Fiery Furnaces - We Got Back the Plague (Single Version)

Why? Oh, I dunno. Just because.

There are many things that have confused me about this administration from a policy standpoint, things that have made me think less "that's horrible" and more "why did they do that?" But this is the first time I've been confused from a purely human perspective. How can you know what's going on in New Orleans, hearing the reports and seeing the chaos, and not personally do something, if you're rich enough to own large vehicles or have the freedom to go down there without losing your job? If you have money, you can rent or buy a boat and bring it down there, or buy up all the bottled water and non-perishable food you can find and fly it down there, or just get in your large vehicle and use it to ferry people to safety. The Superdome has run out of water and food; you can at least do something to help that, even if you don't want to help rescue people from the roofs of houses or stop them from being being raped in the street. If you have the capacity to help, why aren't you, given that, as of last night:

- Soldiers still had not arrived at the city, and people could not be rescued in some cases because they would be shot;
- At one hospital, only 8 people had been taken out;
- Things are exploding and catching on fire. Things are exploding and catching on fire in a fucking flood.


All of this in a city where if you touch the water and touch your face, you stand a good chance of dying. All of this in a city where corpses are sitting out on the streets.


This is ignoring policy issues, stuff like the wetlands being built on and flood-prevention funding being cut, or even present-tense policy like, apparently, a zero-tolerance attitude toward "looting." This is a much simpler issue: when shit is this bad and when they could help, why are individual members of this administration not down there right now, helping out with their not-inconsiderable resources? Especially given that this is what the rest of us are being asked to do?

Anyway, America's failing, blah blah blah. It's all pretty horrible. I'm going away for a while. Don't let everything go to shit while I'm gone, OK guys? And in the meantime, give to the Red Cross (1-800-HELP-NOW works too), they got the Astrodome hooked up amazingly well, looks like.
posted by Mike B. at 10:58 AM 0 comments