Provocation, response, let's move on from NFL protests before any more people suffer and die in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and other islands devastated by Hurricane Maria.
Only relentless media coverage will force this administration to pay attention to the brown people out in the ocean.
Multiple reports say that due to inadequate federal response, things are getting desperate in Puerto Rico. Philip Carter at Slate:
"Only the most rudimentary military support is now on the ground. This is inadequate and calls to mind the lethargic response by the Bush administration to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The U.S. military has a unique expeditionary capability to deliver humanitarian support, logistics, and security anywhere in the world, far above what FEMA or any other civilian agency can muster. American citizens are suffering and dying and need all their government can do for them (including the military). Unfortunately, their president and the military at his command appear focused elsewhere. Unless this changes, more Americans will die."
Some troops and resources are there and have met some emergency needs for water and food. But it's not enough:
"Make no mistake: These troops have already saved lives and will save more in the weeks to come. Delivering 1.1 million liters of water is no small task. But Puerto Rico has 3.4 million residents, and another 100,000 live in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Clean water is a basic daily necessity. These islands’ residents will need orders of magnitude more—plus food, fuel, electricity, housing, medicine, and more—in the months to come until local capacity is restored."
The size of the human resources and quantity of other resources needed, plus the length of time this will remain an emergency, is just a preview of the climate crisis future. For the sake of the victims, it's time to pay attention.
As for official response from the top, it has been--what else?--lunatic and provocative. The Guardian:
"It took Donald Trump five full days to respond to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria on the lives of 3.5 million Americans in Puerto Rico, and when he finally did so his comments on Twitter were so devoid of empathy it threatened to spark a new controversy.
Hot on the heels of the billowing dispute he single-handedly provoked over African-American sporting figures protesting racial inequality during the national anthem, Trump launched another provocation on Monday night with a belated and lacklustre response to the Puerto Rican disaster. In a series of three tweets he effectively blamed the islanders – all of whom are American citizens – for their own misfortune."
He blamed Puerto Rico for an old electrical grid and for being in debt to Wall Street. Juliette Kayyem, a former senior official in the department of homeland security under President Obama, said that Trump’s response to the Puerto Rico disaster showed “a lack of empathy of epic proportions”.
No comments:
Post a Comment