Current Affairs: September 2005 Archives

My results are pretty much the same on that politics test that Cranky Cindy, Lawperry, Chutney, Peacebang and John Cullihan have taken and commented on their blogs. The test designed to go beyond Democrat and Republican labels and report on what people actually believe reports that I am a " Social Liberal and and...Economic Liberal and I am best described as "a Socialist." The test reports that I exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness. [ loc: (56, -150) modscore: (6, 39)]

I am not and never have been a Democrat. I don't think of myself as a "socialist" as that word is ordinarily used either. But I do believe in public solutions to public problems, and that we have a responsibility to make equality real in society. The Unitarian Universalist Principles and Purposes are not simply good intentions, they are meant to lived and promoted in society at large.

Many UUs actually believe that our Unitarian Universalist values are guide to personal and social ethics, and yet we view the Democratic Party with some skepticism. I asked several of other UUs at the church I am serving to take the test, and they all produced similar results. I think we share a common social ethics rather than being party line "socialists."

I am a Unitarian Universalist and I vote. So do lots of other UUs. Maybe that is why we pass resolutions critical of both establishment parties at General Assembly, and maybe that is why Bill Sinkford is President of our Association.

The head of the U.S. Office of Women's Health has resigned over the Bush administrations policies of substituting right wing ideology for science. The head of the FDA has also resigned due to backlash to her resignation that questioned his credentials. The misuse of science by become a major issue of debate.

Molly Ivins opines that there is a doctoral dissertation to be written on the Bush process for political appointees "named during the administration's frequent fits of Petulant Pique. These PP appointments are made in the immortal childhood spirit of "nanny-nanny boo-boo, I'll show you." Susan Wood resigns in protest over the politicization of women's health care? Ha! We'll show her -- we'll put a vet in charge instead!"

Planned Parenthood Federation of America Interim President Karen Pearl is outraged by appointment process and issued these comments: "It appears something funny is going on at the FDA and Planned Parenthood is not laughing. At a time when the FDA's credibility is already in question, these unusual announcements are troubling."

"The FDA has a very important job to do. The sooner they refocus on science and not politics, the safer and healthier Americans will be. The right person for this job is someone who understands this. The next director of the Office of Women's Health should advocate for sound science and stop the needless delays in granting women over-the-counter access to safe, effective emergency contraception. We hope this appointment is a step forward on the FDA's long road toward restoring its integrity with women and their health care providers like Planned Parenthood."

Evacuations must be planned, when government officials order hundreds of thousands of people to get in their cars and drive tragedies can result. A bus evacuating Houston exploded as its brakes stressed from stop and go traffic sent fire into the passenger compartment, filled with elderly patients with open oxygen tanks.
The New York Times reports:
A bus carrying elderly evacuees from an assisted living center in Houston was rocked by multiple explosions on its way to Dallas early this morning, killing at least 24 elderly residents.,
The bus was carrying 45 people - 38 residents, 6 staff members and the driver - from Brighton Gardens of Bellaire, an assisted living center in Bellaire, a suburb southwest of Houston, when it caught fire on Interstate 45, the main highway connecting Dallas and Houston. The explosions occurred near Wilmer, a suburb about 15 miles from downtown Dallas.
Witnesses and local officials said smoke, possibly from the brakes, had forced the driver to pull over to the side of the road before at least three explosions covered the bus in flames at about 7 a.m. Central time.

When asked about Hurricane Rita bearing down on Houston, Sir John Lawton, chairman of the United Kingdom's Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution lashed out the destructive policies of Bush administration. He referred to the President and his staff as "the climate loonies in the States."

When asked for clarification he said ""There are a group of people in various parts of the world ... who simply don't want to accept human activities can change climate and are changing the climate."

"I'd liken them to the people who denied that smoking causes lung cancer."

With his comments, Sir John becomes the third of the leaders of Britain's scientific establishment to attack the US over the Bush government's determination to cast doubt on global warming as a real phenomenon.

A relatively new Unitarian Universalist reported to her minister the following conversation overheard in her community's coffee shop. It seems that two women were talking, and one woman expressed dissatisfaction with her mainstream church, it was rigid, do nothing, too dogmatic, and so forth. The other woman commiserated and the began talking about other local churches the two of them dismissing each in turn. Finally they got to the Unitarian Universalist Church, what do they believe? one woman asked the other. "Oh," said the other with authority, "they re-cycle."

"They recycle" maybe that would not be the one thing you would say, if asked what religious liberals believe. But perhaps our neighbors know us better than we know ourselves. Most Unitarian Universalists believe they are environmentalists, but perhaps we are the committed to an environmentalism that is inadequate to the crisis facing our planet. Global warming is bringing climate change, and climate change has given us an increase in violent storms, hot seas, and unusual draughts. Tomorrow Hurricane Rita will come assure, hitting the same region where Hurricane Katrina caused so much damage.

Bill McKibben outlines why the old environmentalism has died of its own inadequacies and why we must move on to entirely new orientation if we are to save our planet. Our religious commitment to being in right relation to our planet will require real change change in our economy and way of life.

