Thursday, September 01, 2005

Here's an idea:

The President gets on the television and says: we're going to set up a hotline to put the victims of this disaster in touch with towns and churches in America that are willing to host them. I am sure the people of this nation know that we're all in this together. This disaster happened to New Orleans, but a disaster could happen to any town, anywhere, any day. We're asking the people of the United States to take in those people who have nothing left -- no belongings, no homes, no jobs, no communities -- and help them get back on their feet. Not because it's easy. But because it's the right thing to do.

That would be the Republican thing to do. Also, the Christian thing to do, if I may say so. Just expect that everybody pitches in to help these people. No government programs. Just communities helping people who are destitute through no fault of their own. People did it for Vietnamese orphans. There are Americans in New Orleans and Biloxi who own nothing more than their clothes. And they have no way to get anything. There are people begging for food by the side of the road. We, as a nation, as a society, should take them in and help them back on their feet. Because that's what you do for family.

7:55 PM

4 Comments:

Alex, please. Let's not make this a Republican thing or a Christian thing (because we both know that there's Democrats and Muslims or Buddhists who would ask the same).

Let's just call this the right thing and leave it at that. That would be refreshing: Doing the right thing just because it's the right thing.

Gee, isn't that what heroes do?

By  Cunningham, at 10:28 PM  

Bill, he did that. But the guy in the chair -- in all the chairs -- is a Republican. You can't avoid the fact.

The difference is these guys play on piety while some of them insist that Katrina is punishment for abortion. Really. But you're right. That's silly political. Just like GWB when he chose to talk about"Insurance Fraud" as one of his top priorities today.

The difference is to sell the vision contained in Alex's post, you need a guy with a little poetry.

Clinton and Bush 41 looked pretty uncomfortable at those conferences lately. I wonder why?

DMc

By  DMc, at 2:02 AM  

“That would be the Republican thing to do. Also, the Christian thing to do”- It never ceases to amaze me how much W Republican and Christian Americas have actually nothing to do with what I understand those two ideologies to be. Shouldn’t this be the perfect opportunity for “Companionate Conservatives “ to stand-up and do the proper thing. Words are not actions and hope is not a plan.

By  DJ, at 8:18 AM  

Egods. First, it would be the humane thing to do, and American, not just Republican or Christian. Second, it's exactly what's being done. Houston's taking in people. Dallas is taking in people. Reunion Arena, where the Dallas Mavericks used to play, is taking in 25,000 people. The local news last night said local government and private facilities will take in roughly 100,000 people in the next few months. Wrap your brain around that: 100,000 people. That's a city, folks, and not a small one, by statistical standards. I've seen that both Oklahoma and Florida are opening their doors. The country is mobilizing behind aid for this like it did for the tsunami victims. Meanwhile, Bush did at the federal level what could be done as soon as he could knowing what he knew at the time. He designated the areas expected to be hardest hit as disaster areas before Katrina even made landfall. The first alert orders for active-duty military and Guard units went out Tuesday; they've been mobilizing and deploying as quickly as they can. But 90,000 square miles surrounding the Mississippi delta are devastated and/or underwater. Anyone who thinks immediate assistance is going to be available everywhere at once in an area with few usable roads and shredded communications is a fool. The most immediate assistance was going (and ought) to come from the state and local level, which is being revealed as woefully inadequate and unprepared. There's blame to go around, but by far the majority of it falls on a city and state that have had decades to plan for such an event--have been being warned about it for thirty years, on top of the bitter lesson of '27--and did almost nothing about it. Not a small amount of it also falls on the evil cretins who use the event of a disaster to prey on their neighbors. But selfless, humane, compassionate aid IS being given to the people of Louisiana as fast as circumstances and cooperation allow, and the reflexive urge to slime the feds for this--Democrat or Republican--is unseriousness and pettiness of the highest order. This was first and foremost a state and local issue, and if they're going to point the finger at anybody for not responding faster to a disaster of historic proportions, it ought first to be themselves.

We now resume our scheduled screenwriting.

By  Clint, at 6:09 PM  

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