Katrina

I have been blogging on my "other" blog about this and so I apologize for not getting to post here earlier. I have already said quite a bit about it at lemonscarlet.diaryland.com and had some discussions in the coment section of Brooke's blog at brookewilliams.blogspot.com so check those out for a variety of opinions on the whole situation. Here, I will try to summarize and say that this situation was tragic and embarrassing.

There is no excuse for leaving those people stranded, helpless, afraid, hungry and desperate. There has been a lot of conservatives focusing on all of the "looting" and my response to that is to say I probably would have done the same thing. I've never been that desperate, so I wouldn't know. I do know it's not fair to direct such harsh judgement to a group of people poorer than you will ever be, in a situation you can't empathize with...each decision you make being one that might aid in your survival or might be your demise. I reserve my right to criticize elected officials who are A. safe and sound and our of harm's way and B. using my tax dollars. I want them to know how and I feel and what I think. And that is this: You are using your power and my money to fund a war that in my opinion didn't need to be fought and is going terribly and expensively. You ignored an EMERGENCY in our HOMELAND for DAYS. You ignored the reasearch conducted in recent years that showed exactly what would happen if Katrina ever came. You are responsible for the death of a lot of citizens. Most of them poor. You took money away from the fund that was supposed to fix the levees and sent it to your friends who are playing War in Iraq. Help is now on the way to the victims of Katrina. But you know who it's from? US. Me and my friends and their friends. Money. Time. Resources. Whatever we have leftover from filling up our gas tanks. 39 bucks this morning, folks. And that's for a Volkswagon Jetta. Yes, I know, you sent the military down there. But I read this morning that the battalions sent from Pittsburgh are sitting around down there doing (and I quote) "busy work" because there either isn't much for them to do or no one is organized enough to tell them. Maybe if they had been sent a week before there would have been people to rescue, kids to feed, supplies to deliver.

Republicans seem to be for the idea of "smaller government." Maybe this whole joke that we can call the Bush Administration is a gigantic conspiracy to make an entire nation of people that have absolutely no trust for the government. If that's the idea...they're doing a hell of a job.

This piece, below, was particularly interesting to me. I touched on some of this stuff in an earlier blog entry on diaryland and I believe it's worth thinking about, particularly if you, like me, are a Christian.

Acts of God or sins of humanity?
by Wes Granberg-Michaelson
From a vacation cottage Karin and I watched on TV as the desolation unfolded in New Orleans and the Gulf coast. Through that agonizing week we sat helpless with millions, while the world's most technologically powerful nation could not provide food, water, and rescue to fellow citizens whose desperate faces filled our screen and haunted our consciences.


Commentators described Hurricane Katrina as a "natural disaster," or at times as an "act of God," like language used in some insurance policies describing events beyond human control. It means no one is liable. Except, of course, God. And that's what troubles me. How can a God of love, Creator of all that is, be responsible for such terrible, destructive disasters?


But as I listened, reflected, and prayed during that week, another question emerged. Just how "natural" was this disaster? Consider this, for instance. When Katrina left the Florida coast, it was classified as a "tropical storm" - not even a hurricane. It picked up tremendous power as it passed through the Gulf of Mexico, in part, experts think, because the waters of the Gulf were two degrees warmer than normal. So by the time it reached New Orleans, it was a category four hurricane.


Years before becoming general secretary of the Reformed Church in America, I led a group studying global warming and the responsibility of the churches for preserving the environment when I served as director of Church and Society for the World Council of Churches. Even then (1990), a clear global scientific consensus warned that global warming due to human causes - especially the accelerated use of fossil fuels - was causing disruptive climate changes. And I clearly remember listening to scientists say that one effect could be that storms such as hurricanes would increase in their intensity and destructive effects because of warmer waters and changing sea levels. So a part of Katrina's fury was not completely "natural."


And there's more. New Orleans was built between the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico, with much of the city below sea level. Its vulnerability to flooding from hurricanes was partly protected by the wetlands between the city and the Gulf. These act like a "speed bump," absorbing and lowering some of a hurricane's force. But they've been disappearing, making way for shopping malls, condos, and roads, so 25 square miles are lost each year - an area the size of Manhattan. And the city has kept moving closer to the Gulf.


Moreover, the levees and dams constructed to protect the city and "control" the Mississippi deprive the wetlands from the sediments and nutrients that naturally would replenish its life. There's a lot "unnatural" about this "act of God."



And then, consider the victims. Those who have suffered the most are the poorest, and most of them are black. Twenty-seven percent of New Orleans residents lived below the poverty line, and many of those simply had no cars, or no money, and no way to leave. That also isn't "natural." The poverty rate, and the gap between rich and poor, continues to increase in this nation, and that is a national disgrace. More to our point, that's a sin, condemned by literally hundreds of verses of scripture. Those most vulnerable to Katrina have been kept on society's margins by persistent economic injustice and racism.


I celebrate the tides of compassion flowing in the wake of Katrina. Organizations such as Church World Service and the Salvation Army bear the compassion of Christ to the desolate, homeless, and hopeless. And I still don't fully understand why, in the providence of a loving and all-powerful God of creation, things like hurricanes and earthquakes happen.


But I do know this. When I see the devastating effects of Katrina, I don't simply regard these as an inexplicable "act of God." I also focus on the sins of humanity. We've disobeyed God's clear biblical instructions to preserve the integrity of God's good creation, and to overcome the scourge of poverty. In the aftermath of Katrina, we desperately need not only compassion, but also repentance.