Brownie is Backie

I couldn't make it up. Recently ousted FEMA director Michael Brown has been hired as a consultant for that agency.

Over the weekend I participated in a panel discussion at Mount Holyoke college. Panelists from a variety of disciplines in the "Storms of Controversy" program addressed the political and historic issues that created the fiasco of the hurricane Katrina aftermath.

I said that everything occuring post-Katrina is the result of America being turned into a failed state. I also said that cronyism isn't surprising in a failed state, it is in fact a necessity. You can't have true public servants running FEMA when its goal is to hand out contracts to the well connected.

Of course, the purpose of said contracts is not to really do anything they are legally obligated to do. If that were the case then Iraq would be truly reconstructed by now. Instead billions of dollars have been doled out to Halliburton and its ilk while Baghdad may or may not have running water or electricity on any given day.

So of course Brownie is back. The system demands it.