Whose Lamps will be lit?
Op Ed submission, Herald Leader.
WHOSE LAMPS WILL BE LIT?
We have a severe crisis in this country: a crisis of leadership on many levels, and a crisis of many proportions, both moral, political, spiritual, religious and community.
If we needed another example to confront us, we are faced with it in the multiple tragedies of New Orleans during the past week. We and the authorities have known for years that the city could not sustain a Category 4 storm, yet funding for necessary attention was repeatedly cut by the White House and by state authorities. Now politicians, clear up to Mr. Bush have been saying that no one could have predicted the levees would not hold. That is clearly another lie, as multiple evidence will show. Lying and pretense is now the regular practice from the top down.
The opposite of love, Elie Wiesel said again last night in Danville, is not love, but indifference. Indifference, according to this Holocaust survivor, is the root sin of humanity. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The key question for us as Americans of every stripe and color is who are we as Americans when we cannot and will not care for our poor? When we not help them escape looming destruction? When we simply gaze as various tsunamis approach.
How could those who live from paycheck to paycheck, or no paycheck at all, without cars, be expected to leave the fateful city? What arrangements for order, sustenance and security were anticipated and provided when the Superdome was opened to them? If we dare to investigate these matters, we shall find neglect and malfeasance at several levels. Apparently one third of the New Orleans police force simply deserted. Now it is stated that the local security force was known to be widely corrupt.
This past year, our taxes paid for five days of special FEMA training for precisely such emergencies. Yet food, shelter, transportation, and security were not ready for this city despite days of warning that a Category 4 would very likely hit this metro area. Will there be an investigation?
Can we expect as much cover-up and stone-walling as the White House has shown to 9/11 families trying to find out how and why 9/11 could happen?
We are at a turning point in this nation. Maybe we have passed the point of no return in the decline of the community we have been. We shall now have a great outpouring of help from the citizenship and remedial funds from the governments. Well and good. But are we ready to admit that we are still a Bowling Alone community largely indifferent to what is done in our name? More urgently, can we face how we can put into office such incompetents as we have in both parties?
Who is asking us to face the sacrifice we need to make in waking up to the reality of the abuses we are condoning, ignoring and continuing? Most of us would rather go shopping or chat on our cell phones.
Our idols of materialism, nationalism, corporate narcissism and religious fundamentalism loom large. Are we being brought by our destiny and by God to a place where we are summoned to rise into a new transcendence or instead be destroyed by our greed and indifference?
Shall New Orleans be a wake-up call? Who would risk voicing such a summons? And who will listen? What if there is a still hidden tsunami approaching us all? Whose lamps will be lit in the darkness?
Paschal Baute
Lexington, Ky
September 5, Labor Day, 2005
WHOSE LAMPS WILL BE LIT?
We have a severe crisis in this country: a crisis of leadership on many levels, and a crisis of many proportions, both moral, political, spiritual, religious and community.
If we needed another example to confront us, we are faced with it in the multiple tragedies of New Orleans during the past week. We and the authorities have known for years that the city could not sustain a Category 4 storm, yet funding for necessary attention was repeatedly cut by the White House and by state authorities. Now politicians, clear up to Mr. Bush have been saying that no one could have predicted the levees would not hold. That is clearly another lie, as multiple evidence will show. Lying and pretense is now the regular practice from the top down.
The opposite of love, Elie Wiesel said again last night in Danville, is not love, but indifference. Indifference, according to this Holocaust survivor, is the root sin of humanity. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The key question for us as Americans of every stripe and color is who are we as Americans when we cannot and will not care for our poor? When we not help them escape looming destruction? When we simply gaze as various tsunamis approach.
How could those who live from paycheck to paycheck, or no paycheck at all, without cars, be expected to leave the fateful city? What arrangements for order, sustenance and security were anticipated and provided when the Superdome was opened to them? If we dare to investigate these matters, we shall find neglect and malfeasance at several levels. Apparently one third of the New Orleans police force simply deserted. Now it is stated that the local security force was known to be widely corrupt.
This past year, our taxes paid for five days of special FEMA training for precisely such emergencies. Yet food, shelter, transportation, and security were not ready for this city despite days of warning that a Category 4 would very likely hit this metro area. Will there be an investigation?
Can we expect as much cover-up and stone-walling as the White House has shown to 9/11 families trying to find out how and why 9/11 could happen?
We are at a turning point in this nation. Maybe we have passed the point of no return in the decline of the community we have been. We shall now have a great outpouring of help from the citizenship and remedial funds from the governments. Well and good. But are we ready to admit that we are still a Bowling Alone community largely indifferent to what is done in our name? More urgently, can we face how we can put into office such incompetents as we have in both parties?
Who is asking us to face the sacrifice we need to make in waking up to the reality of the abuses we are condoning, ignoring and continuing? Most of us would rather go shopping or chat on our cell phones.
Our idols of materialism, nationalism, corporate narcissism and religious fundamentalism loom large. Are we being brought by our destiny and by God to a place where we are summoned to rise into a new transcendence or instead be destroyed by our greed and indifference?
Shall New Orleans be a wake-up call? Who would risk voicing such a summons? And who will listen? What if there is a still hidden tsunami approaching us all? Whose lamps will be lit in the darkness?
Paschal Baute
Lexington, Ky
September 5, Labor Day, 2005
posted by Paschal Baute at 5:14 AM
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