Another "Katrina" Blows Through Sin City 9/1/2005 7:47:58 AM
So can we talk about how when white people, knee-deep in death and stink and shit, grab rotting food from a blown-over grocery store it's called "saving their families from starvation" but when black people do it, it's called "looting?"
Can we talk about that?
Can we talk about how balloon-headed rich white guys with microphones interviewing penniless--and now homeless--black women ask them with a straight face, "So where will you go now?" as their husbands lie dead at their feet? As their babies wail in their arms?
Can we talk about how these people who "chose to stay" through Hurricane Katrina actually had no choice because they had no money, no access to automobiles, and even Greyhound stopped running their buses on Saturday--a full day before the storm?
Can we talk about that?
Can we talk about how the Bush Administration has all but demolished FEMA, the organization that, along with the National Guard, would have been first-responders to a crisis of this magnitude? Can we talk about how the National Guard is in Iraq fighting an illegal war?
Can we talk about that?
Can we--please--can we talk about that?
Can we talk about how those levee's didn't need to break? About how the reason they broke is because they were never properly fixed because New Orleans didn't have the budget for it because their piece of the budgetary pie went to Homeland Security and 3 tax cuts for billionaires?
3 TAX CUTS FOR BILLIONAIRES!!!--CAN WE FUCKING TALK ABOUT THIS???
Can we talk about the Superdome turning into Thunderdome because the people don't have enough emergency help? What they have is anger and poverty and guns and a thinning line between human morals and animal instinct?
Can we talk about it?
Can we talk about how last night I had this cynical thought that, 'I'll bet the right-wingers will find a way to tell us that this emergency is tough shit for the people of New Orleans. They should pull themselves up by the boot straps and not ask for a government handout.' Can we talk about how a mere few hours after this thought it turns out, that's exactly what some of them are doing? They are doing this by saying that nowhere in the Constitution is there a provision for natural disaster--and, in fact, the founding fathers specifically did not want government money to go toward disaster relief--that's what CHARITY IS FOR.
God damn you--can we talk about that?
What the f*** are we talking about, (white) America? Is this because New Orleans is fulla black people and we reaaaaallly hate black people because...well...we're evil? Is this because Mississippi is fulla poor, destitute people of varying skin color and we just plain despise the expendable poor?
What are we talking about--What ARE we talking about?
If I hear one more white mother f***er tell me not to turn this into a "class war" I am going to take the gun he wants poor people to own so they can shoot each other and go to a privatized prison, in which he holds stock, and I'm gonna...I'm gonna....empty it. There are too many guns. There's too much violence. I'm sick of fear and re-action.
No. We need something else, something new. What is it? What is the answer? It can't be regression and reaction. It can't be.
