What's in a Blame

It's been ten days or so since my last entry, scripted before a sojourn up in the beautiful Yosemite Valley. There I gazed upon a panoply of stars (real luminaries, not the ones lining Hollywood Boulevard), and took exquisite photos of majestic granite peaks like El Capitan and Half-Dome, towering testimonies to millions of years of natural processes (or six thousand years of intelligent chiseling, if you live in a Red State).

Normally the last week of August and the prelude to Labor Day marks a slough in major news as pretty much the entire world goes on vacation. Not quite the case this annum. Since my last blog entry there have been a couple of plane crashes, a mad stampede killing a thousand Iraqis who believed a suicide bomber was in their midst, the death of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and something else---oh yes, the drowning of a major American City.

The disaster that befell New Orleans is an event difficult to comprehend in its enormity, because it is too uncomfortable. It's a fascinating and appalling spectacle to watch, and underneath all the fretting and sympathy lies the undeniable relief that it has not happened to me. However, living in a major earthquake zone and anticipating the overdue Big One, I perceive this catastrophe as a prelude to something even more gargantuanly destructive and certainly more immediate. And this is not even considering the likelihood of a terrorist bomb pulverizing some major urban area. They won't be able to bail that one out.

Meanwhile the range of reactions to this event offer insight into the nature of our Republic. In the first few days it was horror and sympathy; then an outpouring of generosity and hospitality by the majority of Americans, especially those in the southeast who survived the major impact. Now, however, come the recriminations. In the end, after New Orleans is drained and rebuilt, the latter process of which could take twenty years, this tragedy will be interpreted as a political issue. At first political considerations were tacky, but our system guarantees that if there is suffering, someone has to be blamed.

So let's gather the usual suspects. Number one, of course, is Dubya. It's almost too easy, and actually not useful to blame Bush, because he can't be unelected at this point. It is true that his allocation of budgetary and military resources to his Iraqi crusade has undermined the strength of support to the devastated region. The Federal response has been roundly criticized as too cautious and too smug. The Republican congress can be blamed for underfunding the Corps of Engineers' requirements for shoring up the levees that burst. The question I pose is whether a Democratic congress would have acted much differently. Probably a bit moreso, and certainly would have had more tax revenue around to buttress our infrastructure if it were deemed essential. Interestingly, even Bush cannot deny the laxity with which the crisis was met, though he is still congenitally unable to admit fault. But he has agreed to lead his own inquiry into the mishandling of the relief efforts. Don't you just love that? Next, maybe Saddam can sit on the bench to arbitrate his own murder trial.

I watched one of the victims who'd been rescued attribute his salvation to "God," which I suppose is a natural reaction, but begs the bigger question of why God "permitted" this to happen in the first place. I'm sure Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell will eventually point to the sinful Mardi Gras as a Sodom-and-Gomorrah event that invites divine retribution (though I'm sure most of the celebrants escaped unharmed, unlike the mostly black underclass). For all the gratitude expressed to God for preserving lives that will be in desperate straits for years, I've heard very little in the way of complaint. Maybe we were all convinced by the persuasive beauty of the Book of Job, but as far as I'm concerned, Lordy, you got a lot of 'splainin' to do.

For my own conclusions I am reminded here of a line in Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle" that we are all "listless playthings of immeasurable forces." That pretty much sums up my naturalistic view of this catastrophe. Those same natural forces that built El Capitan with the flood waters receding from the Ice Age conspired unpleasantly to deluge a low-lying area that for centuries has eluded the inevitable surge of a direct storm hit. We are severely limited in our power to alter these forces; we have to learn to respect and anticipate them. And be good to our neighbors.