Sharon Olds has declined to attend the National Book Festival in Washington. She admits that reading her poetry and speaking to such a large audience (35000 people are expected) would have been an opportunity, and that participating in a community of writers is dear to her heart, but that participating in this Festival would be an implicit endorsement of the Bush led war against Iraq.

Olds, winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award and professor of creative writing at New York University, was invited along with a number of other writers by First Lady Laura Bush to read from their works. Three years ago artist Jules Feiffer declined to attend the festival's White House breakfast as a protest against the Iraq War

State and local evacuation plans the United States assume that people own a car! Few if any of these plans make any provision for providing transportation in the case of a "mandatory evacuation" to people who have no car, no truck, no SUV to wisk them away on the interstate to a safe haven away from whatever disaster is about to visit their city.

This was not a secret before the Katrina, we simply choose to ignore the implications. In September 2004, a full year before his city flooded New Orleans mayor Rick Nagin stated that he could not order a mandatory evacuation in advance of Hurricane Ivan because he had no way of evacuating people without cars.

There are 11 million households in the United States that have no motor vehicles. That means as many as 30 million people are left out of the evacuation plan on file with FEMA for their city or region. Thats more people than California, our largest state!

My own state is prone to Hurricanes and its citizens have often been advised to evacuate. Florida's Department of Emergency Management's website, has a chart walking people through the decision of whether they should stay put or evacuate in an emergency, advises citizens in either case to fill their cars with gas. No mention of what to do if you have no vehicle, as is the case for 8.1 percent of Florida households.

How can we make real our promises to each other? We say that we covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. We say that "we the people" form a government to provide for the common defense, we include an equal protection clause in that constitution. How can we leave the poor, the elderly. the frugal, the ecologically aware, and sight limited behind?

Thanks to Allison Stein Wellner, a writing on Alternet for bringing this to my attention.

One of the great illusions of religious liberalism is the idea that the political division in the United States continues to be between liberals and conservatives. The problem with this understanding is that the new political right is not conservative by any traditional understanding of that term.

I was taught that conservatives sought to conserve that which is good and that which abides, but the new political right is advancing an agenda that is strikingly at odds with traditional conservative understandings of constitutional liberties, church and state relationships, and foreign policy. In two areas the departure of the political right from conservative values is striking, the right's war against science, and the right's attacks against environmentalists. Check out this commentary by Jim Motavalli on right wing think tanks who are misusing science to blame environmental groups for the Katrina disaster.

Four years after the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, the people of New Orleans experienced flooding as the result of Hurricane Katrina.

Will it be safe to go home? Eric Schmelzer looks back, and asks what can New Orleans learn from the Environmental Protection Agencies response in lower Manhattan?

How does one write a biography? If we explore the complex and contradictory life of a man do we diminish him, or do we deepen our understanding of our subject, ourselves and all humanity? I am thinking of doing a biographical sermon on Horatio Alger.

According to American Dreams "Horatio Alger captured the essence, emotion, soul and especially the spirit of an emerging America. His books all had the same message: no matter who they were, poor, orphaned or powerless, that if they would persevere, if they would do their best, if they would always try to do the right thing, they would succeed. Through honesty, hard work, and strong determination, the American Dream was available to anyone willing to make the journey.

Alger wrote more than 134 enormously successful dime novels targeted primarily at young boys. In each of his books, the theme was pretty much the same. It usually focused on a young teenage boy, from a poor and disadvantaged family who would overcome numerous obstacles along the way and triumph to build his own American Dream against the odds."

Alger had an impact on America, and his novels reflect the ideas of his Unitarian upbringing, especially the idea that progressive development of character is the key to success in life. But what of Alger's life? The Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biography and Wikipedia reveal more about Alger's life before he became a popular novelist, some of which I am learning for the first time. This sermon is getting more and more complex.

Did Alger overcome his pedophilia? The wisdom today is that such behavior is incurable, yet it seems the Unitarians covered up his abusive behavior, and he went quietly away and became a best selling novelist.

In the wake of Katrina the details of FEMA's previous record are being exposed.  FEMA under Bush has been converted from a disaster relief agency into a apparatus for buying votes and doing public relations work for the Bush White House.  William Fisher reports on FEMA's response to Florida's destructive hurricanes last year just months before the elections.

Richard Hofstader wrote in 1965:

...there is a difference between the paranoid style in politics and the clinical paranoiac: although they both tend to be overheated, over-suspicious, overaggressive, grandiose, and apocalyptic in expression, the clinical paranoid sees the hostile and conspiratorial world in which he feels himself to be living as directed specifically against him: whereas the spokesman for the paranoid style finds it directed against a nation, a culture, a way of life who fate affects not himself alone but millions of others.

In order to enlist people into the religion of violence it is necessary to have an enemy, who is consciously working to destroy ones community.  To create such an enemy we must suspect the motives of the other, fear that enemy because of they  "hate our way of life."

