catastrophes

Well, I am feeling a little better than from my last post. It doesn't really matter what I feel, or how I think about things ultimately, but writing it all down helps me clarify my own thoughts, purge them from the system.

With the 4-year anniversary of 9-11, my thoughts go back to that time when everything changed in one day. I had a 2 weeks' head start on 9-11, because I fell down my basement steps and broke my tailbone, keeping me out of school for 3 weeks. This might not seem like a big thing, but my incapacitation led me to a near nervous breakdown. Panic attacks, paranoia, severe, crippling depression and of course, the literal pain in the ass that made me unable to sit normally for months. Can't put a cast on that, you know.

I witnessed nearly everything on TV on September 11, watching from the sofabed in the basement until I couldn't take it anymore. The second tower fell and I just couldn't watch it. Shock and horror. I sat (well, lay) amazed later on when the entire congress stood together and sang "God Bless America."

Our President was still something of an unknown quantity then. I was glad to have someone decisive in charge, who seemed like an ordinary guy whose ideas I liked. Well, more like a person whose ideas I didn't hate. I hate politics, and despise politicians as a whole. Like watching a train wreck, I am still fascinated by politics though. I guess I like getting pissed off or something.

Now, I am just disgusted by the whole thing, bottom to top. Last year's election and the years before it turned our country into the biggest group of haters, mostly of each other. "You'd have to be an idiot to vote for ______ (fill in the person)." "You can't be a Christian if you vote for ____." Bush was either more evil and diabolical than Hitler, or he was seen as a mental midget reading "my pet goat" to some second-graders. And Kerry, poor man, mired in some stupid crap about Vietnam. Did I care about Vietnam? Did anyone? Campaign managers for Bush laughed all the way to the bank with that Swift Boat stuff.

I really hate the fact that I only had 2 (or 2.4 counting Nader) choices for the most important job in the world. I hate the fact that both choices forced me to give up something I felt strongly about (oil dependency change with Bush, less restrictions on abortion with Kerry). Even though I feel like the war with Iraq was poorly-planned, I still felt like it was necessary to get rid of Hussein. The "anyone's better than Bush" argument just didn't resonate with me, after hearing for so many years that anyone was better than Clinton, the expert of slipperyness.

So I went with the abortion issue. A chance for life for some little people, versus the possibility of a better environment for those little people to live in. Maybe I am stupid for believing that, stupid to hope that some good would be done in four short years. But voting is just giving a person the benefit of a doubt that they might do a little better than the other flawed person running for the same job.

Now, what do I think? I think the same thing I thought years ago when I voted in my first election: politicians suck, the media are vultures, the citizens of our country are swept into a frenzy of hatred over two political parties that are basically the same beast with different-color heads. Poor people and minorities believe lies by the Democrats, and middle class people believe the lies by the Republicans. But the beast gets its food from big corporations and unions and wealthy individuals and political interest groups, so it isn't going to ultimately fight for either group of people in the long run. Cynical, yes, bitter, yes, but show me where I am wrong here.
Where is the city full of minorities, run by Democrats, that has eradicated drug problems, has great schools, has happy, thriving citizens? Where is the middle-class community run by Republicans that wouldn't be razed by the highest bidder?

And now it comes out that sending active-duty troops into New Orleans was a sticky political situation, because it would be perceived as a takeover of a Democratic-controlled state by a President of another party. But since when has our President cared what Democrats thought about him? Just send the guys in, for goodness' sake, and worry about the political crap later. He's going to get hit by criticism anyway, as it is part of the job, so why not do the decisive thing and get control of the city, and then deal with the fallout? One starts to believe the paranoid ramblings of Kanye West, in a way--not that Bush doesn't care about black people, but that he doesn't mind letting a Democrat take the fall. The problem is, it's not just one person who is affected by all this dithering. It's those half a million people whose whole lives were destroyed.

I am ashamed of my country, of my elected leaders, of a system of poverty and neglect that keeps people in the gutter. I am furious that people keep buying SUV's and huge cars, propping up horrible regimes like Saudi Arabia just so they can look cool and have more space for their one kid to sulk in. The cost of a tank of gas for one of these Hummers can feed a family of 4 for 2 days, buy cleaning supplies and personal hygeine stuff from the Red Cross. Where are our priorities here? Why was our President still in Crawford 2 days into this crisis? Why hasn't he come out and said something more than "this is unacceptable," and be straight with the people? Why doesn't he just wake up and fire the FEMA guy and at least make it look like he understands what people are pissed about? So many things he could have said, or said better, all through his presidency, to make people feel like--dare I say it--he feels their pain. Ugh.