I've been pissed with a chip on my shoulder for nearly 3 years now....

[Wetzelbill]

Before that, of course, I was unhappy with Bush and Republicans etc, but the run up to the Iraq war really jerked my chain. I've progressively have gotten angrier and angrier at how regular people get short-changed in this country. Not to mention how badly women, minorities and the poor get hosed regularly. After the 2004 election, I was depressed for months. Really, pretty much almost the whole year.

I became so fed up that I decided last June to move back to MT and run for an open State Senate seat. Because I'm sick of all this bullshit and how politicians are ruining our country. I've been pissed for a while, mainly fed up, but this week, especially tonight, reading all the accounts and everything.

This Katrina business has me livid. Of all the chickenshit, no account, low down, rotten stunts to pull. This administration, specifically, and the Republican party as a whole, do not give a shit about anything good and true in this world. Some may, and God Bless them, but seeing pics - I don't watch news, I read nearly everything - and reading accounts of the suffering of the people in NO, just kills me. Knowing that they are black and poor has me incensed. I cannot comprehend it. Maybe because I am -like most DUers - a compassionate person, I empathize with suffering more than most, I don't know. Maybe I'm just looking for something to get pissed off at Republicans for. But, I know, that in the midst of an election, in the rich white areas of Florida that was hit by several hurricanes, nothing like this happened. I know that while NO slept and awaited the fury of hell, this administration thought it more pertinent to attack a grieving Gold Star mother who disagreed with a disastrous optional war that had sketchy motives at best.

And, I don't understand it. It makes me sad. It pisses me off. It makes me want to do something. I felt hollow giving 5 dollars to the Red Cross, as I'm a student from an Indian reservation on the other side of the country surviving on my own. I wanted to give more.

I want to give my heart and soul.

I want to rid myself of this anger.

I want the world to be just. To be fair. To be happy.

I can understand anger. As I said, I feel it. I can sometimes understand hatred.

I will never understand indifference. I will never understand the lack of emotion. Empathy. Love. Compassion.

Jesus Christ used to embrace those who were different. Those who were poor. Those who had sinned. It wasn't enough to tolerate. It wasn't enough to not hate. You had to embrace and love.

I see too little of that. The cold and the callous are mysteries to me. I cannot comprehend being like that. Preaching morality out of one side of their mouths then barely batting an eye at death.

And if you are not religious, then surely you identify with morality. With secular humanism. And, you weep with as much pain as I do. I recognize that. So this isn't about faith. It's about love and compassion. About right and wrong. About good and evil. About empathy and indifference. Ignorance and knowledge.

How can this happen in America?

Well, photo ops and flag-waving don't cut it when the shit hits the fan. Saying Jesus Christ is your favorite philosopher so you can gain a few votes doesn't do the job when thousands of people are dying in terrorist attacks, unnecessary wars, and hurricanes. Feigned righteousness doesn't mean a thing when nearly 45 million people have no health care and live in poverty. In the richest country in the world, there is no excuse to cut millions in funding from NO which was slotted to specifically fund hurricane and flood projects.

There is just no excuse. Spin it all you want. I don't care. I'm not just fed up anymore.

I'm pissed.

And, I plan to make lots of others pissed about this too.

Because right now, we all should be.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. I have nothing to add to what you 've said tonight, my dear Wetzelbill...

Your work here is brilliant, well thought out, logical, extraordinary!

You have such a great mind, and heart...I look to see you go far and do much good...

Props to you! Kicked, and proudly NOMINATED...

We need to have many people read this...

:kick: :kick: :kick:

[Wetzelbill]

2. well, thank you very much....

I just wanted to jot down a quick paragraph and emotions started running wild on me. To me it felt raw, not logical at all, well thought out, just thoughts, you know? But, it came out in a pretty orderly fashion because I think about this stuff all the time. It made me change my views so much in the last few years. I used to worry that the anger would be too much for me to overcome. That, it may lead me to an early grave. But, I've learned to let it go and channel it into passion. So that works for me now. Sometimes we all feel like the Leviathan is too much to fight, but then, on the otherhand, we figure out ways to chip away at it.

