When Their Back is to the Wall

I guess I should have expected this time was going to come. I've finally lost someone I once considered a friend over politics.

I have plenty of friends I disagree with politically. We have a lot of fun sometimes, arguing in circles and we laugh a lot afterward. We never get personal, never call each other names. We have respect for each other.
But as Shrubya's poll numbers decline and the Administration shows it's true incompetence in various ways (Karl Rove, Katrina and the fallout, etc.) some people can't argue the facts anymore. When faced with facts they cannot refute, they resort to calling people names and insulting them. This is when I stop being friends with them. If you don't have respect for someone on that level to respectfully disagree with them, I don't want any part of you.

On another forum, I posted a story from a Baton Rouge paper under the headline "Remember the Picture of the Submerged Buses?" After Katrina, every news outlet and right-wing parrot was asking why the governor and/or mayor didn't use those buses to get people out (never mind that those buses had to be driven by people who had families that probably needed to be evacuated too - the exact situation we saw in Houston where people stopped coming to work at the airport, but I digress). The article clearly stated that FEMA told the Governor and Mayor they had to approve the buses used for evacuation.
Suddenly I am being called a liar and twisting things - that one had nothing to do with the other. There is no way the person doing this didn't know what people had been saying about that initial picture. In fact, I'd lay money he was someone saying the same thing. Temporary amnesia seems to take over when the facts disagree with the way they want to believe things have happened. He can't argue the point, so he resorts to name-calling in a public forum.

I had a source - which I reprinted part of and linked to the rest that stated the situation. Yet I was called a liar;

I can't understand what is going on in this country when seemingly intelligent people have to follow someone in their political party so blindly they can't accept or level any criticism. I sure don't do that with the Democrats - I get frustrated and disagree at times. My one close friend who voted for Shrubya even expressed some reservations about how he handled the aftermath of the hurricane - but he lived through a few natural disasters and knows what to expect. Is that what it comes down to? You have to have some personal experience to refer to - the suffering of others no longer matters?

I suppose I should take some comfort that those who have a blind, Nazi-like allegiance to Shrubya are starting to feel the heat - it means his incompetence is finally being called on the carpet and they can’t argue the facts because the facts prove them wrong. But I find it sad that otherwise intelligent people can’t see that the Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes.

Someone I Know Almost Died

I've spent the last week worrying about someone who is probably my best friend in the world right now. He's a sweetheart of a guy who came within about 48 hours of dying.

A week ago he thought he had food poisoning or a virus. It turned out to be a blocked bile duct both to the pancreas and the gall bladder. The doctor told him straight out it's from his years of smoking and if he didn't quit he was within 12-13 years of dying from this. It was a real wake-up call. He doesn't blame the cigarette companies and neither do I. It's a personal choice he made.

However, what sucks is the health insurance - or lack thereof - in this country. He's self-employed and works damn hard but can't afford a policy for his family. I can't imagine what his bills will come to. He spent five nights in the hospital, had two "procedures" done, and one ambulance ride. The Cipro for his infection cost $60. It almost certainly means he will be declaring bankruptcy and seeing how the chips fall for keeping his equipment for his business.

But people continue to bury their heads in the sand - if they are all right and have health insurance, why should they care about anyone else? I am fast growing tired of trying to make the point to them that it could be anyone - their neighbors, their relatives, their children one day. They just don't seem to care anymore unless it affects them directly.

When did this happen to us as Americans? When did we become so terribly selfish? What can we do to change it?

I don't have the answers, but I despair for my country when I seriously think about it.

I've been alternating between relief, rage, and guilt as of late. We survived Katrina v 1.0 while on vacation in Southern Florida. For a while it looked like we were in the direct path of the storm then it jogged a bit to the south. While it was relief for me and my family (not to mention my in-laws who's condo last the roof LAST YEAR in Frances and it's finally being fixed NOW) short of the storm turning around and heading out to sea, it meant suffering for some. I couldn't rejoice in my own good fortune while others didn't fare as well.

It was compounded more after she came asher in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The horrors there are perhaps the worst things I've ever seen in my life. I was worried for quite some time about my friend's family - he grew up in that area and has a huge family. He alone has 11 siblings and his family has cousins, uncles, aunts, etc. all over the place. When I emailed him right after Katrina, he was glued to the television watching for anything that looked familiar.

And then... nothing. For days, it seemed like nothing. Someone dropped the ball, and whatever happened to "the buck stops here". President Excuse is busy rehashing the great times he had drinking along the Gulf Coast and promising to bring it back to something better than it was before. Sounds a lot like Nero fiddling while Rome burned. People are suffocating in their attics because they have no way out and he laments the loss of a great place to kick back with his buddies? Is this man remotely living in the real world?

And of course his die-hard supporters went to work right away, blaming the whole thing on the black people who were looting. I would challenge any of them to go without water for three or four days - watch their children or parents dying in front of them - watch their skin erupt in open sores from the toxicity of the water - and hear nothing from our government. What would they do? Sit around singing Kum Ba Ya?

There is never an excuse for murder or rape, but the looting... But heck, if I was there with my kids I would be doing whatever it took to survive. I've heard people calling them animals. Would they do that if the color of their skin was different? Probably not. The die-hard Bush supporters are in full-swing, demonizing people who are probably in a panic mode just to survive. One chastizes the Mayor of New Orleans for not calling for calm - see, it's all his fault. It's not that Bush was on vacation and couldn't be bothered... it's not that the federal government dropped the ball. It's that the mayor of the city didn't go on TELEVISION or RADIO and call for calm.

Want to take a survey of how many of these people have televisions or radios? If you could find ten working in all of the flooded areas I'd be amazed. There's also the problem of ELECTRICITY to POWER THEM!!!

The goverment saw a panicked country almost four years ago now on 9/11. What plans were put in place? I listened over and over again to how Bush was making us safer. From what? What will happen now in any metropolitan area following a disaster of this sort? Man-made or natural, it's quite obvious there are no plans in place for anything - not for getting relief supplies to the inner cities or people cut off from getting to outside resources on their own. There are no decent plans for evacuation of our cities in the event of a disaster - what about dirty bombs in the middle of downtown? How will they evacuate the surrounding areas?

Oh, and the re-building contract for New Orleans just went to Halliburton. Halliburton who's "misplaced" over $9 billion in Iraq but our taxpayer dollars just keep getting channeled in their direction.

Then there's the long term outlook economically in this country.

Where's the call from our illustrious President to his buddies over at Exxon, Shell, BP, etc. that in the wake of the disaster they have to dip into the record profits they've made since he's been in office and help the country out? I know some tourist towns who will be hurting real quick if gas prices don't come down by fall foliage season. There goes more jobs....

What happens as the price increase hits the trucking industry? As food and other basic necessities of life become too expensive for families? As people who are working part-time find that it now costs them twice as much to fill up their car?

Is anyone in our government going to do anything?



(For the record, the person who chastized the Mayor of New Orleans - her idea of relief supplies is organizing a Bible drive - even as a Christian myself I roll my eyes to that.)

Does Gum Float on Vulcan?