Terry Kendrick - September 09, 2005
President Bush & Katrina
In times of natural disaster, people pull together. Ordinary citizens do extraordinary tasks to save people they don’t even know. Ordinary people know that an important part of what makes us human is our capacity to care about and help those in need. So why doesn’t our President know that government’s greatest responsibility is to serve the public good when it’s needed most?
I wish that I believed the inadequacy of the government’s response to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was a result of ineptness or the predictable miscommunication that can happen in times of great chaos.
But I don’t believe it. It’s more sinister and disheartening than that. I believe people died as a direct result of the Bush Administration’s callous disregard for citizens of this country. It’s not that President Bush doesn’t get it. He doesn’t care enough to get it and he doesn’t see the government’s role as protecting those most vulnerable. In his view government protects the interests of the elite.
President Bush stated at a news briefing that no one could have predicted hurricane Katrina and the damage that was done to the levees. Actually, many people predicted it and money that could have been used to secure the levees was diverted to other uses.
President Bush on his first visit to New Orleans after the disaster joked about the fact that in his youth he liked to come to the city for entertainment, maybe a little too much entertainment, he chuckled, but he was sure that New Orleans would be back to the party town it always has been.
It didn’t occur to him that the comment might be inappropriate with so many people dying and so many others without food, water, or shelter. The last thing most people were thinking about was when New Orleans would be able to provide a naughty good time.
You would think that a trip to a city devastated by this disaster would have opened up more of his compassion or that he might have wondered whether we as a country have failed some of our citizenry, that he would have been concerned to know that 30% of New Orleans’ population live in poverty.
But, to be fair, President Bush was not totally without compassion, he expressed concern over the state of Trent Lott’s house. He assured people that Trent’s house would be built back bigger and better than ever.
Again, it’s hard to imagine that someone could be so insensitive as to not realize the depth of despair of so many of the residents of New Orleans. They lost loved ones, their homes, everything they had, they had no means to get out of the city and this is what they hear from the highest elected official in the land.
We have a president who is not able to take in any information that doesn’t fit his world view. He doesn’t have compassion for people who are not like him. It doesn’t occur to him that the majority of the people who were most affected by this disaster are poor and black. Instead, we have a president who wants to make sure that Trent Lott’s house gets another wrap around porch as soon as possible.
The Bush Administration has failed so miserably not because it didn’t understand the risks but because people at the top don’t care. Protecting the common good doesn’t fit into their ideology. They have nothing but contempt for people in poverty.
If our government can’t respond to disasters at home in a reasonable fashion, if the government can’t manage a war overseas with honesty and integrity, if government officials don’t care about anyone who is not in their economic class, why are we spending our tax dollars supporting this government? I have never shirked my tax responsibility and I am in favor of funding programs that help those in need.
But I don’t want to support a government that has no legitimacy. When people at the top can’t admit they made a mistake or express any kind of real compassion. I don’t feel loyal to my leaders.
I once heard a man from South Africa talk about the truth and reconciliation commission. Only those who could not acknowledge their mistakes or see the harm their bigotry had done were punished. They did not punish those who could deal honestly with the results of their behavior. We don’t need an independent study commission to look at the mechanics of what went wrong in New Orelans. We know what went wrong. We need a truth and reconciliation commission for our leaders here at home. This is Terry Kendrick, thanks for listening.
|
|
