Katrina, four days in.
From Banda Aceh to Biloxi, it's been a hard old year for the human race. I had to stop writing for a while after the London bombings; the UK is a small place, and almost all of us down here in the South East where I live have family and friends in the capital. My closest friend passed through King's Cross on his way to work about 45 minutes before the bomb went off there; it took a while for the shock of that one to settle, for both of us.
But lately I've been back out in the blogosphere, especially since Katrina blew away the Gulf Coast of the US; firstly I simply wanted to get news and views, although the BBC coverage has been excellent as usual. Reactions to events like this are often as informative as factual reporting, and so I found it in this case.
Of course, the blogosphere itself is still very slanted towards America, simply because more Americans have pcs and blogs than us poor old Europeans, and because English (Amercian?) has established itself as the lingua franca of the Web. The first thing I noticed when visiting my usual sites (which I must admit are in general liberal, left-wing orgs like Alternet, though I try to balance it out with sites like The Washington Post) was how many people seemed to be using this natural disaster as a stick to beat each other with. Not only the usual suspects on the political left, but the right seemed to be thrown into an orgy of mudslinging too; some bunch of pseudo-Christian nutters insisting that Katrina (from a satellite view) was a representation of a six-week-old foetus and therefore was God's way of saying etc., etc. (I expect you can guess the rest - it would be funny if it weren't so scary and so sad), other self-procalimed rationalists somehow managing to use a hurricane as a direct political message from - well, who cares? - to - well, everyone else, I suppose - to overthrow the US Government. Such as it is.
What is both stupefying and terrifying is the lack of preparation and directed response to this wholly predictable (and widely predicted) disaster. What's going on? Or rather, what isn't? We all knew last week - at least, I did; I read it in the newspaper and I saw it on the telly - that Katrina was going to hit New Orleans. The "worst case scenario" (which turned out to be accurate) was thoroughly discussed, there were a clear three days or so to get things moving before the hurricane hit - so how come people are still stranded amongst the rotting dead, without food or water, in the most highly-developed nation in the world? I hear that Bush is going to visit (or fly over, or whatever) the Gulf Coast today; why? Does he need to see it with his own eyes for some reason? Wouldn't a payload of, say, water purification tablets be of more use to the people on the ground?
It's like a farce, like a grotesque morality play on greed and incompetency; where are one third of the National Guard? In Iraq. The Army? Likewise. And if GWB was sincere in his protestation that what he's doing in Iraq is for the good of the Iraqi people, and not for oil, then surely it's his duty to his own people, the people who elected him to govern them and to protect them, to bring the National Guard and the Army home? Certainly, by his own rhetoric the "job" in Iraq isn't finished, but surely a President's first duty is to his own people? As a UK citizen, I'd expect Tony Blair to do just that in similar circumstances, and to give him his due, Blair probably would. Contrast Tony's reaction to the London bombings with Bush's incompetence in the face of Katrina. I'm not often proud of Tony, in fact it rather sticks in my throat to admit it, but there was no doubt that he was both sincere and efficient. It seems to me the GWB is neither; in the final analysis, his sincerity doesn't matter a damn; his efficiency does. For lack of it, people are dying in their hundreds. Soon they will be dying in their thousands.
There's a lot of speculation now as to how, when and even if New Orleans will recover/be rebuilt. It seems unthinkable to write off a city like that, but what's really unthinkable is that this should have happened at all. This was a predictable and predicted disaster, eminently preventable if the will had been there. Money which could and should have been spent on reinforcing the flood defences of this highly vulnerable city has gone elsewhere - in tax cuts to the rich, on an indefensible war in Iraq - and the poor of New Orleans are paying the price in human misery. There's not a thing GWB or anyone else could have done to stop Katrina, but a great deal could have been done to reinforce and protect the towns and cities in its path. Certainly more could and should have been done to prepare for this disaster, to evacuate beforehand - and I mean help people to evacuate, not advise people; of course everyone who can afford to will get out of the way, but the most vulnerable people are those who can't afford it. And on that subject, I think that "looting" needs to be redefined in this situation; anyone stealing food or water to survive isn't a looter, they're just doing what any one of us would do to stay alive. How can you expect soldiers or police to "shoot to kill" their own fellow citizens, and how do you suppose these wounds will ever heal if they do?
I'm not savvy enough about the American Constitution to know how Impeachment works, or if there's any other way available to get rid of a dangerously incompetent president, but I think it's time to do so if possible. I also think that the left should stop bickering (and even in some cases gloating - Bush's incomptetence here is measured in human life and death, it's in very poor taste to trumpet "We told you so!") and use this example of gross negligence to get rid of the man. Anyone for a revolution?
