Speak for Change: a convoluted rebuttal to finger pointing

Few things drive me crazier than a bad argument.

Almost a week ago, Katrina caused one of the worst devastations our country has ever seen. Entire cities have been razed to the ground. Almost half a million people have been left with nothing. Thousands of people have been killed. At least four states have suffered from immense catastrophe.

And whose fault is this? Why, President Bush's, of course. The Government's. There is not enough being done to help the survivors, the victims, the decimated South. President Bush is, after all, the PRESIDENT. Why doesn't he use his immense power to make everything right again, to help, to provide, to stop the looting? Why do we have troops in Iraq and not Mississippi and Louisiana? Why can we not provide relief and homes and medicine and food to these thousands of grief stricken and displaced people? Why doesn't the Government DO SOMETHING?

Oh, and what are we going to do about the rising gas prices? My God!!

Because if the Government cared, of course, all of these things could be so easily fixed. After all, the Government has such power, such control, that with a snap of the fingers, and a little expenditure at home, we could take care of this problem. But that damn President Bush--he does everything wrong, he's posing for photos in the South, trying to look good by hugging African-American women who have lost everything, but he doesn't really care. His eyes flicker over the devastation, and his heart is unmoved. That bastard. He's the PRESIDENT, he has the power of the whole country, he could do something.

Because this kind of devastation is so easily reversed. Look at Sri Lanka. After an earthquake that rocked the whole earth, literally, and a tsunami out of our worst nightmares, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and South India are all FINE NOW, aren't they?

How could this happen in the UNITED STATES?, the argument goes. We are AMERICANS, how could this happen to US? Who would have ever thought we would be witness and subject to such a terrible, shattering catastrophe, that we would have citizens left homeless and destitute, that order would disintegrate and a hurricane bring us to our knees?

I am 28 years old. I live in Atlanta, GA, where refugees are seeking shelter and food and clothing. I have never been a supporter of Bush, or of most of our current Administration. I am a liberal. A bleeding heart. I donate to everything, and neglect to deduct it from my taxes. I am an English teacher, and a Literature student, and I deal in stories and language and words.

For the disaster of Katrina in the South, I have no words. My bleeding heart is out of blood, so I cry with every new photograph I see. I have no money, so I search my apartment everday for something I can give. This will haunt me for the rest of my life, like the Challenger explosion, the death of Ryan White, and September 11th.

I care.

And because I care, because I feel my insides torn apart like these people's homes, I know that President Bush cares, and that any person who breathes, cares. To imagine that any person, no matter who they are, could look at the utter vastness of this tragedy, could look at the thousands of people being evacuated to Houston, to Atlanta, who have nothing, could look at the floodwaters and the bodies, the scraps of lumber that used to be homes, that used to be businesses that provided livelihoods--to believe that any person could look at Katrina's devastation and think "what a great photo op" is a statement of the most profound lack of faith in humanity that I have ever heard in my life.

To criticize and argue that "not enough is being done" is an insult to every rescue worker, every volunteer, and every donation that has been made. Katrina caused one of the largest natural disasters we have ever seen in this country, less than a week ago. To say that we should have re-created order, and repaired this devastation in a week is beyond absurd and ignorant.

To ask "why hasn't the President fixed this?" is an insult to the magnitude of this tragedy, and to the amount of suffering and loss Katrina has caused it's victims.

President Bush has had one of the most difficult presidencies I believe this country has ever seen. From September 11th and the war in Iraq, the nuclear situation in North Korea, the tsunami in the Indian Ocean, the London bombings, to the current tragedy in the South. For both terms, I have disagreed with almost every statement to come out of his mouth, when I've been able to understand it. But I cannot belittle the amount of hell he has had to contend with, and I refuse to withdraw my sympathy because I disagree with him. I cannot begin to imagine being President, and what that entails, in the last 5 years. I certainly will not fault him for not having the power to order a hurricane to stop, or for not having powers which have clearly been denied him by our Constitution and our laws.

No, there is not enough medicine in the South for the victims who are sick and wounded. But is this the fault of the Government? Medicine, healthcare, hospitals--we don't have socialized medicine here. Whether or not we should have it is not the question at the moment. We don't have it, and that's our current reality. Is the President being faulted for NOT seizing private goods and providing them to the survivors? Because that's what medicine is--privately owned goods. Where is the President, or the government, supposed to get medicine from? Seize it from drug companies? From other hospitals, who probably need it too?

And what about shelter? Should the President seize hotels, order them to allow refugees to stay for free? Or perhaps homes? Should the President seize your property and declare it the temporary (or maybe even permanent) place of residence of the refugees?

But what really bothers me isn't the blaming of the Government, but the blaming itself. Why do people feel compelled to establish blame for a natural disaster? Why are people so busy pointing fingers? Because they think it could have been AVERTED? Of course there are things that could have been done differently, but God only knows how much it could have helped. Or even, if some things were done differently and went wrong, how much it could have hurt.

I'm so tired of hearing people busily place blame, establishing themselves as innocent. It's one thing to watch the horror of this tragedy and wish that somehow we, or the Government, could have done something. It's one thing say "Bush should have supported Federal funds to reinforce the levees" and quite another to say "It's all Bush's fault."

Because we are not innocent. How many of us wrote letters to our Senators protesting the cut of the levee funds? How many of us have actively made our voices heard in protest over the troops in Iraq, and said "This is not an acceptable use of our resources?" Sure, we may have voted for Kerry, but WHAT ELSE have we done? What else are we doing?

Michael Chertoff, of Homeland Security, has stated that Katrina was a surprise. He knew the levees in New Orleans would be unable to withstand a Cat 4 Hurricane, several scenarios had been run to prepare for such a catastrophe, and all he has are excuses to explain the devastation of Katrina.

Is it HIS fault, then?

One of our biggest prides as a country rests in being a democracy. We are proud of our freedoms and our voices. And we should be. But if we use our freedom and our voices to simply establish blame, then we should be ashamed.

Perhaps Chertoff is at fault--for ignoring evidence, for making excuses, for not protecting our country like he should. But who is at fault for Chertoff?

The power of our Government doesn't rest in President Bush. It rests in us. We are the people the government is supposed to represent, and if the government isn't representing us, we need to start talking. TO them, not ABOUT them.

And if they don't hear us, we need to SHOUT.

And if they still don't hear us, we need to ROAR.

Because President Bush is right, this is not acceptable. But it's not just the devastation, the relief response, or the Government involvement. It's our involvement, too, that is not acceptable. If we want change, then we need to make change. And we can do it. The relief effort for Katrina is one of the largest in history. People are offering their money, their clothing, their homes--anything they can give--to the refugees. We have the power to act, we have the power to help, and we have the power to speak.

And we need to use it. To speak for New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama. To speak for poverty, and AIDS, and equal rights. To speak for change.

And if you think of voices as futile, think of those who have changed the world with words.

Then join them.