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Friday, September 09, 2005

Friday Blogaround 

Here's what's we're writing about in The Liberal Coalition this week:

  • All Facts and Opinions reviews the media coverage of Katrina.
  • archy on compassionate conservatives.
  • Bark Bark Woof Woof on Miami-Dade County Public Schools plan to have No Teacher Left Behind.
  • blogAmY on getting help to the animals.
  • bloggg on getting help to the musicians.
  • Chris goes to the videotape.
  • Collective Sigh on helping Christians.
  • Leah A at Corrente dissects the truth from fiction at Fox.
  • Dodecahedron hands out an assignment.
  • Dohiyi Mir says thanks.
  • Echidne on the best and the brightest.
  • firedoglake has a suggestion.
  • First Draft on booming sales down South.
  • The Fulcrum on helping hands.
  • The Gamer's Nook is now You Are a Tree.
  • Happy Furry Puppy Story Time explains the name.
  • iddybud has some poetry (start there and scroll down).
  • Jesse weighs in on Katrina.
  • Left Is Right is infuriated.
  • Liberty Street is keeping tabs on keeping the press out.
  • Make Me A Commentator clears things up.
  • MercuryX23 on progressive radio.
  • Musing's musings on a frank exchange with Mr. Cheney.
  • Pen-Elayne celebrated a blogiversary on Wednesday. Many happy!
  • Respectful of Otters is back.
  • Rick bets for a good cause.
  • Rook's Rant finds some corporate angels.
  • rubber hose goes to the map.
  • Science and Politics on mob rule.
  • Scrutiny Hooligans on the rise of poverty.
  • Sooner Thought on life as an "evacuee."
  • Speedkill reports on the next threat to Christianity: yoga.
  • Steve Gilliard reports on the views from the right.
  • T. Rex counts the score.
  • The Invisible Library on how to turn thoughts into movies.
  • The Countess on how to help the domestic violence shelters in New Orleans.
  • Wanda sums it up.
  • WTF Is It Now?? has the list.
  • The Yellow Doggerel Democrat on who gets the dough.

    That's all for now. Stay tuned to your favorite blog for updates.

    Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.

  • Monday, September 05, 2005

    What Holds Us Together 

    Apart from the diversion of millions of dollars earmarked for reinforcing the New Orleans levies so that a bridge could be built on a deserted Alaskan island instead, apart from the deployment of the National Guard in Iraq severely undermining our ability to deploy them for a national tragedy, apart from evacuation plans that assumed everyone had a car when a huge percentage of people in any city rely on public transportation.... apart from the general mismanagement and cronyism that has crippled our nation under the current totalitarian regime... what went wrong in New Orleans?

    Why were able bodied young people shooting at the police instead of helping them assist the injured and aged? Why were the only people who had enough food and water those who looted to get it? Why did not the web of community hold up in this situation as it did in New York for the blackouts and has in many previous natural disasters across this nation and across the world?

    I would suggest these two roots to the problem: 1) Lack of community connection; and 2) Lack of inner peace.

    I know these aren't the usual culprits cited. It is much more popular to point the finger at institutions or the corrupt leaders of those institutions. And FEMA, Homeland Security, Congress and the White House definitely share a great deal of the blame for the failure to prevent a predicted physical disaster and the failure to adequately respond. But what about the failure of humanity in the face of that tragedy?

    When you have a police state in which the populace is kept down by a threat of violence and thereby forced to act as if peaceful, yet they are not given conditions that actually foster lives of contentment, you have a situation ready to blow. As soon as the forces that have supressed the violence latent within the situation are no longer able to hold, the true nature of the situation explodes. The lack of inner peace becomes external very quickly.

    If there are also insufficient ties to a loving community that holds the person to an ideal of what we might call civilized behavior, then even that breaks down. People are not civilized to one another. They have always lived lives in which they felt it was "every man for himself" as if they were hunted animals. Crisis merely strengthens that sense of danger and intensifies their normal reaction of taking before they are taken from, attacking because violence is the norm for collective life in their eyes and they believe they can escape the consequences in the situation, and generally being piss bastards because "why not?"

    For more on the subject see today's post at the Indigo Ocean blog. If you decide not to read further, let me just leave you with this. Please take a moment to reflect on what gives you inner peace and what supports your sense of being held in a web of community. Where does your sense of safety and connectedness come from when you are under extreme duress? What, or who, is your refuge? Peace be with you.