The politics of drowning

[democrank]

I wanted to claw at my TV screen this afternoon when I read the CNN crawl....BUSH HURRIED BACK FROM CRAWFORD. Made me want to drop to my knees and light a candle for this hero, except for one problem. I saw a video of him heading in the opposite direction of the hurricane. Believe me. It was him, clowning around with his new best friend John McCain, then making one of those blood-dripping speeches about takin` it to our enemies. I could tell it was him just by the wild hand motions....that chopping the air thing he does to convince the troop props that if it was a rifle instead of thin air he was moving, he`d clean out Iraq single-handedly.

Rove is back in town. I can tell because both CNN and MSNBC are using the same language. Bush`s plane dropped down to a certain altitude. Bush viewed the damage from the left side of his plane. Bush viewed the damage for about thirty five minutes. Even a split screen: people who didn`t heed the mandatory evacuation on the left, America`s Rescue King on the right. How touching.

Paul McHale, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Defense summed it all up with his, "We will proactively lean into the mission." You go, Paul....but poverty is afloat in this disaster. It`s everywhere. Maybe it`s a non-voting poverty that helped Bush decide whether to play or save the day of the hurricane. Maybe it`s a poverty so busy with itself that it was able to function without notice. A poverty blanketed by the shadows of casinos and uptown life. A macaroni poverty, two for a dollar, not exactly fresh from the White House chefs.

Luckily, the dome people do have something going for them. Survival skills. Stuffing three kids and a couple cousins into a small space is regular. Going without is normal. Making due is an art passed down. Imagine for a minute: Stick George Bush on the first floor of a dilapitated building. No cell phone. No car. No credit cards. No servants. No money. No heath care. No appointment secretary. No shoe shiner. How would he fare if the only oil he saw this time was that which was floating atop the water up around his chin?

[havocmom]

1. Blood pressure so high it scared me, screaming at the idiot on TV

acting like he was telling us what the situation was. Like all of America hadn't heard about the trouble on the Gulf Coast until he finally sashayed in to set us all straight.

The fucking bastard was golfing and eating cake, eating cake while people were drowning and and American city was dying under toxic waters! He was playing guitar and acting important while a man's wife slipped out of the grasp of her life partner. He was clowning in front of a captive audience under orders to be respectful to him while the infrastructure for tens of thousands was torn to shreds. He was the trained monkey at a fund raiser as water kept pouring through levees that never got finished due to his budget cuts.

He was eating cake while New Orleans and her people drowned. The fucking bastard was eating cake.

Night time on the City of New Orleans
Changin' cars in Memphis, Tennessee
Halfway home, we'll be there by mornin'
Thru the Mississippi darkness rollin' down to the sea

But all the towns and people seem to fade into a bad dream
And the steel rail still ain't heard the news
The conductor sings his songs again
"The passengers will please refrain:
This train got the disappearin' railroad blues

Good night America, how are you?
Say don't you know me? I'm your native son!
I'm the train they call the City of New Orleans.
I'll be gone 500 miles when the day is done. *

We are all the train they call the City of New Orleans and we have to stand against the politics of drowning. The man who eats cake while people drown needs to step down.

*Arlo Guthrie, one of America's great poet voices.

[democrank]

2. havocmom....

"Like all of America hadn`t heard about the trouble" indeed. Like we had all been out playing for the last couple days and were SHOCKED when he gave us the news.

This man could be a smash hit in his own comedy, maybe a skit about a guy who rides into battle after it`s over....backwards in the saddle....boots on the wrong feet....

[havocmom]

4. Sister, I need a hug. Got one for me?

Sitting here with just one sip of wine in me and the flood gates are about to burst. I NEVER have anything to drink when I am down, but this day has me breaking all my own rules.

Can I pour you a glass of wine and offer you some fine triple cream cheese? Looking for kindred spirit and you Yankees from Vermont seem to be good for me. (Havocdad is my Green Mountain Boy!)

Damn, that imposter has my blood at such a boil. Gonna watch Teh Daily Show in hopes they will show that young man who cut loose on MSMBC today and spoke out loud what most of America knows to be truth: 'Bush don't get to be President no more...'

I feel like they are finally getting it but it breaks my heart that it took such a horrible level of tragedy to bring them 'round.

Have a glass of wine with me? I could use the companionship of a kindred spirit this night.

[democrank]

5. havocmom....

Believe me. I know how you feel.

Think of something pleasant, even for just a minute. I`ll share my favorite quote with you:


But in the mud and scum of things
there always, always something sings.

(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

[havocmom]

6. Will likely spend the wee hours in the bath tub reading The Four Quarters

yet again. But my mind's eye keep flashing visions of desperation and true heroism along with that pompous imbecile who thinks he is too fucking important to attend to the duties of the job he stole.

The rage in me rises. It may be time for me to start my long walk to the east.

[earthboundmisfit]

3. "We will proactively lean into the mission." Too LATE to be proactive.

PROACTIVE would've been having supplies & services in place - or at least on the way to being in place - BEFORE Katrina's landfall, when it was obvious for two days that it WAS going to hit & it was going to hit hard!
PROACTIVE would've been NOT cutting the funds for the levee etc. by 80% (and how sickly ironic that NOLA ended up being 80% under water...)
"We will proactively lean into the mission." Nothing but EMPTY WORDSMITHING.:grr: