Good Enough for Poor Folk??

The catastrophic flooding and destruction of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and the ensuing lack of federal response has captured the rapt atttention of the entire world. The United States of America is being called the United States of Shame, among other things.

As Leo has settled on the Ascendant of George W. Bush, it is clear that he is not reaping the positive rays of past deeds done well. Saturn is taking the air out of the prideful ballloon of hubris and the sight is not pretty. No amount of damage control from Karl Rove seems to help. News orgnaizations worldwide are noting the recent statement of Barbara Bush, George's mother, and connecitng it to what they are labeling as "the root of his uncompassionate conservatism". Polly Toynbee of The Guardian (UK) wrote in her column on September 9:

What the great Louisiana catastrophe has revealed is a country that is not a country at all, but atomised, segmented individuals living parallel lives as far apart as possible, with nothing to unite them beyond the idea of a flag. The 40 million with no health insurance show the social dysfunction corroding US capacity. For the poor at the bottom of the New Orleans mud heap, there never was even the American dream to cling to. They always lived in another country. The born-agains absolve themselves from sympathy with the victims by explaining Katrina as God's wrath on the Sodom-and-Gomorrah sins of New Orleans.

But it took the mother of the nation, Barbara Bush, to perfectly capture rich America's distance from the scene. Visiting (evacuees) in the Houston Astrodome, she pronounced them lucky: "So many of the people were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them." She let slip darker fears: "What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas." Katrina lifts the lid on the hidden America invisible in sitcoms, but above all shows how the rich don't acknowledge shared nationhood with the rest.

Meanwhile, there is talk of developers turning all the land ocupied by the poor of New Orleans into a gentrified area of downtown luxury townhomes and condominiums, hotels and businesses. Makes you wonder, exactly where, then, will Habitat for Humanity be rebuilding homes for all those people displaced by the tragedy?