Stream of Consciousness

For the Record...

I need to get this stored somewhere. What we have, summed up by Keith Olbermann. After September 11, 2001. After Katrina, after Abu Ghraib, after Guantanamo, after secret prisons, after stolen elections and Supreme Court sell-outs, after lies and propaganda and 1984 and Brave New World coming true even more horrific than either author ever imagined. After religious right-wing rapture lunacy and refutation of respectable global warming science. After it became hard, sometimes impossible to keep hope alive, to want to keep living in this country, to not want to search your family tree find some Irish grandparent whom you could claim, who could take you in, exempt you from the stupidity, the docility, the lemming-like obedience, the inanity that seems to have become this US of A:

Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment on Bush: Who has left this hole in the ground? We have not forgotten, Mr. President. You have. May this country forgive you

Full Transcript:

And lastly tonight a Special Comment on why we are here. Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space.
And for 40 days after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.
And all the time, I knew that the very air I breathed contained the remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in the planes and — as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still into my soul — two more in the Towers.
And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors.
I belabor this to emphasize that, for me… this was, and is, and always shall be, personal.
And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft", or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here — is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante — and at worst, an idiot — whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.
However. Of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast — of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds… none of us could have predicted… this.
Five years later this space… is still empty.
Five years later there is no Memorial to the dead.
Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.
Five years later this country’s wound is still open.
Five years… later this country’s mass grave is still unmarked.
Five years later… this is still… just a background for a photo-op.
It is beyond shameful.
—
At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial — barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field, Mr. Lincoln said "we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."
Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.
Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. "We can nto dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground." So we won’t.
Instead they bicker and buck-pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they’re doing — instead of doing any job at all.
Five years later, Mr. Bush… we are still fighting the terrorists on these streets. And look carefully, sir — on these 16 empty acres, the terrorists… are clearly, still winning.
And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it.
—
And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this city, and in the fabric of our nation.
There is, its symbolism — of the promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution.
The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it… was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.
Those who did not belong to his party — tabled that.
Those who doubted the mechanics of his election — ignored that.
Those who wondered of his qualifications — forgot that.
History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government, by its critics.
It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation’s wounds, but to take political advantage.
Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.
The President — and those around him — did that.
They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused; as appeasers; as those who, in the Vice President’s words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."
They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken… a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated Al-Qaeda as much as we did.
The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had ’something to do’ with 9/11, is "lying by implication."
The impolite phrase, is "impeachable offense."
Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space… and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.
Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.
Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated, that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible — for anything — in his own administration.
Yet what is happening this very night?
A mini-series, created, influenced — possibly financed by — the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes.
The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option.
How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death… after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections… how dare you or those around you… ever "spin" 9/11.
—
Just as the terrorists have succeeded — are still succeeding — as long as there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero…
So too have they succeeded, and are still succeeding — as long as this government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans.
This is an odd point to cite a television program, especially one from March of 1960. But as Disney’s continuing sell-out of the truth (and this country) suggests, even television programs can be powerful things.
And long ago, a series called "The Twilight Zone" broadcast a riveting episode entitled "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."
In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by extra-terrestrials disguised as humans. The electricity goes out. A neighbor pleads for calm.
Suddenly his car — and only his car — starts. Someone suggests he must be the alien. Then another man’s lights go on.
As charges and suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are inevitably produced.
An "alien" is shot — but he turns out to be just another neighbor, returning from going for help.
The camera pulls back to a near-by hill, where two extra-terrestrials areseen, manipulating a small device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice that there’s no need to actually attack, that you just turn off a few of the human machines and then, "they pick the most dangerous enemy they can find, and it’s themselves."
And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod Serling sums it up with words of remarkable prescience, given where we find ourselves tonight.
"The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices - to be found only in the minds of men.
"For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own — for the children, and the children yet unborn."
—
When those who dissent are told time and time again — as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus — that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American…
When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"… look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:
Who has left this hole in the ground?
We have not forgotten, Mr. President.
You have.
May this country forgive you.

My Mule, Sal

I'm having a hard time listening to Bruce sing about a mule tonight and not miss my animal, my devoted cat/companion, departed this world 18 May 2006, Balthazar. What does matter, real estate investments or the best possible cat this side of the known universe who left, altruistically that day, to accompany a woman dying way-too-soon of hideous cancer on her journey? What does it matter, publications blurbs or a community of people and animals who adore you? Is this the freak-out of a 50 year old wash-up or the stark, raving, lunatic truth?

