The Tipping Point

"It takes only the smallest of changes to shatter an epidemic's equilibrium"
- Malcolm Gladwell

I feel like Lawrence Fishburn at the end of School Daze running around screaming WAKE UP!!! Does anyone see what’s going on? The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved John Robert's nomination as the new Supreme Court chief justice. His confirmation by the Senate is all but guaranteed. Bush still has one more appointment to the Supreme Court. These nominations will shift the court as far right as possible. Supreme Court appointments are for life. This means that long after Bush is out of office, his views, his policies, his ideals and beliefs will live on. Bush is anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, anti-lower class, pro-wealthy, pro-business. He may not ever say it but come on we know he is. That “ preserving the culture of life” shit is just his way of saying preserving his way of life. Our civil liberties are being trampled upon.

A new law called the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention & Consumer Protection Act of 2005 will go into effect in the middle of October that basically prevents most people from filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The credit cards companies have been the biggest supporter of this law, yet they keep marketing high interest cards to low-income families. 65% of all bankruptcies stem from unpaid medical bills. A lot of those medical bills come from people who don’t have health insurance. What are you supposed to do? Not go to the doctor or hospital when you’re sick? The government claims the bill will catch wealthy people who file bankruptcy when they can pay their debts, but in doing so they’ve ensnared middle – lower class families who see bankruptcy as their only way out.

This storm was a glaring reminder of the class division in this country. During his September15 speech to the nation, President Bush asserted that poverty in America is mostly restricted to the nation's Southern states. WTF? Those of us out there struggling in New York and Philly, Detroit and Los Angeles, Midwest and Northeast were really surprised to hear that. New Orleans wasn’t an exception to the rule it is the rule. It is a microcosm. For the first time on record household incomes failed to rise for five consecutive years, yet Bush has ruled out repealing any of his tax cuts for the wealthy. Minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15 an hour since 1997 and he’s been making cuts to programs that would help the poor. This administration has constantly focused on making sure the rich stay rich and not giving a thought to the poor getting poorer. If things keep going at this rate there will no longer be a middle class. So many of the programs put in place to help the poor like the Earned Income Tax Credit and Medicaid have suffered under this administration.

“The Republican Congress largely abandoned three decades of bipartisan support for the Earned Income Tax Credit, alleging that the program was rife with fraud. Congress turned back efforts to raise the minimum wage. Cash-strapped state governments slashed their support of Medicaid. In essence, the rich got tax cuts, the poor got cuts in support.”

Before this hurricane the Bush Administration was all set to make sweeping changes and cuts to the federally funded Medicaid program, now there trying to say it’s because of the hurricane. $35 billion in spending was slated to be cut from Medicaid, food stamps, childcare, school training, and other such programs, but they want to extend $70 billion in tax cuts that will only benefit the wealthiest Americans.

The President is now telling us to conserve fuel. Don’t take a trip if you don’t need to. But he just took his seventh trip down to the Gulf. How much fuel is he using each time he departs and returns? He says he needs to be in the region to assess the damage… bullshit. Everything is under water. Damage assessed. See how easy I did that? He just needs photo ops because he knows his polls are slipping. Much like the post 9/11 Gulliani, we’ve been bombarded with images of him, sleeves rolled up, in the trenches.

Now everyone wants to make Michael Brown accountable for all the mistakes made in the aftermath of Katrina. In some ways he is at fault, but he’s just a small fish in a very big pond. The Bush administration chose to fold FEMA into the Department of Homeland Security instead of letting it stand alone as it did during the Clinton administration. The Bush administration chose to siphon money from FEMA’s budget and spend that money on the war in Iraq. The President chose to appoint Michael Brown as the head of FEMA even though he was rather inexperienced for the job. Now they want to crucify him for that inexperience. The President should be blamed just like I blame the people who elected him for a second term.


The theory of memetics tells us that ideas, practices, and messages spread just as viruses do. We need to be a little more aware of what is being spread. We need to stop taking media images and sound bytes as the whole story and dig a little deeper. We need to wake up. We are living in perilous times. The United States is not immune to the things that plague other countries. If anything we are more susceptible then ever. The tipping point is the culmination of a build-up of small changes that effects a big change. That means any one of at any given time has the opportunity to do something. We need to wake up.

