Day: September 7, 2005

From PR’s own Buck:

There once was a storm named Ophelia
That looks like it’s ready to cream ya.
But don’t worry, Trish,
Click your heels, make a wish:
“There’s no administration like FEMA.”

Thanks Ever So Much: Following Hurricane Katrina, more than 90 countries from around the world have contacted the U.S. government with offers of aid in materials and money, but many are still waiting for a call-back from Washington to accept it. Even countries that can hardly afford to have donated money.

Sri Lanka, among the hardest hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami last December, donated $25,000 to the Red Cross. Afghanistan pledged $100,000 while Bangladesh, one of the world’s poorest countries, offered $1 million.

And while those offers should perhaps be respectfully declined, there’s no good reason why rich countries like India, South Korea, Japan and Germany are still waiting to hear back from the administration about what to send and where to send it.

According to the Associated Press, here’s who’s giving what:

• India said it would give a $5 million check to the American Red Cross Thursday in Washington, as well as offered to send military medics and water purification equipment.
• South Korea pledged $30 million and said it would send about 40 rescue workers and 100 tons of goods such as blankets, diapers, crutches, bunk beds and wheelchairs, to the United States by this weekend. If Washington tells where to send it.
• Japan is in the process of transferring $200,000 to the Red Cross and offered up to $300,000 in supplies such as tents, blankets, generators and portable water tanks, which are stored in Florida, of only Washington would say where to send it.
• German officials say they have offered a wide range of aid, including search dogs, medical teams and even a military hospital ship, and say much of it has been on standby for delivery since Monday, waiting fro word from Washington.
• Russia will send an estimated $760,000 worth of humanitarian aid in three planes scheduled to begin leaving Moscow as early as Wednesday for Arkansas, said Sergei Vlasov, spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry. That aid includes 121 tents, 4,000 blankets and 10,000 food packages, he said.
• China delivered a $5 million donation, and a plane carrying 100 tons of tents, bedding and generators for hurricane victims took off Wednesday bound for Little Rock, Ark.

The American Red Cross said on its Web site that, as of Sept. 6, it has received $409.2 million in gifts and pledges for the hurricane relief effort. The organization did not say how much of that came from overseas.

In a pair of unrelated but startlingly parallel o-bitch-uaries by Harvard prof Alan Dershowitz and The Nation editor David Corn, the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist is remembered as a racist regressive who history will always associate with the shameful Bush v. Gore case.

Corn sums up Rehnquist’s career:

He rose to prominence as a right-wing attorney who decried the Earl Warren court for being a hotbed of judicial activism (left-wing judicial activism, as he saw it). He then became, as a Supreme Court justice, a judicial activist of the right-wing sort, overturning laws made by Congress (that protected women against domestic violence, banned guns near school property, and prohibited discrimination against disabled workers) and steering the justices into Florida’s vote-counting mess in 2000 (an act that only coincidentally–right?–led to George W. Bush’s presidency)

This from Dershowitz:

My mother always told me that when a person dies, one should not say anything bad about him. My mother was wrong. History requires truth, not puffery or silence, especially about powerful governmental figures. And obituaries are a first draft of history. So here’s the truth about Chief Justice Rehnquist you won’t hear on Fox News or from politicians. Chief Justice William Rehnquist set back liberty, equality, and human rights perhaps more than any American judge of this generation. His rise to power speaks volumes about the current state of American values.

Rehnquist’s judicial philosophy was result-oriented, activist, and authoritarian. He sometimes moderated his views for prudential or pragmatic reasons, but his vote could almost always be predicted based on who the parties were, not what the legal issues happened to be. He generally opposed the rights of gays, women, blacks, aliens, and religious minorities. He was a friend of corporations, polluters, right wing Republicans, religious fundamentalists, homophobes, and other bigots.

Rehnquist served on the Supreme Court for thirty-three years and as chief justice for nineteen. Yet no opinion comes to mind which will be remembered as brilliant, innovative, or memorable. He will be remembered not for the quality of his opinions but rather for the outcomes decided by his votes, especially Bush v. Gore, in which he accepted an Equal Protection claim that was totally inconsistent with his prior views on that clause. He will also be remembered as a Chief Justice who fought for the independence and authority of the judiciary. This is his only positive contribution to an otherwise regressive career.

Corn sums up this way:

“He Lived for The Law”–that’s how AOL headlined the story on Rehnquist’s death. But it’s not that Rehnquist had a blind spot on race. He was an active proponent of discrimination. Yet this fellow–without truly making amends–became chief justice of the highest court of the land. Only in America.

As Rehnquist’s impact on America is considered, it ought not be forgotten–particularly at a time when we see how the poor of New Orleans have been neglected–that Rehnquist was at times all too willing to forget about the rights of those less fortunate than he.

As we are subjected to all the rining graveside orations and remembrances of Rehnquist, let’s try to remember him for who he was, not how the Bush administration will spin him.