Katrina and the Liberal Way

Posted on August 31, 2005 in Accountability Compassion Disasters Liberals & Progressives

Neither Falwell nor Robertson stands up to say that this was an act of God, punishing the citizens of a Red State for their complicity in the erosion of America. Those simonists know that they’d lose many paying disciples.

Ann Coulter will not chastise the people of New Orleans as cowards and criminals as she did New York: this is despite news reports which tell of city firemen and police taking part in the row-row-row-your-boat-looting.

6000 Louisiana and Mississippi National Guardsmen are in Iraq as we speak, unable to participate in rescuing their homes and loved ones as they would normally do in a disaster.

Bush claims credit for mobilizing a disaster relief system set in place by Democratic presidents and Democratic Congresses. All he did was strum a guitar. He could have saved New Orleans by foresight, however. The city fathers begged him repeatedly to fix the levees, but he preferred to spend the money on his unholy war in Iraq. The disaster gave him yet another excuse to evade the questions of Gold Star Mothers. And he seized it.

Lousiana and Mississippi are Red States. I do not hold their politics against them. This was a mindless natural disaster, a maelstrom which erased a cultural landmark off the national parchment. I am sorry for those who lost family, friends, pets, livestock, and property. We should help them as we should help all who are in crisis. That is the Liberal Way.

UPDATE: Pax Nortona endorses the Liberal Blogosphere for Hurricane Relief. You can donate money through the site.

UPDATE #2: There’s a page of information about cultural institutions in the hurricane damage zone. The Biloxi Madi Gras Museum and the Jefferson Davis House have been reported destroyed. The collection at the New Orleans Museum of Art is fine except for one metal sculpture located in front of the building. There is no news about the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. The U.S.S. Alabama is listing 8 degrees to port. They expect the park to be closed for weeks. One item that made me laugh:

Aquarium of Americas (as of 8-31). The Palladium-Item reported that the Aquarium, located on Canal Street a few blocks from the New Orleans’ French Quarter, lost only one fish and he had been sick before the hurricane hit.

Guess the others didn’t get out to spook residents and rescuers.

UPDATE #3: You might enjoy this link which is an answer to the conservative’s attack on relief efforts, ergo “Well, if you live in an area plagued by hurricanes, you’re asking for this to happen to you.”

UPDATE #4: Google bomb –> The Real Problem