This is enough to make me want to die...

[MojoXN]

I can't go on like this. I can't live knowing that nothing is going to happen to the men that are partially responsible for this tragedy. I feel so selfish, here I am, safe and sound, while tens of thousands are dead, hundreds of thousands are homeless, and I'm worried about MY problems? But still, still. I have never felt so utterly useless as I do right now. There's nothing that I, or anyone else can or will do to stop this. It's like trying to empty the ocean with a water pail. You can't fight the ocean, it's too damn big. I could use some advice...

MojoXN

[SmokingJacket]

1. I feel exactly the same way -- it's unbearable

I'm going to the Red Cross to see what I can do. Probably not much, but I think I'll lose my mind if I don't do something active and hands-on at this point.

If the Red Cross can't use me, I'll call the Salvation Army, Habitat for Humanity...

[ArkDem]

2. What do you mean 'partially responsible'?

[renie408]

3. I think they mean

that while their response was pathetic and added to the tragedy, they did not actually generate the hurricane. I guess you could say that they could have done more to stop the global warming that made Katrina tougher, but that's a reach.

[MintOreoCookie]

5. I agree. I think the person was saying that lives could have been saved

had we gone in there earlier, which is true.

[MojoXN]

10. That's exactly what I meant by partially responsible.

They didn't cause the hurricane, but THOUSANDS of lives could have been saved. So many people, just gone...

[Kali]

4. You can only do what you can do

We all have concerns about the big picture, but you can only be effective in the picture you exist in. Do small things well - they do add up. Send you $5 or whatever, get the next person to do the same - there! you doubled your effort and effect and so on. Yeah there are tens of thousands in crisis, but right in your community there are folks who have needed help for much longer and will for longer still...

Take a break from the bad news. Advice often given to caretakers applies to all who care: If you don't take care of yourself what good will you be to those you care for?

[renie408]

6. Bingo

I agree with this post entirely. Do what you can, where you can. Take care of what YOU see. We all see something different. Some people are primarily touched by the plight of children, some the elderly and still others by that of pets and animals. If we all try to help out in the areas that touch us the most, it will all get covered. Write your representatives in both the Senate and the House, get a bumper sticker, donate what you can and hold the door for little old ladies at the store. Yep, that will help. Random acts of decency and kindness can be really important. They make us feel better about ourselves and make others feel better. So, don't think that the small stuff you are doing isn't enough. If we could add enough small things together, the world would be just fine.

Which leads me to the essential difference I have discovered between Democrats and Republicans: Democrats think that if we would all look out for one another, the world would be a better place. Republicans think that if we would all just take care of ourselves, the world would be a better place.

[calimary]

8. Holy smokes - a SUPERB way to put that! A Talking Point is Born!

",,,the essential difference I have discovered between Democrats and Republicans: Democrats think that if we would all look out for one another, the world would be a better place. Republicans think that if we would all just take care of ourselves, the world would be a better place." - DUer renie408, 09-06-05

Great quote. Great talking point. Great thought-provoker. We ARE our brothers' keeper. Even says so in the Bible. And you're far more apt to find far more Democrats agreeing with, or espousing, that code of behavior than you ever will with the other guys. Which makes republi-CONS the "Party of Cain."

My dad used to call it (not the party, but the underlying and prevailing attitude) IGMFU - an acronym for "I Got Mine, F-U." Sometimes I call the GOP the "IGMFU Party."

[renie408]

12. Thanks...

I am glad you liked it. I have been saying that for awhile now. It is the attitude that drives everything they do, from trying to 'fix' social security to the tax cuts.

[OneGrassRoot]

27. EXCELLENT point, Renie408.....hugs to MojoXN n/t

[MojoXN]

9. Good advice...

But I want to do MORE. I wish they'd hurry the hell up and drain the city so I can go down there and help build houses, paint buildings, clean debris, SOMETHING. But there's nothing I can do. I've already sent all the money that I can (for right now), I want to help, I NEED to help, and I can't. Like I said, it's like trying to empty the ocean with a bucket. You're never going to accomplish anything.

MojoXN

[renie408]

11. Sometimes things just suck.

And that's about it. I would not say that 'you are never going to accomplish anything', though. That attitude means that life in NO is never going to get any better. It means that we might as well give up, what's the point?