In 1965 Richard Hofstader was examining the paranoid style of U.S. politician as they postured against the Soviet Union and "communism."  In 2005 the religion of violence has constructed a new image of the enemy,  drawing connections between such disparate movements as the Baath Party in Iraq, the corrupt stalinist oligarchy in North Korea, the nascent populist socialist movement led by Hugo Chavez, the Palestinian militants, and the theocracy in Iran.  The "axis of evil" may never hold a consultation, but for the politician who has embraced the paranoid style the proof of their enemy status has been established by their existence.

Paul Vitney writing for the Common Dreams News Center  writes:

"Claims that the New Orleans floods have laid bare a growing racial and economic divide in the US have, until now, been rejected by the American political establishment as emotional rhetoric. But yesterday's UN report provides statistical proof that for many - well beyond those affected by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina - the great American Dream is an ongoing nightmare."

It is uncommon for United Nations reports contain criticism of the United States, but as this report makes clear "Poverty and social breakdown are core components of the global security threat."

Later Vitney writes:
"Child poverty is a particularly sensitive indicator for income poverty in rich countries. It is defined as living in a family with an income below 50 per cent of the national average.  The US - with Mexico - has the dubious distinction of seeing its child poverty rates increase to more than 20 per cent. In the UK - which at the end of the 1990s had one of the highest child poverty rates in Europe - the rise in child poverty, by contrast, has been reversed through increases in tax credits and benefits."

As huge numbers of Americans watched the news from the Gulf Coast they saw this nations poor as humans, and were outraged by the slow government response to their plight. Many are now open to new understanding how government policies of help perpetuate and deepen that poverty.

NOAA is tracking Ophelia for the South Carolina Coast with a expected time of arrival of Tuesday.  They brought Michael Brown back to Washington to plan for future emergencies.  Is four days enough warning? (Posted at midnight, Saturday wee morning.

Once again I pray that the models are wrong, that the meteorologists left out some important cross currents, misjudged the water temperature, something.  Doesn't Greenland need some rain.

(Saturday late morning update.  Hurricane weakened by wind shear overnight.  Reports say that it  has reformed and getting stronger this morning.  They predict a Carolina land fall from Savannah to Wilmington as possible landfalls.  They are less sure of path than they were last night.)

(Sunday morning update still a hurricane, but moving slowly North toward Virginia.  Winds keeping it off the Carolina coast.)

Jeff Wilson making a comment at Coffee House writes " it's worth considering whether American society has also changed over the past couple of generations. I don't feel I'm old enough to have sufficient memory of earlier decades to make such a determination. So, let me ask it here: has American society become more or less racist? Or, if you prefer, how has racism in America changed? Is America more anti-racist than it used to be?

My short answer is that it is not better, and it is not worse, it is just different.  Progress, the idea that things get better and better until they are really good is one of white America's favorite myths, and the notion that we have overcome racism in the last several decades is almost an article of faith.  And there are markers that point to "progress."  Schools are no longer legally segregated, lynchings are less frequent, people of color appear in the popular media in professional and leadership roles, access to public facilities is not openly denied.  In the last three decades an African American middle class has grown significantly, and there is an emerging Latino/a middle class.

The images of Native people have improved.  When I was a child the indigenous people were despised, "the only good Indian was a dead Indian" was standard operating procedure both in the media and in practice in most parts of the country.  Now lots of folks want to be Indian, and search their genealogy for that Cherokee princess that their great, great grand-daddy picked up cheap on the way West to settle on stolen land.  Middle class whites embrace native spirituality, and are sweating their way to enlightenment.  White suburban youth are into hip, hop, and their parents love Halle Berry and Tiger Woods.  Such are the signs of progress.

On the other hand poverty among people of color has deepened, and the gap between "whites" and "coloreds" has grown.  The prison-industrial complex now captures more than a third of all young African American males; more than half of prisoners are African American.  Native Americans and Latinos are also swept up by the criminal injustice system, while the majority white population experiences less prosecution and lenient sentences. (Drug use among whites and people of color is statistically similar, arrest and imprisonment is disproportionately a matter of color.)

We could go on with many other examples indicating impoverishment has increased for most people of color, and the violent repression of people of color has become the responsibility of the state rather than the mob.  People of color will not soon forget that the President of the United States issued a shoot to kill order to the national guard on their way to do search and rescue in a mostly African American city.

Institutional racism has been defined as "the network of institutional structures, policies, and practices that create advantages and benefits for Whites, and discrimination, oppression, and disadvantage for people of color."  In the 1950s and 1960s mass movements swept away Jim Crow, or legal segregation.  During the same decades we began to see organized efforts to scare white working class people to sell their homes in the city and move to suburbs, and the practice of "red lining" by financial institutions to deprive inner city communities of finances for housing renovation.  We witnessed the use of resentment and fear of people of color by a major political party to gain votes and cause a major realignment of voting patterns.

These and other policies by government, political parties, the media, and corporations are only a sample of the institutional reconstruction of racist relations in the United States since the breakup of Jim Crow legalized segregation. After the Civil War the institutional racism of slavery was replaced by the institutional racism of legalized segregation.  After the civil rights upsurge institutional racism of legalized segregation was replaced by the institutionalized racism of selected criminalization and the "color blind"  discrimination caused by the "wealth gap."  Institutional racism has changed in America, and that change has been reflected in American's ideas about race.

