"How deserted lies the city

once thronging with people!
Once great among nations,
now become a widow;
once queen among provinces
now put to forced labor.--Lamentations 1:1

Lolis Eric Elie, who writes for the NO Times-Picayune:

I am surprised that, in light of the current crisis in
New Orleans, the United States of America can be seen to have so
much in common with the poorest and most wretched places on earth.

But this is precisely where justice begins.

The South African visitor to Boston was right, of course. How can we send aid to poor countries, when we have so many poor ourselves? Houston is, as Molly Ivins described it, is L.A. with the climate of Calcutta. We live in our cars, in other words. Pedestrians literally take their lives into their own hands. Yet I know a large percentage of the people who live around me, mostly Mexican Americans and other immigrants, could not flee the city if they had to. First the gas pumps would run dry; second, most of them don't have cars. The ones living under the overpasses at I-10 (yes the same road that runs through New Orleans) especially.

But this is where justice begins. You don't have to believe in the God of Abraham, or a deity at all, or divine retribution, or apocalypse, to understand that the fate of the wealthiest and most powerful is inextricably bound to the fate of the poorest and weakest and most miserable. The "widow and the orphan," in the words of the Hebrew prophets.

It was neglecting this, the Hebrew prophets said, that brought the Exile on Israel. Ite was neglecting justice that cost them Jerusalem. You don't have to be a believer in God, or divine wrath, to see that the world is undergirded by justice; and that justice demands accountability. That's supposed to be what our foreign aid is about: helping the poorerst, the weakest, the most miserable. Because we are connected to them; because they are our brothers and sisters. Because justice means we have everything in common with the poorest and most wretched places on the earth.

Which means we have a responsibility for the people who have to live there.