To be expected.

The scope of the events of the past week in New Orleans are beyond my abilities to properly accumulate or reflect upon here, so I'll point you to a couple of my favorite blogs who are assessing on what I know best: the political ramifications. This is by no means to reduce the utter devastation and chaos of that region: we are hearing reports of dead people in the streets, women giving their babies to federal officials because they can't get out, no water, no food, certainly no electricity. Those are the things that need to be taken care of; what I mean to write just a few sentences about is how effectively that is being done.

Which is not at all effectively, and unlike previous events, we know exactly why that happened. Some will say that this is no time to be politicizing the disaster, or to be pointing fingers. I say fuck you. This is a city that lies below sea level, next to the sea. It has faced many potential calamaties before. Every level of government knew what could and would happen should one of the most powerful storms of recorded history strike New Orleans. What President Bush said this morning is a lie, and he damn well knows it too. FEMA had response plans ready to go at the beginning of the decade, but we know what became of that.

This is much too jumbled to be a good post, and for that I apologise, so for now I'll just say this: this needs to be politicized. This is indeed the very essence of a political matter. People are dead and dying, a city is in ruins, and the person who could've done something about it was eating cake and playing a guitar while New Orleans was nearly swept out to sea. The nature of his response is beyond shocking; it is now expected.

The people of Louisana would've liked to have had their National Guard on hand this past week; they would've liked some federal money to have gone towards finishing the levee system; they would've liked for more helicopters to be available for rescue and recovery operations. In these respects and many many more their leadership has failed the most basic test of any legitimate government. But you wouldn't know that from the conservative commentators among us, whose absurdities you can find on Eschaton and Washington Monthly and Daily Kos, to name a few, who claim that the people who were left in New Orleans in large part deserved their fate because they didn't leave. That they were poor, had no means of transportation, or no means to sustain themselves outside the city is not deserving of relief, only scorn. That they are taking bread and water because the government is not providing it after five days is still 'looting' to these pundits. Can't these people respect private property?! Can't they just die?!

My heart goes out to every single person in Lousiana and Missisippi, and to everybody that is affected by their troubles, and I wish beyond anything else that I had the capacity to help relieve this tragedy. But that's in the hands of the people who refuse to be destroyed by this, who will refuse to let a city like New Orleans remain submerged. A nation will have their back.