Yesterday should have been...
...a happy day for me. If it hadn't been for the hurricane, I would have had a party or gone out to dinner or something.
I got the keys to our new apartment in Lausanne. I visited it several weeks ago, signed the papers ten days ago, but was waiting on a few kinks in paperwork before I said anything on the blog. My biggest advice to converts is to not say anything until it has happened. So I waited until I had the keys in my hand. And I should be happy...I'm grateful, but not happy.
I was very conflicted yesterday...here I was with an apartment that for once in my life I was able to financially contribute to, and my parents without a home for a month to two months. Which leads me to my next point-- yes I am grateful that everyone is alive in my family, but that doesn't mean that a)everyone still has cars; b)everyone has a job to go back to; c)everyone has a house to go back to; d)everyone's houses may have survived the storm, but will they surivive armed gangs of looter thugs. I know my father and the ten or so family members holed up at his house are alive, but I do not know if they have food or water. I do not know if the people staying at his house have houses or cars. My mother and stepfather's houses are standing (no we are not a money family or something, but rather a blended household where each partner came into the marriage with their own real estate) but only one of them is enviseagable for habitation in the short term, and by short term I mean within two months.
And, for all of you who want to tell me to count my blessings, I remind you of what I said yesterday-- If the middle class people I know have it bad, what about those survivors in Louisiana and Mississippi who were working minimum wage jobs and cannot afford to take a week off of work? As sad as I am for my family, I am ANGRY that portions of the American population are in a situation where they were stranded for a natural disaster. America is supposed to be one of the richest countries in the world, and while I agree that there was no way to pay for Katrina to go elsewhere, where is the social safety net? Where is the infrastructure? Oh, I forgot. Republicans don't like high taxes and social welfare plans.
A lot of the internet forums are talking about the looting and trying to make it a race issue. Call me a socialist, but I think the looting is about class struggle, but anyway. I refuse to see it as a race issue because the driving force behind the looting is anger and desperation. I'm not trying to justify the looting, the shooting and the carjacking, but these were people who were essentially left to their own devices while those more fortunate made it out of town. If the power left me, I would take power for myself, personally. If society gives me nothing, I'm gonna take back. Imagine that mentality in a mob-type situation. I'm not saying I agree, I'm just saying I'm neither surprised nor particularly disgusted or offended. Just sad for everyone and sad that the illusion our government gives of prosperity and the American Dream is just that- an illusion. Thanks Bush. Like my husband said- the professionals that could help New Orleans rebuild: engineers, national guardsmen and so on are where? Iraq. Thanks Bush. Hope your bank accounts get mighty full on the blood of those dying in New Orleans due to a lack of infrastructure and dying for your "weapons of mass destruction".
And speaking of race issues, there are a LOT of poor white people on the coast, another hard hit area. I wonder if it "just black people" looting there...What makes me mad is that people try not to make it a race issue, and then the media filters our information. For example, pictures of the Superdome are sexy...pictures of downed trees in Bogalusa are not. Likewise, I saw a picture of a white couple with some "groceries" in the French Quarter. I am sorry, but it is entirely possible they could have been looting. For the white people, the caption says, "A couple in New Orleans stocks up on provisions"... two black ladies wading through hip-deep water with bread and they are "dangerous roving looters reveling in the lawlessness of the city" or something. Ridiculous.
I am going back to Zurich tonight. I have so much to do...I wish I had the money just to fly my family over here until things calm down.
I got the keys to our new apartment in Lausanne. I visited it several weeks ago, signed the papers ten days ago, but was waiting on a few kinks in paperwork before I said anything on the blog. My biggest advice to converts is to not say anything until it has happened. So I waited until I had the keys in my hand. And I should be happy...I'm grateful, but not happy.
I was very conflicted yesterday...here I was with an apartment that for once in my life I was able to financially contribute to, and my parents without a home for a month to two months. Which leads me to my next point-- yes I am grateful that everyone is alive in my family, but that doesn't mean that a)everyone still has cars; b)everyone has a job to go back to; c)everyone has a house to go back to; d)everyone's houses may have survived the storm, but will they surivive armed gangs of looter thugs. I know my father and the ten or so family members holed up at his house are alive, but I do not know if they have food or water. I do not know if the people staying at his house have houses or cars. My mother and stepfather's houses are standing (no we are not a money family or something, but rather a blended household where each partner came into the marriage with their own real estate) but only one of them is enviseagable for habitation in the short term, and by short term I mean within two months.
And, for all of you who want to tell me to count my blessings, I remind you of what I said yesterday-- If the middle class people I know have it bad, what about those survivors in Louisiana and Mississippi who were working minimum wage jobs and cannot afford to take a week off of work? As sad as I am for my family, I am ANGRY that portions of the American population are in a situation where they were stranded for a natural disaster. America is supposed to be one of the richest countries in the world, and while I agree that there was no way to pay for Katrina to go elsewhere, where is the social safety net? Where is the infrastructure? Oh, I forgot. Republicans don't like high taxes and social welfare plans.
A lot of the internet forums are talking about the looting and trying to make it a race issue. Call me a socialist, but I think the looting is about class struggle, but anyway. I refuse to see it as a race issue because the driving force behind the looting is anger and desperation. I'm not trying to justify the looting, the shooting and the carjacking, but these were people who were essentially left to their own devices while those more fortunate made it out of town. If the power left me, I would take power for myself, personally. If society gives me nothing, I'm gonna take back. Imagine that mentality in a mob-type situation. I'm not saying I agree, I'm just saying I'm neither surprised nor particularly disgusted or offended. Just sad for everyone and sad that the illusion our government gives of prosperity and the American Dream is just that- an illusion. Thanks Bush. Like my husband said- the professionals that could help New Orleans rebuild: engineers, national guardsmen and so on are where? Iraq. Thanks Bush. Hope your bank accounts get mighty full on the blood of those dying in New Orleans due to a lack of infrastructure and dying for your "weapons of mass destruction".
And speaking of race issues, there are a LOT of poor white people on the coast, another hard hit area. I wonder if it "just black people" looting there...What makes me mad is that people try not to make it a race issue, and then the media filters our information. For example, pictures of the Superdome are sexy...pictures of downed trees in Bogalusa are not. Likewise, I saw a picture of a white couple with some "groceries" in the French Quarter. I am sorry, but it is entirely possible they could have been looting. For the white people, the caption says, "A couple in New Orleans stocks up on provisions"... two black ladies wading through hip-deep water with bread and they are "dangerous roving looters reveling in the lawlessness of the city" or something. Ridiculous.
I am going back to Zurich tonight. I have so much to do...I wish I had the money just to fly my family over here until things calm down.
posted by The DP at
8:09 AM
