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Jazuela,
I've been thinking about you a lot the last 3 days. I've intentionally stayed off this board, because I knew that going off on you is NOT helpful. Like some alluded to, sitting here and typing judgments of others morals and ethics is NOT helpful, and I apologize. Like you, I have been finding alternative ways to try and help instead.
I've written mid-term suggestion emails to the President, MSNBC, FoxNews, my congresspersons, the Missouri state Governor, and a few other media and political outlets (i.e. FEMA). I don't know if anyone is listening: I doubt Bush has time to read my emails. *grins* I, too, have been finding ways to walk more and conserve gasoline, and it's pretty sad that it's taken yet ANOTHER crisis to make me do that.
I talked about what I felt in my earlier post...you know what I feel the *most*? Helplessness.
There is NOT much I can do to actually 'help' this situation. That's why I started writing my ideas in emails to people who have the financial power and clout to possibly implement some of them. It was maybe a useless gesture, but like you, I think getting ideas to the people who can implement them is not a 'bad' thing to do. You've given a great list of other ways individuals who are geographically distant from the massive devastation sites to actually feel like they are helping. Survivor guilt...I've learned what that phrase means, from 9/11, to the tsunami, to this.
Somewhere between 80k-95k square miles have been devastated in this hurricane. Two fairly major U.S. cities have been decimated (N.O. and Biloxi), along with an unimaginable number of rural communities.
One thing that strikes me a lot here is: when did we stop being "the home of the Brave" in the U.S. ? Some of the 'slowness' of the response (and, 'slow' to me is QUITE arguable...response resources are finite, the scope of the devastation here is more than even the U.S. could have been expected to immediately respond to) was due to people being unwilling to go into 'unsecured' areas, such as the convention center. On one hand, I can understand that...nobody wants to die. On the other hand, it makes me *so* sad that people were not willing to take the risk to help out their neighbors. My hope is that the news media IS sensationalizing that reaction at this point...and that more stories of individual bravery will come out as time passes.
My attitudes have shifted somewhat because of this disaster. I've never wanted to own a gun before: now...I am seriously considering purchasing both a shotgun and a handgun. I've never refreshed my CPR training, since 8th grade. I believe I will look for a Red Cross course on that sometime this fall. I've never wanted a vocation in the health profession, but now, I'm considering some kind of medical training, whether it is CNA or EMT or something. You know why these things changed? I realize now...if this ever happens in my neck of the woods, a serious crisis, it is entirely probable that nobody will be able to come to my aid. Self-sufficiency, self- and family-protection, and the ability to be a first responder are some personal imperatives to me now...where I never felt a need for them in the past.
There is so much I want to write, so much I want to say about this sitation. I wish I had started off on a better foot in this thread... though I stand behind my statements on many levels, the tone was out of line and I'm sorry for taking my frustration and anger out on you personally, Jazuela. I *do* understand that we can only do what we can do, and Threshold is right, it's not right to tell other people what they 'should' be doing.
With reflection and much prayer,
Earthmother
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