I just posted (somewhat) about how unmoved I was by hurricane Katrina. Generally, natural disasters move me no more than road accidents - they are upsetting if someone close to you gets killed as a result, but otherwise they are just part of life. People die in hurricanes and earthquakes, but then they also die from cancer, which is a much nastier way to go. I read once that psychologists identified 33 degrees of pain (one for each masonic rank?); only cancer manged to reach 33, and childbirth could occasionally go up to 32 (let's hear it for epidurals!). In a weird way, this is almost reassuring, since you know that the worst tortures that humans or nature can expose you to aren't that bad. So, as I wrote, I thought it was just a case of bad weather on the other side of the world, and thought no more of it - after all, Bangladesh faces much worse flooding every few years, and nobody seems to give a dingo's kidney about that.
However, I am now moved - it is just that I am moved to anger. In a way this is worse. Suffering because of the suffering of other people is undesirable, but it's still better than anger (anyone familiar with Stoicism or Buddhism will be familiar with this issue). But now, after watching the BBC's coverage of the aftermath, I feel anger. No one can prevent a hurricane, but one would have thought that the world's most powerful nation would have been able to prevent a breakdown of law, and basic services. I mean, they can bomb a country "into the stone age" but they can't supply clean water and electricity? They can send rapid response forces to every corner of the world, but they can't take sick people to hospital?
The one thing that is worse than anger is hatred, which I think is a kind of congealed, putrefied anger. I really don't want to hate George Bush, because I don't want to hate any sentient (or in this case, semi-sentient) being. But I can't help it, and Katrina seems to be intent on teasing my tendency to hate. Never having been the ruler of a country, I am not exactly sure what the appropriate response would be, but I would have thought that if you are a king, president, emperor or whatever, and a major disaster happens in your domain, you would get down there immediately, not a couple of days later. Forget the normal compassionate human response - from a purely Machiavellian view, it makes sense to get a photo-opportunity as soon as the hurricane strikes. You could even get wind-ruffled hair, if you had a bit more hair than GWB. If I were president, I'd have jumped on the first plane to New Orleans. No wait, I wouldn't have had to, because I would have had Airforce 1. Hey George, there's this plane that can take you anywhere in the world at a moment's notice. You only remembered it today?
Then there's this shoot-to-kill policy. Hmm, we have a situiation where the residents of old people's homes have been bundled into a stadium and would really like to get somewhere where they could have a cup of tea, medical attention and a nice lie-down, and you are more concerned about people getting the food they need to live by taking it from stores who are in any case covered by insurance. In times of need, all things are common. That's not something I thought up or quoted from some anarcho-communist, it's Saint Thomas Bloody Aquinas!
I could go on, but I'd only annoy myself more.
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