AUTHOR: Redaspie DATE: Thursday, August 24, 2006 ----- BODY:

This article turned up on Lenin's Tomb recently, and it's so amazingly and unfathomably brilliant that I thought I'd reprint it here. The article is written by a certain Mr. Ted Ralls, who I believe is an American satirist. It's taken off the Information Clearing House, one of the myriads of anti-establishment websites that I've only vaguely heard of. The link is here. Here are the choicest and most informative bits:

"You know the U.S. has gone Third World when bombed-out Lebanese get a
better deal than we do. Remember how hurricane victims couldn't get through to
FEMA's perpetually busy hotline? Promising that Hezbollah personnel "in the
towns and villages will turn to those whose homes are badly damaged and help
rebuild them," Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah ordered Hezbollah militants to canvass
damaged neighborhoods and begin repairs at once. Hezbollah gives out "decent and
suitable furniture" and a year's free rent to all Lebanese who lost their homes.
Unlike the racist government officials who managed the botched response along
the Gulf Coast last year, where whites were rescued while blacks were shot, the
Shiite terrorist group's offer also applies to Sunnis, Christians and even
Jews.

"Hezbollah's reputation as an efficient grass-roots social service
network," reported the Times, "was in evidence everywhere. Young men with
walkie-talkies and clipboards were in the battered Shiite neighborhoods on the
southern edge of Bint Jbail, taking notes on the extent of the damage. Hezbollah
men also traveled door to door checking on residents and asking them what help
they needed." With terrorists like that, who needs FEMA?

A year after Katrina, officials are still pulling bodies out of the rubble.
Dozens of corpses remain unidentified; the president, governor and mayor
continue to pass the blame for their willful inaction. George W. Bush still
refuses to accept responsibility. Just one day after the Lebanese ceasefire,
however, Sheikh Nasrallah had already delivered a thorough accounting of the
damage caused by Israel's bombing campaign and launched a comprehensive
rebuilding program. "So far," said the Hezbollah leader, "the initial count
available to us on completely demolished houses exceeds 15,000 residential
units. We cannot of course wait for the government and its heavy vehicles and
machinery because they could be a while."

As often occurs during emergencies in the U.S., price gouging for housing,
water, gasoline and other essentials was rampant during and after Katrina. Bush
did nothing. Nasrallah, by contrast, warned businesses not to exploit the
situation: "No one should raise prices due to a surge in demand."

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