The sky is not as blue

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

and even the quality of the sunlight seems different. There is no flavor in anything I eat. The air oppresses me. I have a heaviness that I carry with me everywhere. I look at my little cat and picture her with me and my husband on a rooftop. I look at my parents and wonder how long they would be able to tread water. I try to imagine what it would be like to have a bus door slam in your face and watch while that bus drove away with your baby on it. I visualize sitting on a highway overpass and having people (other Americans - some of them in uniforms or wearing badges) drive by me or fly over me. I know me and I know that I would have kept saying to my family - soon they'll come get us. I wonder how many days it would take before I realized that they were NOT coming for us- even though we were dying in plain sight, not quietly slipping under water in an attic.

I feel that I am in the presence of evil that I cannot believe exists in this country,our country. This is what I cannot accept. I cannot bring myself to believe that people were "contained" and allowed to die. In America? On TV? I see the faces of the reporters in the thick of it - going from polished gasbags to incredulous bystanders to horrified participants. They all looked like they were going down the river with Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now. Geraldo yelling "over there is electricity and life! Let them walk out!" Or MSNBC's Tony Zumbado trying to reassure the authorities(!) that the crowd at the Convention Center was placid enough to be thrown some water. How many other images have burrowed into my brain? Hundreds. We won't be allowed to see the bodies, I guess. They would remind us that this is about more than bureaucratic infighting and political grandstanding. Bodies would remind us that our fellow citizens were allowed to die ghastly deaths. I don't want to forget them.

The country that I thought I lived my whole life in is gone and replaced with some parasitic growth that places profits before lives and corporations before individuals. The burden I am carrying is SHAME. Please don't let us forget the people who survived the hurricane but died on bridges and overpasses and sidewalks and roofs while people in charge quarreled over protocols and held press conferences. We owe it to the dead and their families to shine light on and expose the people and practices that killed them.

[blonndee]

1. I'm sorry. I'm there with you too...it never goes but does

fluctuate in its intensity.

One thing that might make you feel better is to join a local rally on the 24th if you're not going to DC. Looking forward to my first such event ever is giving me hope...something to anticipate and something that's important.

But don't let the outrage go away just yet. We can bear this burden awhile, if it means we can in any way facilitate change.

[Sabriel]

2. Thanks for putting it so eloquently, Phoebe

I look at all the kids I see each day, my own included, and wonder how any person could consider them expendable. And I wonder how long my family would have lasted.

And underneath the constant feelings of horror and dread, as you say, is the shame and the guilt.

[applegrove]

3. Sweetie take a break. No use being driven to permanent grey. Plant

a garden, volunteer. Do something that give back to you the hope & belief in humanity you so miss.

We need to strong and ready to go come election time.

Pace yourself. Limit the amount of time on the net.

Courage.

[ocd liberal]

4. I feel it too

Everyone keeps asking me why I am so sad. (Is it your husband?)
No one can believe I am actually feeling this way over something that "didn't happen to me" or others critcize me because I actually spend time talking and worrying about this while I am raising two young children. (Don't you have other things to worry about?) The images of limp babies and hysterical mothers have paralyzed my brain. How can this be our country? I feel like we are all living on borrowed time.

[Blue_In_AK]

5. Beautifully written, Phoebe...

I think today is only the second day that it hasn't rained here since the hurricane, as if even the skies clear up here in Alaska can't stop crying. :cry:

[me b zola]

6. Thank you for saying so elequently what I feel

:cry: :hug: :cry: :hug:

Please visit my more angry thread, "Crimes Against Humanity"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4706533


My sorrow is mixed with rage. I am hopeful that there will be some kind of justice that comes from our collective sorrow & rage.

[earth mom]

7. Beautifully written...

I feel the same. :cry:

[roguevalley]

9. there's horror, then numbness. I watched an animal segment on the

tv and went out into the backyard and cried. My babies were running around digging holes and chasing their toys around. the idea of them dying or me leaving them, of my two frail parents being hurt, I can't bear it. I have never felt such despair over people's hurts or the country as I do now. I hug you from Alaska, honey.

[ClayZ]

8. That is my sign tomorrow at our weekly peace stand.

SHAME

We have a bunch of local freeper type thugs who scream things like "remember siagon" from across the street.

SHAME

My sister said "why did't they at least keep the dome clean"?

SHAME

My children don't understand when I ask. why aren't the youth taking to the streets?

SHAME

Our BURDEN for the war in IRAQ

SHAME

I will carry a sign tomorrow saying only...

SHAME

[smurfygirl]

10. recommended.

your words are written as if from my heart.

as I have been thinking these same things and wondering how much longer shall we sit here? How much longer till everyone wakes up from this nightmare?

Are we sleeping? How I wish it were true.

[texpatriot2004]

11. Phoebe, I won't forget them. I will scream out for them. Your post

makes me cry, sob actually and I am grateful because someone gets it, someone else understands the horror of it all. Thank you Phoebe for touching me with your words and images.

I know how you feel. I am with you.

[texpatriot2004]

12. kick it for those who lost their lives, those who suffered and those

who survived.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

13. I appreciate knowing that not only am I not alone

that I am surrounded by countless people who feel as I do and know the Truth about Katrina. I will take your great advice and try to channel grief into outrage and then into action. I can feel a second surge of outrage coming right this moment that is going to rise up and wash these people into the refuse bins of history.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. I understand your depression, but you must let it go. Bush's shame is his.

Bush's shame is his own. If you didn't vote for him, you don't have to be ashamed. Even if you did vote for him, you can atone by forgiving yourself and working for a Democratic Congress in 2006 and Bush's removal.

If you look for negatives you can find them. Don't visualize your highway overpass scene or other scenes of destruction unless you can use them to visualize creative ways to escape. Instead visualize something constructive and go do it or create or work towards it.

You don't need depression or the blues. Shake them off like you would shake snow off a hat. Paint a picture, bake a cake or go photograph butterflies. If you don't have time for that due to work pressures or childcare or other responsibilities, then focus on those, but give yourself a break. If you can't get rid of the blues easily, then talk with people or get professional assistance, but don't wallow in depression, even if it seems faddish as it does these days. I am not being pollyanna-ish. I simply mean that a pro-active program of positive self-image and "learned optimism" (look it up) is very effective. But as always, don't neglect professional when you need them.

Your last sentence is good. Focus on light and shining light. There is much to look forward to. This is a great nation with great people in it who will rebuild it and there will times of joy ahead too.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

15. So, I should just "get over it" ?

I think too many people have too quickly "gotten over it". I thank you for your kind concern, but baking cakes and photographing butterflies is no cure for moral outrage.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

17. Not counsel you to "just get over it", but you'll read what you into it.

No, I did not counsel you to "just get over it". If you had taken the time to read reasonably carefully, you would have seen that I counselled you to be constructive. I also wrote about working to get Republicans out. I wrote about focusing on work or children or responsibilities if you have them. I also commended you on your last sentence about shining the light. I never said anything against your moral outrage.

However, you can read into it whatever you want to feed your depression and you can reject my words which were meant in the kindest, most constructive way I could muster.

[marions ghost]

16. so true

"We owe it to the dead and their families to shine a light on and expose the people and practices that killed them."

[txaslftist]

18. recommended

[bloom]

19. It's hard for me to bear

all the people (like in the newspaper) who defend Bush* - even now.

And it makes me sick to think about my Republican relatives doing so, also.

[dogday]

20. Yes we do!

We also must remember the lesson learned by this. We need to be prepared. The simplest things become the biggest in a time like this and our Government showed us we cannot count on them.

Were these Republicans wanting less government in our lives, did they mean this, or something like this? I can't imagine anyone in that position would not be calling for the might of the mighty USA to rescue you. An American takes that for granted. Now we know we shouldn't take it for granted. They won't be there for us. So prepare best you can everyone....

[redwitch]

21. oh honey I feel just like you today

my emotions are all over the place. I've donated money , mailed off diapers and baby food to veterans for peace, signed petitions, done what i can for now. I wish I could go there to help but I can't. The faces of people as they go on TV to try and help their families find them and get them out. The old woman in the wheelchair covered by a blanket, Jesus is her poor old body still sitting in that chair? And the recent posts about abandoned animals makes me feel ill, I feel broken. This is so hard for me to watch, I can put myself in their places and only begin to imagine what their reality is like. But we have to keep working to fix what we can and insist on true leadership. We can't rest until all of these people have what they need and our so called leaders have been held accountable for their actions - or inaction. Right and truth have to prevail or there really is no reason for our existence.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

22. Yes, exactly - our emotions are all over the place

I love your post I think you phrased for me what I was trying to say myself. We are broken, we are shattered, but we are still trying to do the best we can in any way that we can. "Right and truth HAVE to prevail or there really is no reason for our existence". Amen.:grouphug:

[bobbieinok]

23. what haunts me...the description of the Superdome: dark, floor covered

in filth (feces, urine, etc), parents afraid to have their children go to dark bathrooms (where toilets overflowed starting almost immediately)

...no food, no water, no light, no help coming

I feel like this is the future that bushco is preparing for us all.....locked in dark and dirt without food or water, unable to help our children or our parents or our spouses or our neighbors or ourselves and no help coming ........ in the dark on our own with no resources...

the descriptions I have read have sounded like the most poorly written science fiction dystopias (sp?).....sci-fi stories I always discounted as 'just poor fiction'........

......and it's REALITY - TODAY - IN THE US - IN 2005!!!!!!!!!!!!?????