"Their people"

Via slacktivist comes this incredible post from Big Monkey, Helpy Chalk, who interviewed the infamous mayor of Gretna, Louisiana about his decision to force people fleeing New Orleans back across the bridge, away from rescue and salvation. It's...wow. Just wow.

I think Big Monkey's take on it is the right one. From the mayor's perspective, what he did was the right thing, but as Big Monkey notes midway through, the way he words it is very telling. And slacktivist's own perspective expands on it further, on the idea that there's always room.

I think this is one of my fundamental problems with so many people I disagree with on the other side. And I'm not really talking politically, but morally, or spiritually, or...well something. Although it is interesting how much those things line up with political alignments these days. But anyway, this idea that there's always room, it's one that's as much a part of me as my eye color. And I thought for the longest time it was that way for everyone, but of course I realized it wasn't.

Which I think is why we have such a hard time overcoming that divide, because there are people on "the other side" who can't see past the bridge to the people beyond. To them, taking care of "their people" is the point, which of course misses the point..."their people" are all people. But so many of them just can't seem to see it.

The Working Society

Okay, so y’all know John Edwards was my guy during the last election. I can’t remember if I told you the whole story about why, but it boils down to the first time I heard him give his “Two Americas” speech way back in the Fall of 2003. And I still think he’ll be President some day.

Well anyway. I’m still on his mailing list and today, I received the email about his latest speech, “The Working Society”. I don’t know, maybe it’s what I needed right now, because I’ve been feeling a little low and pessimistic about the future. Or maybe I’m still hoping to find that candidate that’s going to be the bright shining star during the next election and I think he’s the one (I mean, I am and I do, but it’s entirely possible I’m not entirely realistic about his chances). But whatever the reason, it’s...well, it’s good. Really, really good. Like I’m finding again that optimism that I felt the first time I heard him speak. No, not just that, but the optimism that led me to support Gore not just in 2000, but waaaaay back in 1988, when I stumped for him the first time. In Wyoming. In high school. God, I was such a dork.

So anyway, read it. Seriously. Like now. Not only does he not run away from liberal ideas, he embraces them. Hell, he proposes new ones. Not just rhetoric and vague talking points, but actual, honest-to-god ideas and proposals and solutions. It’s too early to know if he can sustain this kind of proaction and lead the candidate field in the next couple of years, and who knows what other candidates might emerge between now and then, but for the time being...well, I'm hopeful.

Pest Control

Via Sisyphus Shrugged, we learn that tons of MREs donated by the British government to feed hungry victims of Katrina...are set to be incinerated in a big bonfire salute to the monumental evil of this Administration. That's right -- our government has decided that they'd rather put the match to tons of much-needed food generously donated by another country at its own expense rather than pass it on to the folks it was intended for, the people who have little or no access to the most basic needs of daily survival and who're entirely dependent on us to feed them.

At some point, you've got to stop thinking this is colossal incompetence. Nobody, not even the High Holy Asshats of this Administration are so fundamentally stupid on this large of a scale. This is deliberate. Everything -- everything -- this Administration has done since those first reports of Katrina's looming potential has been to actively, deliberately, purposely leave these people to die. "If the storm doesn't get 'em, the flood waters surely will, and if that doesn't, then perhaps leaving them out in the hot sun with no food or water for days will do it. And if that doesn't work, well, there's a million other ways to squish out the remaining stragglers like the bugs they are." I'm not saying they've actively planned this (at least, not at first), but in the end, does it really matter? Considering the result, the line between Conspiratorial Evil and Stunning Indifference pretty much vanishes, don't you think?

UPDATE: Yeah, read this and then convince me I'm wrong that this entire clusterfuck was deliberate.

Fuck it -- I'm back

Yes, kids... I've dusted out the corners of this poor neglected blog and shined a little daylight in. My spare time has gotten increasingly short since, oh, about May, and I've had to set aside many of my ongoing projects including this blog. Not for lack of wanting to write about the fifty-three bajillion ways my head has exploded on a daily basis, but you know how it is.

And then Katrina happened, and I descended into a funk of Gaussian proportions (I don't really know what that means, except it sounds pretty fucking horrible, right?) and turned to the blog to write about the High Holy Asshats and their Fucked-Up Passion Play of Depraved Indifference. Every day in that first week, I added dozens of must-read links to my draft and wrote pages and pages of written screaming and anger and blah-de-blah-blah. This draft-not-yet-posted-post has become downright epic in both scope and size and it's still sitting on my desktop, waiting for me to wade into the midst of it with three weeks of perspective and the slow burning inferno of primal rage to make some kind of sense of it.

