in times of trouble
everyone joins a team
no one waves a flag
for all human beings
no one is excited
unless they are divided
In our litigation prone society, in which blame is the game, we aren't uniting in the face of a disaster, we are crumbling apart.
Remember 9/11? Remember people flying flags all over the place, the copious amounts of praise for the bravery of New York City's police and fire departments and the cry of "let's roll!" from Flight 93 becoming a sign of hope in overcoming a tragedy? Within weeks, if not days, plans were being brainstormed how to rebuild, how to repair, how to honor those who perished and how to make sure something like this never happened again. Well, shit, I don't see any of that in this time of crisis.
Sure, I see people giving money and food, I see volunteers trying to help, I see people trying their hardest to make people feel at home...but beyond these great deeds, I feel that we are once again horribly divided. I see people with certain political agendas using tragedy as a scapegoat for possible political gain. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to be hearing "Let me give hope to those who have little to be hopeful for" but I wish I could hear "Let us rebuild," "Let us find ways in which this will never happen again" and "Let us honor those who have perished."
Instead, I hear the following: "Impeach Bush that slow reacting bastard!" "Fire Michael Brown...the under qualified fool that Bush instated! And that Michael Chertoff guy too!" And such statements are about that diplomatically stated as well.
Okay, now you won't get any arguments from me that the greatest test of character in a leader is how they handle extreme situations. And you won't find any argument from me that both Bush and Brown failed as leaders under this situation, but it's not worth making such arguments over and over as people have right now (“Category 5 BUSH SHIT STORM BABY!”).
I wish I could wake up tomorrow and America would act like a good parent would in the following situation: A man with two sons comes downstairs to find that of his sons has a badly injured knee because the other son was beating up on him. At first, he would tell the abusive son that what he's done is wrong. Yet after the initial reprimand, he'd put all discipline aside for the time being and devote every last one of his thoughts and all his efforts would go to how to ease the pain of his victimized son and make him better again as soon as possible. That's what we need to be doing right now. Alright now, we’ve given the initial reprimand, now let’s start thinking elsewhere. To overcome this we need to be ONE in the effort to move forward. To rebuild the cities and towns along the Gulf Coast, to honor those who perished and begin to think of ways that we can stop this from ever happening again.
And hopefully, things will begin moving in that effort, the victimized son will be out of the hospital, and we'll finally begin to put the past behind us and move forward. Yet the same unit that came together as one to help heal the situation should then grab the attention of the abusive son and really let him know that his worth as a leader failed when millions of people needed a great leader. Here’s to hoping that once the gray skies have past the abusive son will see the pain that his brother had to go through and he will decide to play nice.
Lyrics from ”Seems Uncertain” by 311