Congress has made no efforts to secure more disaster relief funding… Congress is now in recess until November 12, and while Biden had considered calling Congress back into session early to approve more FEMA funding, there has been no progress.
I love how both parties are like “Sure, there’s an election in a month. But fuck anybody who needs help. What the fuck do we care? People will vote for us just because they hate the other party.”
Congress is now in recess until November 12
Is this effectively a 6 week paid vacation?
They hardly work at all. It’s amazing how powerful simple propaganda can be - phrasing for example. They call their paid vacations “recesses” and Americans don’t even pay attention.
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Ninja edit
I did a little googling.
How Many Days Congress Is in Session
According to federal records, the House works about two days a week and the Senate works a little more than that.
Well duh, when are they supposed to go on extravagant outings with all their lobbiests
In Ireland, before every election, we have what’s called a “giveaway budget”, where whoever is in government will give a bunch of random discounts and supports on stuff like electricity and college fees. They’re supposed to make the government more popular before the election. They don’t do anything to make economic conditions better and they’re a pathetic attempt to make people like the government.
It’s pure cynical politics, where for a month the government pretends to care. The USA can’t even do that. They just let people in their country die, because they’re spending all their money and time killing people abroad
Just 20 years ago a similar hurricane by the name of Katrina rocked the nation and was part of the 24 he news cycle for months. Katrina was (and rightfully so) a huge deal in America, and recognized as a mega traumatizing event.
It’s amazing to me how jaded the American public and media have become in that time, to where this disaster hardly even makes the news and is forgotten before it’s even joever.
I’m honestly not quite sure what to think of it. Have we become so calloused to the idea of climate change that this isn’t newsworthy? Is this more reflective of the corporate capture of media, and insurers not wanting to pay out for destroyed homes and lives? Or is this just secondary to the overriding effort to further a new war in the Middle East?
I think investors and the US government got a lot better at controlling the news during the Bush administration, and in the intervening 16-20 years, media people have built their entire careers in that environment. The state department gives the juiciest war news to people who parrot their press releases, so those people advance. The news companies are owned by billionaires with other more profitable investments than the news, who can block advancement for anyone who pushes a story that’d hurt one of those, including talking about climate change. People who do well in this sort of environment have had 20 years to float to the top, and don’t need any special coercion to keep pushing the latest war and ignoring something that might be inconvenient to an investor.
Like fuck the death toll, it’s horrendous but regardless of how many people died, these are towns and cities that have literally been scoured off the fucking map. People need help, fuck
These stories are so sad to me, but also very interesting. A lot of people I think go through life thinking that if something like this happens, the system will work-- insurance will cover the losses, and if nothing else the government has their backs, when nothing could be further from the truth. These are honestly golden radicalization opportunities.
It’s pretty bleak to see though, when people have to realize they have been thrown to the wolves
Unfortunately this usually gets them to go right, not left. And support the party that makes their lives worse.
You’re presented with a major failing of government like this and then given two options: One party that expresses anti-government sentiment, and another party that currently presides over the agencies that failed and tells you that everything is fine and to not believe your lying eyes when you ask what they’re going to do about the six feet of water in your basement.
Which way do you think people are going to go, and at what point does it no longer matter that the first option is defunding agencies that don’t accomplish anything? The Democrats cannot blame Republicans for voting against their own best interests when they can’t offer a worthwhile material alternative.
Did the hurricane victims even bother to hire lobbyists? How primitive.
Better to make more death in the world than to try to stop death, apparently. At least according to both parties in the US government
