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Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Trying to Cope...

I stated this blog would be attempting to get back to normal but it is quite difficult for me to do that still. I can’t stand by and say nothing or do nothing. This is a time of great tragedy for a lot of individuals, families and this country. The great loss of life and destruction of belongings and property is terrible and overwhelming. The breakdown of our system is appalling and beyond any easy or straightforward repairs. The media, political events and bureaucracy that continue to kill individuals and destroy the confidence and hope of many others is also a large contributor. There is a need for major changes in our current processes and it is needed now. We will head down this same road again and again if we don’t make some major transformations.

The losses are not small, even if there was only one person it should never be considered a small matter! We are talking about peoples lives. These are important people each one of them and not just numbers, statistics, polls or votes, poor, middle-class, rich, Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Native or anything else they are individuals living in our country. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and grandparents that their decaying bodies are being eaten by alligators and rats while we attempt to organize and bicker. There are family members that are dying in front of each other from dehydration and other basic needs. Others are drowning and dying from injuries. How many are still alive and living through horrors such as this right now or ones that I don’t want to imagine. How many children and adults are hulled up in the attics of the flooded homes that have been at 150 degrees in the attics for the last week?

There are educated, uneducated a like stranded and doing the best they can to survive. There are a few trying to take advantage of the situation being called looters and marauders but only a few are doing this because they are evil. The others have fallen into the demise because it’s ugly, scary, confusing and they feel abandoned. There are weapons being carried by people and what do you expect from someone in this situation. I think most people would have a gun if they had access to one in this situation. They want to defend themselves and their families from those who are ignorant, evil or panicked and lost rational sense. I don’t condone this behavior and it does need to be brought under control but certainly we can’t judge these people from in front of our living room television sets. We can’t judge the rescuers and guard for shooting such people either that have threatened their lives. This is a devastating set of circumstances that takes unprecedented decisions and strong or even harsh leadership. Many of us have been very fortunate never to have felt this strong of a need for survival and dealing with the amounts of chaos.

Armed robbery, assaults, rape, murder can not be tolerated in this circumstance and actions must be taken swiftly and severely against the individuals involved in these crimes; which left unchecked could and most likely would create a wider pandemonium and suffering. However, judgments should not be so swift and there will be time to hear the survivors other side of the story later. Then peers and individuals that were directly involved in this catastrophe can make sounder judgments and hopefully fairer interpretations of the actions. Outsiders such as me will never be able to completely understand or pass down appropriate judgment.

Fear, sadness, anger and helplessness my guess will and is a normal reaction to such mass devastation. How the leaders we have chosen to lead, react, respond and execute their perceived duties will have a big effect too. Many of these leaders are programmed to respond to this in the way they have been taught and what we have built our systems around. We may want to blame individual politicians or groups and parties but that is not the issue. We have let the parties, institutions and corporations grow to what they are today. The way the government, politicians, media and corporations react is what we have built, what we support and maintain. All of these institutions are powerful, strong and have and will do dreadful and wonderful things! We the people have made the choice of the system running the way it does.

Now we have pointing, blame, shame, posturing, political agendas, manipulation and so many other tactics and techniques that need to be seriously re-thought because of the obvious failure.

When there is tragedy at the individual or mass scale each and everything needs to evaluated and planned for but never just go by the book. One thing is there is no book, we all want life to be simple with simple ABC answers but there is no one simple answer, and there never will be. Are there any simple answers for everything when you involve many in any situation? Millions of people then there are millions of answers. No one is wrong and no one is right here bad choices were made and good choices were made by politicians, government workers and civilians. There are no single politicians to blame or individuals. If Bush, Clinton or Kerry were in charge there would have been chaos. It’s not time to blame the mayor, city, governor, federal or president. There will be time to evaluate and change and there is a lot of this we all must do!

There are many other disaster scenarios in this country that meet or exceed the one that has taking place. Many of them are inevitable and only a matter of time before they do happen. Many of us already know of these possibilities with the communications, education and media we have available to us. We may want to ignore them or deny them but these facts are still there in the droves. What are we going to do to improve those situations before they happen?

There are many that are talking and writing strong rhetoric, emotional and frustrated stances from ones that are caring, scared, frustrated, callous, self gratifying, personal gain, agendas to the conspiracies or just strange. I try to listen and read with an open mind to as many as possible. An emotional and callous response filled with profanity can be found at The News Blog: “We told you so” but straight forward to how this blogger feels. Then there is another one-sided emotional view in a long essay trying to categorize complex individuals into simplified tribes and colors at Eject, Eject, Eject: TRIBES. There is also information overflow, confusion, facts and maybe propaganda that can be found all over the internet, newspapers, radios. Such as: Wonkette points to a few facts and confusions. There are perceptions everywhere like Boing Boing “A tale of two photos ”, “KATRINA: RESPONSE TIMELINE” listed at the Right Wing Nut House, “The Last Time America Lost a City” timeline over at Daily Kos. The up closer then many of us from Wizbang with “Katrina: The First Draft of History”. There is an open email to bush at Sell the Ranch. Places that people are trying to gather all the facts like Wikipedia.

There needs to be one main goal for the time being and that is taking care of these people in this disaster. There is a plethora of charity, help and assistance pouring out of people in this country and around the world. There are heroes of all kinds out there yesterday, today and tomorrow. We will get through this the best we can. I have faith in people and Americans of doing the right things and getting things accomplished.

The drastically needed political changes, goals and rallying need to happen but not at the expense of any relief efforts. However, if it can make things better now then those changes should take place now. In the future, hopefully, we find the time, energy, money and efforts to make the changes that are needed!

I hope, I pray and do what I think I can to make it a better place for all of us...

blogged by Anonymous @ 9/06/2005

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