In Our Face- Part I

It is uncommon to not have TV. And yet I do not have TV.
As a result, I'm not used to turning on a TV.

As I headed out to the small Wyoming airport Thursday morning, the four year old boy where I was staying turned on his cartoons and stopped at a channel with Katrina footage. In sixty seconds I understood the power of television.

Only when your eyes can take in images can you grasp the visceral events of tragedy and atrocity. You can be told the words "towers fell" or "hurricane," but it all means nothing unless you see what it does, and how many it leaves behind...and who it leaves behind, days later...



The lesson in the impact of imagery was well learned by the government when the images of Vietnam came home, a lesson put to the test in the Gulf War of 1991, the media coverage of which one official said "we learned from Vietnam, and we will not have another Vietnam." Indeed, in Desert Storm cameras were only allowed to be set up on a far away terrace as the "fireworks" of Baghdad exploded. They even looked pretty-- harmless, bloodless things.

Somehow, the cameras-- for once, once! beyond the Bush White House's control--- got to Katrina (days) before help did, way before Bush coolly flew over it all in a photo op.

To mention the income level and skin color of the people left screaming for help in New Orleans all week would not only be repeating the TV and blog chatter, but is simply not informative. Any blog reader or TV watcher has eyes, and our eyes saw poverty poverty poverty, black black black, with the rare exception of an elderly or very poor white. What it was was an acidic, ugly mirror on the true America, shoved right in our face and simultaneously beamed out to the rest of the world. While the News Media has been coerced over the last four years into focusing on sappy-music and over-digi-graphic laden human interest stories about lost dogs, runaway brides, the righteous poetry of Evangelicals and the scandal of gay marriage, it has turned a blind eye to the Bush Administration's sky-rocketing tax cuts for the uber-rich and program cuts for everything from education to the (now step-by step prophetic) hurricane planning for New Orleans' levees. America's class divide has reached all new, scary proportions.

Last week the reality of America was all on display, and it made all of us, Right Wing and Left Wing alike, squirm, if not scream. If the Right has won its ideological war, it may not have succeeded in making us morally pure of thought but has certainly succeeded in hoodwinking us into leaving the poor, the weak, and the sick and suffering not just behind, but behind to rot. Last week we learned, much to our shock, while the sitcoms and reality shows have droned on season after season, a huge slice of its viewers live in a third world America. And last week they, the hidden ones, finally had the cameras on them for a change.

It is hard at moments like this for many of us not to sound polemic. It's a symptom of outrage.

In the fall of 2004 I went to Florida to canvass for Kerry because I thought (and have been proven) that George Bush is the worst thing for this country, not only in terms of what he had done and would do to private and civil rights, environmental health and, well, anything concerning 99.5% of people, but particularly because he had such flagrant disregard, if not hatred, for the working class and the poor.

It took me months to recoup the money I spent on that Florida canvassing trip and the $200 I gave to his campaign, and I wondered how useful I can really be to inspire change. It all made me have an important realization: the best way to be an effective Liberal is to be a rich Liberal. That's how I can advocate for the poor.

So far, this year I've gotten a lot of work. I even just got health care. So far, it has been the best year yet.

Footnotes:

You callin'' me a Liberal? Go ahead, call me the L-word. I remember pre-Goldwater-- Liberal used to be a great word, up there with Love. Here's what it means, man. From Angry Bear, a good read:

So if I had to encapsulate in a few words why I describe myself as a liberal, I would simply say this: I believe in bad luck. I think that a huge number of the forces that affect most people's lives are outside of their control - the parents that they were born to, the quality of their local educational opportunities, the management of the company that they happen to work for, the fortunes of the city or town in which they happen to live, or the industry in which they happen to find work - and that individuals who suffer from a bad family, poor education, being laid off, or a hurricaine, should not be left to live with the consequences of their plain bad luck without help from society at large.

And this, lest you think me too L... even life-long Republicans are sickened, as here from an ex-Marine:

It's over kids. Katrina put her stamp on the end times. I don't want this to be a political diatribe, but the confidence in our duly elected representatives has vanished. Everyone now knows that "there but for the grace of God go I". We've "screwed the pooch". Lack of empathy, added to hubris, multiplied by incompetence has left us little to count on.

Those of you who have rented and maintained a cash position will have the last laugh. Well, maybe not a laugh, but at least a sigh of relief.

Some economists say we'll have hyper-inflation, followed by deflation, for others it's the converse - don't matter.

Look, I'm an old man - a War Baby - before you hyper ventilating Gen X's, Gen Y's, or Z'ers start frothing at the mouth about Baby Boomers stealing your posterity - I've seen Harry Truman resolve to liberate Quemoy and Matsu, JFK embarrassed by the Bay of Pigs, LBJ seeing all those "lights at the end of the tunnel" in Viet Nam - Hell, I was there, and I was just hope'in the lights weren't go'in out on me - Richard Nixon proclaiming he's "not a crook", Jerry Ford sporting a "WIN" button (Whip Inflation Now). Jimmy Carter wearing his sweater on TV, asking us to please turn down the thermostat, Ronnie proclaiming that the liberation of Granada is bigger than D-Day. Saw Bush 41 and the rest of the world go into the desert and do a really decent job of it. Saw Clinton weather a political storm and give us peace and prosperity. Seen it, done it, lived it - but until this turd landed in the White House, I've not seen anything like this.

So, don't despair if your priced out of a house right now - save the cash, love your family, and by all means make plans to not become someone in front of the NOLA Convention Center.

I want the best for my country and its citizens, but prepare for some really tough times - I tell my friends and family that "once around the block is enough". You young people are going to have it really hard - please take care of one another, and remember that look'in after the "commonweal" is what will get you through. And that ain't communism - that's just common sense.