AMERICA WILL NEVER BE THE SAME

 

 

 

Dorothy A. Seese
September 9, 2005
NewsWithViews.com

This is what we heard immediately after the infamous September Eleventh of 2001 -- America will never be the same. And it hasn't.

The phrase is now being used with regard to the catastrophic events following the landfalls of Hurricane Katrina near New Orleans, Louisiana, and Gulfport, Mississippi. Without a doubt, this repeat of "America will never be the same" is as true as its first appearance.

While the most urgent human concerns are being addressed, admittedly in a "too little, too late" fashion for which blame is being tossed around like an overheated root vegetable, certain things are even now happening that are signaling our national weakness and inefficiency. If the state and federal governments cannot handle an emergency that gave more warning concerning its impending arrival onshore at a rather specific time and magnitude, the US is sinking faster than New Orleans in its own inefficiency and bureaucratic obesity. (Not to mention stupidity and inept leadership.)

Millions of us have watched the television views of the aftermath and we have seen that the state of Mississippi, with a devastated coastline and leveled beach towns, works quickly to begin recovery, while Louisiana seems lost in its own French Quarter like a staggering drunk who cannot find his way across the street. Lives have been lost all along the Gulf coast, but in some areas the efforts to dig out and get on have progressed while New Orleans sinks ever deeper below sea level and below an acceptable standard of emergency response, followed at a discouraging distance by federal government action for which American taxpayers have paid millions to nourish FEMA.

After decades of America offering help to other nations in trouble, the Sumatra tsunami being the last major effort, we now stand as a nation to which aid is being offered. Yes, the world is watching us, some nations may actually feel sympathy for the humans suffering in this great land to which so many looked for aid if nothing else. There is still a tiny whisper of an idea that inside, to offer help to America gives some sort of satisfaction to those who have suffered with US government hubris over the years.

Just as I watched the telly on Nine Eleven and wondered why the jet fighters weren't scrambled within the first fifteen minutes, four years later (less a few days) I watched the telly and wondered why every force at FEMA's disposal wasn't mobilized to evacuate the city, even before the levee was breached. Once the 17th Street canal levee gave way and the waters of Lake Pontchartrain began pouring into the great soup bowl by the sea, I wondered what "homeland security" had been doing for the four years since Nine Eleven. Where was everyone? And I wasn't the only one asking.

With so many Army and Air Force bases from Texas to Florida, it seemed logical that with or without a call from the Governor of Louisiana, FEMA had both the authority and the resources at its disposal to come in and save lives. The convoys began arriving five days after Katrina left. "Unacceptable" is not the proper word for that type of non-response.

Blaming the people who refused to leave is not acceptable either. Of the thousands who may be found dead or counted among the overall death toll of this event, having died on the streets or in sweltering "shelters," there likely will be relatively few who simply refused to leave because they had ridden out the hurricanes Camille and Betsy. A few stupid tourists hung around to see a hurricane and found out what a "supercane" is like. Getting out alive will be the biggest miracle of their span on earth. But the poverty-level residents make up the bulk of those stranded in the city. Weather forecasters gave over two days' warning, with graphics, indicating the projected path of Katrina. Pearl Harbor and Nine-Eleven were total surprises to our general public if not to some in high places, but Katrina was announced to the entire nation.

One can think of many things that will form the composite of a changed America:

And that's a partial, short list! The various nations of the world have seen America's weaknesses, ineptness and inefficiency, and while they have nothing in particular to brag about, they are all too willing to find fault with us. Our hubris has come home to roost.

This is no time for false pride in the America we used to be, if we aren't that America now. We're going to be forever changed again, until the next crisis adds a new chapter to the changing of America. Somehow, when the immediate needs are handled and the misery of beginning a new life with nothing has become a way of life for the people relocated or who choose to relocate rather than go home to a pile of rubble, America will be just a little closer to its neighbors in the global world.

Nothing will be better for anyone other than the few who always make a fortune off the misfortune of others.

For the rest of us, things will simply become more stressful, and survival will become more difficult. All the more reason, in the eyes of the globalists, to have one world government. All the more reason, in the eyes of those who cherish freedom, to stop relying on the government and elect locals who have the community at heart and make a point of being prepared.

That's grounds for war in our own country. And all the more reason for those who do believe in liberty to be far more careful in electing people to public office unless they should be there by reason of their beliefs and capabilities, not their political machinery, race, or any other irrelevant factor.

We seem always to be going back to basics, we simply never get there. It's time to get off the detours of rhetoric and arrive!

© 2005 Dorothy A. Seese - All Rights Reserved