There is a rejection of the old blatant racist ideology.  Today, Ideological racism among most white Americans is more a denial of their own privilege and choosing to live their lives in isolation from poverty and state violence.  Most white Americans try hard to maintain the pretense that they live in a color blind America.  They resent people who suggest that this social construction is self serving illusion.

On the one hand the fact that most whites reject open racism is a good thing, and it we must take notice that most people in our country today are predisposed against open racism.  Most whites will support efforts that will improve the conditions of people of color.  But being "blind to color" also blinds people to the working of the new forms of institutional racism, which has made the work of overcoming the economic, social, and cultural impoverishment of all Americans more difficult.  Being "blind to color" means the political impotence for all but the most wealthy, it is just as true today as it was for Abraham Lincoln, "we the people" can not be half free, and half oppressed.

It is not better, it is not worse, but it is  different.

(I am in debt to George Tinker for this maxim,  we were having breakfast just before his Center presentation and I made some observation about progress.  He said "I don't know about progress.  Not better, not worse, but different.")

They say that it takes about six miles for an ocean liner moving at full speed to change course.  Religious movements are a lot like ocean liners, they have a momentum such that once movement is established in a certain direction it is difficult to change.  At the same time, history teaches us that change happens.  We can talk about turning points and radical breaks with the past, we have seen nations, communities and even religious movements make qualitative change.  Yet, when a community changes it maintains much of its character, its traditions, its past.  Thus the historian who examines a community over time examines the interplay of change and continuity.

When I look at Unitarian Universalism as religious movement with a history I am struck by the truth of the maxim:  "the more things change, the more they stay the same."  Still, I have seen many changes since I first identified as a Unitarian. My guess is I was twelve, and Eisenhower was President.  I might have been eleven.  I was playing a board game with a Jewish child, and the conversation turned to Jewish/Christian differences.  He told me what Christians believed, assuming that he was informing me of my theology.  I don't remember ever thinking about theology before that moment, but I must have listened to my mother and my Sunday school teachers.  I told him no,  I was a Unitarian and we believed that Jesus was a Jewish prophet.  That he taught peace and love between people.  My religion and my religious family had taught me values! That was over fifty years ago!

A few years later, and  I was a teen in Liberal Religious Youth.  I had already participated in a peace march, and a civil rights demonstration.  My LRY group was totally supportive of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.  We were scared during the Cuban Missile Crisis and we turned out to stand vigil for a peaceful solution.  We were not divided along political lines, witnessing for peace and witnessing for justice were things Unitarians did.  It is what we had always done, all the heros that we learned about as children in religious education had witnessed for liberal religious values, and so would we.  We believed that poverty could be eliminated, and we volunteered through the Service Committee's work camps to tutor, and refurbish housing.  That was forty five years ago!

Most of my Unitarian friends were Republicans.  There were Democrats, but in 1960 my congregation and my friends were not for Jack. We were too young to vote, but we had opinions, and we didn't like Jack and we didn't like Dick.  Our parents voted for Nixon, yet they seemed sympathetic to our idealistic support for Civil Rights and Peace.

Recently I read a relatively new Unitarian Universalist argue that UUA President Bill Sinkford is trying to turn Unitarian Universalism into the religious wing of the Democratic Party.  That is strong charge, it would be shocking if it were true, and it would be outrageous if it were happening to us and we hadn't even noticed.  The Democratic Party's 2004 Presidential nominee supported the war against Iraq,  the national leadership of that party have been absent in the struggle for an sustainable economy and against global warming.  The last Democrat in the White House presided over the dismantling of the social support system condemning millions to hopeless poverty, and his legacy includes  "Free Trade"  that has worked to undermine labor standards in the Americas.  I would hope that we would remain independent and critical of the Democrats as well as the Republicans.

I ask is there any evidence for the charge?  Is there evidence that Bill Sinkford is leading us into the party of Kerry and Clinton?    No!  Today, just as we have done since the merger, we develop our policies through a democratic process based on the religious values of Unitarian Universalism. The President of the UUA is elected to articulate those values to the public. Every UUA President has done that since Dana Greeley.  Our liberal religious values have political consequences, just as they have for two centuries.

Something is different, but it isn't the UUA.  What has happened since the merger is a realignment of the political parties. At the time of the merger, it was possible for Unitarians and Universalists to be for peace, for civil rights and for the elimination of poverty and be enthusiastic Republicans.  But over the last five decades the Republican Party has become an ideological party, and the party of the Religious Right.  The values that religious liberalism had championed over the last two centuries are now being directly challenged and liberalism experiences itself in retreat. This change in the political landscape has led many Unitarian Universalists to identity the values of religious liberalism with the Democratic Party, which in my view is a mistake.

More immediately, when John Buehrens was President of the UUA, the President of the United States was William Clinton, and the UUA was critical of the policies of that administration.  Bill Sinkford was elected President soon after the Supreme Count installed George Bush in the White House and the UUA has been critical of the Bush administration.  Religious critique unfolds in the historical context in which a particular religious people find themselves - Isaiah and Amos were critical of particular kings and particular policies.

