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You’ll All Pay #40

© 2005 Joe Conat

Crime. There is no other word for it.

Crime.

Everybody, of course, is talking about the devastation in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. I’ve even heard some people around the office mention irritably that they were “sick of it…isn’t there any other news?” Then, of course, they turn and gawk at the pictures on the front page of the L.A. Times, gasping at the ruin. “Wow, man. Just wow.”

That’s not the crime. I mean…it is a crime, but it’s one of the myriad petty stupid crimes that petty stupid people inflict on the world around them every minute they draw breath, so you just get used to that trickle of horror going down your throat and don’t even notice you’re swallowing it.

Crime.

In New Orleans, even as you read this, all civility has abandoned the area. Any shred of decency is long gone, washed away perhaps, maybe blown north on the winds of Katrina. People shoot at rescue helicopters, angry that the helicopters are not coming for them, for their families. A madman shot at people trying to evacuate a hospital.

In the convention center, bodies stack up. Rape and murder is common. Supplies can’t be dropped off because of the rushing crowds, desperate for food and clean water and maybe, just maybe, a way out.

Bodies lie in the street. People are resorting to animalism, barbarism. Police are scared…or absent.

Crime.

Do you understand me? Crime. And what’s worse?

This is not the crime I’m talking about either.

Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast early in the morning of August 29th, 2005. On that day the leader of our country attended two staged events to promote his Medicare plan, and held a birthday cake with John McCain.

On August 30th he spoke about the 60th anniversary of the Allied victory in World War II, taking the opportunity to plug his ever favorit war in Iraq at Naval Base Coronado, where he also received a guitar from a country music singer.

Then he went back to his ranch in Crawford, Texas and took a nap.

President Bush got back to the Oval Office on August 31st, two days after Katrina wiped out the Gulf Coast. Two. Days.

To be fair, he did do a quick flyover of the destruction. Probably just to say he did. In his Rose Garden address upon his return to, you know…his job…Mr. Bush gave us a laundry list of things that were bad, things that were needed but said he was “confident that, with time, you can get your life back in order, new communities will flourish, the great city of New Orleans will be back on its feet, and America will be a stronger place for it.”

Note that he used the pronoun “you”. “You can get your life in order. I will be taking a nap. Now watch this drive.”

Crime.

In the New Orleans convention center desperate refugees broke into the kitchen searching for food. There they encountered National Guardsmen, who threatened to kill them right there and then. Civilians become thieves, Guardsmen become murderers.

10,000 more people crowd the Superdome, hoping for a ride out of Hell. FEMA is not visible. Not a single FEMA representative can be found.

Starving infants scream, gathered around the dead body of an old man on his lawn. Infants. BABIES are dying in the streets, in the convention center, in the Superdome and the leader of the free world can’t be bothered to cancel some photo ops with chuckling charming old ladies and a god damned country singer.

Crime.

This morning on “Good Morning America” the President had this to say in response to criticism of his slow reaction to the tragedy: “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached. And as a result, much of New Orleans is flooded.”

Experts Had Predicted Levee Failures

We Saw It Coming, Yet We Still Didn’t Prepare

New Orleans Facing Environmental Disaster

In fact, the predictions go back even further than that. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers requested substantial monies to fortify the levees that surround New Orleans. They got an insignificant sliver of what they said was necessary to maintain the safety of the city.

Crime.

Who will pay, Mr. President? When all is said and done, when the dead have finally been laid to rest, when the hungry are finally fed…when the flood waters roll back, who will stand accountable for the incredible depth to which these people were forced to sink because the resources they needed were in another country? Because the money they needed was in another country? Because the leadership they needed was asleep?

Crime.

Who will pay?

Have a nice nap.

You’ll All Pay is written by Joe Conat. You can e-mail him here.

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