Social effects of hurricane Katrina in the Gulf region Essay

Social effects of hurricane Katrina in the Gulf region - Essay Example Social effects of hurricane Katrina in the Gulf region Research suggests Hurricane Katrina negatively impacted the Gulf region because it led to loss of lives, civil disturbances, and property damages. This included the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq in a type of political revenge attack against the terrorist activity led by Osama bin Laden. The hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in one of the worst times for America in Iraq, when the opposition attacks were at their strongest. The failure of the American government to help its own people in the aftermath of the hurricane contrasted sharply with the political rhetoric of the Bush administration, exposing its hypocrisy internationally on truly humanitarian and vital issues of domestic security. From this point on, the Bush administration would lose whatever political authority and respect it retained in America, eventually ending in the election of President Obama in the 2008 election. It is important to recognize how Hurricane Katrina eroded the political authority of the Bush administr ation at a time when it was conducting two unpopular political wars abroad. The symbolic effect of the images broadcast internationally displayed America as no different from the â€Å"Third World† nations that it perennially derides and rejects in building its political myth of superiority. The public, both domestically in America and internationally in civil society, are aware of the duality between the ideals proclaimed by the political leadership in America, and the actual actions taken by authority. For example, in talking about peace and justice, the U.S. administration at the time was practicing torture, extraordinary rendition, and other forms of illegal detention such as in undisclosed, secret prisons and Guantanamo Bay. This is a hypocritical stance in many ways, despite the way that it was posited by the Bush administration under the rhetoric of Homeland Security and public safety. What Katrina did is publicly expose the hypocrisy in this rhetoric to full internati onal view, showing that the Bush administration really was not concerned with people’s safety, health, and welfare at all, especially if they were not in a wealthy, Wall St. constituency. Thus, the first major effect of the Katrina disaster was to erode the public authority of the Bush administration and to associate it publicly with hypocrisy. (Brinkley, 2007). This result is quite important as the theme carried over into the 2008 Presidential election and led to the election of Barrack Obama and a Democratic majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. As a political symbol, Katrina showed the dichotomy between rich and poor in America, and how those in positions of power are more likely to be serving their own interests rather than that of the public good or public need. This is important as it creates a type of despair popularly, a political vacuum of sorts that the â€Å"hope and change† mantra of the Obama administration capitalized on in 2008. F rom this it is legitimate to conclude that Hurricane Katrina caused a major change in political perceptions in America, and that this included a loss of faith in the ability of the government to provide services in an emergency situation. (Brown, 2005) Consider the vast destruction and number of deaths and injuries that took place in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and it is evident that this is precisely a situation where the