I first encountered Bill Sinkford when he was President of LRY in the late 1960s, and I have had many conversations with him over the last ten years.  He is devoted to Unitarian Universalism, and nothing he has said or done could warrant such a charge.  On the contrary his statements indicate that he is grounded in our heritage of religious liberalism, and that his pastoral statements have been consistently based on our articulated values.  I have differed with him on occasion, but our differences were based on our estimate of the possibilities, not on values.
Given the values (direction) and the momentum (the dynamic power of our liberal heritage) it was inevitable that Unitarian Universalism would emerge as religious movement in opposition to the political direction of Right.  Our ship was on this course long before Bill Sinkford was elected President.

Last Thursday, George W. Bush declared "''there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this, whether it be looting or price-gouging at the gasoline pump or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud."

The "ethics of looting" during a catastrophe will provide many a good topic for sermons for months to come.  If you were without food and water for three days would you resupply yourself from Ma's convenience store?  from WalMart?  If one and not the other why discriminate?  We learn that New Orleans police whose homes were underwater, who were out contact with their families, and whose police station was destroyed by the storm making a Super-pharmacy into their staging area and eating the food of the shelves.  Were they looters?  Their authority came from necessity, and was made on the spot. They applied for no warrant.  Emergencies give all us liberties not delegated by constitutions.

I am not advocating a situational ethic, I argue that human beings share a morality that gives us standards of judgement, but that we make judgments about particular choices based on the concrete situation. But in every disaster there are those who take advantage, those who loot television sets, designer clothing, alcoholic beverages, drugs are criminals along with all those who engage in "price-gouging at the gasoline pump or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud."

Criminals must be prosecuted, including those who loot the people at the gasoline pumps.  I agree with Derrick Z. Jackson who wrote in Friday's Boston Globe that in the midst of this national crisis:
"big oil looted the nation. The pumps instantly shot past $3 a gallon, with $4 a gallon well in sight.  In a thinly disguised attempt to act as if it cared about the people wading in the water, Chevron has pledged $5 million to relief efforts. Exxon-Mobil and Shell have pledged $2 million apiece. British Petroleum and Citgo have pledged $1 million each.

This is nothing next to their wealth. Of the world's seven most profitable corporations, four are Exxon-Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, and Chevron. Exxon-Mobil is the world's most profitable company, making $25.3 billion last year. It and the other three corporations had combined profits last year of $72.8 billion. Exxon-Mobil is also the world's most valuable company, with a market value, according to Forbes magazine, of $405 billion. The combined market value of Exxon-Mobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and Chevron is nearly $1 trillion.
And that was last year. A month ago, Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, and Conoco-Phillips announced record second-quarter profits of $7.6 billion, $3.7 billion, and $3.1 billion, respectively. Royal Dutch Shell's quarterly profits of $5.2 billion were up by 34 percent over the same period last year. Other well-known companies like Sunoco also had record second-quarter earnings.
If Exxon-Mobil were to maintain its current pace of profits, it would cross the $30 billion barrier for 2005. The company's chief financial officer, Henry Hubble, bragged in classic corporatese, ''Our disciplined project management and operating practices deliver the benefits of strong industry conditions to our shareholders."
Those disciplined operating practices are hardly confined to the oil fields. Everyone knows that Bush does not really mean what he says about price-gouging at the pump, since he just gave energy companies the bulk of $14.5 billion in tax breaks in the new energy bill. Surprise, surprise. In Bush's two elections, oil and gas companies gave Republicans 79 percent of their $61.5 million in campaign contributions, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
If Bush really meant what he said, he would call for a freeze or cap on gasoline prices, especially in the regions affected most dramatically by Katrina. He would challenge big oil to come up with a much more meaningful contribution to relief efforts.

If Bush meant what he said!  Well long time ago Woody Guthrie sang:
Yes, as through this world I've wandered۬I've seen lots of funny men;۬Some will rob you with a six-gun,۬And some with a fountain pen.

Funny men with power. Funny men with connections. Funny men with an agenda.

We see unfolding in our nation reported to the people by a variety of media an important religious, moral and ethical lesson.  There is a difference between the politics of domination and the ethics of mutuality.  The corporate power elite sees the people of the United States as consumers.  Their politicians are charged with keeping order.  Their media are charged with portraying a picture of smart elites who benevolently rule happy contented consumers.  But sometimes the world is turned upside down by a crisis, and we see even through the corporate media ordinary people coping with disaster in the face of bureaucrats, criminals and the grass roots of our nation responds with solidarity and compassion.  Despite the attempts to portray New Orleans as a city that had descended into anarchy, needing a "strong hand," we the people instead choose empathy and compassion.  Mutuality happens in the face of greed, corruption and political conspiracies.  Unitarian Universalists can learn a significant lesson from the crisis, the principles of our faith community are based on an ethic of equality, mutuality and interdependence. Oftentimes, we celebrate those principles in the abstract, but in this crisis we can see how they apply on a mass scale.  And we can choose to be people who live those values, or passive consumers in a corporate state who come to church to be comforted, entertained and "intellectually stimulated."

