After watching the finale of Arrested Development - I happen to catch about two minutes of Fox "news" before getting caught up in a game of Monopoly. And in that two minutes, they showed a dramatically cut montage of Michael Brown's testimony, climaxing with the "what more do you want from me" line.

Now, of course, Fox and every other major "news" outlet will play out this Brownie investigation for as long as it will sell commercial airtime, but not in any real "investigative" sense, since the Bush administration won't actually allow anyone to see the documents regarding their lack of response to the hurricane's aftermath, claiming "national security".

But this isn't the point I wanted to make tonight, the real point of this post was to say: I feel bad for Brownie. Now, before you write me a harshly-worded letter, let me stress that I think Michael Brown is a dush-bag. No one is disputing that. But Brownie is the poster boy for what went wrong in New Orleans. And in reality, he is no more than that: a poster boy.

He is the effect - not the cause. When the current administration came in, they did so with the mentality of many republicans: a) government is too big, and b) the private sector is better... at everything.

So, it's no stretch of the imagination that Bush would assign a college buddy to head FEMA, Brown who, when brought on, was probably told he wouldn't have to do much of anything except sit back and enjoy the show as they dismantle the public aspects of FEMA, and instead implement a private, profit-based system. This is what they did with FEMA, it's what they did with MSHA, and it was no surprise when the mine collapsed and killed those men. That mine in particular was sighted that year alone with over 200 safety violations, and yet it's biggest slap on the wrist didn't cost them more than 100 dollars.

When a public service becomes for-profit, the purpose of that service is no longer in the public's interest. It's interests is in the stock holders... the bottom line... the profit margin. It's the very reason those rescue trucks outside of New Orleans sat there for three days, because the longer they sat there, the less they had to pay.


In the beginning, firefighting was a business, not a public service. If your house caught fire and you didn't have that fire station's badge posted - it didn't matter if the burning house was 20 feet from the station - if you didn't pay the monthly fee, then your house was going to burn to the ground for it. It didn't take long for people to figure out that it benefitted everyone to have services like firefighting work on a public, not profit, level.

And if you think these two organizations, FEMA & MSHA, are the only two federal safety branches this administration has completely gutted and privatized, than you are sorely mistaken. But we won't hear about the hundreds of others until disaster strikes - because they, the "news" stations, are too busy playing to people's lowest emotions with Brownie's courtroom drama, instead of asking real questions.