Who The Hell Needs Philosophy At A Time Like This?

Considering the nature of recent events in the Gulf Coast region of the United States, with estimates placing more than a million people suddenly homeless, one wonders what if any merit philosophy holds at such a time. After all, people's primary concerns are material--i.e., where am I going to live? where is my family? what am I going to eat? how are my babies going to survive? how are we going to do this? how?

Surviving makes especial sense at such a time. There is no wonder or shock to people's concerns. Yet, there may be wonder as to how and why people can wax philosophical at a time like this. When people are suffering in droves over basic material concerns that have to do with their day-to-day survival, then how can any merit be seen in a blog such as this, or in detailed commentaries and analyses of the situation as a whole? Who the hell needs philosophy now, at a time like this?

This is not an apologia for my own tendency to want to inquire and write on those matters inquired into. Or maybe it is? Maybe this is my own way to try and rationalize to myself why I still feel led to write when so many are suffering what still comes so easy to me. I turn on the faucet at the kitchen and water comes out---clean water! I lay my head down on a pillow and go to sleep reastfully. I still have a home. My friends and family are all accounted for. I am very fortunate. I know this. I have counted my blessings on more than one occasion over the past week. And stilll, still I see the separation of class and race and I wonder 'What the fuck is wrong with us.' Did it take a friggin' hurricane to blow away the American denial regarding class and race?

My gut reaction is that yes, yes it did. It took a Category 5 Hurricane, of monumental--some say, epic, even Biblical--proportions to shatter the illusion held in American political circles that class and race are but the issues of the past. Now, suddenly, shockingly, anyone with eyes to see the misery and devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina is able to realize that class and race are still THE CENTRAL ISSUES pertainging to any whole-scale politics of liberation.

It is scray to think about just how much class and race have fallen out of our political discourse. It is frightening. The American lackadaisacalness with regards to authentic, liberative political discourse has to be disconcerting to the rest of the world, as well as the American population now suddenly confronted with the monster of race and class that has been shut-up and locked away for far too long.

Perhaps Americans grew weary of discussions regarding race and class after all of the hardships (as well as victories) of the Civil Rights-era. Maybe there was a false sense that victory had been won and now we could all get on with our own lives--one nation under God.

But are we really 'one nation under God?' Or are we still a nation divided by race and class? Races that are 'left-behind.' Classes that are 'left-behind.' 'Left-behind' to suffer the trials and tribulations of a monumental tragedy--something eerily resembling the Christian Rapture, popularized in, not so strangely enough a series of Contemporary Christian books entitled 'Left Behind'--as others are given the means to safe passage to another world; a world where a lack of life's vital necessities, as well as human decency and dignity are not in such short supply?

Perhaps we are onto the true meaning of what is meant by 'Left Behind.' That the primary demographic that such a series of books caters to are precisely those people with the social, economic, and political means to get out of the 'eye of the storm,' if you will. Those who are not 'chosen' are... you guessed it... 'Left Behind.'

And should it really be considered a coincidence that this all happens under the watch of a President elected to office twice by a political base heavy in so-called 'Evangelicals'---those who are precisely the ones who are not to be 'Left-Behind?'

Check that: The ones who weren't 'Left-Behind.'