Well my fellow world citizens,
I returned to my wonderful country to find what I knew I would find. That it had changed. I had this grim feeling that something horrible was going to happen, and unfortunately my gut was right. While I was off finding exactly what I already knew, that the rest of the world is very displeased with the U.S., in the back of my mind I knew that I was heading home to a different America. When I was in Munich, there was no mention of hurricane Katrina, when I was in Amsterdam 2 days later however, the evacuation of New Orleans seemed terrifying, last minute and poorly planed. One of my tour members had family in the area and I don’t think it ever quite sunk in how grave the situation was. I tried to convey the seriousness, yet he clung to this idea that New Orleans had been evacuated before. I knew this time things were different.
I remember the quiet storm that gave flash on the horizon before I left the U.S. Everything that night seemed so quiet. Just a brief pulse of lightening in the distance interrupted the midnight calm. To me, it was the great calm before the great storm. There was no rain, no loud thunder; no one at all was out on the streets. It was unusually quiet. Here in California, I normally liken it to the great still before the great earthquake. It is hard to explain before hand, but in retrospect, it makes perfect sense. You don’t know what is going to happen; you just know that something large is looming in the distance.
Well that storm approached and has changed this country forever.
When I came home I expected to see images of National Guard troops and relief efforts along side a capitalizing president. Instead, what I saw made me sick. I saw thousands of disenfranchised Americans who just happened to be mostly African-American. I saw the failure of a thousand politicians, and at the top, was a man who had been golfing when New Orleans was flooding. I saw outrage on the morning news. Harry Connick Jr. was on the Today Show rambling and pointing fingers with a lost voice. Other reporters took the liberty to say things like “they’re dying out here!”
I was appalled, outraged and ashamed. America poured money to the Tsunami victims but we can’t help our own worst national disaster? This is clearly a failure of leadership!
It’s funny how a president that politicizes everything would now try to say this isn’t the time for politics, when you know full and well that he politicized September the 11th and it’s subsequent anniversaries (even pushed the Republican convention just after 9-11) to his advantage. The truth of the matter is, that if this President had managed to do his job, this would have helped him tremendously. Unfortunately for all of us, he has not been doing his job, and has chosen to go on vacation instead. The sum addition is a national tragedy.
How could the President have shown such little leadership in a time when it was needed so desperately? How could they have dropped the ball so badly? I tell you anyone that would not have put politics aside in the best interest of those people in New Orleans is a sick human being. The sad truth however, is that it looks as if the President played politics with their lives before hand. And his piss-poor diplomacy only made things worse. The rest of the world is barely even watching because of his outrageous politics. I tell you America! It is time to wake up!
Just take a look at these headlines:
Bush: Response to Katrina Was Mishandled
Congress Likely to Probe Late National Guard Response
Rapper Kanye West: “George Bush Doesn’t Care About Black People”…
$100 Billion Price Tag on Katrina
Retail Gas Prices Jump, Deliveries falter
Republicans Concerned Bush’s Rhetoric Not Matching Reality
Editorials, Including Those at Conservative Papers, Rip Bush’s Hurricane Response
Katrina May Cut Payrolls by 500,000 This Month
The point is, the President failed the American people in a way that is inexcusable. For the first time, he has no one to bail him out. The American people are sick and tired of the excuses. We are sick and tired of the War in Iraq. Sick and tired of the high gas prices, especially since he and the Vice President are tied up in oil. Sick and tired of corporate America’s domination of the media, and the lies that they feed us.
We the people of the United States of America are not stupid, we are just cynical. Let us stop being cynical and start taking our country back from the throws of totalitarianism. Let us form a more perfect union, one free from the corruption of big business, which lives up to the truest form of democracy that exists on this planet.
I must tell you, seeing half of Europe was a real eye opener. I couldn’t believe that a world existed without billboards and advertising everywhere, but it does. I really admire the Europeans. They seem to get more out of life than Americans do. Our lives our pushed so hard by the forces of the corporations that it was so refreshing to go to countries that still believe in the small business. Shame on this country for talking the talk and forgetting the walk.
One last thing, I found on my tour, from the many corners of the English-sphere (that is U.K. Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, and the U.S.) and the E.U. that most people are very angry with the U.S. but they haven’t lost hope. They know that the U.S. isn’t a shining city on a hill, but they also know that it is a world power. Our decisions affect the world over and the rest of the world just prays that we keep them in mind. I know that I keep abreast of the world, I only wish I could say the same for the rest of my peers. If the United States is to maintain hegemonic (that is world dominance) we are going to have to begin to see ourselves not as the world’s bully (as Bush does) but as the world’s partner. Is that really such an unreasonable request?
Now that we know what kind of leader we have, let’s send him back to Texas or New England or wherever the hell he comes from, and put someone in the White House that sees the American People as the open-minded rise-to-the-challenge democratic egalitarians that we actually are. Let us abandon the SUV gas guzzling age, and begin focusing on making our country, and our world a stronger and safer information age.
As for the people on the ground in Louisiana and Mississippi, they need all of our help. From what I gather, the American Red Cross is still the best place to contribute. Many claim to be better, but don’t be fooled. The safest place to give money is still the name you can trust.
Otherwise here is a list of local organizations to helping the victims.
I know my thoughts and prayers are with the survivors down there in the South, I like to think I’m not the only one.