Unbelievable e-mail from a surprising BushCo basher

I heard from my ex-pat kid sister this morning. She had quite a few perspectives to offer on her country's responses to Katrina, and I take them quite seriously given where she is writing from...Thailand. Last December, in the aftermath of the tsunami, she had 12 strangers sleeping in her house. Her boyfriend spent every day taking care of the injured at the local hospital, while she helped people re-group and re-organize and find their way home, or whereever. IOW, she has cred on this issue.

Her dad, my stepfather, recently responded to her e-mail similar to the "WTF!?" e-mail she sent to me. Before you read the snip below, understand a few things. This guy is perhaps one of the smartest men I have ever met. Without giving away too many details and invading privacy, when I lived at home as a teenager he was the head of one of NASA's major missile programs, sending up telecommunications and spy satellites (I grew up near the Kennedy Space Center). It was an interesting upbringing. I always considered him to be the uber republican. I remember arguing with him as a teenager about nuclear power, Viet Nam, dope smoking. He always seemed so...so...uptight! I would have bet money that he was a BushCo hawk in his latter years as a Florida retiree. Imagine my surprise when my sister forwarded this morning's e-mail, a couple key snips of which are below.

I haven't talked to him in years. I just might have to get in touch with the guy again!

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This is truly a National disaster for our
country. Many lessons will be learned but a lot of people will not change.
Don't ever get in a position where you are dependant on the government because
if you do, you will be adversely affected by their bungling or there approach
to dealing with the masses with little or no concern for the individuals. Our
government will respond to the masses but the individuals will need to pull
themselves out of this if they are ever to restore there lives to what they
had before the storm. We now have to resettle a million people throughout the
US to re house them before winter comes. That is not far off. A big task lies
ahead.

The political fallout of this will also come to the surface. The cowboy and
his crowd are going to take a lot of heat over this and they should. Our
leadership at the national level is unfit to do what is best for our country and
the world. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield and Rice and the political parties greed
for power, ego and money is destroying a great country. That is hard to say
when we are the richest and most influential nation in the world.
Enough of that. Iv'e got some constructive thing to go do. - Dad

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(Emphasis added by atman) There are some interesting angles to this; while denouncing all things BushCo, he is actually signing on their plan when he tells my sister not to rely on the government. And she will never have to, as her dad is extremely well-off in his retirement, and she is his only child. No matter what happens, he'll make sure she is taken care of. The very option those in New Orleans didn't have. Anyway, I'd be interested in hearing your comments.

Everyone who has enabled the chimp needs to be purged from DC not unlike the toxic soup being pumped out of the once lovely NOLA.

And people (like me) who *can* avoid being dependent on the government should do so. It's not people like me and him I'm worried about, though.

There are poor, weak, sick, mentally ill, unbalanced, or unlucky people who suffer greatly in a You're On Your Own kind of country. The Republican Party either refuses to acknowledge that this suffering exists, or they don't care.

What does your step-father think about people who can't help being dependent on government?

I'm glad he's aware of what Bushco is doing to us --- hope there are more and more of them...

No matter how much the Republicans want to shrink government, a skeleton government is still expected to provide assistance during a disaster because they have the resources through a military that they still control. That's what a civilized society does, no matter how small the government.

In that sense, I share your step-dad's sentiments; whatever little faith I still had in this Republican government has been lost.

Besides trying to reclaim my country from the evil-doers, I'd like to live as self-sufficiently as I can because I can never fully trust our government again.

But being self-sufficient costs a lot of money, and it's a selfish way to live. If I am going to find a way to live off the grid, grow my own food, and all that, I'd want to include all the people I care about in my self-sufficient world. They, in turn, would want to include the people they care about, and on it goes.

Ultimately, what we really need, as a society, is a fundamental change in philosophy about how we live; we need to embrace conservation, renewable energies, and create supportive communities. It's our only hope for long-range survival.

Almost all of those who hate the government on their own (that excludeds those who hate government because Robertson, Falwell, Limbaugh, and Hannity and their ilk told them to)are usually very wealthy and are really against taxes and not against government because most of their wealth comes from government in one way or another. If it weren't for government contracts there wouldn't be many corporations.

I notice you see he denounces BushCo, yet encourages self reliance to the point of not depending on the government, which should be a BushCo ideal.

But it's not, not really their ideal at all. To the neocons supporting this admin, it's only a select few that are allowed or expected to manage their lives and their finances without government interference; the rest of us are too stupid and lazy to manage ourselves. That's really what they think, we're all us happy "Average American Workers", as Bush is so fond of calling us, while he discusses our health care. Our Bush sees us as worker bees.

It's elitism, fascism. It's not "of the people, by the people and for the people", and neither are they. Those ideals of theirs apply to the wealthy only, not the hard-working types trying to rise above, not folks working two jobs and still unable to afford health-care in this, the most wealthy nation on earth, and never a concern about the lowest classes tying to do better. No one gets ahead in their system.

THAT is not a traditional republican, or conservative idea. Not on an individual level or group level, and it never was.

They used and perverted worthwhile conservative ideals, and those being counter to socialism, I think we'd all agree we don't want to completely lose all those ideals and theories. We need balance. They've contaminated the conservative side, and opposition, as a united front, is left with nothing but socialism to counter with. It's not good. imho

Funny how such a practical statement,
"Don't ever get in a position where you are dependant on the government because if you do, you will be adversely affected by their bungling or there approach to dealing with the masses with little or no concern for the individuals."

Sounds radical, but it was absolutely true in NO. If you trust the government to help you, then you take what you're given. If you aren't given anything, it's just a shame. You weren't that important to the government.

It's a difference of opinion, as to whether or not this type of evil disregard in government is typical. In our case, I think we can see the government was, no pun intended, not there to help. In this tragedy, we trusted the government to the nth degree. And look what it got us. No matter the politics, on a personal level, depending on THIS government can get you killed.