I - as I suspect like many or most - want to register my deepest feelings of
sorrow for those suffering and those lost in the wake of Hurricane so-called
Katrina.
In terms of the United States (a unitary concept which feels more and more
like an oxymoron) this unfolding event - its terror, its hunger, its
potential for famine and desperate acts of violence - is beyond anything
most of us could ever imagine. It's like a whole portion of the country is
experiencing another version of the Donner Party - only this time on a scale
so magnified that the consequence will undoubtedly affect every element of
this country's infrastructure, including its emotional well being.
Ironically, since there is no one 'foreign' that can be pointed to in the
manner of Al Queda - but only Nature - the country's collective body is
going to have to go way deep inside itself to muster the resolve to emerge
in some kind of forward moving shape. Sadly, given the blind belligerence of
its leadership - including its faith based commitment to Intelligent Design
to the denial of Global Warming - it will be astonishing, but may be
possible under the circumstances to imagine a transformation based on
pragmatic principles, rather than ones of faith. We can pray for that! Yes,
to imagine this President wading into the flooded waters of New Orleans, and
lifting black, white and impoverished children into the air and saying some
equivalent to one of his previous mantras, "No child left behind" would be a
human start on the process. I won't bet on it. But hope.
Otherwise this event - which will also be sustained - will be as grim as the
unrelieved military devastation of parts of Iraq. All ideology (puff speech
and puff cures) and minimal healing. It will be the ultimate irony of this
Administration - through a selfish lack of imagination and inaction - to
offer us both homeless Iraqi war veterans on the same streets in which we
will find homeless hurricane refugees.
I would like to hear what anybody else is feeling or thinking.
Big tests to everyone here are obviously coming up.
Stephen V
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