New Orleans: We are on our own (an atheist rant) [View All]

There may be a light at the end of this tunnel, but there is no one keeping it. No one will swoop down and magically dry out the city of New Orleans. There is no deus ex machina that will present itself to fix the levees and/or evacuate the survivors. The cavalry isn't coming. There will be no miracle of Dunkirk this time. And whoever writes the story of New Orleans, it won't be Horatio Alger.

Like every other American in the history of our nation, I have always believed, on a certain childish level, in the invulnerability of America. "It can't happen here," Well, it is happening here. "We will be okay," Not for a long, long time kiddies. We are so fucking far from okay now it's almost comical. "We will overcome," Some of us will, many of us won't.

We are left on our own, people. You and I can quibble about gods or karma or pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps all damn day but it won't put a single butt on a single seat to Houston and it won't get grandma out of that attic. "Hands that help are better than lips that pray," said Bertrand Russel, and we should heed those words now more than ever. Pray if you must. Complain about W or the "liberal meja" or the white folks or the black folks but for crying out loud DO SOMETHING. We can't just wait for a hero to emerge any minute now. The time is now. And we are the only hero visible for miles and miles.

Edited for spelling.