As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes...

There has been much talk about how Hurricane Katrina will be a "tipping point" for the Bush administration. This implies that widespread public outrage will be somehow transformed into real political change, whether it is the impeachment of the President, the end of the War in Iraq, or simply a more humbled, less radically insensitive approach to government.

As John Lennon once said, "war is over - if you want it". If the people of the USA do not DEMAND REAL CHANGE NOW, it just wont happen. So the "tipping point" really is here with us today: the bodies are being cleaned up off the streets (and blocked from our TV screens), the Bush machine is in full damage control, the media is starting to pick up other stories again... Nothing to see here, folks. Is it time for us all to "move on" again?

Chris Floyd sure doesn't expect any significant changes:

This is what you must understand: Bush and his faction do not care if they have "the consent of the governed" or not. They are not interested in governing at all, in responding to the needs and desires and will of the people. They are only interested in ruling, in using the power of the state to force their radical agenda of elitist aggrandizement and ideological crankery on the nation, and on the world.

They have a large, hard core of true believers who will countenance - even applaud - any crime, any corruption, any incompetence of the Leader and his minions. With this base, and with all three branches of government already in their hands, the Faction need only procure the reluctant support of just a small percentage of the rest of the population - through fearmongering, through smears and lies, and, as we saw in 2000 and 2004, through the manipulation of election results via politically connected voting-machine corporations and politically partisan election officials.

None of this will change because of what happened in New Orleans. If these people could be touched by suffering and injustice, by death and destruction, by corruption and incompetence, then they would not be where they are today. If there was a viable opposition in the American Establishment to Bush's policies, it would have stood up long ago. Like the people left behind in New Orleans, we're all on our own - "with no direction home."

How does it feel?

Via The Smirking Chimp.