Dear George W. Bush:

My heart and my thoughts are with the victims of Hurricane Katrina, as I'm sure yours would be. If you had a heart. Or thoughts. The heartache and devestation seem endless. If you haven't already, you can donate time, or money, or both here. The untold thousands who have been rendered homeless and destitute or worse, are going to need a lot more than just money, though. They're going to need a government and a country that aren't going to push them to the fringes of society, as they have been for years, and cast them off again after Hurricane Relief is no longer front page news. Shame, shame you George - our poor excuse for a president - for depolying thousands of troops and billions of dollars to Iraq and Afghanistan for nothing but oil, and force-feeding us, the tax paying public, a huge load of bullshit about how "prepared" we'll be if "disaster strikes at home." Well, you know what? It struck. It struck hard and it struck fast and what did you do about it, George? You went golfing. While thousands were starving, drowning and dying, you flew above them in a cushy private helicopter "surveying the damage". The journalists were there - so where was the National Guard? Where was the Army? Oh, right. Preserving "democracy" and shoving "the American way" down the throats of those other marginalized and demoralized folks, the citizens of Iraq. Perhaps if Louisiana and Alabama had had more oil reserves, they'd received the attention they deserved from you and your administration. Perhaps if the majority of the people displaced and affected Katrina had been white, you would have gotten food there in under five days. Could you imagine if this had happened to your friends and family in Texas? Could you imagine George Sr. and Barbara breaking into their local drugstore for food? Could you imagine your daughters having to seek shelter wherever they could find it, only to find none? The media has been portraying the thousands of starving people as "looters" and "criminals." But can you imagine being so desperate for food that you break the windows of a convenience store, looking for something, anything to eat or drink that isn't rotten or soaked through? You probably can't. I can't either. But I'll tell you this: if my babies were starving and growing weak from the 100 degree heat and contaminated water they'd been living in for a week, I'd get desperate, too. Crazy desperate. Nothing could stop me from doing whatever I had to do to help them survive. So I can't judge those who are doing just that too harshly. I wish I had the kind of power that you do, G, so I could do more for them. All I can do is donate money, and clothes/supplies to the refugees who are currently staying is San Francisco. What are you going to do, George? The world is watching. Please just do something. Do anything! Act like you care! Do whatever you can to make us a little less ashamed of you.

Sincerely,
Alisyn, Mike, Hazel and Violet.