Katrina: Culture Wars Issues

The tragedy of Hurricane Katrina has been morphed into ammunition for culture warriors on the right and left. Here are several links on this.

In this morning’s Wa Po, Colbert King calls for a halt in the finger pointing

And outrage? It has its place. For that there are targets galore stretching from the New Orleans region to Washington. There will be plenty of time for fault-finding -- a task that we in Washington do oh so well. But not now. This is a time for action.

Terry Mattingly is already looking at the culture wars and religious questions that journalists ought to address.

NYT columnist John Tierney compares cultural attitudes towards preparedness for fire and flood and traces the origin to private and public insurance.

Culture warriors on the right and left are claiming that the disaster is due to the other’s side’s sins of commission. For particularly outrageous examples click here and here. (On the other hand, clicking these links will do you little good – unless you get your adrenalin highs being outraged against environmentalists or pro-lifers.)

My own thought is that disaster is due to 1) natural forces and 2) sins of omission on the part of civic leaders in the public, non-profit, religious and business sectors. The major sin was lack of preparedness – a sin that most of us commit one day at a time. (See Katrina, Aesop’s Fables and Zombie Movies.)

This brings me to the next post on preparedness.

Comments

[David Foster]

Now is exactly the time for outrage and fault finding. It is saving people's lives. Bush thought he could do a fly by. Cheney is off somewhere in Wyoming. All the time Americans are dying in the streets. The American people are outraged and angry because the Big Easy has exposed the Big Lie - our leaders have no clue about how to keep us safe. They are hoping we'll all agree to deal with this in six months. I say no. I say we need to be in front of the White House every day demanding the truth and demanding accountability.