It All Makes Sense

(Original intended post date: 8/21/07)

One night last week I was crashed out on the couch unable to sleep and unwilling to move. I was flipping through the channels and came upon a movie that I had been meaning to watch, "Catch a Fire". Catch a Fire is the real-life story of Patrick Chamusso, a non-political black South African husband and father who is driven to violent revolutionary action after being arrested and tortured by the Apartheid regime in 1980. The movie was very well done, and I recommend it highly. It was illuminating to me in a number of ways, especially with my viewing coming on the heels of seeing Spike Lee's uber-documentary "When the Levees Broke", which chronicled the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Talk about eye opening. I had already known that the people who were unable to flee New Orleans and the surrounding areas were failed by our government in the worst way. They were left to suffer without help for far too long. However, the true scope of this failure was somewhat lost on me until I saw this film. As my first child had been born less than a week prior to Katrina making landfall in Louisiana on August 29, 2005, my attention was somewhat diverted from following the story very closely. I was overcome by emotion a number of times during the film as survivors recounted their stories and enraged when the government response (or lack thereof) was demonstrated. Video of former First Lady Barbara Bush speaking on the subject of Louisiana victims being sheltered in Texas was shown that made my blood boil. It was easily the "Let Them East Cake" moment of the 21st century.

Speaking of eating, there was something about the hurricane victims that struck me as very strange. It took me awhile to process it, and I may be all kinds of off base. However, it seemed to me that a disproportional amount of the victims, poor people who could not afford vehicles and had no means of escape, were grossly overweight. Upon noticing this, a light bulb went on in my head.

I am guessing that America might be the only country on the planet with poor fat people. I do not recall seeing much in the way of footage of victims in Darfur with pot bellies or heavy set refugees coming out of the civil war that ravaged the former Yugoslavia. As I sat there watching the horror that these people had to endure, I openly wondered why the total failure of our government didn't spark protests or even more violent reaction. I am not referring to the hooliganism, looting and rapes that were perpetrated by the thugs that took advantage of the absence of law and order in the days following the storm. What more has to happen to people before they are spurned to action? Many Katrina victims lost everything they owned. They lost loved ones and were abandoned by our government for days on end with no relief. They had no food or water. They were ignored, and in many cases they were left to die.

There is an oft-butchered quote (the origin of which I can not seem to find right now) that attests that society will break down if its people are deprived of three meals. Society definitely broke down across New Orleans after the storm hit. I do not blame those who looted food, water and clothing in the Katrina aftermath. However, I hope there is a special place in hell reserved for those who used the post-storm chaos to commit beatings, robberies, rapes and murders on defenseless people. But I digress. How could a city full of people go through hell on earth and not react?

I guess it is easy for me to call others to action, especially when Katrina did not touch me directly. But even if people are not driven to act by Katrina and our government's response, hopefully it forces everyone to look at their place in the bigger picture. Our government is not stupid. Our system is designed to function as it does. Our government does not give out welfare payments and provide free housing out of the goodness of its heart. The government knows that people who are well fed are less likely to push for change. The government knows that a drug addicted citizenry is exponentially less likely to care about societal ills or do anything to call for change. Welfare and the allowance of drugs into our cities are just two control measures our government uses to keep people in line. These measures are designed specifically to keep the segments of our society most likely to violently push for change under control.

[Currently Listening: Rage Against the Machine - "Testify"]