LARGETONY Blog

I decided a few days ago that I would not write anything about the Katrina disaster in New Orleans because a lot of people were posting about it on their blogs and I really had nothing new to add, and they were all saying it better than I would have anyway. Also, I didn’t want to add to the saturation of constant news reports on TV, radio, and web. Sometimes when people get overloaded with information, they just want to be rid of it all and just tune out. The last thing we need right now if for people to become desensitized to the needs in the Gulf area.

But some aspects about the situation have made me so angry that I could not hold back any longer. It’s due time for me to speak. I’m probably not going to say anything new or profound, but I have to say something. Particularly about Bush and his casual approach to emergency management. I’m not even going to go into the funding cuts he ordered the last few years despite warnings from experts that a major hurricane was not only likely, but would devestate the mouth of of the Mississippi. I won’t go into him allowing development in the once protected wetlands that could have provided at least a slow down of the flooding. I wan’t to talk about compassion…something that he lacks even more than brains.

I will be the good citizen and cut him a little slack over the funding cuts (even though he did it to pay for his war… I say his war, because I don’t know anyone who wanted it. Isn’t is scary that we are treated like a board game?) He had no way of knowing for sure that a category 5 hurricane would strike. But, by last weekend, we all knew it was going to happen. For sure. He must have, too. I’m sure he can pick up The Weather Channel on his ranch. (That how I found out.) The minute he knew it was coming, he should have cut his vacation short (it was already too long) and gotten on the horn to mobilize relief efforts so that rescuers would be ready to roll as soon as the coast was clear.

But, I need to remember. He isn’t exactly a brain trust. He wasn’t smart enough to plan ahead. So after the hurricane hit and we saw what happened, what took him so long to do anything about it? Chief Justice Rendquist (sp?) hasn’t been dead 48 hours and Bush has already announce who he wants to nominate to replace him. How is it he can act on that in a third of the times it took for him to deal with Katrina?

He had to have been aware of the devestation. (Basic cable can be pretty informative at times. It’s not just reruns of “Full House.” There’s channels like CNN, too.) If he can get satellite pictures of factories that produce imaginary WMD’s half way around the world, surely he can get ahold of a snapshot or two of the the remains of of one of the biggest storms in history when it happened just a few hundred miles from his cow pasture. Didn’t anyone wonder why it was so windy at the barbeque? Chinette paper plates and Dixie cups everywhere!

So, once he finally decides to take some action, what does he do? Does he hop on Air Force One and survey the area (at least by plane)? Does he get in the trenches and help dump sandbags (at the very least it would have been a symbolic gesture and a photo op)? Does he order the national guard to get in there and get those people the hell out of the festering soup of contamined water, garbage, feces, and dead bodies? No. Instead he orders them to go into New Orleans and stop the looting with the permission to “shoot to kill.” I’ll admit, when I first heard about the looting, my first thought was, “Have people gone crazy? This needs to stop.” Stop, yes. But, shoot to kill?? This is a man who not only has blood on his hands, he has it in his heart. One day, some historian is going to look back at the eight years of the Jr. Bush administration as one that represents needless deaths.

But it didn’t for the looting to start to make sense to me. People were going crazy. How could they not be? They had just going through what was probably the most frightening experience of their lives. Lives that had literally been washed away. They were trapped in a bowl (again, literally. From everything I have heard about the geography about Orleans, with the levees it’s basically a bowl. And the few ways out were blocked. Not that anyone who was there had any transportation anyway. If they did, they probably would have gotten out beforehand). They had lost everything, and by all appearances, nothing to gain. There was no cavalry charging over the hill. There were no boxes of food and water being dropped by Sally Struthers. There were no images of firefighters hoisting the American flag. There were precedents, but no President. At least not one who seemed to care. (”Pass me the potato salad, Condi.”) People were scared out of their minds and desperate. Everything that they thought the world should be, wasn’t. They were suddenly thrust into self-preservation. Of course they were going to steal shit.

Five days later there is a picture all across the net of Bush finally arriving in New Orleans, long past due, and embracing a hurricane victim and her daughter. This is what finally ticked me off. He takes his sweet time to come to the aid of his citizens and what he has to offer is a hug??? A HUG????? This was just one of those symbolic photo ops I mentioned before. But it was way too little way too late. He’s going to need more than a little wet nap to get the barbeque sauce off his fingertips this time. (Okay, heavy metaphor…so sue me.)

On Saturday, he made an official statement saying that “if there is a problem, we will address it,” and pledged to “make things right.” If there is a problem? IF?? Of course, it’s problem, dumb ass! So do something to help fix it. And not just New Orleans. There’s lower Mississippi and Alabama, too. If the people of New Orleans are feeling forgotten, just imagine what it must be like for the ones in all those little towns (that aren’t getting much press becuase New Orleans is a big city) elsewhere around the Gulf. And I’m not talking about the people who lost their beach-front vacation houses. They can return to the comfort of their regular homes to the north and wait for their insurance checks to arrive. I’m talking about the people who’s families have lived for generations in poor little rural towns, who’s only thing of value was a house. They don’t even have their neighbors to turn to for help. Their neighbors don’t have a house either.

Some Christian extremists have proclaimed that Katrina is God’s way of punishing New Orleans for it’s history of decadent behavior, indulgence, and sin. It goes without saying how shameful it is that they would use something like this to push their agenda. If they are correct, then how do they explain the punishment the rural areas are getting. If they’re like rural communities I know, the church is pretty central to life. But I guess God hates the poor as much as he hates sinners.

I don’t believe in a God that hates or punishes, but I almost wish I did. Because then I could have the satisifaction that, in due time, Bush has his coming for all the sins against humanity he has committed. Sure, it may be a bit hateful and vengeful of me, but I’m a human, not a god.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 5th, 2005 at 10:41 am and is filed under rants, topical. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.