To be fair, the response to blue states devastated by Hurricane Sandy was also highly political. It appears it has now become the norm for legislators to use federal response to calamities as punitive means to deal with opposition. At best, they are manipulated to score political wins at the expense of ordinary people’s physical and financial survival. It is a way to prove to the base that “we” will refuse to expend energy, efforts, time and especially money for people who aren’t like “us.” 

When one spends every day purposefully, consistently, and methodically dividing people–pitting citizen against fellow citizen–almost as a sacred calling, then natural disasters that occur in your enemy’s backyard becomes seemingly divine in nature. And because no one grows up trained to aid the devil, no help arrives.

There are several theories that have been offered to help explain the sluggishness and lackluster effort, not only by politicians but by the mainstream media and the public, to this travesty of a human response. Some say that perhaps Puerto Rico is not remote enough or poor enough. And in our contemporary culture, able people are expected to fend for themselves.  Of course, the opposite has also been proposed. Some maintain that Puerto Rico is too remote for aid to be able to come through quickly. “It’s surrounded by water.” 

Cynics argue that if money could be made out of this tragedy, we would be seeing corporations descending on the island like vultures. So, perhaps corporations should come and help the rebuilding of Puerto Rico’s infrastructure not only because it is in an ideal state (you would be starting from scratch) or because it is the right thing to do, but because it also could be a profitable endeavor.