Make a plan to help as soon as outsiders are allowed back into the city. Find out if any evacuees are being housed in your area and go take supplies to them. Take $50 to your local Goodwill and buy a bunch of clothes in decent condition and donate them to your local shelter. What you are REALLY saying is, "I cannot do precisely what I want to do to contribute and that makes me unhappy.", not "There is nothing I can do." Because there really is SOMETHING you could do, right?

[MojoXN]

13. "Because there really is SOMETHING you could do, right?"

Yes, but not NEARLY enough. I want to help my people, people whose government failed them. I want to put my life on hold for a year to help rebuild theirs. And I feel so goddamn USELESS right now. I can give money, I can open my home, I can donate food and clothing, but none of it is ENOUGH. I feel like my head is going to explode...

MojoXN

[renie408]

14. What would be enough?

I am thinking that there probably isn't 'enough' to make you feel better right now. I am also thinking that your current emotions are maybe less related to Katrina than you might think. Maybe the Katrina situation has given you a focus for your feelings, but it sounds to me like you probably had some shit going on before the storm hit.

You really should think about talking to a counselor who can help you sort through the emotions you are feeling right now. It is not good to get so freaked out that you talk about killing yourself.

[renie408]

16. Hey, I also go to thinking...

that your 'not enough' could mean a helluva lot to one somebody. Maybe you, the individual, cannot do a great deal to affect the entire situation of New Orleans being destroyed by a flood. But you, the individual, could make a HUGE difference in one other person's life. Like I said, find someone who has lost everything and give them something. I bet that would make a bigger difference than you know.

[calimary]

7. Yes. You can only do what you can do.

Do something. No matter how small you may think it is. Watch in your area for signs of fundraising or clothing drives. There was one at a middle school in Santa Monica, and word of it spread all over the Westside. Everybody took a bag in - of SOMETHING. T-shirts, shoes, blankets, SOMETHING. I heard about it from our next-door neighbors, and then saw it in an email.

Check in your area if there's a church something, or a school something (I suspect with the new student council at my kid's school, somebody will suggest that their year's "project" would be raising hurricane relief money. It's the kind of thing they tend to do every year), or neighborhood. There's an off-leash dog park in our neighborhood. On their own, many regulars there organized a lemonade stand - every Friday through September, all day until sundown, with EVERY CENT going toward Katrina relief. They started selling cookies and dog pins and stuff with the same objective. We arrived after dusk - didn't know about it, and saw them coming with their folded tables from where they'd been set up all day, farther into the park. They said they'd made more than 800 dollars that day. I'm gonna walk my dog up there this Friday and take advantage of it myself.

You're apt to see notices especially if you belong to, or get emails from, some local Democratic Club or civic gathering. I'm surprised that there aren't multiple programs and campaigns underway now at every church in every community in the country.

You'll see something. Guaranteed. Keep your ears open to word-of-mouth, also. It's the best advertizing of them all.

[Wordie]

15. Another thing that CAN be done: the Red Cross needs blood. n/t

[Pacifist Patriot]

17. I am honestly concerned...

for you and everyone else who feels similarly. Find help! Whether it's a counselor, clergy, a trusted friend, a stranger on the phone, it doesn't matter. Such depressive feelings are going to only get stronger and possibly epidemic in the coming months. I am seriously concerned for the mental health of our nation. Your response is completely totally normal...that's why it's a legitimate crisis.

If you don't think a small group of people can affect a lot of change, think about the original revolutionaries who forged our country. They went up against a king and an empire. We CAN do it!

Think small and try not to look at the large picture. Give yourself small tasks and revel in the accomplishment at that level. Someone suggested donating blood and that's a good one. Write one letter to a congressman today. Call a Senator tomorrow. Leave a pamphlet on a windshield of a car sporting a W sticker the day after. You do matter.

[Vinca]

18. Have a good cry. I'm serious.

My gut is tied in knots and I'm madder than I've ever been in my life. I need to cry - it would help - but, I can't. Prozac for everybody on me.

[MojoXN]

20. I've cried for HOURS...

When I first found out about N.O. when I saw the old abandoned, when I saw children dying, when I heard about the kid who took the bus, when I heard about the three boys from Duke, when I read about the rapes and the killing. I can't cry anyomre, there's nothing left inside. I don't have a phone, or family around here. My friends have largely moved away. I'm paralyzed by the plight of hundreds of thousands of people who are all just like me, and the world expects me to just go about my business as if everything is OK? Well, sorry folks, everything is NOT OK, and I don't think it ever will be again.

