Here we are, 4 years after the Katrina Disaster, and the first hurricanes to pose any serious threat to gulf coast communities have finally arrived. This was, of course, inevitable, and the networks seem to have been prepared for the day when such media frenzy could be justified again. As Hanna, Fay, and Gustav blew into town relatively uneventfully, I began to think the press might get over themselves. That their dripping wet lust for disaster would subside after the first few near misses. But now, with Ike ready to make landfall upon the gulf shores of Texas, I can see that I was wrong.

I’m out and about in Brooklyn today, and every commercial establishment I’ve entered has had a different network tuned to their flatscreen, and every one has featured wall-to-wall coverage of the hurricane. Could it be that the mass media truly cares about the fate of these communities? That would be easier to believe if they’d spent the last 4 years devoting a small measure of coverage to the changes (or lack thereof) in FEMA’s operating procedures, or the emergency preparations of at-risk communities. So, one is obliged to deduce that this year’s hurricane season is just another of what is (so vulgarly and appropriately) referred to in New York as an ad fuck.

But, is it the networks’ fault that disaster is so lucrative? We consumers don’t have to pay attention to this. But, we do, and so I think about the way in which we collectively affect the quality of content in the mass media… and the way it affects us. This insidious, clockwork orange in which we all thrive like parasites, souring the fruit that has so much potential. This society.

There are those, of course, who would blame the universally evil “corporation” for this. But those people are part of the problem. They shut their eyes to the fact that all corporations are run by living, breathing people. The establishments which are the instruments of their mass-marketed theater are just that– instruments. It always goes back to people. To human beings and what we’re capable of. To offer up any kind of scapegoat to replace recognition of that fundamental truth is, to my mind, just as insidious. In fact, maybe more.

The July 28 issue of Time Magazine reported the results of a poll by the Rockefeller Foundation, which revealed that 85% of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. That percentage climbs dramatically when the polling sample is limited to ethnic populations. More than half of Generation Y, according to the poll, had to borrow money just to survive last year. None of this is at all shocking to me, except when asked about the solution to these problems, respondents overwhelmingly agreed that Government Expansion is the answer. 70% said that government programs should be helping more people, and 82% said they favor public works projects.

This, in the face of 78% who believe their financial future is at greater risk now than in the past. I’m led to wonder if respondents were asked if they knew whether government was spending more money now than in the past. I would be very surprised if such a question didn’t reveal that Americans believe the government is actually spending less. The fact is that the United States Federal Budget has consistently grown throughout the past under 2 different administrations.

From 1992 to 2000, President Clinton’s budgets grew from 1.4 trillion to 1.8 trillion, and under President Bush, spending has further grown to 3.1 trillion dollars (for 2009). Where do Americans think this money is coming from? It’s coming from us. We’ve been funding the expansion of government steadily, and, now that we’re at the point where nearly all Americans have lost hope in the “American Dream,” what do we propose to do? The exact same thing we’ve been doing.

The problem, at least in part, seems to be one of perception. Americans think the government hasn’t been doing enough for them, when, in reality, it’s been doing more and more. And whether we put a Republican or a Democrat in the White House next year, it’s unlikely that anything will change in that regard. Why can’t more Americans embrace the concept of a broader exchange of ideas? If things are going so horribly wrong, why is this nation about to nominate two of the most homogenized, shapeless candidates to choose between to fix things?

What I’m asking, really, is why we can’t be more open to multiple candidates with more radical ideas. Anytime a candidate comes forward with a non-mainstream proposal for change, he’s called a crackpot, and he gets shut down by these very same people who are lamenting about the state of things. We keep going back to the same genetic pool of mediocrity for new leaders, and it feeds into Americans’ complacency. If we keep doing this, things will worsen. I’ve no doubt about that.

