September 01, 2005

Je comprends pas

In Foop! I wrote a little about a future monster hurricane knocking out the levees in New Orleans and turning the city into a lake. Not much, just a couple chapters. But Foop! is a comedy, and now it's pretty clear that there's nothing funny about a hurricane hitting New Orleans.

I used to live in New Orleans, in the French Quarter just behind St. Louis Cathedral. I would walk by the statue of Jesus in the courtyard behind the church (the one they've shown on the news with the fallen trees surrounding it) almost every morning and night on my way to and from work at a bar a couple blocks away. Even though there are a lot of things that I didn't like about living there, and even though I moved away, I still love New Orleans. I always say that New Orleans has a special place in my heart...sort of like how the first girl you fall in love with always has a special place. You had to part ways, but you'll never forget her.

What's happened down there these past few days after Hurricane Katrina at first made me incredibly sad, but now I'm mostly just angry. I watched CNN in shock as the flood waters covered the city. And now I watch in anger as the people down there have to wait, and wait, and wait for help to arrive. Our federal government has acted a day or two late in this situation, just as they did with the tsunami. As the flood waters continued to rise in New Orleans Bush was giving a speech comparing the war in Iraq to WWII. As dead bodies floated down the streets the White House talked about the oil situation and swore that this would have little effect on our country's economy. Their blasé attitude, and Bush’s utter failure to lead during this horrible disaster, makes me sick. I am ashamed to call them "my" government, because this is not the way my America reacts when its citizens are screaming for help.

I don't want to hear about how this was a tricky situation and that help couldn't get into the area until now. If this had happened here in NYC, do you really think that people would have to wait this long for help? Do you really think that days would go by with hundreds and possibly thousands of dead bodies rotting in the August heat? That people would have no food or water, that armed mobs would be roaming the streets? Our military is capable of great feats when it’s called upon, but it can’t do squat when days pass before someone gets off their ass and tells them to get down there. They can drop a bomb on a target the size of a freckle in Iraq but they can't drop a bottle of water on a street in New Orleans.

The city of New Orleans, the people of New Orleans (both living and now dead), deserve better than this. They deserve the same support and care this country showed New York after 9/11. And I’m not talking about media attention or our thoughts and prayers, I’m talking about actual help.

President Bush gave a speech yesterday that many are calling the worst of his career. I agree. He stood there with that stupid smirk on his face, listing off all of the supplies on their way to the Gulf Coast and telling people that his thoughts are prayers were with the people down there. The people there don't need your prayers, they need food, water, and protection, and they don't need those things "on the way," they needed them three days ago. Back when he was trying to get re-elected it was easy for him to squeeze out a tear for a fallen soldier, but now all he can do is smirk about New Orleans, about hundreds/thousands of dead, about people still dying, about a city on life support, and tell them everything is going to be fine. Thanks for that Bushy, I’m sure the people down there feel a whole lot better after hearing that. Oh wait, they can’t hear a word you’re saying you idiot because they’re too fucking busy just trying to survive.

Bush and Congress acted more swiftly to try to get a feeding tube back in Terry Schiavo than they are acting to save the people of New Orleans.

The percentage of people living in poverty in New Orleans is almost double the national average. These people had little to begin with, we're just barely getting by, and now they've lost everything because of Katrina. It's no coincidence that the vast majority of people still in New Orleans are black and poor. They don't have savings to fall back on, they don't have insurance, and they don't have relatives who can take care of them for the next 3-4 months. Many of them have also lost their wives, husbands, sons, and daughters. They are down there screaming for their country to help them, screaming for their most basic needs to be met, for some level of dignity, and yet our government dragged their feet.

The moral of the story is this: if your community is unlucky enough to get hit by a catastrophic disaster, you'd better hope you're not poor and black. Unless of course your disaster allows Bush to invade some foreign country. I wonder if Bush will invade North Africa now since that's where most hurricanes originate. Or maybe he'll skip that and go right for the ultimate prize: invade heaven and take out God. I mean, the big guy clearly has some serious weapons of mass destruction in these hurricanes, and he's already shown us he's more than willing to use them. And talk about a ruthless dictator! So I say we head on up there, take him out before he strikes again, and then set up a democratic government in heaven made up of angels. That should make the hungry, thirsty, devastated, scared, and exhausted people of New Orleans happy, right? I mean, as a New Yorker, what's happened in Iraq sure has given me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside about terrorism. So “Operation Freedom of Heaven” should make people feel better about hurricanes, and will let them know that our federal government always has our backs, even when they’re spending most of their time and our money thousands of miles away doing God knows what.

Oops, I mean: doing The Angelic Transitional Government knows what.

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