The knowledge was available for years, to everyone in charge of protecting Americans, at every level of local, state and federal government, of the certain effects of a powerful hurricane on New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Region.
It was well known the levees would fail in the “Big Storm.”
It was well known the Big Storm was finally coming.
So They told the people to leave New Orleans.
They already knew, from experiences gained during Betsy and Ivan, that those with money could leave, and those without money could not leave. They knew this.
The decision was made to leave them there.
There is no way around this harshest of realities.
Decisions were made to leave the poor to drown.
Other decisions, made long before Katrina, by leaders at the top, contributed to this outcome. Decisions were made to ignore or not priotitize this huge disaster risk, to fractionalize/reorganize disaster agency resources, to appoint to lead positions those without essential knowledge or experience, to divert more and more tax money to the rich and to the wars overseas. Decisions were made that weakened our National Guard response effectiveness and our overall ability to meet disaster needs right here at home.
Other decisions involving politics, graft and corruption at local/state levels contributed its share as well. Add to this the inaction by elected leaders in Congress, too many of whom have also become more interested in their own poliyical survival than their mission of overseeing government, and the well being and safety of ordinary Americans.
American leaders of both parties, who WE elected, who held the power, at all levels of governance of this country, together, made the decision to let the poor stay behind and drown in New Orleans.
They make the decision to let the poor “drown” every single day, all over this land, by refusing to effectively address the issues of class, race and poverty.
It was the “haves’s” in power, on all levels, who dragged their feet, and passed the buck, who left those who did survive swimming in a hell full of sewage and corpses, without food and water or medicine, for day after day, before finally taking action.
Our President ate birthday cake, strummed guitars, gave speeches about the war in Iraq and posed for photos, while the levees broke in New Orleans, and the poor began to drown. Our Vice President continued his vacation., while the waters rose in the attics of the poor. Our Secretary of State bought shoes worth thousands, and attended Broadway shows, while poor mothers hung onto their babies so they wouldn’t get washed away. All while the biggest naturql disaster this country has ever known, was unfolding, and American poor people were drowning by the thousands.
They, and every level of authority on down from them, made the decision to leave the poor to drown in New Orleans.
Pleading ignorance will not work.
Shifting blame, passing the buck, is not going to work.
Not this time. Never again.
Because the bald truth is, we can no longer ignore what we have become as a nation, or what we have done, by electing leaders such as these, who eat cake, strum guitars, enjoy vacations, and buy shoes, while poor Americans are left to drown in a well predicted disaster.
So now, what, my fellow Americans? Now what?
Back to our busy work-a day-worlds? On to the next celebrity trail or missing person 24/7 coverage? Back to the comforting rhythms of denial and chosen ignorance?
Or did the pictures of dying American babies get through? Did the dead old American women still sitting in her wheelchair penetrate the fog? Did the sight of our President having his “strumming guitar” photo op, while poor Americans drowned, sicken your soul, as it did mine?
I hope so.
God, I hope so.
(cross posted from OurWord.org)
