Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

What To Do?

The enormity of the calamity on the Gulf Coast is difficult to comprehend, making the tsunami tragedy in the Indian Ocean even more incomprehensible. Where is the President when leadership is needed? Slapping skin with some old veterans alongside a ship -- another mission accomplished? Is George the Lesser so out of touch with reality that he can't understand that more than the old Yale rah-rah is needed ... or is this where churches and other private relief agencies, which responded to the cry for help from the people of the nations hit by the tsunami when our government did not, are supposed to jump in and save people.

Aye. There's the rub.

People.

Real people ... not the automatons called upon to be in the audiences before the election, to clap and cheer more recently for social security deform, to sit alongside the USS Ronald Reagan to listen to a lame speech.

Real, suffering, dying people -- or are they just numbers, like the soldiers and civilians in Iraq -- and not the kind of people who gave two and a half million American dollars in Republican contributions at the dinner up the road from the Crawford ranch a couple weeks back.

Real, suffering, dying people -- not your kind of people.

And George, thanks for warning the gas station owners that you won't stand for profiteering. Profiteering? I never heard you warn your good buddies, ExxonMobil or BP or Marathon or ... How about asking them to bite the bullet and give a little of the tens of billions in profits back instead of asking single moms with kids and families trying to eke out a living in corroding, poverty-stricken cities to donate $5 to the Red Cross. They have been in situations much like those on the Gulf Coast, and those mothers and families will give what they are able and more to help. Tap on your sources, the ones that got you elected ... those which profit from your policies ... policies that have made the rich richer and the poor poorer, increased the disparity in the richest of this country and the poorest.

Poverty is the major reason this tragedy is occurring. Those with money, those who were able, could and did prepare for this disaster and could and did leave. It was those who could not leave, who survive week to week, day to day, who could not leave. This is the America you turned your back on for the past five years. What kind of America did you envision?

At the bottom of this page is a counter unwaveringly marching toward the 200 billion dollar mark, money spent on killing people, mostly innocent civilians, in the process of destroying a whole country. Even more money is spent on "rebuilding" Iraq, paid to companies you know all too well, run by friends and contributors. In your speech to the vets, you likened yourself to FDR, by implication. FDR tried to lift people out of poverty with massive public works projects, which is something that needs to be done for the people of the Gulf Coast, probably half of whom had no insurance to cover the loss of everything they owned and have no jobs or anything to which to return.

It's time to rebuild America ... it's time to get your feet wet and your hands dirty, Mr. Bush, and admit that you have been wrong, that your policies have hurt America and the American people, that flag-waving and praying will not help the woman of color whose husband died in her arms and lay stinking at her feet on a bridge in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States of America, and help rebuild America, Mr. Bush.

Posted by Bill at September 1, 2005 03:39 PM