Well, my life isn't looking to calm down anytime in the near future and at this rate, the thing's never going to be posted and if I keep waiting until it is to update this blog, it's going to continue to gather dust and be of no use to anyone. Just now, literally minutes ago, I just said to myself, "fuck it, time to start posting again."

So...I'm back, bitches. And I'm more pissed off than ever.

It happens again

Our thoughts and prayers are with the people affected by today's bombings in London. I wish I had something more profound to say, but I'm utterly saddened by today's events and the ongoing realization that as long as we're fighting wars of arrogant hegemony instead of pursuing the terrorists who would do this to innocent people, we leave ourselves vulnerable to attacks like these.


May we find peace and wisdom soon.

Bush is approaching 30%, must be time to heat up the culture war

We interrupt our irregularly unscheduled break in posting to bring you a moment of wit and wisdom:

No one... I repeat, no one ever died for a flag. They may have died for freedom, which, by the way, includes... the freedom... to burn the fucking flag."- Bill Hicks

Also? If Bill Hicks were still alive, he'd say, "Shut your fucking pie hole, O'Reilly."

[The aforementioned follow-up promised in the previous post will be coming soon.]

“Here’s what you said, and here’s what you did. You were wrong. Apologize.”

Go. Read. Now. Seriously.

d r i f t g l a s s: This from Mr. Gilliard

[The reply to the "Willful Blindness" section is what I'm referring to here.]

My commentary to follow once you've completed your assignment.

I'm not a person, I'm a baby machine

The next time some right-wing freeper asshole gets all up in my face about us supposed baby-killing lefties who want nothing but an orgy of abortions, I'm going to print this story out and stuff it down his fucking piehole.

Barbarism in Texas

They're just not going to be happy until this country becomes The Handmaid's Tale in living fucking color. Goddamn fucking assholes.

I hate this country sometimes, I really do. Yeah, I said it.

"It measures everything...except that which makes life worthwhile"

One of my all-time favorite speech excerpts, and something I wish I could carry around on a big sign and plant in random places for everyone to see.

Robert F. Kennedy on what GNP means:

Below is a quote from Bobby Kennedy on what the Gross National Product means and more importantly what it does not mean. He would have a made a fine economist...

'Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product ... if we should judge America by that - counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

'Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.'

Robert F. Kennedy Address, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, March 18, 1968

(Thanks to Nick Beaudrot, guesting over and Politics and War, for the reminder.)

Gettin' out while the gettin's good

A thought occurred to me recently while I was on my way home from work. There was a news report on the radio -- one of several I've heard recently -- about gas prices going up and how SUV sales are down. I've also been reading Kevin Drum's series about Peak Oil* so this had been on my mind already. Ironically (or not), I was surrounded on all sides but one by SUVs while I when this news report came on, and not the ones that are more like station wagons (Outback, CRV, etc.), either. These were the big behemoths, a Suburban (or as some online wit recently dubbed it, the Subdivision), a Navigator, and two Excursions.

Anyway, with the inevitable rise of gas prices as we reach/have reached Peak Oil, and the consequent consumer turn toward more fuel-efficient vehicles, it occurred to me that at some point, SUVs are going to be impossible to get rid of. Suppose for example that the Suburban driver I noted above decides it just costs too much to run that vehicle and decides to buy a Prius instead. He sells the Suburban, and because they're still pretty popular, it sells pretty fast and he gets what he wants out of it. A few years go by, gas prices have climbed above $4/gal. (and I'm being optimistic), and our second owner has decided it's just too expensive, he's selling it. Except by that point, most everyone has already decided the same thing. He gets hardly anything for it, or is unable to unload it entirely and left holding the bag, so to speak. It's like musical chairs, except in this version, lots and lots of people are still standing when the music stops.

That, I think, will be an unexpected and unpleasant consequence of the SUV craze. It may not happen on the timeline I've laid out -- the Suburban might change hands a couple of times more -- but it will happen, I think. If I had one, I would definitely get rid of my SUV in the next couple of years.

*The rest of the Peak Oil series is here, here, and here. UPDATE: and here.