Just whose Katrina is it this time?

“Is the oil spill Obama’s Katrina?” This is the meme do jour in the mainstream media, cable punditry and blogosphere. The answer, of course, depends on where the writer/talking head sits on the political spectrum. The right wing has declared this to be a matter-of-fact; liberals fear that if the spill is not contained soon and clean-up efforts visibly increased, they may be right. But as Frank Rich pointed out in this mornings NY Times, “Whatever Obama’s failings, he is infinitely more competent at coping with catastrophe than his predecessor.” He is right, but in putting the lie to this meme, we need to realize where blame actually lies — whose Katrina this is.

We must put that term to rest. There was, and ever will be, but one Katrina. Nearly 2,000 people were killed by that storm, and tens of thousands of people remain exiled from their homes in Louisiana and Mississippi. President Bush and his FEMA team did virtually nothing to prepare for the storm, and the federal response following its passing was criminally inept. Sean Penn did more to aid those who had been left behind than did FEMA. (And let’s never forget, the Louisiana National Guard was not available for disaster duty: they were in Iraq fighting Bush’s illegal war there.) To date, the only deaths resulting from this disaster were the eleven workers on the oil rig — arguably, a standard, albeit tragic, industrial accident. And while many mistakes have been made in weeks since the explosion, no one can argue seriously that the Obama Administration has not been engaged. Given how ill-prepared BP itself was to deal with the initial accident and resultant leak, to fault Obama for their failures stretches credulity. He may be due significant blame on many accounts, but to even attempt to compare this to Bush’s horrific performance in the entire Katrina tragedy goes beyond absurd.

So this is a tragedy, and the Obama Administration will get the same kind of blame they are getting for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for the economy, incredible fuckups fully the responsibility of the Bush-Cheney crime family, with the craven cooperation and support of too many Democrats and virtually every Republican in Congress. The Bush Administration came into office looking to deregulate Wall Street even more than Reagan and Clinton had done, to open up as much of the nation’s land and waters to mineral extraction as possible, and to let loose the dogs of war on Saddam Hussein. They were successful in much of this, being blocked only from some of the worst oil- and mineral exploration excesses (admirably, the Dems in Congress held the line on the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve and many other sensitive lands). But once in office, instead of acting immediately to undo the worst of the Bush crimes, the Obama Administration seemed content to simply ameliorate the worst harms. Very little has been done to undo the harms of the past thirty years.

We still live in a Reagan-Bush America. We thought we were voting to move into a new century, but we have yet to see that happen. However, Barack Obama is not the one who is deserving of our anger. That is who people are seeking to blame, from all points along the political spectrum, but that blame is as dishonest as it is harmful to the nation’s future. The real recipients of blame, the ones most responsible for the tragedy in the Gulf, the on-going war, the financial meltdown, the elevation of corporations and the wealthy over ordinary Americans — that’s us, the citizens. We, the people: this is our Katrina.

We are the ones who screamed for vengeance against the terrorists and happily let Bush attack Iraq, despite plenty of evidence that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 and that we were in absolutely no danger form Iraq whatsoever. We gobbled up mortgages we had no business touching; the math wasn’t that hard, and simply because the banks said Yes did not magically make the math work. We scream bloody murder when gas prices start to reflect real world prices and demand, goddammit, that we should not be paying even $3 a gallon; we could give a crap where that oil comes from, but if our government can’t get us cheap gas forever, what the hell are they good for? And we sit back and ignore politics and elections, letting those who have wealth and power control our government so they can get more wealth and power, until things blow up on us — and they always blow up on us — and suddenly, we shocked, shocked!, to see corruption and the fact of our own powerlessness.

But never mind us. This is Obama’s fault; this is Obama’s Katrina. He’s the president, after all, so he’s the one that has to fix everything. What can we do anyway? We’re just citizens; we’re the victims here! We didn’t make the rules, or fix the rules, that is; we are innocent bystanders. This is rank bullshit, of course, but I don’t expect most Americans to shoulder their responsibilities anytime soon. Fear and anger are rampant, and, of course, much of the blame does belong in Washington, DC, and on Wall Street. But to expect the players who either caused, or allowed to happen, these problems is foolhardy. Some think an election will fix thing: throw out the incumbents and bring in a “fresh” batch to fix things. We’ve done that before, in 1994, and while we got massive changes, we did not get anything close to a fix. We got more of the same neocon cancer that made people dislike government even more, fed the national cynicism so that Bush, Cheney and the rest of that gang could come in and really put the hurt to our democracy.

But never mind us. Time to blame Obama. Time to scream “Katrina!” and demand he fix this. No time to take responsibility for our own role in this debacle because, after all, we are only citizens.

I hope progressives will take to heart how desperate the circumstances are for our movement. We could sit and around piss and moan about how badly Obama is doing, what a terrible disappointment he is — or we could get stuck into the task of being his partner in fixing this. I still believe he wants the change he promised and that had he not been faced with the terrible economic situation caused by Pres Hoover, I mean, Bush, he might have been able to work on more directly. I’d like him to forget about the “bipartisan” nonsense and just implement the changes; lead with force and vigor, as if he were channelling FDR. The Dems in Congress, and just enough Republicans, would back such decisiveness. More importantly, the people who responded to the message of his campaign, clear and strong and wonderful, would begin to respond now.

We need that same energy from people around the country. We have had very little of it despite the efforts of Organizing for America, Democracy for America and others. Yet until citizens by the tens of thousands begin to actively support his presidency as they did his campaign, Obama will flounder. It was the support of ordinary citizens around the country who made his hopeless campaign for President into a winner; it’s the same support that can transform his presidency from disappointment to success.

Otherwise, Barack Obama will be our Katrina. And as with the hurricane, what follows in its wake will be a terrible tragedy for years to come.