PEOPLE SENSE PRESIDENT'S SOULLESS SENSIBILITY

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People sense president's soulless sensibility

 

 

By Marianne Williamson

 

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Something very important is happening here -- something more than

simply a hurricane, or the suffering of thousands who were neglected

by their government during a time of great need. Most worldly

occurrences reflect deeper truths. What is happening is a gigantic

reckoning, as Americans are forced to come to terms with how very,

very naked is the emperor who we thought had such incredible clothes.

 

We are raised in the United States of America to believe our

government is the strongest in the world, that as Americans we are

basically protected, and that our country is basically good. It is

cognitive dissonance for us to be confronted with evidence to the

contrary, and yet such evidence has been piling up fast and furiously

during this odd and potentially catastrophic phase of American

history.

 

There is nothing strong about rushing into a unilateral war based on

faulty intelligence, squandering the resources necessary with which

to take care of your own people; there is nothing protective about a

government that apparently didn't monitor events on the ground in New

Orleans any better -- in fact, less well -- than the average viewer

of CNN; and there is nothing good about taking care of the rich at

the expense of the poor.

 

If it took a Category 5 hurricane and the huge suffering of thousands

to bring those facts to light, then at least it can be said there is

value in this horror. If enough Americans are beginning to wake up

and face the awful fact that our country's basic functioning has

become infected by a soulless sensibility, then perhaps the suffering

on the Gulf Coast will not have been in vain.

 

Regarding the abysmal response of our government to the hurricane's

aftermath, there is a lot of talk right now about accountability.

Some argue we should have the discussion today, while others argue

that that discussion should wait for a more propitious time.

 

But there is a danger in waiting, for a governmental status quo has

talent for co-opting criticism as long as it can buy enough time.

Passions cool; memories become revised and faded.

 

Six months after a disaster, the government appoints an independent

commission to find out what really happened but by the time the

commission releases its final report, there is never much sense that

too many people are listening. The people are exhausted by then;

they're trying their best to move on.

 

And the status quo knows this; that's part of its game. Do whatever

you want; act horrified and remorseful for a minute whenever too much

suffering results as a part of your actions; then put off the

accountability conversation until people are too tired to care

anymore.

 

This is not a new pattern in America. What might be new -- what I

sense might be happening -- is that people are waking up to it now.

And as soon as we wake up, then the pattern will end.

 

Abraham Lincoln said there is not too much evil any American

government can perpetrate, as long as the people remain vigilant. He

was referring to the fact that we have federal elections every two

years, through which we can replace the entirety of the House of

Representatives and one-third of the U.S. Senate.

 

The ultimate accountability conversation is written into the U.S.

Constitution; it is called elections. At this particular juncture,

that means the mid-term elections of 2006.

 

The president prides himself on running the government like a well-

run business. That, of course, makes him the chief executive. And if

the government failed, then he failed.

 

Fool us once, and maybe their tricks were dirty; fool us twice, maybe

their public relations was too good; fool us now, and perhaps we just

deserve to be fooled. From war to hurricanes, oh, America, the alarm

bells of needless human suffering are going off everywhere.

 

A nation that refuses to wake up at this point is in a dangerous

slumber. The nightmares are upon us now. They will remain until our

eyes are opened and we have awakened to the truth.

 

Marianne Williamson is a best-selling spiritual author from Metro

Detroit ( www.marianne.com). Send letters to The News at 615 W.

Lafayette, Detroit, MI 48226 or (313) 222-6417 or letters.