a tragedy in kind

In the wake of what has been the worst natural disaster to come to the U.S. in our living-memories, it's difficult not to stay glued to the TV and bury our noses in the newspaper (for those of us on a cable-free diet due to underfed bank accounts). This is a tragedy that deserves our attention, as its victims do our support on all fronts, particularly economic, political, and moral.

Yet I fear that this country as a governing entity under the leadership of the Bush administration has spent the last 4 years, not to mention the last 4 days, undermining its ability to do exactly this, both as a matter of fact and of precedent.

Economically speaking, the Bush administration has depleted our resources in the Iraq war with an eye towards its own imperialist agenda. The war was waged by a group of men seeking to benefit financially on an individual level, exercising an inhumanitarian version of free market capitalism that bred international scrutiny, fueled domestic distrust, and most notably from an economic standpoint, cost quite a lot of money.

President Bush has repeatedly recited in Rovian verse that invading Iraq was an effort to make America safer. If he truly believed this--all green-eyed-oil-tycoon-monsters to the wayside-- he would take this opportunity to reflect on the fact that his war in Iraq will now bear consequence not only on the lives of soldiers overseas, but on the welfare of New Orleans. Furthermore, his irresponsible tax policies have cost the federal government revenue money that could have contributed to a more responsible relief effort.

To put it more bluntly and at the risk of callously equating money and American lives (a compromise that Mr. Bush has proved willing to make anyways), I venture to say that the victims of Katrina would have been better off had this tragedy occurred under the years of budgetary surplus under the Clinton administration.

In addition to these economic considerations regarding both foreign and domestic policy, President Bush has wasted valuable political capital fighting an unpopular war. As we face the biggest local disaster since the events of 9/11, Bush has, as Francis Fukayama suggests, begun to erode even his own political base (to say nothing of alienating half the country) in a war that may very well end up badly: we have more to fear than a Vietnam-esque quagmire as we bring Iraq to the brink of civil war.

How do these crippling foreign policy judgments affect the people not of the global middle east but of the American South? If a country's leader cannot be expected to responsibly react to an attack on American lives by external forces, how can he be trusted to respond reiliably to a natural disaster that similarly amounts to massive human casualty?

The amount of faith we have in our leaders is of historical importance to this country and to all countries today and in the history of the modern nation-state. Bush has left us without a leader we can trust and rely on, and this condition cannot and should not be understated. This brings us to our moral responsibility.

In a country where "morals" have become "issues," the question of lending a helping hand to a neighbor in crisis should be a no-brainer. The reaction of Texas towards the victims of the hurricane is both laudable and to be expected. The thousands upon thousands of American citizens deserve our most conscientious hospitality in their time of need and suffering.

And I don't believe this is simply an American moral tradition or patriotic reaction; this is a historically human responsibility. When our neighbors are desperate, when their children's' access to education is infringed upon, when they seek healthcare and lodging and money and hospitality, we must meet their needs. We must meet these needs not because they are American values but because they are the needs of humanity, and we can help.

It is to be expected then, that these people in need get a deserved Texas-style welcome (MSNBC). But this hospitality is undermined by a history of American inhospitality to the suffering. When the victims are not American and the tragedy was not a hurricane, Texans, Californians, New Mexicans, and the rest have a history of not only turning a blind eye to neighbors in need, but insisting on their persecution (Houston chronicle).

The fibers of our humanity that encourage us to support American victims seems to disintegrate in the context of a caustic debate on illegal immigration (LA Times). While the response to international disaster of some U.S. citizens may have been noteworthy at the time of the tsunami, we have a tendency to renege on our moral commitment to ending human suffering when we look through this immigration lens. It's dehumanizing and amoral.

When taken in the context of this immigration debate, our moral commitment to victims of tragedy is vulnerable. The U.S. has a history of racial oppression; of this everyone is aware, and most will readily denounce it. Yet the underlying fabric of society is less willing to unilaterally expel this racial and social inequity from our dialogue and our practice.

David Brooks points to this reality in the wake of Katrina: "Take a close look at the people you see wandering, devastated, around New Orleans: they are predominantly black and poor." Our history of inhospitality over our borders has set a dangerous precedent concerning the question of exactly whom we are willing to welcome and for how long.

In time, this moral uncertainty may play an important role in determining who bears the long-term burden of this tragedy. A human need is a human need, but we have a history of picking and choosing just whose needs we believe are important enough to satisfy. This dangerous precedent serves to shake the moral foundation we now attempt to provide for New Orleans' victims.

Ultimately, Americans are going to do their very best, at least at first, to help those that Katrina has devastated. It is not a question of economic, political or moral bad intention. Rather though, I believe that there is always an opportunity to improve on our methods and our capacity to do good. Here, the economic policy, political irresponsibility and moral malfeasance do come into play in a significant way. We should have been better prepared; this preparedness goes beyond cots and canned food, and becomes a question of our country's moral ideology.