Katrina's Ideology

As though any of us doubted it, The Administration is quietly and subversively using the Katrina disaster as a means to further their ultra-conservative agenda.

Think Progress has the scoop. Check it. Examples that they're pushing forward with:

• “SEPARATE BUT EQUAL” EDUCATION
• REFUSAL TO EXPAND ELIGIBILITY FOR HEALTH CARE
• LOWER WAGES FOR HURRICANE RECOVERY CONSTRUCTION WORKERS
• LOWER WAGES FOR HURRICANE RECOVERY SERVICE WORKERS

Fantastic. There are disturbing patterns that we should have been able to detect and criticise long ago. But we never learned our lessons. Shortly following the 9/11 disaster, The Administration pushed forward a slew of conservative agenda-items.

The problem, of course, is that The Moral of this whole event needs to be that ramming home a conservative social agenda is what has stripped people of powers, controls, abilities, and safety nets when disaster strikes. The erosion of liberal society [not politically "Liberal" society, but rather, that system of ethical societal choices], as Lakoff suggest, is to blame. Further eroding those factions because of the hurricane won't help anything.