A Story About the Loss of a Body

Homage to Robert Hass:

The elderly cat, sleeping the winter in a welter of goose-down, studied her for a springtime week. She was restless, a writer, just-turned 50 and he knew how he was devoted to her. He loved her touch, and her touch was the way she held his body to her lap, moved her hands under his neck, talked to him when she made scribbled and indulgent entries in her morning journal, staccato-kissed the top of his head. One day, coming down from the woodshed, he walked up the grass to meet her and she carried him from the grass back to the catnip in the garden, “I think you would like this, this would make you happy, but I must go, I have a double bassoon to put on the stereo and asparagus quiche to bake for an arthritic visitor and her pup.” When the cat didn't understand, the woman said, “Is it so obvious I've lost my zest?” The insouciance that he'd carried in his spine and his step—her refuge—faded slowly, and he made himself look at her when he purred what, in thinking back, must have been “I'm sorry, it's time I go.” He walked back to his spot on the deck, slept moments in the sun and, in the afternoon, when she was otherwise occupied, found the small white passage into the mystery beyond all of our front doors. It looked to be full of catnip, but he found when he walked further the catnip was on top; the rest of the way—she must have raked this from the oak leaves last fall—was the tunnel of her tears.

Three Long Days...

I don't know how to begin to write this. I don't want silly sentimentality to overwhelm what's heartfelt. Thursday morning, or early afternoon, my beloved cat, Balthazar, disappeared. Three days later, he's still missing. The reality is, he's likely dead. He was diagnosed with Chronic Renal Failure (CRF) last fall, a terminal disease in cats especially if they, like him, refuse to adapt to the treatment which is mostly sub-cutaneous fluids injected every few days under the skin. After several sessions with all of us trying to inject him, it became clear: Balthazar was an Oregon Death with Dignity cat.

The problem is, with his disappearance, his walking off onto his own personal Coast Range ice floe, who can know if his death was with dignity or if, instead, it was suffering and anguish to the max?

But like Rumi says, and I noted on the day Balthazar disappeared, I did kneel down and kiss the ground, and my cat as he walked on the earth, perhaps the last time I saw him, plunking him down next to his favorite, catnip, during a great morning that began with him helping me write and me writing how much I loved this thinning creature who kept me company while I wrote, sentinel of my lap.

It's been a rough three days. From where he could be to madness searching. From stoic resignation to barely a half-life of acceptance that we'll never get to kiss him, see him again. Every now and then in this life some of us are given the gift of Buddha animals; Balthazar was one of those.

There's a hole, an abyss, a huge chasm in my life that he used to sit in, fill up, inhabit, charm me with. Supposedly time heals such wounds. Right now, only sleep is doing the trick.

Rise Up, Rise Up...

People marching in the streets against the draconian, corrupt, immoral anti-immigration legislation the lovely US Senate wants to enact. Sunday, half a million in LA. Today high school kids through LA and other cities. The news reports I've read called it "impromptu and spontaneous." Reading of these actions has cheered me. It's also made me remember, once again, how beaten down, how resigned, how demoralized and dispirited so many of us have become since that December day in 2000 when the Supreme Court gave the stolen election to the idiot Bush and the cabal. Maybe maybe maybe maybe this rising up can swell, be one of those moments that turns the tides..

Speaking Truth to Power

Welcome breath, words all we have, breathing, breathing, a few alleluias, and a long overdue sigh of relief:

At Coretta Scott King's funeral, Reverend Dr. Joseph Lowery did "what the movement has always done - speak truth to power, and was rewarded with several standing ovations. His poetic tribute to Mrs. King spoke of 'weapons of misdirection...millions without health insurance, poverty abounds. For war billions more, but no more for the poor.' " And the non-reality-based, Republican-dominated slime machine christens this, too political. For shame, for shame. You all deserve Dante's worst ring of hell.

Make Levees, Not War: September 24, 2005

Took to the streets again, to march against these criminals who've hijacked the government of the United States. Second time in three years I've gone to D.C., marched with likely 100,000 others, imagination unbound, creativity unfurled in signs that protest, that condemn, that demand we stop the insanity, bring our troops and resources home. Got to stand by the fence that surrounds the White House this time. Of course, Bush wasn't home. Snipers on the roof a silhouetted presence, reminder of the Soviet-like police state the US has become. V. painted signs, brought one for each of us, messages on both sides. We were quite the popular quartet, posing for probably a hundred photos. A peach with cowboy hat, boots and spurs, Impeach W. the words. Mine said "W (with a crown): The crowning achievement of a country that eats too much and thinks too little."

