Shame!

Thousands of Americans have died and are still dying while waiting for emergency care, food, water. At the same time, Bush has been praising FEMA's incompetent Michael D. Brown for "a job well done". What a mockery of human suffering.

Today, Bush is finally admitting that America can't cope, and has asked for medicines, blankets, water and half a million food rations from the EU. NATO has also been asked to assist with food.

I love America. I have lived here for 30 years. My kids are American.

What I have never loved is the brand of American politics that is obsessed with shifting the responsibility for everything onto local government. Local government should not have sole responsibility for safeguarding and maintaining things like the levees in New Orleans, or the infrastructure of Manhattan.

Nor should it be left to the sole responsibility of local governments in poverty stricken areas of the country to care for the education, healthcare and homeland security issues of dirt-poor citizens.

Will America understand and admit that political choices caused most of the human suffering in the days after Katrina?

America works for rich and middle class people, but the middle class is shrinking, and the gap between rich and poor is growing.

For poor people in some areas of the country, America resembles a third world nation. What has happened in New Orleans has made this visible to the world, and hopefully to some Americans, but the underlying problems of New Orleans are not unique to that city.