Neglect, the bane of our country
Parts of the Gulf Coast remain the way they were when Katrina’s last winds blew through. A large old bridge falls apart. Human beings are dead or dying deep down in the earth where a mine collapsed. The space shuttle is out in space, held together with spit, duct tape and hope, and it’s damaged.
FEMA trailers are sitting unused because they are haunted with formaldehyde. Floridians have been told that if a big hurricane should hit our state there will be trailers but they are too dangerous to be used. FEMA says they will be looking for vacant apartment buildings to house anyone who might need them. They also said they may be able to make tents available as needed. What they didn’t say was whether these available apartments would still be standing after a hurricane passes through or even where they might be located.
Seems to me our country, or as the administration likes to refer to it, “our homeland”, is a mess. The only security this administration seems to be concerned about is keeping “terrorists” out. What about the problems we have within our country? We may have homeland security from terrorists, but what about our own insecurity due to the neglect of our country? When will we get around to talking about that? Are we going to wait until everything goes to hell before we realize that we need a war on neglect, right here, right now.
With the high cost of installing a burglar alarm in our country we neglected to fix the dilapidated roof, the worn and faulty wiring and the antiquated plumbing. What good is security if you’ve nothing to secure? It’s time to become sensible countrymen and women once again. Nothing neglected ever gets better.
FEMA trailers are sitting unused because they are haunted with formaldehyde. Floridians have been told that if a big hurricane should hit our state there will be trailers but they are too dangerous to be used. FEMA says they will be looking for vacant apartment buildings to house anyone who might need them. They also said they may be able to make tents available as needed. What they didn’t say was whether these available apartments would still be standing after a hurricane passes through or even where they might be located.
Seems to me our country, or as the administration likes to refer to it, “our homeland”, is a mess. The only security this administration seems to be concerned about is keeping “terrorists” out. What about the problems we have within our country? We may have homeland security from terrorists, but what about our own insecurity due to the neglect of our country? When will we get around to talking about that? Are we going to wait until everything goes to hell before we realize that we need a war on neglect, right here, right now.
With the high cost of installing a burglar alarm in our country we neglected to fix the dilapidated roof, the worn and faulty wiring and the antiquated plumbing. What good is security if you’ve nothing to secure? It’s time to become sensible countrymen and women once again. Nothing neglected ever gets better.
posted by pissed off patricia at 2:09 AM
31 Comments:
What irony!
And begs the question, why come here when there's nothing to come here for since it's all falling apart and no one seems to care in this government?
I never would have thought I'd see this happen here, but,
here we are! ; (
this is what you get when you want your country to live on the cheap -- farm out everything to be privatized and/or outsourced. make more money --- more money, cause the rich DONT have enough.
this is basically the premise of that creep/shithead Grover Norquist --- privatize everything and let people "profit" -- which basically means infrastructure on the cheap, recovery on the cheap, war on the cheap.
But those CEOs - on the rich
MBA president -- what a GREAT idea!
i loathe all of these people
'nuff rant for the morninig (as i watch MORE on OJ with Denise Brown and some lawyer from the Goldman family arguing about this book -- ugh)
Why does the government seem more concerned with spending a trillion dollars to kill innocent people while destroying their country, of which we will fund the rebuilding, yet refuse to spend money to rebuild and take care of our own?
Nothing to secure. Nothing to secure. That says it all.
We are morally bankrupt -not over idiocy issues of the "right wing morality" like abortion and gay marriage.
We are morally bankrupt because as the pursuit of the "culture of life" nation we have put only death on the menu.
It is all about superficiality and I have a nagging mental picture of a house nearly falling down, but with a great alarm system in place.
Speaking of alarms - wake up people!
However here the only people who will read my comments- gratefully - are those of us who are awake.
Thanks PoP for a brilliant post.
Good post Pop. Te fundamental issue is that the DHS is trying and failing to protect us from an imaginary enemy. Glen Greenwald pointed out the other day that there are a large number of people in this country that believe that if we are not on the constant ready we will be overrun with Islamic warriors who will burn down all the churches and make us all pray to Allah a half dozen times a day. The country is sick in so many ways that we are talking major meds and extensive surgery before we get any better.
...but, as our infrastructre disintegrates, we have the illusion of being safe from them.
I don't want to be safe from them anymore, I want to be safe from us.
Meanwhile, even if we roll out of the hammock and pick up a hammer, there's nothing left in the bank account to buy materials.
Excellent post, patricia!
Let's not forget about the neglect and overuse of our military and military equipment! Bush has pretty much destroyed everything in his wake except for the pocketbooks of the wealthy.