As expected, people connected dots between the failures during Hurricane Katrina and the fact that money and resources have been diverted to waging this folly in Iraq. Make levees, not war emblazoned across many a T-shirt and poster. Lots of street theatre, shouting, young people with giant papier mache puppets of Bush, Cheney, even Bill Clinton over their heads.

The saddest, most moving of displays was the group of volunteers who carried a long clothesline/rope that bore 8.5 X 11 photos of each and every soldier killed to date in this immoral, illegal, unnecessary way. The crowd moved aside to make way for them and I swear the line of 1900+ took at least a mile to pass.

My New Hero -- Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans

Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans. Finally a politican who speaks from his heart, isn't afraid of the consquence of speaking the truth, actually is truthful, cries for help, CRIES while being interviewed by Garland Robinette on WWL AM 870 radio earlier today. Randi Rhodes played the whole exchange on her Air America show today. By the end, if you have any heart at all, you are in tears.

“They flew down here one time two days after the doggone event was over with TV cameras, AP reporters, all kind of goddamn — excuse my French everybody in America, but I am pissed,” Mr. Nagin said. There's more, I'm trying to find the whole transcript. His words should be boomed around the entire world.

Found the transcript:

September 2, 2005
Mayor C. Ray Nagin's Interview

Mayor C. Ray Nagin lashed out at federal officials, telling a local radio station "they don't have a clue what's going on down here." The following is a transcript of the interview with WWL-AM.
Listen to the mp3
MAYOR RAY NAGIN: I told him we had an incredible crisis here and that his flying over in Air Force One does not do it justice. And that I have been all around this city, and I am very frustrated because we are not able to marshal resources and we're outmanned in just about every respect.

You know the reason why the looters got out of control? Because we had most of our resources saving people, thousands of people that were stuck in attics, man, old ladies. ... You pull off the doggone ventilator vent and you look down there and they're standing in there in water up to their freaking necks.

And they don't have a clue what's going on down here. They flew down here one time two days after the doggone event was over with TV cameras, AP reporters, all kind of goddamn -- excuse my French everybody in America, but I am pissed.

WWL: Did you say to the president of the United States, "I need the military in here"?

NAGIN: I said, "I need everything."

Now, I will tell you this -- and I give the president some credit on this -- he sent one John Wayne dude down here that can get some stuff done, and his name is [Lt.] Gen. [Russel] Honore.

And he came off the doggone chopper, and he started cussing and people started moving. And he's getting some stuff done.

They ought to give that guy -- if they don't want to give it to me, give him full authority to get the job done, and we can save some people.

WWL: What do you need right now to get control of this situation?

NAGIN: I need reinforcements, I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. We ain't talking about -- you know, one of the briefings we had, they were talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out here.

I'm like, "You got to be kidding me. This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans."

That's -- they're thinking small, man. And this is a major, major, major deal. And I can't emphasize it enough, man. This is crazy.

I've got 15,000 to 20,000 people over at the convention center. It's bursting at the seams. The poor people in Plaquemines Parish. ... We don't have anything, and we're sharing with our brothers in Plaquemines Parish.

It's awful down here, man.

WWL: Do you believe that the president is seeing this, holding a news conference on it but can't do anything until [Louisiana Gov.] Kathleen Blanco requested him to do it? And do you know whether or not she has made that request?

NAGIN: I have no idea what they're doing. But I will tell you this: You know, God is looking down on all this, and if they are not doing everything in their power to save people, they are going to pay the price. Because every day that we delay, people are dying and they're dying by the hundreds, I'm willing to bet you.

We're getting reports and calls that are breaking my heart, from people saying, "I've been in my attic. I can't take it anymore. The water is up to my neck. I don't think I can hold out." And that's happening as we speak.

You know what really upsets me, Garland? We told everybody the importance of the 17th Street Canal issue. We said, "Please, please take care of this. We don't care what you do. Figure it out."

WWL: Who'd you say that to?

NAGIN: Everybody: the governor, Homeland Security, FEMA. You name it, we said it.

And they allowed that pumping station next to Pumping Station 6 to go under water. Our sewage and water board people ... stayed there and endangered their lives.

And what happened when that pumping station went down, the water started flowing again in the city, and it starting getting to levels that probably killed more people.

In addition to that, we had water flowing through the pipes in the city. That's a power station over there.

