What the World Sees

MANIFESTO

I watched the President's interview with Dianne Sawyer yesterday and was more than a little disturbed. He looked tired. Almost weary. This is on top of the fact that he was a day late in publicly addressing the disaster, gave a critically maligned speech, the war in Iraq is getting worse and worse (the deaths of almost 1000 women and children in that awful stampede has gone almost completely unnoticed) and his Secretary of State was seen flitzing around Manhattan buying shoes and going to see Spamalot. My wife and I both agreed; he doesn't seem like the President really wants to be President anymore.

Am I the only one who sees the strain? And this is from a man who is usually energized to the point of exuberance. His visit to Ground Zero brought hope to a nation that badly needed it. It needs it again desperately now, but the President doesn't seem up to the task.

Which leads me to wonder how the rest of the world is seeing as they watch America in chaos. Reuters has an article written from England that is very humbling.

World stunned as U.S. struggles with Katrina

The world has watched amazed as the planet's only superpower struggles with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, with some saying the chaos has exposed flaws and deep divisions in American society.

World leaders and ordinary citizens have expressed sympathy with the people of the southern United States whose lives were devastated by the hurricane and the flooding that followed.
There are some comments are about this catastrophe being payback for Iraq that are, of course, total hogwash. Is no such things as Karmic Justice. But it is yet another example of how unpopular that war is to the rest of the world. These countries do not hate the U.S. I have travelled abroad enough to know this. I have seen the pictures of candlelight vigils other countries held after 9/11. What they hate are the policies of this administration and the complete disrespect they show the rest of the world. The total lack of preparation for this disaster is all too reminiscent of the piss-poor planning for the post-war reconstruction of Iraq.

Katrina is also a terrible, terrible reminder of how close to anarchy our society truly is. When the infrastructure breaks down so completely, so do the laws of society we take for granted. (I'm not even going to go into the race and poverty issues.)

We are supposed the be the most enlightened, the most civilied people in the world. It is very humbling to think that perhaps no society is ever truly civilized.

(Thanks to SW for the Reuters link.)