Unless we are completely gullible we know that politicians stage photo-ops, we know that they are more attentive to appearances than to substance and we have learned that one needs to take whatever they say to the media with a grain of salt.  But when the President diverts "assets" needed for New Orleans disaster relief for his own public image we must cry "dereliction of duty."

From a press release LA Senator Mary Landrieu sent out today:
But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast - black and white, rich and poor, young and old - deserve far better from their national government.

Thanks to Americablog for the Landrieu press release.

There is something peculiar about people living in Florida.  We watch tropical storms.  I have a handy little widget on my Macintosh, that allows me to check NOAA's Atlantic Basin Storm Tracking Maps.  We watched Katina crash through South Florida and go out into the Gulf on Thursday, August 25th.  Since Katina came ashore on the Gulf Coast on August 29th,  Leo blew itself out in the Atlantic.  At present Maria is heading North into the cold waters and the experts assume that she is no threat.  September and October have historically been active months for storms, the hurricane season is not over yet. 

It has been stated that global warming will generate more hurricanes.  Of all the popular ideas about changes in the weather this may be this most controversial.  There are so many factors involved in the generation of hurricanes.

So I offer this brief outline of the controversy.  First, I believe the argument that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere traps energy is valid, and the evidence that we are seeing the effects of this phenomenon in atmospheric warming is convincing.  Hurricanes are produced by warm water, and there is evidence that over all ocean water temperatures have increased. 

However it is a fact that in the tropics the water is very warm during the summer.  Hurricanes existed before homo sapiens, and every summer for millennia there have been several tropical storms that came ashore on the coast line of the Western Hemisphere.  Tropical storms are common to Asia as well.

Furthermore, the Gulf of Mexico is relatively shallow, and it gets over 300 days of tropical sun,  it would be warm even if there were no carbon build up in the atmosphere. (Katrina traveled over water that at least 88° F.) So on the one hand hurricanes are naturally occurring tropical storms and the Gulf of Mexico is ideal location for tropical storms to become intense and very large.  And on the other hand the atmosphere and the oceans are warming, making hurricane generation more intense.

It would be a stretch to argue that any particular hurricane is the result of global warming.  The evidence does not support such a conclusion. But the combination of atmosphere warming and ocean warming lead to inescapable conclusion that we will have more large, intense hurricanes in the years ahead. Ruth Curry, research specialist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.writes " In order to form, a hurricane must have ocean temperature of at least 80 degrees down to a depth of 164 feet.  Sea surface temperatures all over the tropics are running 1.8 to 3.6 degrees above normal. This is due to global warming."

What must we do?  In Florida the building codes were changed after Hurricane Andrew, the first storm to record Category Five winds to hit the United States.*  Those newer buildings have stood against the strong hurricanes that come ashore in 2004.  Older, less well built structures were destroyed.  We can plan coastal communities with a view toward withstanding strong hurricanes.  FEMA should not spend disaster money to rebuild the same kinds of structures that were wiped out by storm surge and strong winds.  We must require cities to have disaster plans and demand that any evacuation plans include how to aid the poor, the aged, those with small children, and those with medical needs.

We must work to address the question of global warming, restricting and eventually reversing carbon build up into the atmosphere.  But for the time being this will not reverse the trend toward intense storms.  That would require a radical turn in policy, pursued over many decades.  It is sobering to read Roddy Scheer who writes "according to UN estimates, the Kyoto treaty, if fully implemented, would reduce the projected temperature rise of 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius by only 0.1 degree over the next century.

The consequences of global warming include radical changes to our environment including rising seas, changes in rain patterns, and intensification of both summer and winter storms.  It is absurd to talk about love for Mother Nature, or advocating respect for the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part while pursuing policies that fundamentally alter our environment, endanger wild life, undermine agriculture and change weather patterns.

*(Hurricane Gilbert which hit Jamaica and Mexico had been the Category Five on record. Hurricane Camile which hit the Gulf Central Coast in 1962 and the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 which came ashore in Palm Beach Country, Florida in 1935 were probably Category Five hurricanes but they blew before we had instruments to measure such high atmosphere wind intensity.)

"We will not allow bureaucracy to get in the way of saving lives."  George W. Bush on September 3, 2005

We have heard reports of trucks full of water and other supplies sitting for days, waiting for permission to enter New Orleans,  Now the Red Cross reports that they were ordered by Homeland Security to stay out New Orleans because their aid would prevent people in New Orleans from evacuating.

Bureaucrats make plans, and even when they have difficulty implementing their plans, they use their power to prevent others from interfering with their plans.  George W. Bush has told us that he was in constant communication with Homeland Security, FEMA, the Governors of the states, the Mayor of New Orleans.  While the party line was that the storm overwhelmed the response, why no response at all?

In the case of New Orleans, in terms of food, water,  and medical supplies I did not see an inadequate response that was overwhelmed by need.  I saw no response.  I observed the  rapid response of FEMA to Florida in 2004, and I note the fact that every news organization has had no problem reporting on every corner of New Orleans within hours of the end of the hurricane.  Rescue operations were able to come into New Orleans, but not food, water and medical supplies.

