[published on September 3, 2005 in my previous blog, "The Flatland Oracles"]
First of all, if you’re like me, you’ve sometimes been driven almost to despair by the blank, soul-deadening silence or unashamed partisanship of the press up till about now. Salon.com has seen me through some of the darker hours. Assuming you’re not already a subscriber like me, you can get a day pass to view any of these articles (and much, much more) by investing a few seconds at their gateway. But I’d recommend supporting independent journalism---and exposure to a few rough truths--- by purchasing a subscription. The truth hurts, but silence at the times when it is essential to 'speak truth to power' is the mother of despair.
1. All wrapped up in the Flag? That's actually not what it's for.
Is it unpatriotic to criticize the President? No, it is not unpatriotic. It is never unpatriotic. In all the history of this country, it has never been unpatriotic---because of that little thing we call ‘Democracy.’ It was not unpatriotic, for example, when the President was Clinton and the ‘vast right-wing conspiracy” that we all privately thought was sort of a joke. It is not unpatriotic now that we have a President who chooses to be president to only half the country, who involved us in a war of choice and who let one of our few truly historic cities drown because, I suppose, not enough of his constituents lived there. Joe Conason addresses this point :
For the third time since George W. Bush became president, Americans are paying a catastrophic price for bad government. As the costs are tallied once more in death and dollars, we are being told that the wise and patriotic thing to do is shut up -- as if good citizens are obliged to remain silent about unwise and incompetent leadership.
Honest political debate over how and why we lost the great city of New Orleans, according to the latest dictates from the right, means "an excess of recrimination," "finger-pointing" and "villain hunting." Such a "vulgar" exercise risks overshadowing our normal national unity and generosity in confronting disaster with "divisiveness" and "partisanship." We are piously advised instead to do good and find common ground, to "be humble, compassionate and helpful." Thus speak the sages of the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal.
You know what, I am all for holding Bush accountable, but I also want people to start talking back to the moral morons in the press and the Republican party who want to make people think that silence = patriotism. If there was ever an anti-American and therefore intrinsically unpatriotic statement, that’s it.
Here’s a thought: Let’s tell them to shut up for a change.
2. Laura Bush weighs in: The poor we have with us always...... (Still waiting for that other shoe to drop).
Do you look at the faces of the miserable poor of New Orleans and see an annihilating spectacle of the nation’s contravention of the true teachings of Christ? Or do you sigh, shake your head, and wish aloud that these people had had the bottom and the foresight to get off their (mostly African-American) asses, pick a job off the Job Tree, and buy themselves an SUV so they wouldn’t have been left behind?
To be fair (and I am all about the fairness), part of what she is quoted as saying in Tim Grieve’s note is absolutely true: “The poorer people are usually in the neighborhoods that are the lowest or the most exposed or the most vulnerable. Their housing is the most vulnerable to natural disaster. And that is just always what happens."
I’m sure that they inadvertently left off the rest of what she said, “….and it is a national disgrace and a shame to Christians everywhere.” No? Oh. Laura? Laura? Anyone?
Do people really think that when Jesus said that the poor are always with us, he meant that we’re not implicated in their suffering? Do they think that because he died on the cross, they no longer have to do anything for him? Do Christians on the right even read the Gospels? Or did I misread them?
Should I be saying to myself, “There by the grace of God, go they?”
Ah, well. Laura Bush seems like a really nice person---indeed, what people in my part of the world call ‘a lovely person.’ So I am glad the Bushes are looking forward, as no doubt we all are, to the reconstruction of the no doubt stately home of Trent Lott and particularly his front porch---better, says POTUS, than before! More notes from Tim Grieve.
3. It takes a Liberal to Draw These Lines. The Right Can’t see Them.
When I saw the infamous “White Finders/Black Looters” photogaphs, I had only one thought, and it related to the black ‘looter.” “Oh, my God, that’s a child.” The pinched, tearful look of despair on his face was all I noticed.
“They’re stealing shoes,” said someone to me indignantly. “They’re taking televisions.” Because, you know, that’s just how “they” are. They’ll steal anything.
But you know what? They are us.
In Salon, Aaron Kinney points out the blindingly obvious (to those not among the "color-challenged") truth;
Some in the news media have not made it clear enough that there are three types of “looters” in New Orleans. First, there are those obtaining items like food, drink and clothing that are critical to their survival. These are not looters at all. They are human beings with functioning survival instincts. Second, there are the people walking out of stores like Wal-Mart with televisions and other non-essential goods. They are opportunists and looters, but given the devastation in New Orleans, they’re not even worth a second thought. Third, there are the people who are roaming the streets with guns and terrorizing and robbing other needy citizens. These are criminals, and they should be met with force.
It’s time to put the looting issue to bed. New Orleans is a disaster area, and people who were taking food and water before the government showed up with relief were perfectly justified. If the slums of New Orleans had been filled with white people, they would have done the exact same thing.
4. The Church of Christ without Christ and its saints. You know, that other Thomas—the one with the whale?
Thank you again, writers of Salon! I have been longing for someone in the media to draw this line. But the so-called “Right” can see only black and white and none of the shades in between.
It’s also obvious that the so-called “Right” and I see very different things when we witness the spectacle of the miserable poor of New Orleans. I see the absolutely foreseeable consequences of a social policy based on the un-Christian and immoral notion that the diligent, worthy, ethical people in society get money and cars and the ability to save themselves from ‘natural disasters’ and that the lazy, feckless, undeserving….don’t. It’s just a coincidence that ‘they’ are almost all black! It doesn’t prove anything, except that maybe black people really are different from us!
In short, I see the very people we are enjoined by Christ to care for and who---according to him----are his special concern. He said it, not I: As we treat them, we treat him. The ‘Right’ evidently sees something different: people paying the price of failure. Regrettable, but not our fault. No one’s fault but their own.
Alan Wolfe sums it up more eloquently in Salon, where he points out the Right’s leaning toward a Hobbesian view of the world and more specifically, of a government’s responsibility for the welfare of its citizens.
In the state of nature, no one is responsible for you. The situation in New Orleans may look like chaos, our right-wing brethren say, but in reality it is not that different from a market economy in which everyone is responsible for the choices he or she makes. People may be suffering, but, as Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown put it, residents "chose not to leave the city." Left unsaid, but implicit in the idea of choice, is that we ought to be wary of extending too much help to people so unable to act in their own best interest that financial assistance is likely to be wasted on them. Of course, it is easier to choose to leave if you can afford a car, but no one ever said that fairness reigns in the state of nature.
The Church of Christ without Christ should take down its images of the suffering Jesus and replace them with the image of Hobbes’s Leviathan. Their Leviathan should be---naturally—a white whale, a massive, angry, and violent force that operates with maximum attention to the sort of justice that is bent on revenge and with absolutely no regard for such qualities as mercy, compassion, or community.
Unlike the whale that swallowed Jonah and spat him out on the shores of Nineveh (where, after all, he found he really did need to be), that whale represents, according to Melville, “naked nature”---blind impulse undirected by any connection to God or Christ.
All hail the mighty Leviathan! Now---let’s put New Orleans on the back burner for awhile (it’s not like it’s our fault, after all) and get busy on those naughty estate taxes which are so troubling to the affluent, and which cause their young so much alarm and despondency. Another note from Tim Grieve.
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