My Two Cents

Just reading about all that has gone on in the past week has been exhausting, I cannot imagine the horror of living through it and surviving. We know that there was lawlessness, but it seems to me that most of the folks in New Orleans just wanted to get out alive, and a few people are not an excuse for blaming the victim or callousness.

While I don't doubt that the lacksidaisical and incompetent way that this crisis was handled by the Federal Government had to do with the value placed on the lives of those who are black poor (and who give neither money nor votes to the Republican party), the response of the Nation, from the governors and states who opened their borders, their coffers and their resources to those displaced, to those individuals who have been donating money and crying out against the indifference of the Cheney administration, show that the United States has come a long way, and that regardless of separations of race, region or class we can see one another in each other and that our government's actions withstanding we do care.

We have to keep up the pressure on those in power and we have to drown out the neo-cons, and racists and apologists for Federal Government incompetence. It was the shame of that outrage that forced the Bush puppet show into action and got something started. But we must not forget New Orleans and never let them forget New Orleans either.

An open letter to the President (from the New Orleans Times Picayune):

We’re angry, Mr. President, and we’ll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That’s to the government’s shame.