Disaster response

Disaster piles upon disaster this
year. First the tsunami, which we’ve almost forgotten. The one, two, three
punch of hurricanes Katrina (New Orleans), Rita (Houston), and Stan (Guatemala,
El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras). And in between the hurricanes, the
horror of Pakistan’s earthquake.

Mind-numbing numbers march across
television screens and newsprint page after page, thousands of dead, tens of
thousands of injured, millions of homeless and displaced, billions of dollars
of damage. Compassion fatigue, the charities say, is setting in. People who
give generously in times of disaster have already given, and given again.

Along with the physical tragedies
come the mora disasters.

Racism: The destruction of
New Orleans provides an excuse for stories about looting and pillaging. The
stories of rape, robbery and mayhem by poor (black) people in New Orleans make
headlines – and the debunking of those stories, the official recognition
that police and others couldn’t find evidence of these horrors, comes weeks
later and is buried by news of the next disaster.

Greed: As mercenaries and
Halliburton descend on New Orleans to make unconscionable profits from suffering,
scooping up fat government contracts for "protection" and "reconstruction,"
while the Bush administration sanctimoniously excuses contractors from legal
requirements for paying prevailing wage rates and complying with environmental
protection laws.

Corruption and Cronyism: Though
"Brownie" was finally relieved of his post as head of FEMA, you can
bet that Bush buddies remain in control throughout the entire system, still
operating with incompetence and impunity.

Compassion fatigue? Not here. I have
plenty of compassion for the people buried in Panabaj under mountains of mud,
for the people waiting for FEMA tents and trailers in Mississippi and Louisiana,
for the people watching fat cats get fatter on the wreckage of their homes and
cities and dreams.

I am sick and tired, though. I am
sick of Bush and Cheney and their administration, who are running this country
for the personal profit of their corrupt cronies. I am tired of their evasions
and half-truths and outright lies. But I am not too tired to stand up and fight
back, with my words the best weapons at my command.