John Donne's lament is very appropriate. I find it even moreso in another context from his "No Man Is An Island",
"No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were.
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee."
Posted by Greg Grosh at September 5, 2005 05:57 PMThis makes me think of a comment I read on some other blog thread. Someone told someone who was bitching about black people, that they were just jealous since black people have a community and help each other out (Condi notwithstanding, of course.) Is this because blacks, in general, aren't the recipients of the goods of the so called "free market"? And I must say, as a little white girl at some all black ('cept me) events, I was included in that feeling of community, and even called "Baby" by women I didn't know who offered me food at a picnic. And I have NEVER tasted barbeque ribs like I had from my neighbors in Detroit!
Posted by Sharon at September 5, 2005 06:03 PMy'all are so sensitive and I love it. Bush, Cheney, Rummy are all sadists; all fucking worse than Hitler's SS. I'm proud to report that DC's Armory is awaiting evacuees, not refugees, and my hometown of Jacksboro, TX is awaiting evacs from New Orleans at its tiny armory. Jacksboro is near the Ft. Worth, Dallas area. America is fucked, it's been fucked since Bush stole the election in Florida in 2000. But what I can't stand is asshole Clinton aligning himself with Bush 41, and good ol' buddy GWB 42. Hillary's a chance for '08? gimme a break. She's as bad as all of the neocons. And I worked in the Clinton WH correspondence office as a volunteer, and I worked at the Bush WH at the correspondence office--just to compare. Not much comparison!
Posted by Mal Feasance at September 5, 2005 06:15 PMMal Feasance, thank you. I feel that Clinton being linked in anyway with the Bushs amounts to being a traitor to his Party. Furthermore, I can't understand how he could be social with 'those people.'
Posted by Judith at September 5, 2005 07:19 PMOut of curosity, why hasn't anyone contacted Carter to help those in New Orleans?
Posted by Judith at September 5, 2005 07:21 PMThanks for the post Duckman. Maybe people are starting to get it. I heard a news story tonight where Tim Russert pointed out that after a national tragedy "people usually rally around the president and that isn't happening this time."
We're on our own. If New Orleans teaches us anything it's that. Turf battles, bureaucratic postering and the privatization of public goods have been sold as good government for the past four years and this is what it leads to. Someday, to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson "This reign of witches will end" and just like the Alien and Sedition Acts , the origional Patroit Act, Jefferson was critizing at the time were repudiated in favor of a freer and more, by the standards of that time, liberal America, so this private regarding ethos which has run America's infastructure into the ground scince 1980 will be seen as a dark period of our history.
Every region of America has its own hazards and today's New Orleans may be, in one form or another, your city tommorrow. As one who survived hurricane Hugo myself, I remember the Florida power crews who helped my neighborhood regain electricity long before we could have expected it. Molly Ivans had thoughts along the same lines.
The idea of a public regarding ethos can bring about great things, remember the new deal. It took a great depression for our grandparents generation to "get it". If we learn from New Orleans a strong foundation can be laid for the rest of this century.
Posted by rlp at September 5, 2005 07:28 PMNw tht w'v gt n-glgs stckd wth rfgs, thy cn b wrkd fr th cmmn gd. Plnty f mnpwr t cln p nd rbld tp.
[Editor: ignore=off]Judith -- I haven't heard anything about Jimmy being here for a photo-op -- but I can tell you that Habitat is working here in Houston -- they are in the mix of organizations asking for help to continue building.
Posted by dorita at September 5, 2005 08:45 PMSadly, Bendito will never get it.
Posted by rlp at September 5, 2005 09:05 PMThanks Dorita. The sincere never need photo-ops.
Posted by Judith at September 6, 2005 02:15 AMNow that we've got neo-gulags stocked with refugees, they can be worked for the common good. Plenty of manpower to clean up and rebuild utopia.
Which is exactly what I thought the plan was. Move the poor and the homeless to a far off old army base in Utah or Nevada, & get them producing for Uncle Sam. They'll be shopping at the camp store, won't be able to move back home, and then in the end we can determine their Final Disposition.
I hear they'll be happiest wearing black and white striped pajamas with little yellow houses on their left breasts.
The smoke? Oh, the smoke is nothing. Smells pleasantly sweet, though, doesn't it?
Posted by idiosynchronic at September 6, 2005 04:51 AMbendito revealed the Great Secret!
But, you know, these evacuees are going to be assigned to the descendents of those who owned the ancestors of the evacuees as repayment - with interest - for the losses incurred by them Damn Yankees after the War for Southern Independence, rather than turned into air pollution.
Can't get no profit out of a pile of ash, can you, bendito?
Posted by pessimist at September 6, 2005 07:42 AMNever mind bendito, he's beyond a fucking idiot, he's a bushian.
So let's work for this. Somebody called into Mike Malloy's show last night asking what can we do, specifically, to get what we know is right outside of our blogobox and into the mainstream, to get more than those actually paying attention, to pay attention, to process the enormity of bushco's duplicity and greed and incompetence and use that knowledge for good, and not evil.
We need OUR engineers, OUR publishers, OUR editors, we need OUR organizers, OUR companies, doing the work and spreading the word, that's my thought for one. Why should that life sucking monstrosity halliburton have anything to do with this cleanup and reconstruction, this New Deal for New Orleans?
I call on Senator Landrieu and Governor Blanco to start awarding contracts NOW to Democratic companies fully qualified to do this work, and let the right howl about politicizing the reconstruction. As they shovel billions of taxpayers money to helliburton.
We need to get the examples of the Duke Stir and Abramoff and Horse Guy (is that where the horse heads come from?) Brown out in the open, what better way then to get the goppers to bitch about our "cronyism" and have them give us the soapbox to expose their actual and far more egregiously criminal cronyism?
Posted by Duckman GR at September 6, 2005 08:35 AMagreed Duckman--don't forget that Plamegate is still quitely chugging away in the background--despite fervent wishes on the Right that it will just go away, the fact that it's taking so long indicates that the links go all the way to the top...
Abramoff, the Duke Stir and Plamegate will soon show how pervasive the culture of graft and corruption is within the Bush regime--we've just seen the tip of the iceberg...
but you're exactly right that we need to follow through on these issues, or they will be buried by the Right wing PR machine. a sad example is the Iran-Contra scandal--despite illegal arms and drug dealing within the Regan government, this is one scandal that was effectively 'swept under the rug,' by the Right--we need a brave Democrat to ask John Roberts what his specific role was, and remind the American people of the criminal activities carried out by Oliver North, John Poindexter, and the rest of the wingnut world domination team!
Posted by David W at September 6, 2005 08:53 AM