I’ve just been checking out this book, and it seems to offer some interesting insight into how social conscience relates to capitalism and the market. Corporations that don’t exercise social responsibility end up failing, the thesis goes, which would seem to be valuable support for the notion that capitalism works– that agents of corporate fraud can’t, ultimately, survive in a free market. I’ll let you know how the book turns out, but here is an interesting excerpt from the first chapter:

As evidenced by the number of ethical missteps in the news, today we pay the piper as we tally the sorry record of organizational wrongdoings, infractions, and white-collar crimes, all of which can be traced to a diminishing interest in standards, controls, integrity, and that nineteenth-century commodity known as good reputation. Yet as a society, we define ourselves by the values we choose to emphasize. Beginning in the 1980s, a frenzied quest for efficiency led to the endorsement of individualism over community. The resulting emphasis on short-term returns encouraged a speculative frenzy in the stock markets and merger mania on Wall Street, variously described as “the casino society” [2] and a “circus of ambition,” [3] attacked in the Oliver Stone film Wall Street, and satirized in Tom Wolfe’s popular book The Bonfire of the Vanities. [4] The reputation of the business community as a whole fell to an all-time low. On into the 1990s and today, companies like E. F. Hutton, Drexel Burnham Lambert, and Salomon Brothers committed very public ethical wrongdoings, while others saw their reputations become severely tarnished. Once-giant organizations took a fall, never to recover to their previous grandeur. As suggested by Fombrun, [5] the corporate world has squandered much of its reputational capital and its ability to survive and thrive in the years to come.

When I signed the ONE Campaign pledge in 2005, I held more or less the same beliefs I hold now. I believe that the more government there is, the less freedom that government’s citizens have. I believe that more freedom for each individual is a good thing. I believe it’s healthy for society and for the economy. I believe that when the government constrains an individual’s ability to lead his life as he sees fit, it weakens society and the economy. I believe some government is necessary, but very, very little. Just enough, in fact, to mediate citizens’ conflicting choices. That is to say, my rights extend only so far as the next person’s.

I signed the ONE Campaign’s Declaration, because, at the time, I believed that the government could prevent future threats to our nation by helping countries that are more likely to devolve into terrorist havens. I was, and still am, offended by America’s failure to recognize that our civil liberties are inherent, and not something we have because we are Americans. As a reaction to that, I thought we ought to be doing more to recognize the lives of those living outside this land of milk and honey. And, of course, I’m deeply affected by the plight of people suffering the world over from poverty and disease.

Lately, though, I’ve been thinking about those motives. My government’s duty isn’t to protect me from the possibility of a threat. It’s duty is to protect me in the actual moment of danger. And, while my government is failing to recognize that our rights are unalienable, no balance can be struck by simply spending more money on the issues that force us to recognize the lives of those living outside our comparatively comfortable borders.

I’ve also faced up to the hypocrisy of condemning domestic welfare programs as ineffective and tyrannical while condoning international welfare programs that seek the same ends. These Third World countries, like many of my fellow Americans, need help. Many of them are in grave need. But paying their bills and sending them supplies that will merely be consumed is no real help at all from one government to another. The ONE Campaign’s motives are good, and I support their goals of ending the corruption that wastes these resources, but I believe their intended methods will never solve these problems.

For these reasons, I rescinded my ONE Campaign pledge earlier today by taking my name and e-mail address off the campaign’s list. Their form asked for a reason, and this is what I wrote:

After careful consideration of the issue, I’ve decided that foreign aid should consist of educational and diplomatic outreach to nations in need, rather than resources which will be continuously consumed with no explicit plan for solving the essential problems of poverty and disease. We should devote ourselves to helping countries that want our help, but not to supporting their continued state of insolvency.

Further, concerned Americans should send consumable aid (money, food, supplies, etc.) directly to the people in need, rather than to our own government (which is where any increase in government spending will come from) in the hopes that they will send it on to those countries in need.

As I wrote to ONE, I do believe there is a way that the United States can help. While flawed, our government is a model for how to build a sustainable nation that can resist collapse caused by either external or internal pressures. Traditionally, we devote a lot more diplomatic resources to countries that threaten us or from which we stand to gain. But, if our government were as limited as it should be, much of that kind of diplomacy would be unnecessary. On the other hand, struggling nations could benefit from a different kind of diplomacy through which we could offer needed guidance. As the expression goes, talk is cheap, and any country can afford it if we’re willing to extend it freely to governments wishing to develop under free, democratic principles.

And, still, my heart aches for those who live on empty stomachs and with bodies ravaged by disease. Many of them are children who will never know what it’s like to be my age. I’m not going to encourage my government to take more liberty from me under the guise of helping those who suffer elsewhere, because I believe that will only lead to continued suffering.

I will, however, make a more personal pledge. I will make a more concerted effort to do something about that suffering myself. I’ll encourage others to do the same. Real people, not amorphous governments with ulterior agendas, can make a difference. That’s you; that’s me; that’s each and every one of us.