Life is for the living

I feel stagnant, listless, restless. Like the very air I breathe is holding me down. I dreamed of a life so different from this. I’m living below my potential. It irks me down to my very core not to have accomplished all I dreamed of. I’m on the brink of turning 30 and when I look back on what I’ve done thus far it makes me cringe. I feel like a dormant volcano, heat flowing just beneath the surface, paused to erupt. Some intangible force is keeping me still. Complacency has seeped into my very being and taken up residence. I used to dream of a life so different from this. It seems as if that dream is 10 years and 10 thousand miles behind me now. I put off so many today’s for tomorrows not promised. I waited for signs and signals to move forward instead of blazing a trail. I’m smarter than the average bear, not to shabby to look at, witty, funny… so what has held me back? I realized it’s the fear of failure.

I was taught at a very early age to be afraid. Physical and mental abuse served as instruments to propagate that fear. My father was a mean man, very exacting and strict. He was harder on me for some reason then my brother. I don’t know if it was because I was a female or because I was older but I got the brunt of his anger. If the ice cube trays weren’t filled to the top or there was one dirty fork left in the sink he struck first and asked questions later. I tried to learn the rules of engagement but they were always changing. Anytime things in the house were quiet and I could breathe a sigh of relief, something would set him off and it would start all over again. I learned early on to always be alert to his moods and to always be prepared for anything. By the time I was 12 I had an ulcer. By the time I was 14 I was so depressed I thought about suicide almost daily. I was taught that I was less than, that my ideas and thoughts weren’t as important. I was an extension of my father, never to be mistaken for a whole person or an individual. I was a possession. My wings were clipped, and escape, in the form of my 18th birthday was a long way off. While I served my sentence I was degraded and belittled and there wasn’t much I could do about it. But what is my excuse now? By living this life I honor the man who wielded his power over me so irresponsibly. By living a half-life I give him validation. By believing the bad I was taught, I am ignoring the good that I believe. So why do I continue to live like a prisoner now that I am free? I mean I survived. I never thought I would but I did. I left December 13, 1993. The day after my 18th birthday and I haven’t been back since. I’ve never asked him for anything. Everything I have is a result of my blood, sweat, and tears. So why do I still feel like that broken bird?

I feel so desperate right now. As I write this, my heart is beating a mile a minute and I’m shaking. I feel like I’m scratching and clawing my way out of this state of mind. The urgency of it all is intoxicating and scary at the same time. I feel like I need to purge the details from my soul in order to survive another minute. I know that I am standing on the precipice of change. Instead of waiting for a sign I’m going to step out on faith. Faith that God has my back. Faith that my talents won’t go to waste. Faith that I will reap the benefits of being a good person. Faith that the universe will give back to this orphan and I will be pulled into the fold.

I think in living where I do, I’ve exchanged one prison for another. This city now serves as my subjugator. There is no culture or life; it’s dead with monotony. I see the same faces and places of my youth. They symbolize so many tears and so much unhappiness. This city and those memories are my nemesis. I want to go to a jazz club at midnight and let the music flow thru my soul. I want to hear spoken word at some hole in the wall, where the smoke is thick, and the words are blessed. I want to grow dreadlocks and dye them blond and not feel ostracized. I want to feel the vibrations of concrete during rush hour. I want to live in a city that speaks to me, one that has a story and a pulse. I want to get lost in a sea of beautiful black people all with purpose and goals, rhythm and rhyme. I want to stand in the shadow of a skyscraper and live in 3-D. This place is one-dimensional. I want.

I need to dream again. Giant dreams full of color and sound. Dreams that have me waking up sweaty and wet from the excitement of them. I want to taste my dreams and deem them delicious and worthy. I want to shed this fake demeanor and be a bitch if I want to. I want to say “no” and not worry about who it hurts. Why is no such a hard word for me? I have an extensive vocabulary, and a dictionary/thesaurus for what I don’t know, but the word no eludes me. Why should I sit in silence so others won’t be hurt? Why can’t we all be ok? I want to stand up for what I want for my son and myself. I am his mother, period. I will no longer defer to anyone when it comes to him. There is no more time for me to dwell on the past. I’ve wasted so much already. I have to start living the life I was meant to live. Unlike revenge, dreams are not best served cold. They need warmth and nurturing. You have to tend to them every minute or they will die and you will die a little with them. I will not die with my dreams. I will not rest my head on them and slumber. I will not be languid in the pursuit of them. They will not feel stiff and foreign to me. Life is for the living.