So there's no water flowing anywhere on the east bank of Orleans Parish. So our critical water supply was destroyed because of lack of action.

WWL: Why couldn't they drop the 3,000-pound sandbags or the containers that they were talking about earlier? Was it an engineering feat that just couldn't be done?

NAGIN: They said it was some pulleys that they had to manufacture. But, you know, in a state of emergency, man, you are creative, you figure out ways to get stuff done.

Then they told me that they went overnight, and they built 17 concrete structures and they had the pulleys on them and they were going to drop them.

I flew over that thing yesterday, and it's in the same shape that it was after the storm hit. There is nothing happening. And they're feeding the public a line of bull and they're spinning, and people are dying down here.

WWL: If some of the public called and they're right, that there's a law that the president, that the federal government can't do anything without local or state requests, would you request martial law?

NAGIN: I've already called for martial law in the city of New Orleans. We did that a few days ago.

WWL: Did the governor do that, too? NAGIN: I don't know. I don't think so.

But we called for martial law when we realized that the looting was getting out of control. And we redirected all of our police officers back to patrolling the streets. They were dead-tired from saving people, but they worked all night because we thought this thing was going to blow wide open last night. And so we redirected all of our resources, and we hold it under check.

I'm not sure if we can do that another night with the current resources.

And I am telling you right now: They're showing all these reports of people looting and doing all that weird stuff, and they are doing that, but people are desperate and they're trying to find food and water, the majority of them.

Now you got some knuckleheads out there, and they are taking advantage of this lawless -- this situation where, you know, we can't really control it, and they're doing some awful, awful things. But that's a small majority of the people. Most people are looking to try and survive.

And one of the things people -- nobody's talked about this. Drugs flowed in and out of New Orleans and the surrounding metropolitan area so freely it was scary to me, and that's why we were having the escalation in murders. People don't want to talk about this, but I'm going to talk about it.

You have drug addicts that are now walking around this city looking for a fix, and that's the reason why they were breaking in hospitals and drugstores. They're looking for something to take the edge off of their jones, if you will.

And right now, they don't have anything to take the edge off. And they've probably found guns. So what you're seeing is drug-starving crazy addicts, drug addicts, that are wrecking havoc. And we don't have the manpower to adequately deal with it. We can only target certain sections of the city and form a perimeter around them and hope to God that we're not overrun.

WWL: Well, you and I must be in the minority. Because apparently there's a section of our citizenry out there that thinks because of a law that says the federal government can't come in unless requested by the proper people, that everything that's going on to this point has been done as good as it can possibly be.

NAGIN: Really?

WWL: I know you don't feel that way.

NAGIN: Well, did the tsunami victims request? Did it go through a formal process to request?

You know, did the Iraqi people request that we go in there? Did they ask us to go in there? What is more important?

And I'll tell you, man, I'm probably going get in a whole bunch of trouble. I'm probably going to get in so much trouble it ain't even funny. You probably won't even want to deal with me after this interview is over.

WWL: You and I will be in the funny place together.

NAGIN: But we authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq lickety-quick. After 9/11, we gave the president unprecedented powers lickety-quick to take care of New York and other places.

Now, you mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through, a place that is so unique when you mention New Orleans anywhere around the world, everybody's eyes light up -- you mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need? Come on, man.

You know, I'm not one of those drug addicts. I am thinking very clearly.

And I don't know whose problem it is. I don't know whether it's the governor's problem. I don't know whether it's the president's problem, but somebody needs to get their ass on a plane and sit down, the two of them, and figure this out right now.

WWL: What can we do here?

NAGIN: Keep talking about it.

WWL: We'll do that. What else can we do?

NAGIN: Organize people to write letters and make calls to their congressmen, to the president, to the governor. Flood their doggone offices with requests to do something. This is ridiculous.

I don't want to see anybody do anymore goddamn press conferences. Put a moratorium on press conferences. Don't do another press conference until the resources are in this city. And then come down to this city and stand with us when there are military trucks and troops that we can't even count.

Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here. It's too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country.

WWL: I'll say it right now, you're the only politician that's called and called for arms like this. And if -- whatever it takes, the governor, president -- whatever law precedent it takes, whatever it takes, I bet that the people listening to you are on your side.

NAGIN: Well, I hope so, Garland. I am just -- I'm at the point now where it don't matter. People are dying. They don't have homes. They don't have jobs. The city of New Orleans will never be the same in this time.

WWL: We're both pretty speechless here.

NAGIN: Yeah, I don't know what to say. I got to go.