The Democrat was Terri Sowell; the Republican Spencer Bachus. they were not on at the same time, and so didn't hear each other. And the question was something along the lines of, "What do we do now?
Sowell, who is very bright and well spoken and no doubt represents her constituents the way they want, immediately began talking about the Federal government's response, from expecting a Presidential response to calling for officials from FEMA to set up immediately to the benefit of an expected declaration of disaster.
Bachus, a long-time Representative, had a different take. His first reaction was to talk about having the Red Cross and local churches and volunteer groups hitting the ground to start bringing immediate aid.
And that, to me, has become the primary difference between the two parties.
For all the trouble that this country is in on so many fronts - the economy, jobs, housing, natural disasters - it is important to realize that this is nothing this country has not been through before - and we've always come through.
However, the concern is that every time we've come through some issue - the Cold War, the Great Depression, gas shortages, civil rights, World Wars, mud slides, earthquakes - we always come through with a little less freedom than we had before. Inevitably, the programs that begin with the best of intentions, designed to help people, become, before long, entitlements. And as much as politicians want people to like (meaning "vote for") them by helping them, what they end up with are people who expect and eventually demand more help until the system becomes overloaded and, eventually, unsustainable. (see my last blog: http://raymelick.blogspot.com/2011/05/history-no-guarantees-but-certainly.html).
On the other hand, I have witnessed, first hand, people showing up to help people.Strangers who deliver sandwiches and water and offer to haul debris for a few minutes with no expectation of anything in return.
In my own neighborhood in Birmingham, I watched as neighbors whose houses had been destroyed simply went next door to help a neighbor whose house was salvageable. Many of us would work on our own places for awhile, then we'd go down the street and pitch in to help on a project that appeared doable.
No one from the government came by and told us to do this. No agency came by and made us do it. We just did it.
The same is true in more organized efforts. I went down to the Christian Service Mission (see facebook page; https://www.facebook.com/ChristianServiceMission) in Birmingham, where an 8,000 foot warehouse has been filled and emptied 30-plus times in the first two weeks after the disaster hit. On the day I went down, there were several men from Indiana who had driven down and were cooking in the parking lot. There were people who drove in from Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, Florida - all over; good people who just decided to leave what they were doing to show up and help out. Often they didn't even have any idea of where to go or what they'd do, but they knew they needed to do something.
Regular people were showing up with their personal trucks and trailers to deliver, with no expectation of reimbursement for gas despite gas prices being what they are.
As one AP story said, "Thousands of volunteers headed to the University of Alabama with chainsaws, wrecking bars and food to tornado victims. ... So many people came to volunteer Saturday that it caused traffic jams, reminiscent of a fall football weekend. Many groups have had time since the storms struck April 27 to organize trips, and the turnout appeared far heavier than the first weekend after the twisters. ..."
Everything is not positive, of course. There are abuses, from looting in some areas to a (very) few companies that cut trees for a living protesting all these "volunteers" because these volunteers are taking away from their livelihood. There are instances where "donations'' have been broken toys or dirty clothes or other unusable items that look more like people were getting rid of their trash than actually donating to really help people in need.Those incidences have been rare, although we can expect them to pick up as the sense of urgency wears off and the reality of the long haul that people are in for in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia settles in.
Oh, and FEMA and the government has been very active, and doing good work. It would be remiss not to give them credit.
But is government working because the lessons of Katrina were learned, or because the government has stumbled into a situation where people are not relying exclusively on the government but using government to supplement their own hard work and the hard work of neighbors and volunteers?
I don't know the answer to that. Maybe it's a lot of both.
Here where I work on the Gulf of Mississippi, people remember the help they received during Katrina, and are determined to go north to return the favor.
That seems to me to be the way it is supposed to be.
And it is an indictment of the church and communities that we let the government step in and take over delivering the kind of help that the church and local communities used to recognize as their responsibility - even as we see the church and local community respond in huge numbers, proving that sympathy is no substitute for action.
In short, where does your help come from?
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