Editor,
My mother-in-law is from a little town northwest of New Orleans, far enough away to have been spared the full brunt of Hurricane Katrina but close enough to witness the masses of people, many of them young children, streaming away without anything to their name.
I hear all of these pundits on TV and radio, and, in fact, lots of folks around the country, saying of the victims of Katrina - mostly the poor black victims - "This is the best thing that's ever happened to them because they're getting aid," and I think, "Are you out of your minds?"
How did we get to a place in America where we perceive the help received by poor people devastated by tragedy as making a killing? And when did we become so selfish and so greedy that it's acceptable to complain about the cost and ask, "Who's going to pay for all of this?"
That very question was asked on MSNBC a few nights ago by conservative commentator Tucker Carlson. He went on to bemoan the answer to his own rhetorical question: "The American taxpayer is going to pay for it, that's who." Well, that's right. You are going to pay for it. And I am going to pay for it. And yes, everyone who pays taxes is going to pay for it. Because it's our country. They're our neighbors, they're our citizens.
I guess Carlson is too young to remember the 1960s, when some people said to those who protested the Vietnam War, "America: Love it or leave it!"
But I remember, and that made me realize what my answer is to Tucker Carlson and all the others who revel in their own greed and self-centered concerns that poor people who lost what little they once had are now somehow scamming the rest of us - "America: Pay for it or leave it."
Sherman Wilcox
UNM faculty
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