"The situation in Iraq and Afghanistan looks no better for President Bush and his corporate supporters. After having spent $500 billion dollars, America is nowhere near to controlling the oil wells of Iraq or the Caspian region. Nor has America made any substantial headway in crafting stable political solutions for Iraq and Afghanistan."

"All of this disaster reminds us of how vulnerable a future New Orleans will be to a deliberate terrorist attack to use explosives to breech a levee along the lake or the river in the future. If levees are nothing but dirt holding back huge volumes of water, a terrorist or a suicide terrorist with a truck or barge full of explosives might be able to flood the city with minimal effort. Imagine a deliberate explosion along the levees at the Mississippi River front near the French Quarter."

"Would U.S. troops be in Iraq if that country didn’t have a drop of oil under its sand? Most politicians dodge that kind of question. And for years, the U.S. news media -- with few exceptions -- have elided the oily obvious. Such denials go back a long way."

"We must find ways to advance the truth that humanity is more than cells and energy. We must advance the idea that people, regardless of our social and economic status, health, race, or gender, have a right to life, and that our lives, and also the lives of our born, and unborn children, are precious, and sacred, and that our quest for survival is the only cause for governments, and taxes."

"Iraqis are treated the way the U.S. Army treated some American Indians in the Old West, with no concern for safety of innocents. One American officer said in those days, "Nits make lice", and turned the automatic rifles and artillery on a native village with no compassion and no remorse."

"When man thinks he can manipulate nature and the weather, nature and weather will manipulate man. There has never been an instance where man can beat nature, yet for his stupidity and rigidity he continues to try."

"America's future is becoming clearer and clearer. We are being overtaken by hungrier, better-educated, more competent, and harder working people from India to Malaysia to China to Brazil. If America did not have so many hard-working immigrants to carry the load at low wages, we would be in even worse shape."

"It’s not as though the Bush administration couldn’t have done more. They could have sent the relief earlier as they did for Jeb Bush in Florida before the 2004 election. They could have listened to the cries and call, but they chose not to."