So, I guess I'll just keep chipping away along with all my good friends here at DU. :)

[Heidi]

3. Nominated.

:hug: Thank you for saying what I'm thinking, bill.

[Wetzelbill]

4. you're welcome

just all poured out. :)

[khashka]

5. There is nothing I could add

You said what many of us are thinking and feeling.

And to go off on a rant that is cogent, well thought out, logical, and passionate - I'd vote for you, no question.

Anyway, thanks, it needed to be said and you did it beautifully.

Khash.

[Wetzelbill]

6. I appreciate that Khash

thanks and you're welcome.

[IChing]

7. I honestly think these guys are from the dark side.

And the whole world saw it, let alone the sleeping american public

Great Rant.

[Wetzelbill]

10. glad you liked it

Honestly, if I hear one more moron talk about Bush being a holy man, I'm going to go out and smack somebody. It's tough to not suffer fools lightly.

[bliss_eternal]

8. You are a love--thank you!

:loveya:

Nominated--thank you for giving a damn, Bill.

I was just on the international boards asking what other countries treat people of color better than they are treated here. I'm sick and tired, of being sick and tired.

If you are of color and just so happen to throw being a woman or gay into the mix, well...you know. This country isn't offering those of us that fall into these categories a lot right now.

That could very easily be me on television. Or my cousin, or my friend. That's not cool with me. The Klan and other hate groups are running rampant again in this country, and people like Roberts want to protect the rights of people that terrorize women getting abortions. :wtf:

It's all such bullshit.

All the things people feared about this administration have come into play. I can see the handwriting on the wall, and I really don't like it. In fact I hate it.

Our ancestors died fighting this shit. Martin Luther King died fighting this shit. Did he die in vain? Did they?

Sorry, Weltzelbill...didn't mean to hijack...I'm just feelng pretty low tonight.

Thank you for your anger and outrage. Thank you for your post!:thumbsup:

[Wetzelbill]

11. hey no problem

Hijack away and speak your mind all you want. I agree with you 100 percent.

You're welcome for everything.

[NMMNG]

9. Bravo! Nomination #5

You run for that Senate seat. I hope like hell you win because I know you'd bust your butt to turn things around in this country. If I lived in MT I'd vote for you in a heartbeat.

[Wetzelbill]

12. oh I know you would...

If only everybody thought like DUers the world would be a better place. Thanks for believing in me. And for the nomination. :)

[NMMNG]

19. You deserve it :-)

[Ladyhawk]

13. Great post, Wetzelbill.

I, too, have been no stranger to anger. I booted my RW family out of my life after the November election and felt so low I thought I would die. This disaster has me feeling the same damn way...so full of anger.

I want to be able to release that anger and embrace people because I don't think anger and hatred will win us any converts. That's a new realization for me. I was too consumed for awhile to realize the truth of this. Yet at the same time, I believe that we have a right to be filled with anger at our government, at * and Cheney and all their rich, phony cronies.

Currently, fake Christianity has me livid. I find that I really and truly hate fundamentalism and what it threatens to do to our country. I am trying not to take it out on individual fundamentalists, but it's hard because I am angry and because I am a "refugee" from fundamentalist dogma. I know what it is they are trying to do and how fundamentalism robs them of their compassion.

It burns in my soul. It eats away at my being because I see that my mother has embraced Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and all these evil people who are creating the problem. I want her to be a good and moral person. I want her to see the truth, but she will not. She won't even discuss it. I love her. I hate her. The rage and love burns in my soul, mixing and churning and driving me slowly insane.