These and other bewildering parts of this story raises questions for this observer.  Was a decision made to withhold resources that would support the population left behind by the middle class evacuation?  Did the bureaucrats decide to depopulate New Orleans, and then find themselves overwhelmed with the logistics of their decision?

Some will object that I am advancing "a conspiracy theory."  Politicians do make policies, and sometimes those policies prove to be problematic to implement and destructive in their results.  When policies go awry politicians engage in obfuscation and blaming.  Three thousand years of recorded history indicates that politicians lie.  In a democratic republic we must hold our leaders accountable.

So we need to ask.  Did the catastrophe of New Orleans arise due to incompetence, and being "out of touch?"  This is a popular explanation and it has merit.  But this administration has shown a designing intelligence in the past, that behind the rhetoric and diversions we have discovered a policy, and a plan.  Plans don't always work, as past Presidents have discovered.  What did the President know, and when did he know it?

The President prides himself on being a hands on manager.  On his visit to the disaster on the Gulf Coast George W. Bush made it clear that we must have priorities. 

"We've got a lot of rebuilding to do.  First, we're going to save lives and stabilize the situation.  And then we're going to help these communities rebuild.  The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before.  Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house.  And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."  (Laughter.)

In this time of national sorrow and loss, it is good to know where our President is leading us.

Our Unitarian Universalist religious movement arose in the context of the American revolution, and the ideal of a democratic republic founded on principles of equality and the common good was integral to the Unitarian and Universalist message.  Taking responsibility for society, and holding political authorities accountable for their conduct has been and continues to be central to our ethical response to the world. 
We make the distinction between partisan politics, and liberal religious ethical response to the world.  Partisan politics seeks to take advantage of "issues" to advance the interests of politicians, partisans are defensive about their own conduct, and criticize their opponents with an interest in replacing them in the halls of power.  Religious liberals witness their values in the world as an act of love and without regard to  seeking the advantages of office. 
When we review the conduct of political leadership during the crisis unfolding on the Gulf Coast, the basis for our judgments must be our Unitarian Universalist values, we must hold the political leadership accountable for how they responded in light of those values.

Last year when 4 major hurricanes hit Florida and the Mid South the UU Trauma Response Ministry was on the spot offering help, and counsel.  I offer here the information about the UU Trauma Response Ministry and its preparations to respond to the crisis in aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  Our congregations and the many refugees will need their expert help.

Who We Are:
UU Trauma Response Ministry is composed of Unitarian Universalist ministers, lay members of UU congregations and others who respect the vision and beliefs of Unitarian Universalism.  Trained in trauma response, these people desire to assist those involved in traumatic situations. This assistance may take the form of:

€¢ direct, on-site ministry at the trauma scene, whether national, or local;

€¢ crisis counseling for those who have experienced various levels of trauma;

€¢ hospitality and respite care for victims;

€¢ debriefing and other stress management skills;

€¢ administrative assistance, telephone answering, on-site greeters, office support;

€¢ pulpit supply for ministers engaged in trauma response.

Emergency Contact (toll free) 1-866-730-8181

The Unitarian Universalist Trauma Response Ministry Statement on Hurricane Katrina


The people of our nation once again find themselves in a time of trauma, this
time in the wake of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. Within our
religious movement, the Unitarian Universalist Trauma Response Ministry is
especially aware of the broad scope of such a disaster. The members of our
ministry offer our thoughts and prayers for the millions of people affected by the
devastation that has followed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Our volunteer
group of lay leaders and ministers, established in 2002, was begun to offer
spiritual and psycho/spiritual support to our congregations, their members, and
religious leaders in the aftermath of a disaster. When invited to do so, we
have also provided pre-education and preparation, and post event consultation for
methods of effective trauma response. All of us have had specific experience
and training in disaster response; if the UUTRM is asked to respond directly
to a disaster scene, our volunteers are coordinated by a team leader so that we
can provide safe and organized support. Our approach is unique: we are a
religious response team responding to the spiritual needs of those affected by
disaster.

As men and women who provide disaster spiritual care, we are acutely aware of
the several stages of a disaster and the difficulties they present for those
affected. We are living through the first stage right now, as local ministers
and district executives in the Southwest and Mid-South Districts assess the
damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. Making such assessments include locating
survivors, taking inventory of property, taking stock of losses, and seeking
medical, psychological, and spiritual assistance.

Once the initial assessment is done, it becomes important to determine what
services need to be sought and delivered. Obviously, physical and safety needs
are the first priority. The Red Cross, Federal Emergency Management Agency,
local fire departments and other emergency management teams are best equipped to
handle such needs. Finding safe housing, locating relatives, bringing back
dislocated persons and families, and providing food and water becomes the main
concerns at this stage. Here is where your financial donations can provide
immediate help, and we hope that you will join others in giving generously to
groups with a proven record of assistance in these circumstances.

