I'm So Pissed Off Right Now

I am watching Bush in Alabama with the governors of Alabama and Mississippi thanking the president and the federal government and FEMA and how great they've been this week.

WTF?!

Bush is standing there and getting briefed as if this is the first time anyone has told him anything. He's asking about cell phone towers...

No one is talking about food or water or dead bodies or people trapped or electricity or gasoline.

And they are thanking each other.

And all these officials are white while the vast majority of people dying and lost and trapped are black and I can't get past this as the most clear explanation of the problems of class and race in the majority of this country.

Class is the big deal. The reason these people are trapped and dying is because they are poor first.

Watching MSNBC and CNN this morning, I got the feeling that news reporters are simply done with the federal government. They can't understand how they can get access to these people and find them and walk the streets relatively safely but the government can't.

Why are people moving so fucking slowly? Why aren't there just a stream of greyhound buses into the city? Or military cargo and transport planes landing nearby?

As Jesse Jackson Jr said this morning: Where are the hotels and motels to house people?

And why is the president in fucking Mobile, Alabama? And why is he talking about Law & Order?

Can't we talk about life?

Damnit.

Fucking Damnit.

"Out of this chaos will become a fantastic Gulf Coast! Out of Trent Lott's house will come a fantastic house and I'm going to sit on the front porch!" our president says.

Yeah, fuck you, Mr. Bush.

Comments

[Robin]

Yah me too.
and I'm not surprised.
when you are Black and poor in the US of A you don't count for much.

[ej]

I turned off my tv before he could even speak.

[Nichelle]

I agree. It pisses me off.

[amandarin]

This is why Ray Nagin should be running the country.

I'm telling you, Obama/Nagin 2008.

Hey, could happen :)

[Lissa]

"Class is the big deal. The reason these people are trapped and dying is because they are poor first." - That's pretty much the reason for the immense devastation of the tsunami, too, from my understanding of things. Except that in the aftermath of the tsunamis, people were at least talking about food and water and dead bodies.

*shakes head* I've learned to avoid watching people from our administration speak. I'll read it in a newspaper, but I won't listen to it or watch it.

[Quel]

I think you speak for a lot of people. This whole thing is unbelievable.

[saga]

The more I watch & read, the angrier I become.

FEMA's chief: "Unfortunately, that's going to be attributable a lot to people who did not heed the advance warnings," Brown told CNN.

"I don't make judgments about why people chose not to leave but, you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans," he said.

And the conservative Republican media is seconding this bullshyt. Military Analysts like Col. David Hunt are agreeing with this BS. And they're going to try to pin this thing on Mayor Nagin & Governor Blanco.

Glad I'm not the only one getting pissed. Can we go kick some a$$ now?!

[terri]

yeah, like saga, i thought maybe i was just being what everyone else refers to as "militant". it's like, bush get your ass off the tv making more of your anal comments and jibberish speak and get busy with some resolutory actions...

[Angela]

yeah...great post, you brought it. This is something so inconceivable, I mean you would have thought that this had happened in some third world country that was far and difficult to deploy aid to, but mos definitely NOT in the US...Goes to show that racial divide and class seperations are well rooted in this country and aren't goin anywhere. I mean, what about the people who weren't ABLE to evacuate, why not help more in the efforts to evacuate them before the hurricane struck...

[sarah]

"The more I watch and read, the angrier I become."

STAY ANGRY.
The biggest thing that I am afraid of right now--I have many, many fears but this tops the goddamn list--is the spin and the fingerpointing and the revisionist history that are inevitably going to happen once this phase is over. The only thing* that people are going to remember a hundred years from now about this shit is the looting, and the gangs, and the fact that everyone allegedly had an opporunity to leave and the fact that New Orleans Basically Brought This Upon Themselves. I am afraid that once the city is evacuated and the dead are counted and they begin to rebuild we're going to pretend like nothing happened and move on to the next thing that Paula Zahn can become hysterical about. People need to remember this; remember exactly how it happened and speak the fuck up when the President and the director of FEMA start telling us there was nothing anyone could do. Our voices are all we have. Please, please PLEASE keep using them.

[sarah]

and *was supposed to mean debatably. Oops.

[Please HELP]

I totally agree. SIX DAYS of LIP SERVICE AND INACTION.

Meanwhile, when Bush's brother comes a calling after a hurricane. $$$,$$$,$$$ just comes pouring of George's ASSHOLE. What F is up with that?

People sit sanitized while babies DIE. In the next couple of weeks when all the real horror stories surface, then we'll see the true cost of Bush's NEGLIGENCE and CHRISTIAN values.

George, just go back on vacation since that's ALL YOU'RE GOOD AT.

By the way, he WAS ON VACATION when this happened. Obviously, his golf game was more important then his citizens.

[marietta]

"This is why Ray Nagin should be running the country.

I'm telling you, Obama/Nagin 2008."

If Nagin is so great, why didn't he get the people out???? what's is wrong with everybody!!! He's an idiot!!!

[lynore]

I am absolutely beside myself and ready to slap anybody silly who had anything to do with the extremely slow response to Katrina victims. As black as the night is long, I have DNA somewhere in Louisiana. Here's my story: my mom was born in Clinton in 1926. My grandfather moved his wife and five children to California after the flood in 1927. Rumor has it that white men were molesting his family and he had no alternative but to flee or die. I was a little girl, oh about 5 or 6, when Grandpa Fred took my sister and me to work one day. He operated a huge earth mover. What is now Dodger stadium in Los Angeles was then a big dirt hole in the ground. My grandmother died of a foot infection because no L.A. hospital would treat her. She left behind 3 pre-teen girls and two sons. I admit, my grandparents weren't the smartest people in the world because of minimal educational opportunities, but they had religion, humor, pride and a sense of family, Time flies. I graduated from high school and was on my way to college. Mommy had grandpa's frail body in the car on the way to Harbor General Hospital in Carson, CA. He was dying and I think he knew he had worked himself to death. At the end of our long driveway, Grandpa offered me $20 to be applied to my college fund. I refused and pushed it back in his hand. He told me, "Suzie, the only thing you should push in this world is a pencil, so educate yourself". I cried as they drove off. I wish that Grandpa was here to see that I did what he said: got out of the ghetto, graduated from college, made a fruitful life for myself and I am not desperate or broke from the voyage from Compton, Ca to Bainbridge Island, WA.

[glad]

You're not the only one p*ssed at the lack of action over at macjams someone did a song about it

kanye West v Condoleeza is the best track as it's been remixed from the original kanye West v Bush. I think it kicks republican/democrat ineffective ass!

http://www.macjams.com/artist/maricia69

[Jaron Mathews]

If you live in a swamp, you are going to get your feet wet. Anybody that expects the government to pay for this is just fucking stupid. Ya, they should be down there, working their asses off-and they are. Anybody who thinks this is a race issue is a racist themselves. Get pissed. The truth hurts.