Even If It's a Cool Looking Wagon

I am not at all a fan of the president but I can't hop on the "Blame W for the Horrors in LA" bandwagon any more than I can say the disaster is the fault of transvestites or Girls Gone Wild tapings in New Orleans. There are plenty of things to be critical of in the anticipation and response of the hurricane but to single out the president as somehow solely responsible isn't right. There are a lot of things he could have done differently and better, but that can be said of any number of officials at various levels of government. The fact is, the people hurt most by Katrina were those who had the least opportunities or fewest resources to take advantage of, they are the people who are always overlooked. These are the always forgotten.

There may be some evidence of particular incompetence and callous during this disaster: remaining on vacation while the city floods, directing people to an evacuation facility without resources, providing evacuation transportation after the fact rather than before, being completely unaware of where help is needed, diverting necessary resources to photo-ops, offering "let them eat cake" condolences, but these are not all W's doing.

The president may be an Ivy League Elitist but he is not alone in his contempt for the poor. He is not the only politician who does not consider the policy consequences for the most vulnerable. That's the nature of worldly power and it seems like a distraction to get wrapped up in a discussion of who is most to blame. It is not any individual but rather a devotion to our culture that worships vanity and earthly glory. The powerless were in a horrible situation before the hurricane, now it's worse. It is the challenge of the church- well at least I feel compelled- to not get sucked into a debate of who is to blame, but follow the Biblical and Spiritual mandates to live as the Body of Christ, to love justice and do mercy through the continuing, but underpublicized, disaster that is the fall of humanity.