Cleaning up the wreckage is a long term project. In the case of Hurricane
Katrina, the physical presence of others may be most valuable as that work
proceeds, but it is too soon to consider this stage. In the meantime, all of us can
continue to hold the affected communities in our prayerful thoughts; we can
donate money and/or supplies as we are able; for those of us prepared to offer
disaster-related services, we can make ourselves available, if our services are
requested.

Members of UUTRM were in communication with one another even before Hurricane
Katrina hit. We continue to be in touch with one another, with our colleagues
at the UUA, with the district executives of areas impacted by the hurricane
as well as some of the ministers of the affected churches. We will continue to
assess the appropriateness of onsite support by members of UUTRM, should our
services be requested.

In the meantime, we ask that each of you find time to think lovingly of those
who have died in this disaster. Let us pray for the safety of the rescue
workers, response teams, and care givers . Let us pray that the victims find
strength, support and compassionate care while they begin the long, slow process of
achieving a new normalcy. It is never possible to return to the way things
used to be in the wake of a disaster of this magnitude. Yet human beings have
been blessed with an amazing resiliency. The greatest gift we can offer, in
service to that resiliency, is our prayerful presence, our financial resources and
a willingness to be there if we are needed.

We welcome further inquiries about our work; please visit our website at
www.traumaministry.org .

For the UUTRM,

Rev. Danita Noland

Rev. Dr. Susan Suchocki Brown
Rev. Rosemary Bray McNatt
Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
Rev. Joel Miller
Rev. Kate Bortner
Rev. Lisa Presley
Sr. Rosemary Chinnici
Rev. Aaron Payson

"Hurricanes come in two waves. First comes the rainstorm, and then comes what the historian John Barry calls the 'human storm." David Brooks writes today in the New York Times,  basing his post Katrina analysis on Barry's historical account of how societies have responded to storms.

The mayor announced an evacuation of New Orleans late on Saturday, and everyone was given an equal opportunity to get in their car and drive to a hotel somewhere and save themselves.  This "free enterprise" solution privileges those with means, proves very difficult for those with moderate incomes, but for the hundreds of thousands of poor it was impossible.  America's privileged classes wonder why people didn't evacuate? why do they engage in unauthorized shopping.  Why don't they just sit and wait for the political "leaders" to take care of them?  Why?  America's privileged classes need to take a field trip.  Go visit the America that works in the hotels, the restaurants, the docks and warehouses of our largest port.  The people who make New Orleans and other big cities work.  Perhaps they should try to buy a car on money left over from paying for rent and food when earning minimum wage.  Call it a learning experience.

Since America's privileged are not likely to make that effort maybe a little history instead.  Brooks writes about New Orleans experience in the wake of storms:
"Then in 1927, the great Mississippi flood rumbled down upon New Orleans.  As Barry writes in his account, "Rising Tide," the disaster ripped the veil off the genteel, feudal relations between whites and blacks, and revealed the festering iniquities. Blacks were rounded up into work camps and held by armed guards. They were prevented from leaving as the waters rose. A steamer, the Capitol, played "Bye Bye Blackbird" as it sailed away. The racist violence that followed the floods helped persuade many blacks to move north.
Civic leaders intentionally flooded poor and middle-class areas to ease the water's pressure on the city, and then reneged on promises to compensate those whose homes were destroyed. That helped fuel the populist anger that led to Huey Long's success. Across the country people demanded that the federal government get involved in disaster relief, helping to set the stage for the New Deal. The local civic elite turned insular and reactionary, and New Orleans never really recovered its preflood vibrancy.
We'd like to think that the stories of hurricanes and floods are always stories of people rallying together to give aid and comfort. And, indeed, each of America's great floods has prompted a popular response both generous and inspiring. But floods are also civic examinations. Amid all the stories that recur with every disaster - tales of sudden death and miraculous survival, the displacement and the disease - there is also the testing.
Civic arrangements work or they fail. Leaders are found worthy or wanting. What's happening in New Orleans and Mississippi today is a human tragedy. But take a close look at the people you see wandering, devastated, around New Orleans: they are predominantly black and poor. The political disturbances are still to come."
It is one week since Katrina crashed into Florida.  She hit again on Monday morning.  The physical damage will last for years.  The human storm will last longer and be more profound than the wind storm.

George W. Bush interviewed on ABC's morning show claimed that "no one thought the levee's protecting New Orleans would break." This was by way of explanation of his inaction in the face of catastrophe when Hurricane Katrina hit the Central Gulf Coast.  He said that when that they began to get an estimate of the storm's damage was on Tuesday!, he began to take action!

The Weather Bureau (NOOA) was forecasting a direct hit on New Orleans by a category 3 hurricane on Friday, the storm was category 5 on Saturday evening.  The Weather Bureau published potential storm damage on their web site 48 hours before the storm came ashore.

But the politics of denial practiced by this President go back well before the Katrina was spawned out of the warm waters of the Atlantic.  In 2003 the administration began diverting the money that Congress had authorized for the reconstruct the levees two years ago for pay for an unfunded war against Iraq.  Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming....Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."  Bush says he is surprised by the storm damage. Perhaps he should speak to the Weather Bureau.