MojoXN

[Vinca]

21. You've got friends here.

We're only black and white letters on a page, but we're a family of sorts and we need to stick together to somehow get through this. There have been black days before and we've survived and we'll make it again. A person I know used to use the expression "Every day can't be Christmas." It's getting to be "Every day can't be as bad as yesterday." It's got to get better. :hug:

[MojoXN]

24. Thank you, Vinca.

Believe it or not, as Robert Ripley used to say, I feel better after reading that. I still can't sleep, it's not even five o' clock yet, and I'm half drunk, and alone. I haven't eaten for at least two days, mayne three, and when I go to sleep, I'll have the nightmares, terrible, horrible things will torment my 'rest'. And, ain't it the damndest thing you ever did hear, I can't get "When the Saints Go Marching In" out of my head. I always loved that song. To associate now with such death and destruction is killing me. Oh, New Orleans, you were a part of me, and that part is gone. Gone, perhaps forever.

I had a college friend, Jeremy Schreiber, a chef. Last I heard, about a year ago, he was living and working in N.O. I've been consoling myself with the fact that he had a car, AFAIK, and most likely made it out OK. What haunts me is that if I had lived in N.O. instead of here, I'D HAVE BEEN THERE FOR THE CHAOS. I DON'T have a car, or money, to speak of. I'd have been there. I would have had to live through hell. What makes it worse is the constant knowledge that people JUST LIKE ME, tens of thousands of them DID go through hell. And some didn't make it out alive. Too many didn't. Dear God, it gets worse with every passing hour...

MojoXN

[jokerman93]

25. another thing

Your compassion makes a difference. That you see, know, and acknowledge the suffering you see, and that you suffer with them because you recognize your common humanity - that speaks volumes. This tragedy has allowed so many of us, including you, to experience the depth of our connectedness and interdependence with others. That can be the foundation for changes great and small.

One could even say that the Revolution begins with compassion.

You have the power to act from your compassion, and the power to change the way things are. Don't doubt yourself friend.

J

[graywarrior]

19. How do other people handle the rage?

I don't sleep, I can't eat, I can't focus on my work...

[cally]

22. How I'm coping

I've mostly turned off the TV and I try to not see the pictures. I couldn't handle it. I stay informed through reading the news but I couldn't handle the images.

I've given money but I know I need to do more. I'm OK with volunteering in a few days or weeks when the initial focus is reduced. I know folks will need ongoing help and too many will forget the tragedy. I'm not a first responder and as much as I wish I could take a boat and rescue people, I would just get in the way.

I heard a specialist on the radio today telling us that we have to do other activities and be greatful for what we have. Otherwise, we are too consumed with grief and rage that we cannot take care of ourselves or others. I think that's good advice.

[renie408]

26. I have had to

shut off the TV quite a bit lately. I also try to avoid listening to individual horror stories. I am trying to stay caught up on facts and issues through this board and limited media viewing.

[MissMarple]

23. Evil never really goes away. But goodness doesn't , either.

Creating more good in the world, even in a general way, is important, very important. We need you here, every small effort, as posted above, is necessary to build critical mass and to maintain it. We keep evil at bay, but we will never totally eradicate it. It is just a part of human nature.

We just need to keep doing what we are doing. I know things look bad now, but change will come.

:hug:

[AspenRose]

28. Every time I look at my seven-month-old son, I want to cry

because I can't help but think of all the babies and mothers in NO and scattered everywhere. Some of them, split up, not unlike what happened in the slave trade.

I just want to die...and then I look at my mixed race little boy and wonder if HE is in danger, knowing the evil of this administration. Perhaps he isn't now, but if things don't change.....

[MojoXN]

29. That's what worries me..

My roommate has a wonderful three year old son. I love that kid like he was my own. "Uncle Mojo" watches him, takes care of him. As a side note, little boy is mostly (3/4) black. When I see my people suffering in the streets, when I see babies die, I can only think of him. My people died, and are dying, and no one seems to care, or at least they didn't when it would have made the most difference. My people are DYING! And they did nothing... Nothing. I am at the end of my rope. One more tragedy, and I don't know what will happen.

MojoXN