Insomnia Part II: Musings and ramblings

It's Wednesday morning and I can't sleep. The fraternity next door decided to start playing basketball at 10:30 PM and had a very merry game all the way until 1 AM. My bed might as well be a box seat. I could hear and see everything, whether I wanted to or not (in this case, not). So instead of drowsily falling asleep and awakening fresh in the morning, I'm going to have a more or less crappy day tomorrow, or at least a highly unproductive one. *Sigh* the hazards of living on fraternity row.

The blogosphere has been abuzz with the tragedy in New Orleans...I'm not sure if I can say anything that hasn't already been said, certainly nothing so articulate as some of the other writers out there. I read about and listened to the news with indifference at the initial news that Hurricane Katrina would hit New Orleans. Another hurricane, I thought, but we're the U.S. and we shrug off such things. The damage will be minimal, I thought. Indifference quickly turned to shock, dismay and horror as the full extent of the damage came to be known, and then fury as it became clear that innocent lives had been sacrificed for political gain or simply because of stupidity, insensitivity and irresponsibility at the hands of trusted officials. The New York Times is reporting that deaths could be as high as 20,000. Absolutely mind-boggling.

If anything good comes out of this, I hope that it will dampen some of the hubris and cynicism that seems to pervade Washington these days. Where are our priorities? Whatever happened to "compassionate conservatism"? There is a distinct lack of compassion in the words and actions of the government and its supporters in the neoconservative camp. One particularly odious low blow comes from Noemie Emery writing in The Weekly Standard. The article is called "A Two-City Tale". Now, I might expect the Standard to defend Bush, but this is just in bad taste. Some excerpts:

The reason New Orleans slid so quickly from civilization into Third World conditions was that it was pretty much a Third World city already, and didn't have too far to go. In its violence, in its corruption, in its reliance on ambience and tourism as its critical industry, in its one-party rule, in its model of graftocracy built on a depressed and crime-ridden underclass that was largely kept out of the sight and the mind of vacationing revelers, it was much more like a Caribbean resort than a normal American city. Its crime and murder rates were way above national averages, its corruption level astounding. The latter was written off as being picturesque and perversely adorable, until it suddenly wasn't, as it paid off in hundreds of buses--that could have borne thousands of stranded people to safety--sitting submerged in water, and police either looting or AWOL.

Emery goes on to talk about how New Orleans represented the opposite of everything Alexis de Tocqueville saw that was good about America. Emery then turns to Houston as a paragon of American virtue.

Let us look now at Houston, for it is the second city in this cosmic drama, and one in which Tocqueville would feel right at home. Like so many cities in the Sunbelt, it is expanding, entrepreneurial, based on the future, and the place where the "much celebrated American can-do machine that promises to bring freedom and prosperity to less fortunate people" comes roaring to life. "In l920, New Orleans's population was nearly three times that of Houston," says Kotkin. "During the '90s, the Miami and Houston areas grew almost six times as fast as greater New Orleans, and flourished as major destinations for immigrants . . . These newcomers have helped transform Miami and Houston into primary centers for trade, investment and services, from finance and accounting to medical care for the entire Caribbean basin. They have started businesses, staffed factories, and become players in civic life."

[...]

If New Orleans was where the Third World broke through, Houston was where the First World began beating it back, and asserting its primacy. Are we surprised that the star of this show has been Texas, home of Karl Rove and both Bushes, widely despised by the glitterati as sub-literate, biased, oppressive, and retrograde? No.

In other words, "good riddance to bad rubbish" is the message of this article. New Orleans is not really American anyway!

It is hard for me to believe that anyone could react gleefully to the destruction of innumerable lives and property, especially in one's home country, but here you have it, along with the editorial stamp of approval from Bush's staunchest supporters. It is this kind of hubris, this smug triumphalism, this willingness to kick the innocent victim while he is down, that betrays these "American values" as being very much at odds with the kind of generosity being demonstrated right now not just in Houston but in Mississippi, in Baton Rouge, and yes, even in New Orleans. I hope to God that Emery's attitude represenst only a small and insignificant minority, but what Emery writes about in such acerbic prose is already being implemented in foreign policy--the ham-fisted attempts to democratize, the eagerness to use force, the arrogant belief that the "American Way" is the only way.

Given Bush's profession of being a religious man, a particular quote from the Gospel According to Matthew may be appropriate - "For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted" (Matthew 23:11). Humility does not necessarily mean humiliation, though the latter can certainly bring about the former. A friend of mine who is a Catholic priest pointed out in one of his reflections that humility does not mean lurking in anonymity or putting on a pretense of being weak. Rather, it is a proper understanding of where one stands in relationship to God and to one's fellow humans. Humility reminds us of our common humanity. At the end of the day it doesn't matter how rich or powerful we are or how good we think we are. We are all human and a simple storm like Hurricane Katrina can all too easily remind us of our place in the cosmos.

What would happen if people actually treated each other as human beings worthy of the same dignity as themselves? What would happen if entire nations behaved according to this principle?
The political scientist in me shakes his head cynically and says that those with more will be milked for all they're worth with nothing in return. Machiavelli wrote in The Prince that it is better to be feared than loved. The idealist in me believes that good works will be reciprocated in due time and that good will is far too underrated. It may mean the difference between a break or a break in relations, between "just enough" and "not nearly enough", between willingness and reluctance to negotiate.

Then again, it's 3 AM and I'm tired. Perhaps this is all a pipe dream...