Plagues: Hurricanes, Flu, and Bush

I've been musing lately on a biggish post tying all the recent and ongoing disasters - the occupation of Iraq, Katrina and its aftermath, the recent weak call for fuel conservation, the sharpening investigation of Rove's role in the Plame affair, and now the bird-flu panic - into a portrait of our president as, really, a failed liberal, a politician who, like 1960s liberals such as JFK and LBJ, dreamed big with nation-building in the Middle East and reshaping American society along "faith-based" lines, blah blah blah, but who has now been punished as badly or worse by the law of unintended consequences as those durned lib'rawls were back in the day.

I'll bracket that post for now in favor of posting this indispensable piece by journalist Tom Engelhardt which does much of that work for me by connecting global climate change, Katrina, and such minor issues as the collapse of civilizations. Minus: The piece uses that hackneyed "tipping point" idea that is so. played. out. Plus: Engelhardt also reprints a recent piece by Mike Davis.

Anyhow, read Engelhardt's piece and cringe. We're in a bad way, people.

(Thanks to my friend Matt for the tip to Engelhardt's blog.)