Angry

"The responsibility of government for the public safety is absolute and requires no mandate. It is in fact, the prime object for which governments come into existence."
-Winston Churchill

At a news briefing on Saturday afternoon, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said "Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater...” Uhhh last time I checked Louisiana was a state not a city. Right off the rip Alfred E. Neuman and his bunch of merry idiots were at it again. Bush says things like “we are not satisfied”, or “no one could have foreseen”, who the fuck is “we”? Once again he doesn’t take responsibility for his administration. No one could have foreseen? I mean you take a below-sea-level city, mix in a levee that was repeatedly checked and repeatedly reported as insufficient, add one bad bitch of a hurricane and you have a city that is now 80% submersed. Your whole premise for why you should be re-elected was protecting the country. Did you mean only from terrorists? And what message does this disaster send to terrorists? How can we send a message of “bring it on”, we’re prepared for whatever you throw at us, when you couldn’t even save your own people from this? Of the billions of dollars being spent daily in Iraq, not even one third of that would have been needed to improve that levee and make sure this didn’t happen. Instead of spending $454 million on bridges for Alaska, that levee should have been improved, instead of spending $193 million in Iraq, that levee should have been improved, instead of spending $500 million on the Department of Defense, that levee should have been improved. But it wasn’t. This administration promised us protection on all levels from all threats. It said the other side couldn’t do it. The Vice President said (and by the way, where the hell is he? Has anyone seen him or heard from him?) I’ll protect you, while the other guy will let you die. Well he didn’t and they didn’t and they should pay.

Everyone wants to make this about Black and White, maybe it is but I don’t think so. I think it’s just sheer ignorance and incompetence on the part of our government. I think that Bush is no more competent to run this country then my son is. But he is the President. He was voted into office and he is accountable. Period. There is no we or they or them. He should be saying “I” and “Me”. Stop shifting the blame, take responsibility for once, and do something. Pull some resources from the war and use them for your own country. If he didn’t deserve to be impeached for lying to us about the war, then he damn sure does now. Where’s Kenn Starr when we need him? Bush says the response was unacceptable and he wants an investigation. How do you investigate yourself? Let us all guess how this investigation will turn out.

Kanye West… grow the hell up. There is a time and place for everything and that wasn’t it. That was more about you than anything. Maybe George Bush doesn’t care about Black people. I think a more accurate statement is that he doesn’t care about poor people. But that’s been evident since he stepped into office. This is not a black or white thing. I saw white babies on the news suffering too. I saw white elderly people sweating and starving and dying in the sun too. It’s so easy to blame race when something like this happens. It’s the easy way out. But it goes much, much deeper than that. This was a failure of government on all levels. This is the result of a government with a singular focus. They have focused on one thing and one thing only. Terrorism. I want to say to our government, while you have your blinders on this country is suffering. While you send our troops to the slaughter, this country is suffering. While you spend dollar after dollar, waste resource after resource, cut budgets and programs, this country is suffering. Now you want us to believe this disaster was unforeseen. Bullshit. It was inevitable. You knew exactly what needed to be done to protect the citizens of New Orleans from a disaster like Katrina, yet federal funding for Louisiana flood control projects were diverted to pay for the war in Iraq. You cut funding when New Orleans was sinking. You cut funding even after it was reported that one major hurricane like Katrina could wipe the city out and kill thousands. You knew when you gave the Army Corps of Engineers $3.9 million, that they needed $20 million to finish the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project. You knew the levees needed building up and the pumping stations needed protection and you turned your back.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

That June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps' Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement," he said.

"The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them."

The 2004 hurricane season was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane- and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs. According to New Orleans City Business this

June 5:
The district has identified $35 million in projects to build and improve levees, floodwalls and pumping stations in St. Bernard, Orleans, Jefferson and St. Charles parishes. Those projects are included in a Corps line item called Lake Pontchartrain, where funding is scheduled to be cut from $5.7 million this year to $2.9 million in 2006. Naomi said it's enough to pay salaries but little else.

"We'll do some design work. We'll design the contracts and get them ready to go if we get the money. But we don't have the money to put the work in the field, and that's the problem," Naomi said.

There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:

That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount.
But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said.

The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late. One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer was a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach on Monday.

I’m angry that once again our President failed us. I’m angry that innocent lives were lost. I’m angry that citizens of the United States of America were forced to beg and grovel for food and water from the very government that swore to protect them. I’m angry that once again the President chooses to hide behind lies and deception instead of taking responsibility. I’m angry that this will happen again. There are more vulnerable cities out there. Vulnerable to hurricanes and earthquakes, volcanoes and tropical storms, and as long as money is being wasted in Iraq then funding will be cut here.

The President told us we needed this war. We needed to spend what we had to spend, send who we had to send to protect our country. To save American Lives. There are dead babies in New Orleans Mr. President. Who protected them?