So far I have resisted ranting about the tragedy in New Orleans.
It’s about time I started.
Alan Alda’s character on M*A*S*H once described his unit commander as “it’s like being on a burning ship and you rush up to the deck only to find Daffy Duck is the captain.”
That is exactly how I feel about the United States of America right now. Actually I’ve felt that way for several years now, but now the fire has hit the ammunition magazines.
When George Bush took over the country in 2000 the mantra was “the adults are now in charge.”
Excuse me, but I have seen no evidence of it over the last — what is it? Almost five years now.
And now this. The response to the disaster that is the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina apparently is to wander around, golf, play country singer, and promise that something will be done.
Something is going to be done all right, and Congress had better start doing it tonight.
They had better start bringing the survivors water, food and medicine.
They had better start evacuating them.
They had better start finding them places to live.
They had better start finding stress and grievance counselors.
They had better start asking for help from outside the country.
They had better start repealing tax increases to pay for the disaster response.
THEY HAD BETTER DO SOMETHING INSTEAD OF JUST MAKING IT LOOK LIKE THEY’RE DOING SOMETHING, WHICH THIS GOVERNMENT HAS DONE FOR FIVE YEARS NOW.
Because I’ll tell you what will happen if they don’t.
The displaced Orleanois* will have nothing to do, nowhere to go, no food to eat, nothing to lose and no reason not to take things into their own hands.
The slide down the tubes that this country started Election Night 2000 will accelerate. And I don’t think for a second that just because there’s a mountain range between me and New Orleans, that I’m not going to be affected.
.
There. I think I feel better. A little. But not nearly enough.
I wish I had a story to tell to help smooth things out. But this is the stuff of which stories are made. And not all of them are going to be as poetic as Evangeline.