Heroes & Horses' Rears

The events of the past week -- the near total destruction of a great American city and the desperate hours and days of those who stayed behind and thus were forced to struggle to survive -- are mind numbing in their surrealism. It's as if one of those old science fiction novellas, or a Twilight Zone episode, suddenly came to life. In those stories were predicted the inevitable human responses, the quiet, stoics who put their own lives at risk to save others; the ill, cripped or elderly people who wait for rescue, and none arrives because, just like in everyday life, hardly anyone knows they exist; the sociopaths and hot-blooded rebels who see in the disaster an opportunity for personal gain and an exhiliarating freedom from conventional mores, whose actions endanger the lives and safety of the whole.

In these stories were families who for various reasons, in retrospect none of them very compelling, delayed evacuation until it was too late to leave. There were small-minded bureaucrats whose insistence on dotting every "i" and crossing every "t" blinded them to the big picture without which they could not be effective in a crisis. There were good cops who risked their lives, and sometimes died, helping the least of their civilian brothers and sisters; there were bad cops who joined in the looting, raping and brutality. There were cerebral federal disaster officials who knew all the facts about every aspect of relief efforts, but who were ineffectual as order-givers, or leaders. There were steely-jawed soldiers of various ranks whose grasp of the facts might have been less complete, but made up for it with the ability to command respect and offer true leadership.

Even 50 or 60 years ago there were stories featuring media reporters who rose to the occasion, or fell depending upon the ability to handle the horrific and unpredictable.

What we do not remember reading, however, in any of these, is a new class of media elites, super citizens or "stars" whose every utterance becomes fodder for the evening news, grist for the mills of public opinion. And yet that is indeed what we have today.

On September 11, 2001, and for several weeks afterward, the media elite of America either joined in the effort to unite the country toward a common goal of relief for New Yorkers and others hurt by the attacks, or it kept its generally left-leaning thoughts to itself. It was understood that it was not a good time to be rocking the boat, politically speaking, or trying to score points in Congress.

Hurricane Katrina, although a natural disaster, may easily have killed three times as many as died on 9/11. It's economic impact has already been considerable and probably will be much greater than anyone is yet admitting. People are hurting, even dying, because disasters such as these are not easy to manage. If they were, they would not be disasters. New Orleans is dying not only because the levees failed, but because the damage from Katrina extends over a 90,000 square mile area, and the infrastructure on which so much of our society depends no longer exists, nothing even close to the great city.

The needs of the week have called for heroes. Sadly, unlike in the wake of September 11, many in the media elite have decided to preemptively attack those who are trying to help, to do their jobs, in order to forestall any newly designated heroes who are not anointed by the aforesaid media elite. Recalling the liberal anguish that the "feeble brained" George W. Bush found his voice during the 9/11 crisis, these self-appointed guardians of outrage wasted no time in outrageous claims and assigned blame to the president and his administration. Even to the point of claiming that the hurricane was, after all, "Bush's fault." From Jesse Jackson, to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to Angelina Jolie and rapper Kanye West at Friday night's NBC concert for hurricane relief, the word is going out that "Bush doesn't care about black people" and worse.

One washed up civil rights activitist who moved from the U.S. to St. Kitt in the Carribean seriously blogged that survivors were forced to cannibalize the dead in New Orleans because no federal help had arrived (and this after only three days!). Juxtapose that idiotic statement against the televised scene, the same day, of a famished woman refugee who, upon tasting one of 5.5 million MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) brought in by the U.S. military, spat in disgust and tossed the meal away. Cannibalism? Oh, please! Too many people would rather starve to death than eat the same meals our soldiers on the front lines consider staple. Americans do not have the stomach for cannibalism; at least not after just three days. It takes a hell of a lot longer than that to break down the moral and social taboos inside a person's head.

But guess what? The liberals of America are repeating this ridiculous story as further evidence that an uncaring and inept Republican president, backed by a "slithering" conservative Congress, has forced the victims of Hurricane Katrina to the worst sort of survival necessities. And they are repeating this story, and other spurious charges, as broadly as possible.

This is not the way you bring a country together to rescue and rebuild.

This is a time for heroic contributions, setting aside partisan bickering for a happier day.

We need heroes.

Instead we are getting horses' asses.

If this is a measure of our "growth" and increased understanding since 9/11, then America may well be looking down the path of increasing disfunctionalism. Katrina is not just a Gulf Coast disaster; it's a national disaster. It's the modern equivalent of the Battle of New Orleans, and there are those who seem to relish the idea that we might just lose it.

Yes, there is cannibilism occuring: certain media elites are eating away at the social fabric that allows those of differing political persuasions to work together toward common solutions. This cannibilism may the biggest heartbreak of all.