| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Michelle Malkin" |
| Date: |
03 Sep 2005 07:18:09 PM |
| Object: |
Now We Know Better |
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050903/ap_on_re_us/katrina_third_world_images
.
|
|
| User: "johac" |
|
| Title: Re: Now We Know Better |
04 Sep 2005 02:11:41 AM |
|
|
In article <L5WdnS_iVa_coIfeRVn-iA@comcast.com>,
"Michelle Malkin" <hypatiab7@comcast.net> wrote:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050903/ap_on_re_us/katrina_third_world_images
When I see these pictures, especially those from the Superdome, I can't
help but compare them with other tragedies that we have witnessed
recently: Niger, Dafur, Congo, and Iraq too. I was struck by the
similarities in the expressions on the faces of the people, especially
the children. In their eyes was a mixture of bewilderment, terror, and
pleading - "Please make it go away".
When we are vanquished by a superior force, in this case not an invading
army but a hurricane, we are all the same.
--
John Hachmann aa #1782
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
-Voltaire
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "stoney" |
|
| Title: Re: Now We Know Better |
08 Sep 2005 07:47:00 PM |
|
|
On Sat, 3 Sep 2005 20:18:09 -0400, "Michelle Malkin"
<hypatiab7@comcast.net> wrote:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050903/ap_on_re_us/katrina_third_world_images
An AP Essay: Is This Happening in America?
By JIM LITKE, Associated Press WriterFri Sep 2,11:04 PM ET
Image after image of unrelenting sorrow, layered one atop the other
like a deck of haunting cards. A baby held aloft, inches above a sea
of desperate faces, gasping for air. The dead left where they've
fallen, in plain view, robbed of even the simple dignity of a shroud.
Survivors waiting, then begging, then fighting, finally, over food and
water.
Here.
While the images of natural disasters and man-made ones alike, from
Sri Lanka or Baghdad, cause despair, the pictures from New Orleans
inspire not just helplessness, but disbelief. The richest, most
powerful nation in the world can build schools, hospitals and shelters
halfway around the globe, but it can't provide the basic necessities
for its own days after a disaster that everybody saw coming?
Here?
Usually, we shudder, change the channel or turn the page, awaiting
better news. But there is something too compelling about these
pictures. The distance between us and the people in them has been
narrowed, rendered uncomfortably close, and not just for those who are
family, friends or neighbors. We recognize them. We all see people
like them.
Here.
Authorities can't make the waters that did that retreat. They can't
begin to rebuild the levee or the homes and businesses made
uninhabitable, at least not now. They will never be able to restore
much of what was washed away in the flood.
But if a reporter can interview a man standing outside a looted
drugstore, and record his reluctance at having to go inside and steal
pads for incontinence, why couldn't someone get medical supplies to
the people huddled at the Superdome or the convention center in time,
or the buses promised to evacuate them?
There are more questions than answers, and will be for years to come.
That's the nature of disaster, and its aftermath. They expose our
fragility, overwhelm our best intentions, mock our attempts to impose
the sense of calm and order that prevails when life proceeds according
to some rough plan.
Yet, ultimately, that's what is most unsettling about the constant
stream of images: The suffering goes on not just for hours, but for
days after we should have and could have ended it. And for all the
commissions, reports and bravado that passes for preparedness, we
didn't. It was a hand we never expected to be dealt.
Here.
There will be time enough, too, to assess blame, for politicians to
point fingers, find and fire those deemed accountable. And maybe even
to figure out how a handful of Southeast Asian governments, whose
economies, armies and emergency resources could all be folded
comfortably several times inside those of the United States, responded
to a tsunami much larger and fiercer than Hurricane Katrina with
swiftness and efficiency, and we could not. And so the frustration
builds, not so much over what happened, but what did not.
Here.
In the meantime, the disturbing images keep rolling in, interrupted
now and then by more hopeful ones. The trucks, jeeps, buses and
helicopters so scarce the past few days are out moving in force.
Police and National Guardsmen are on the streets, rescue workers are
getting in place. The babies in the latest pictures are contentedly
emptying bottles, pallets filled with water and food are being
unloaded by human chains. One administration official after another
turns up on the screen to offer reassurances and soothing words.
But the damage has been done, and it's no longer limited to the lives
lost and ruined, or the property destroyed. Those are things, sadly
enough, that can be totaled up over time.
Much harder to measure is the cost of all those searing images burned
into the national conscience, and what they've done to the sense of
security that was our last refuge when disasters wreaked havoc, and
then, unnecessary suffering, in distant lands — the certainty that it
couldn't happen here.
Now we know better.
Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president
represents, more and more closely, the inner soul
of the people. On some great and glorious day the
plain folks of the land will reach their heart's
desire at last and the White House will be adorned
by a downright moron." --- H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
Religion is the original war crime.
-Michelle Malkin (Feb 26, 2005)
.
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
