Houtopia: Pride and Shame

September 04, 2005

Pride and Shame

In the aftermath of perhaps this country's greatest disaster of any kind, we are pulled in opposite directions -- pride at the amazing generosity and compassion shown by individual Americans, businesses, religious organizations and other states and municipalties; and shame at the disgracefully inadequate and incompetent response from our federal government.

Here in Houston, while pitching in at the George R. Brown Convention Center yesterday, our city's response -- people showing up to volunteer, donating mountains of food, water, clothing, medicine -- was truly humbling.

Living as we do in a hurricane-prone area, having suffered through Tropical Storm Allison just a few years ago, and the personal connections so many of us have to the affected area, Houstonians have answered the call, with kindness, good nature, and determination to do what we can to help our suffering neighbors. It's been a great effort, and one that will need to continue for many weeks to come.

Simultaneous is the incredulity and humiliation that the United States government, the apparatus of the richest, most powerful nation in world history, could so let down its own citizens during their greatest hours (now days) of need.

The feds simply dropped the ball. They were late moving, and that undoubtedly cost lives. Secretary Chertoff of Homeland Security and Mr. Brown of FEMA, neither of whom have the relevant background or experience for two such important jobs, have acquitted themselves as clueless and totally incompetent. Four years after 9/11, our country now seems to be less able to handle a disaster (natural or man-made, much of the fallout is the same) than before.

Then there's the President. Also slow to end his vacation and act, his staff has failed him here. His sniveling, spineless political advisor, Karl Rove (who may well also be a traitor) is doing what he does best, blaming someone else for the failures and staging meaningless photo-ops to prop up his boss. Never mind that there's real work to be done.

The bottom line is that FEMA has been gutted of its ability to respond to such a crisis, a crisis our own Army Corps of Engineers and others predicted for years.

This White House loves to talk about personal responsibility, as long as some other person is responsible. These are the guys that returned honor and dignity to the White House, remember? Pass the buck, blame Clinton, blame anybody else -- so honorable and dignified.

Meanwhile, thousands of Americans are dead, a great city and adjacent coastline are destroyed, huge operations continue in Iraq and Afghanistan, we're in debt up to our eyeballs, and these guys want to further cut taxes. Such patriots. Next vacation, let's send them all to the Superdome for some R&R.

Posted by houtopia at September 4, 2005 01:31 PM