I experienced Hurricane Ida directly and assisted in cleanup which has left me with some health problems to this day due to heavy lifting and mold from flooded basements. I don’t regret it.

What I do regret is that my government will prioritize the burdensome Israel and unnecessary Ukraine over its own citizens in need now from Helene.

The stenographers of our corrupt empire, the journoids, follow suit and give more sympathetic coverage to Israel than they do their own backyard. Fearing how critical coverage of the government would look in an election season, many of them seem bent on absolving themselves from anything that could compromise the message of competence.

There are policy ‘wonks’ and journalists alike who, as a class, desperately need to be subjected to a ‘Down to the Countryside’ type policy. Disaster cleanup is a great place to start.

The pace of environmental disasters is accelerating. The empire is over-extended and has become more of a danger than a benefit to its own host country. At some point we are going to have to choose: readiness for disaster at home with a sustainable force posture abroad, or perpetual war and a hollowed out homeland? We cannot afford both.

The government cannot be trusted on these issues. They have deployed elements of the national guard from the effected states to the Middle East during Hurricane season. Communities must harden themselves. They cannot expect timely and effective assistance from a state which no longer sees itself as a society rooted in place but rather as a global edifice of abstract ideas and market fundamentalism.

In this way there is another overlap between lackluster disaster response at home and fueling disasters abroad: both are profitable. Disaster capitalism thrives in war and postwar construction. It also thrives domestically when communities are uprooted. Both are connected to a world vision that sees corporate profit and its lobbyists as the central goal of the state.

I cannot be surprised anymore, but there is no bottom to my disappointment. For the time being more people should look into pursuing policies that learn from the Defend the Guard act.