Phil online

There is no one to blame for Hurricane Katrina. But it’s difficult now on day 5 to think that anyone in government is doing anything productive.

I heard the president is having another meeting today. People are dying of starvation in New Orleans.

I heard the Senate passed an appropriations bill of emergency relief funds. The House is expected to pass it today. The president will sign it tomorrow. People are dying from disease in New Orleans.

I heard the buses can’t get to New Orleans fast enough or with enough gas. Someone has to authorize such a thing. Where will we take all these people anyway? People are dying of dehydration in New Orleans.

I heard they can’t get 30,000 people evacuated from the city but they’re sending in 40,000 more national guard troops. People are dying from dysentery in New Orleans.

I look at the situation and think, Why don’t these people leave the city? But these are the people who can’t leave, couldn’t leave to begin with. Why don’t the guards enlist able bodied refugees to help? But the guards appear to lack leadership and are overwhelmed simply trying to contain the situation.

Meanwhile, Sean Hannity is sending a bus load of bottled water to New Orleans. Two Delta Airlines VPs flew a jet airliner loaded with supplies to the New Orleans airport. When they got there, they unloaded the plane, loaded it up with refugees, and flew them all to Atlanta. Red Cross has set up crisis centers in the city and is helping people with food, medicine and water. And Bush keeps saying, “Help is on the way”, but it falls on dead ears.

Private industry steps up where government fails. And that’s the way it is supposed to be in this country. Government is supposed to be a minor player, and industry and self-sufficient individuals are supposed carry the weight of the people. But in a crisis like this, government really is supposed to be the first responder. Where the hell are they?

I’m reminded of India after the tsunami. Governments were offering aid, sending cash, trying to help however they could. And the Indian government said, rather fiercely, “We are fine. We don’t need help. We have it under control.” This while we watched people starving on TV. At the time I thought they were already doing everything that was possible, and they didn’t want to be seen as underlings in need of our messianic assistance. But maybe they were deluded. Maybe it was worse than they thought. Maybe they were busy trying to calm their billion people and didn’t notice that several thousand were dying.

Perhaps government is just a panacea. Their job is to pretend to do something so people don’t panic. Our trust in them for real assistance, then, is misplaced. When we gave over our security, charity and welfare to the government, we lost it completely. Instead of protecting it as we expected, they talked about it; and we did nothing because they assured us they were on the job.

Government, thy name is soma.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 2nd, 2005 at 9:52 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.