more – your stuff is typically well-reasoned and sparkling. See ya.
March 10th, 2006 at 3:27 am
(sigh)
Fucking facinating show!
Just got done listening to the podcast. Novel, creative and well done. I will listen again in a few days. For I am sure there is more to take in, and around and back again. My mind doth wander…
March 10th, 2006 at 3:47 am
Thanks Brendan, that is the best endorsement for blogging I’ve heard yet!
I’ve listened to half of this podcast and I’m very excited. I’ve been yearning for more shows on art and less on the news and now you’ve managed to bridge the two – bravo.
Thanks Nikos, I marvel at your gifts with the English Language and I enjoy reading your posts. The acrobatic verbal skill of your writing reminds me of T.C. Boyle.
Allison, its fun to imagine an ROS retreat. We would have to allot a time for meditation and take bets on how long we could go without talking to each other.
As far as the play you propose about the ROS community, I’m thinking something along the lines of “The importance of being Earnest.� Striving to be earnest in our daily life is a constant struggle and sometimes we end up leading a kind of double life.
Act 1- Chris and his cohorts lay the foundation for a new kind of community, a community seeking immigrants of imagination. One by one we arrive, wide eyed and enthusiastic. Within this ROS community, we immediately tap into an earnestness that we don’t always achieve during our daily relations. As the days move forward and the threads grow longer, we begin to immerse ourselves in this community of curiosity and the earnestness it demands. Our double life begins to evaporate, the lines begin to blur, and we are slowly sliding into the fulfillment of our earnest self.
Act 2 – Just as Wilde’s play was commenting on the skewed values and morals of the Victorian era, we spend a lot of time at ROS commenting on the skewed values and morals of our current political climate. We lament the “shallow mask of mannerâ€? around us. Together we carefully unmask the rhetoric of righteousness and uncover hypocrisy, avarice, and a basic lack of empathy. We find men who have created alter egos to allow their own evasion of responsibility.
Act 3 – We are not so much mad at these people, but sad for them. They have moved themselves so far from truth, far past even truthiness, that they will never truly live life, and feel real joy. We do not despair though, far from it – we rejoice! We rejoice in the comfort of like souls – a community of souls, energized by – the importance of being earnest.
March 10th, 2006 at 7:45 pm
I believe the story follows a completely different line. This is the Machiavellian story of the Bush administration privatizing and funneling money at any human cost.
Act 1 – Michael Brown’s old college buddy, Bush’s former chief of staff in Texas, and 2000 campaign manager headed FEMA
In 2001, Allbaugh told Congress that, “Many are concerned that federal disaster assistance may have evolved into both an oversized entitlement program and a disincentive to effective state and local risk management. Expectations of when the federal government should be involved and the degree of involvement may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level.”
Act 2 – Government fails, Wal-Mart and Home Depot shine and Veri-chip gets a contract to put a rfid chip in every corpse.
Act 3 – New Orleans is reconstructed by private contractors using illegal aliens, who are often abused and unpaid, New Orleaneans are unemployed. Money flows. Like Iraq, we are winning! Have you seen Dick Cheyney’s portfolio. Brown is a cog in the wheel of privatization.
March 15th, 2006 at 11:27 pm
Mr. Brown is only mad because he was fired by the President. If he’d done his job he’d still be employed. I admire our President for having the insight to recognize that this mean spirited man needed to go. Good Job Bushie.
March 18th, 2006 at 6:44 pm
This was a wonderful show worhy of leading to this post, which is my first. I hope to become quite active on this site as I truly enjoy this show and have learned quite a bit since I first discovered the podcast a few months ago.
I agree that this particular show’s format was unique in blending art and news as nother said. Living in New Orleans for the last 10 years, I was interested in hearing how it would play out.
Today I had a lunch with an interesting mix of people and it is amazing how many thoughts/questions/ideas everyone still has re: katrina and the future of this area.
With the recent interviews and the video tape featuring Brown and our most esteemed president, I have redefined my own opinion of ‘Browny’ (or is it brownie?).
It is interesting to think back on his testimony at the hearings…he seemes to have changed his tune quite a bit over the last few months….ahh the liberation of losing a job