I wrote this song in the week following Katrina’s landfall in August 2005. It was stunning and sad to see thousands of men, women, and children become mute witnesses to their structural disinheritance from the American Dream. Perhaps it is we the living, the secure, and the well-fed who have exiled ourselves from the truly radical nature of the idea of America: that happiness can be pursued most meaningfully only when people eschew atomized individualism and self-fulfillment and contribute to the common good; that democratic sovereignty is fully realized only when governments depoliticize their bureaucracies and spare no effort to care for and protect their weakest, most vulnerable citizens without whose hope in democracy, there can be no consent for the government to exist.

Let’s never forget Katrina!

John Muthyala

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