This administration came to office not to govern, but only to have and maintain power. They have bankrupted us and deflected criticism by calling enemy all those who notice the disaster. They are as damaging as the hurricane, the heat wave, the broken bridge.
great post POP. You do realize that no one puts an alarm on a pinto, and they way the country is going, we are quickly becoming the pinto. Hey that might stop the terrorists though.
i cry for the lack of optimism in this country
Well, the Roman Empire fell centuries ago, but Rome is still standing today. So the long-range American forecast isn't totally bleak. There's this old adage that goes, "If you want something done right, then you have to do it yourself." I've found that this adage really works if you can just learn how to apply it to your own life. Takes a long while to learn if you're just starting out. But it does work.
I think we're going to see more and more people following this adage over the next two or three years. Especially if we get struck with another major terrorist attack. If this batch of politicians can't protect America from 9/11-caliber attacks, then we'd do well to seek out and elect a batch of politicians who will, wouldn't we? I admire the way they handle terrorism in the U.K. -- in a serious and orderly manner. We'd do well to follow their example, too. That beats the hell out of living in low-grade but constant fear...
God love you POP-- you are so RIGHT on!!
Brilliant post. It should be sent to every candidate. But of course, they wouldn't read it, their aides would. I think that is one of the reasons I am drawn to Obama. He offers hope. I hope that isn't beaten down in the next year, and that he doesn't change his tune, so he can compete on their playing field. I want to feel hopeful, but this administration and its' lies and rhetoric has left me hopeless and us vulnerable, and not to Islamic terrorists but to terrorists in our own government and various politicos.
Amen!
You're right PoP. Ignore the ceiling falling down because there might be a Boogy Man under the bed.
Fascinating post. That's sad to be reading such things about modern day America... in Britain we're used to hearing about our country going to the dogs in so many ways.. it's part of our national post-imperial low self esteem... but to hear such a lot coming out of America about govt not bothering... etc etc etc surely this is new...?
Or am I just getting older. And using the internet more. And so noticing it more??
I know you don't know me: I hopped in via freinds of mutual friends... I'm at gledwood2.blogspot if you wanna drop by you're most welcome.
All the best
Gledwood
"vol 2" ...
ps "morning martini" ... at last I meat someone after my own heart!!
great post-you have so much wisdom-when you gonna run for prez?
AND how's about the poor of America, the huddled masses, the killings in the inner cities. How can we effect terrorists from afar when we can't have guns controlled in the inner cities.
We are being killed from within & without!
wonderful post! i 100% agree!
What do you mean they haven't fully deployed all the useful FEMA trailers? What? I thought they were fixing NOLA? It might as well stand for No Love for NOLA...
Some Republicans even want to privatize highways.
They don't want a strong infrastructure or good, broad social services. They don't want people to know what they've been missing.
Bowing down to your writing ability and talent to sum up all of that in so few paragraphs. I am not worthy.
I don't think we've got quite to the point yet...but It seems reminiscent of Soviet Russia.
dear Pop, you said it. we don't have health care because its just another reason for them to hate us.
peace, peter
Great post, I agree completely. They don't really care what happens to the country as long as they get theirs.
Go to this site to see one of the saddest but most true political cartoons I've seen in ages...
http://www.yubanet.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/29/62704
And, you have to ask: even before the Moron Who Would Be King was shoe-horned into office, why was the infrastructure allowed to deteriorate? One reason: mis-allocation of budgetary funds for political pork festivals.
Things like the DrugWar have sucked a trillion dollars down a black hole over the past 20 years, and the only concrete thing we have to show for it are prisons.
Think of what we could have done with a trillion dollars...that wouldn't have wound up being used to savage civil liberties (everything written in the PATRIOT Act had precedent in the DrugWar), incarcerating over two million people (most of whom are Black and Hispanic and now can't vote for felony drug convictions; neat way to politically emasculate your opposing party's base, no?) and acclimate the citizens to the idea of violent government raids upon their homes by putative 'public servants' who act like an invading army in their own country - and who often attack and kill the 'wrong people' in their hunt for the 'right people' under cover of the rubric of 'saving the chil-drunnnnn from drugs!' A trillion dollars pissed away...and the impetus for it largely at the R's insistence, but, sadly with no small degree of 'enabling' of the R's authoritarian impulses from from the Dems.
All that money was - and is - being used essentially to destroy lives instead of preserve them. We've got vastly better uses for it...
And if you'd like the (known) tally of people who've been killed by those who are so intent upon 'saving' them from drugs, take a look here. Some of the victims were children as young as 6 months. Nothing happened to the 'perps' as they were acting under color of law. Interesting way to 'protect' them, no?
I ask again: don't we have better things to do with our (increasingly devalued) tax dollars?
Oh god, that is depressing to think about.
HD Thoreau said, "What good is a house, if you don't have a planet to put it on?"
That seems to fit your post extremely well.
I was particularly taken with your burglar-alarm/leaky roof analogy.
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