Thursday, September 22, 2005

The Reticence of the Teflon Mind

It is still amazing to me that the nightmare of Katrina brought to bear such terrible realizations about America and our "character". I confess that even after all these years of trying to think critically about such matters, and having reality rear its moronic head almost hourly... it must be a sign of illness indeed that I remain even capable of surprise. Why on earth do I keep expecting reality to defy reason, to reveal my projected hopes? My capacity to be surprised tells me my naive perceptions still need to be challenged. Or I need to be hit with a hammer. My attachment to this idea that people can be " sufficiently moved" to act needs a rewrite.

If losing one's spiritual virginity is a process, then this event was part of the foreplay.
And yet I am so consumed with guilt for even thinking about my petty sense of things, my dissappointments.. indeed, how dare I? No, I cannot lay claim to being party to anything other than witness to disgrace, attending the dinner and lingering late to drink with the stragglers of condemnation.

No, I do not know the reality of clutching my baby to my body and knowing life has left her and the world has died before my eyes. I cannot know what it feels like to be stuck and hopeful for help that never comes. What do we, or can we, know of that? I cannot pretend to hold a spot on any victim pile- I know that my victimization comes by vicarious self-centered proxy, only as part of the society that has been , in effect, let down. I am not angry because I was left to die- I am angry because life is valuable, and hesitation and disorganization translated into a death sentence for so many. Do they not talk about a culture of life, the value of every soul, down to the tiny unborn? How does condemnation and abandonment jive with that rhetoric? There were no doubt fetal souls beneath the waters, what say you pigs on that? Death knows not whose hand deals the blow. Life only matters to you when you legislate me.

And so we are left with this ambiguous grief and rage against this hypocritical ENTITY whose role we are not even so clear about, the ambiguous apparatus of some machine we call government. We do not know what we expected. We only know we expected much more than what was done. We expected emergency management. More than that, we expected people to care about the lives of unknown 'others'. Perhaps my jaw-drop response to hypocrisy and cruelty is getting a bit old. What part of "don't give a shit" can I not understand?

There are times in life when we have these horrific aha-style "fuck-with-innocence-type" moments, when we realize the potential for nuclear annihilation for example, and the real context of the term 'hair trigger alert". When we see the famous photo of the famine-stricken infant next to the vulture awaiting his death. ..The moments when we say "How can this be?" over and over. Crazymaking things.

I do say this- understanding that many good people volunteered and worked very hard to help. But perhaps it is just a matter of proportion. Collectively, as a nation that supports the actions of the administration seemingly without question- we revealed ourselves not only as incompetent, but heartless. Those of us that struggle toward optimism, rally for hope, that tend to think more of people than they generally deserve...those among us that have trouble accepting the carelessness and indifference of other people and try to attribute anti-social behaviors to a sad spectrum of causations... take pause.

Their indifference comes without insight and without apology. We look for remorse at the very least, for somebody to at least take responsibility in earnest. Few do. We look to our neighbors, fellow Americans, to share our anger. We find that few do. We look at the groups that struggle against the propaganda mechanations to seek truth, to expose corruption and deception- and we find it falls on ears that will not know or care.

We learn that as we age, we collect these pathetic epiphanies, we learn this is not the first time or the last time. So...

Lets jot down in our minds the remarks about Trent Lott's coastal home (sniff, poor Trent!) and as Molly Ivins reminds us at Truthout : "... that great Houstonian Barbara Bush, said after visiting the Astrodome, those people are better off now because "they were underprivileged anyway."

3 comments:

Cantankerous Bitch said...

Exceptional, Lily. Thank you for this.

I don't know about you, but I'm caught between being infuriated at those that support Bush, and at those that can't organize a meaningful opposition to his administration. To say that I'm disappointed in the Democratic party is such an understatement as to feel silly typing it.

I didn't expect the Democrats to actually garner the votes to deprive Roberts of confirmation, but I am absolutely crestfallen over their near unanimous roll-over. However unconsciously, I watched their role in the vetting process and took it as litmus test: Will this party convey the depth and detail of its reservations toward this man with any kind of clarity? Sadly, it appears as if they did not. Sure, there were some lone voices (Feingold, Pelosi, Dean, Reid), but they were soundly ignored by the rank and file. I'd like to believe in the reassurances that the "big fight" is being saved for O'Connor's replacement, but it's increasingly difficult to find a reason to trust them.

There's been talk on other blogs lately that we may finally be at the time for the creation of a legitimate third party, and pragmatism aside, I find that appealing. After all, when Republicans don't like Republican policy, and when Democrats can't stop fighting with other Democrats, isn't the writing pretty much on the wall?

Lily said...

Yes indeed the writing is on the wall- but unfortunately the infighting and lack of cohesion is an epidemic that has taken hold in third parties as well- or so it looks from where I've been sitting.
Locally, the green party has seen a decline in registrants. There is no local coordinator. There are no meetings, there is no agenda. Some try to step in and respond to emails or other things- but many will tell you that around here, even environmentalists feel that it is not a practical outlet for a variety of reasons.
I thought that they were dealing with growing pains, and that they would come out fighting and hollering.... any day now...

Lily said...

Yes indeed the writing is on the wall- but unfortunately the infighting and lack of cohesion is an epidemic that has taken hold in third parties as well- or so it looks from where I've been sitting.
Locally, the green party has seen a decline in registrants. There is no local coordinator. There are no meetings, there is no agenda. Some try to step in and respond to emails or other things- but many will tell you that around here, even environmentalists feel that it is not a practical outlet for a variety of reasons.
I thought that they were dealing with growing pains, and that they would come out fighting and hollering.... any day now...