Bush Orders Homeland Security to Assist Church Groups

To The Center for Countering Reality-based Facts, under the direction of the Ministry of Motherland Religion and Social Control, by Executive Order from the U.S. Supreme Commander:

>Sec. 3. Responsibilities of the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. In carrying out the purpose set forth in section 2 of this order, the Center shall:

(a) conduct, in coordination with the WHOFBCI Director, a department-wide audit to identify all existing barriers to the participation of faith-based and other community organizations in the delivery of social and community services by the Department, including but not limited to regulations, rules, orders, procurement, and other internal policies and practices, and outreach activities that unlawfully discriminate against, or otherwise discourage or disadvantage the participation of faith-based and other community organizations in Federal programs;

[ . . . ]

e) develop and coordinate Departmental outreach efforts to disseminate information more effectively to faith-based and other community organizations with respect to programming changes, contracting opportunities, and other agency initiatives, including but not limited to Web and Internet resources.

So, does this mean that the Department of Homeland Security's "Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives" is to eliminate barriers that inhibit religious entities' ability to spread DHS propaganda, barriers that inhibit them from getting no-bid contracts to promote agency initiatives and programs, perhaps including the new programs. Or perhaps the goal is simply to eliminate the barrier between "church and state. Even if these government-supported religious programs were benign, they wouldn't be to the tune of billions of dollars, including a half-billion to promote straight marriage (or any sort of marriage for that matter).


From the Washington Post:

Pressed both by churches that have not received privately raised Hurricane Katrina relief funds as promised and by the outpouring of help of religious groups to Gulf Coast storm victims, Bush also called on the department by September "to identify all existing barriers . . . that unlawfully discriminate against, or otherwise discourage or disadvantage the participation" of such groups in federal programs.

[ . . .]

Along the Gulf Coast, particularly in Mississippi, religious groups have provided extraordinary help, local officials say, but also contributed to waste and duplication of effort when they failed to coordinate with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and local and county governments.

This has the appearance of a straw man. Was the groundwork laid for a failure necessary to justify tansferring responsibility from FEMA to churches, from the government to the private sector. This ignores the reality that FEMA needs to be overhauled once and for all to finaly put it onto the right mission of serving the public. Then, FEMA needs to be properly funded, and staffed and managed by experts. FEMA was already defunded and scaled back to little more than a shell of itself. What's left for the Bushies but to eliminate it by moving disaster response (via churches) into the private sector and giving birth to a new market where the investor class can one day exploit money-for-nothing profit schemes. Why should we once again have to revisit Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. "Free trade" had just as well mean the United Arab Emirates or Communist China could manage not just our ports but our disaster response. Why not?