But lately I've been back out in the blogosphere, especially since Katrina blew away the Gulf Coast of the US; firstly I simply wanted to get news and views, although the BBC coverage has been excellent as usual. Reactions to events like this are often as informative as factual reporting, and so I found it in this case.
Of course, the blogosphere itself is still very slanted towards America, simply because more Americans have pcs and blogs than us poor old Europeans, and because English (Amercian?) has established itself as the lingua franca of the Web. The first thing I noticed when visiting my usual sites (which I must admit are in general liberal, left-wing orgs like Alternet, though I try to balance it out with sites like The Washington Post) was how many people seemed to be using this natural disaster as a stick to beat each other with. Not only the usual suspects on the political left, but the right seemed to be thrown into an orgy of mudslinging too; some bunch of pseudo-Christian nutters insisting that Katrina (from a satellite view) was a representation of a six-week-old foetus and therefore was God's way of saying etc., etc. (I expect you can guess the rest - it would be funny if it weren't so scary and so sad), other self-procalimed rationalists somehow managing to use a hurricane as a direct political message from - well, who cares? - to - well, everyone else, I suppose - to overthrow the US Government. Such as it is.
What is both stupefying and terrifying is the lack of preparation and directed response to this wholly predictable (and widely predicted) disaster. What's going on? Or rather, what isn't? We all knew last week - at least, I did; I read it in the newspaper and I saw it on the telly - that Katrina was going to hit New Orleans. The "worst case scenario" (which turned out to be accurate) was thoroughly discussed, there were a clear three days or so to get things moving before the hurricane hit - so how come people are still stranded amongst the rotting dead, without food or water, in the most highly-developed nation in the world? I hear that Bush is going to visit (or fly over, or whatever) the Gulf Coast today; why? Does he need to see it with his own eyes for some reason? Wouldn't a payload of, say, water purification tablets be of more use to the people on the ground?
It's like a farce, like a grotesque morality play on greed and incompetency; where are one third of the National Guard? In Iraq. The Army? Likewise. And if GWB was sincere in his protestation that what he's doing in Iraq is for the good of the Iraqi people, and not for oil, then surely it's his duty to his own people, the people who elected him to govern them and to protect them, to bring the National Guard and the Army home? Certainly, by his own rhetoric the "job" in Iraq isn't finished, but surely a President's first duty is to his own people? As a UK citizen, I'd expect Tony Blair to do just that in similar circumstances, and to give him his due, Blair probably would. Contrast Tony's reaction to the London bombings with Bush's incompetence in the face of Katrina. I'm not often proud of Tony, in fact it rather sticks in my throat to admit it, but there was no doubt that he was both sincere and efficient. It seems to me the GWB is neither; in the final analysis, his sincerity doesn't matter a damn; his efficiency does. For lack of it, people are dying in their hundreds. Soon they will be dying in their thousands.
There's a lot of speculation now as to how, when and even if New Orleans will recover/be rebuilt. It seems unthinkable to write off a city like that, but what's really unthinkable is that this should have happened at all. This was a predictable and predicted disaster, eminently preventable if the will had been there. Money which could and should have been spent on reinforcing the flood defences of this highly vulnerable city has gone elsewhere - in tax cuts to the rich, on an indefensible war in Iraq - and the poor of New Orleans are paying the price in human misery. There's not a thing GWB or anyone else could have done to stop Katrina, but a great deal could have been done to reinforce and protect the towns and cities in its path. Certainly more could and should have been done to prepare for this disaster, to evacuate beforehand - and I mean help people to evacuate, not advise people; of course everyone who can afford to will get out of the way, but the most vulnerable people are those who can't afford it. And on that subject, I think that "looting" needs to be redefined in this situation; anyone stealing food or water to survive isn't a looter, they're just doing what any one of us would do to stay alive. How can you expect soldiers or police to "shoot to kill" their own fellow citizens, and how do you suppose these wounds will ever heal if they do?
I'm not savvy enough about the American Constitution to know how Impeachment works, or if there's any other way available to get rid of a dangerously incompetent president, but I think it's time to do so if possible. I also think that the left should stop bickering (and even in some cases gloating - Bush's incomptetence here is measured in human life and death, it's in very poor taste to trumpet "We told you so!") and use this example of gross negligence to get rid of the man. Anyone for a revolution?
posted by holojojo at 2:32 AM
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