[Wetzelbill]

15. I know what you mean...

my mom said something odd about gay marriage the other day. And, was trying to quote the bible on it. Well, I started telling he to look at the book of Timothy and some of the chauvinist rhetoric in that, and she didn't quite like that too much. She pretty much changed the subject. It was odd, as she had told me about a childhood friend of mine, who has been obviously gay since as long as I've known the guy, and how this guy's mother kicked him out because he brought his bf home or something. My mother has gay friends, I know, and she doesn't hate them, but she has this notion that they are "bad." We are from rural Montana, so most people are ignorant about such things, but, it's left a bad feeling in me. I just can't get how people can fall so easily into bigotry and discrimination like that. It can be quite frustrating. I'm glad you liked my post, thank you.

[Lydia Guerra]

14. Time to put our boots on and fight

Thanks for articulating so well.
It's time to move now - time to put on our boots and turn anger to action, sadness to solutions, rage to revolution, crying to compassion.

Time to put our boots on and fight.
Now.

[Wetzelbill]

16. exactly

this is some serious business. It's going to take a monumental effort to win, but it can be done. Thank you very much.

[enigmatic]

17. Me too

I don't know what to say anymore about the pictures I'm seeing from NOLA; I can't saying anything anymore. It's like an apocalyptic nightmare I'm watch unfold, and there seems to be no happy ending in sight.

I'm at a loss here; I don't know what to say anymore.

We need people like you to effect the change, Bill; I know you can do it. Go do it, and know that we'll have your back.

[Wetzelbill]

18. oh man...

thanks a lot. Half the time, I'm speechless. For a while there, I thought nothing could shock me any more. I just expected stuff. I expected things like the Bankruptcy Bill, Swift Boaters, SS privatization. But something like this? How inhumane is that? It's really shameful, imo. Truly a sad moment in U.S. history. It really is. I'm glad you believe in me. It means a lot.

[enigmatic]

20. I believe in my bro

Plus, you still owe me 20 bucks!:)

[Wetzelbill]

23. yeah, mom said I don't have to pay

because you broke my trike when I was little and never paid to get it fixed. This was just last year, btw. :)

[Rhiannon12866]

21. I'm pissed, too, my friend.

That this is happening here, in my country, as Stephanie Tubbs Jones said, tonight, totally boggles my mind. You speak for me.;(

[Wetzelbill]

22. it is boggling...

these last several years would be funny if they weren't so disastrous and true. Just insane. Glad you could identify with what I said. :)

[Rhiannon12866]

24. I never would have believed that any of this could have happened,

if I hadn't lived it, starting with 9/11. That was my moment of disbelief, disconnect, but also the one event powerful enough to wake me up, make me start paying attention and the beginning of my quest for the truth. I became political that day, held hostage in my dentist's chair, of all things, watching the second plane hit he North Tower, over and over and over again. I was scared witless and by the time I walked out into the warm September sun, knees weak, I was already changed. I had always voted, but that's the moment I knew that I had to learn what was really going on, not just in this country, but in the world. And I've learned a great deal in a pretty short time, and haven't liked much what I've found out. But at least I am very unlikely to ever be blindsided again.:-(

The stolen elections are a part of it, and an unprovoked war where thousands have died for a lie. And, just now, where people are dying for reasons that have yet to be explained. Incompetence? Prejudice? Apathy? Whatever the reason, it's not good enough.:grr:

And if you're serious about running for office, more power to you. I completely understand and will back you, vote for you, if I could. I don't know what I would have done without DU for these past few years. I certainly wouldn't have survived the last election. And I count anyone here as a kindred spirit, and know enough about you to know that you're sincere.:-)

Thanks for this post. It reminded me of why I'm here. And I salute your beliefs and your courage. I share the beliefs, at least.:hi:

Rhiannon:pals:

[Wetzelbill]

27. yup, exactly

how I feel to the T. Courage comes in different forms, you know? Going out and backing somebody you believe in, working for them, getting the word out. That's courageous. Informing yourself. Taking the time to become a better, more knowledgeable person. Caring. Compassionate. All of that is courageous. You have that. No doubt.

[In_The_Wind]

25. Excellent idea Bill Wetzel

better to actually do something ...

instead of walkin' around pissed off ...

[Wetzelbill]

26. definitely

I hear you on that one. Glad you liked this. :)