Lest Blood Be Shed

I was reading feministe and she had a link to a Daily Kos entry with a very well done analysis of the connections I have been seeing surface in this disaster in New Orleans and the gulf coast.

[snip]
...They would move heaven and earth to save the life of one White Woman in Florida to combat the very idea of euthanasia (which technically it was not). A woman that a decade earlier had lost her ability to so much as ask for help, much less have coherent thoughts about the quality of her own life.

And they would sit on their ass and watch as tens of thousands of poor men, women, children, babies, and elderly bake in the New Orleans heat surrounded by water, sewage, gasoline and an abandoned city, now devoid of anyone with the means to have escaped ahead of the storm.

This is the culture of life. The culture of life wants to save brain dead white women and unborn children. The culture of life wants you to watch endless non-news about the disappearance of one white teenager in Aruba. The culture of life wants you to support your nation as it kills tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians in its Quixotic quest against a non-threat. The culture of life wants a zero-tolerance for looters policy to sound authoritative as babies die of dehydration. The culture of life expects you to take care of yourself, and if you can't, then it is your own fault for getting into that situation in the first place. Fuck off. You had your shot. Station in life, where you hang your hat, and whether you have the $40 at the end of the month to pay for the overpriced gasoline to get out of that home in time is all up to you.

Always I have argued with Republican friends--the reasonable ones--that not everyone was dealt the same cards on their original Birth Day. Not everyone has been given the same gifts by God, friends, family, or luck. Always those Republican friends believe that they deserve where they have gotten in life, and that no one, including the government, should be asking for their hard-earned cash to help the less affluent. It is always the fault of the lesser-affluent themselves. Circumstances are irrelevant in all cases and constitute class warfare if the question is raised.

Bullshit.

But that's their thing. That's how they see the world. They earned everything they got. Their parents might have given them a nudge, but nothing more. Get a fucking clue.

Bush came away from his mega vacation one day early...Wednesday. Hastert doesn't know why we should rebuild. Condie Rice went to the show on Broadway.

All of these people support the Culter of Life. But none seem to support American Culture. New Orleans, as much as any city, represents distinctly American Culture. A melting-pot of language, music and revelry unlike any other. But it is desperately poor. Over 50% of the children in the state live below the poverty level. But no matter. Mostly black folk down there. They shouldn't have lived there in the first place. They should have gotten out while they had the chance. It's their own fault.
...[snip]

woeful indeed.

Well, it's September and that special time of year has arrive. Some people call it The Depression, others call it drama, and still others just ignore it and bottle it up inside. Around this time of year for as long as I can remember the Blue Meanies attempt to invade my Pepperland. Maybe it's the change from the relatively carefree summer to the jam packed fall season or a change in body composition but when September hits I become very introspective. I clean out my mental space, physical space, and spiritual space with the albatross(es) that have lodged themselves around my neck. This year one actually came flying back and I don't know what to do with it. So, I've tried taking it off again. We'll see what happens with it. I feel that this time is so necessary and beneficial to healthy growth in life (a dying and rising again) but the only word I can use to describe it is woeful.

What else is woahful is the way the governmental structures that are in place to deal with natural disasters in America have handled Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Reports on CNN of people being denied passage in and out of the hell of a city under the sea, of the withholding of food and water for days, of the delay of foreign aid because the secretary of state was on vacation (watching a broadway show last night) it confounds the imagination as to the real dedication our rich and white governing officials have to we who are poor, dark skinned, or just plain "different" and our well-being. Some call it incompetence, I call it uncaring and indifference for those who are "a menace" by being different to those in power. Woeful indeed.