You Can Relax, Everyone

Because everything’s back to normal.

Mr. Shakes has been doing some home repair this week, and I was just helping (very meagerly) by masking some windows in a door that needs painting, and we were listening to the radio—the “alternative” music station out of Chicago—and the DJs were complaining about how it’s time to move on from Katrina coverage. They were playing Kanye West’s “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” comment over and over, and laughing uproariously at the “craziness” of it, and they complained about how they’re “sick” of hearing about Katrina. One of this super-informed duo then proceeded to explain how none of this is the president’s fault. He doesn’t like George Bush, he said, and didn’t vote for him, but this is all the responsibility of the local officials, and he’s tired of talking about it.

Someone called in to express dismay at the attitude they were taking, and suggested that joking and being dismissive of this tragedy was inappropriate. They set to mocking him, hung up on him, and one of them said that the only people who want to kill themselves more than people still trapped in New Orleans are the rest of us who have to keep hearing about it. I was just able to hear the first few bars of the Cranberries song he then played over the sound of my own screaming, “Turn this shit off before I fucking puke!”

So the radio’s off.

Which only means I’m not hearing it anymore; it’s still out there. There are still people all over this country who are sighing with exasperation at still having to hear about a hurricane and it’s tens of thousands of victims. There are still people all over this country who will refuse to hold the president accountable for the decisions he and his administration made that made this disaster infinitely worse than it had to be. There are still people—average people, not Freepers—who are losing interest as we speak, who will either chalk it up to just another way their government lets them down, as they’ve come to expect, or who will turn their guilt at not maintaining the requisite level of outrage this situation demands into hostility toward the victims, every time they see them growing angrier that they just won’t go away and leave them to their blissful ignorance.

Some of them are people who are one hurricane, tornado, or earthquake away from being in the same situation.

There are two ways to deal with the bone-deep fear a scenario like this induces: hide one’s head in the sand or get active and get these guys out of office. Most of them will choose the former—some because it’s simply easier; some because making sure two boys don’t get married is considered the greater imperative, because Jesus will deliver them from the weather, but not from the evil of the sodomites.

It’s really the first group that’s the problem, though. While the Right and the Left argue over when, exactly, is the time for politics, it’s the people answer for themselves “Never” that really allows for failures of this magnitude. The politically indifferent are the greatest ally, and their apathy the most precious resource, for those whose interests do little on behalf of the American people.

And we’re already getting back to normal.

If that sounds hopeless, it isn't meant to. Instead, it should serve as a reminder of why what we do every day is important, whether it's blogging, volunteering, staying informed, informing others, caring. It's our right and our responsibility, and let us hope, as do we ever, that it becomes infectious.


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