| On a recent edition of Face the Nation, CBS Anchor Bob Schieffer made a very profound observation. As part of his story commemorating the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall in New Orleans and the Gulf coast, he noted with disdain how much of a disgrace it was that our nation could do so little to provide badly needed relief to so many who were displaced and downtrodden by this natural calamity. He contrasted it with how within hours and days after being bombed, the Lebanese people were descended upon by hordes of individuals from Hezbollah who provided direct relief to the victims which included healthcare to those who were injured and the promise that American dollars would be forthcoming very shortly to help them reconstruct or build new houses if their property was destroyed by the Israeli Army. Citing, on the other hand, the existence of thousands of empty trailer homes in Arkansas with thousands of Katrina victims still homeless, Schieffer aptly concluded that the time had come when too much government and layers of bureaucracy got in the way of providing immediate and direct relief to Americans who so desperately needed it. A couple days later, I watched all four hours of Spike Lee's documentary film, "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts." Spike hit another homerun with this powerful expose documenting the negligence, incompetence, and outright failures at all levels from Mayor Ray Nagin, Governor Kathleen Blanco, FEMA Director Mike Brown, and right up to the place were the buck ultimately stops, President George Bush. After getting pounded by the national media for the fiasco involving incompetent FEMA Director Mike Brown and the fact that President Bush flew safely over the devastation in Air Force One, the Republican leadership in Washington began to complain about "Katrina Fatigue." This, to them politically was the 600-pound gorilla that simply would not go away. Commemorating the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Maureen Dowd, writer for the New York Times, wrote a recent article titled "In the Republican playbook, Katrina's a loser." She noted that President Bush was reluctant to make this "one year later" visit to this devastated region. President Bush "took the role of the empathetic and engaged chief executive, rallying resources to save the Gulf Coast, even as the larger lens showed a sad picture of American communities that are still gutted and hurting, while the Bush administration's billions flow to reconstructing -- or rather not reconstructing -- Iraq." She stingingly and sarcastically concluded that President Bush's legacy "will be defined by rushing into one place too fast and not rushing into another fast enough." This very same point was captured in one of the more poignant scenes in Spike's film when a foreign reporter asked President Bush, "What do you say to those who say you have wasted money in Iraq that you could have used in New Orleans?" President Bush, as you might imagine, had no response. This is a question that must continuously be asked. Where are our priorities as a nation if we refuse to use the might of the most powerful nation in the world to help our own? What has happened to the morals of the "Moral Majority?" Where is the outrage and concern for the families that have been torn apart; the record number of people who have died, suffered, and been displaced? What struck me the most in the immediate aftermath of the storm was watching the news day after day seeing people stranded on their rooftops with no food or water. In my frustration and outrage, I asked, why wasn't an armada of boats immediately commandeered to rescue those poor people baking in the sun all day and weary through the dark of the night for so long with so little hope? I too have my own thoughts about how we as a nation just don't seem to have our priorities in order. Maybe if we reclassify hurricanes as "Weapons of Mass Destruction," we might somehow find the will and the wherewithal to do what is required and in a very timely manner. One month's receipts from the Iraq war (which never should have been fought anyway!) could easily rebuild the levee and all of the homes and businesses in New Orleans' lower 9th Ward where the poorest of the poor suffered from the most devastation. One month's receipts from the war in Afghanistan (which today is little more than a city-state with the government controlling only Kabul and its surrounding perimeter) could have easily been used to rebuild and open up all of the schools and hospitals that were destroyed in New Orleans and throughout the Gulf Coast. This country is desperately in need of two Marshall Plans and this time for our own nation. The first one needs to be focused on physical reconstruction and must be on the scope and scale of the Tsunami relief (which ironically we as a nation seemed to respond to much more quickly) provided to Thailand and Indonesia. The second component of the Marshall Plan needs to focus on reconstructing our priorities and principles that will change and guide how we treat the world and our own people with our foreign and domestic policies. We must use our good will and might to end isolationism and change the image of "the ugly American" abroad; and to, as Spike Lee noted, "Do the right thing" with our own people at home. |
| The literary divide/ Dr. Paul Barrows Katrina fatigue setting in??? |
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