homeles in new orleans, february 2004

     leaving the poor and the old and the sick behind in New Orleans is

like leaving your wonded behind on the battlfield.  it is cowardly,

shameful, a disgrace.  no plan was in place to save those who could

not get out themselves.  no one thought of them until hundreds

(maybe thousands) of them died. 

    letting the levees and their infrastruture decay for lack of funding

shows the lack of investment in our country, in our infrastucture.

years of budget cutting and "smaller" government translate to a critical

failure and the ensuing loss of life.

   katrina shows us the folly of "less is more" government.  highways,

bridges, levees, and buildings all over the u.s. are crumbling for lack

of funding.  our tax dollars go to other things, such as our on-going

invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. 

  it seems we can either have security abroad (which we don't, as each

passing suicided bomber in Baghdad shows) or a good infrastructure at

home (which we don't, as Katrina shows).  so we have neither.  our tax

dollars are wasted on both endeavors, and we are safe neither abroad

nor at home.

    do we have a choice?  does anyone?  i wonder if the fiction of

"choice" is something else katrina has demolished.  how can someone

make a choice who has no choices to make to begin with?  your

choices are limited by the means to carry those choices out.  if

you can't carry out your choices, you have no choice at all.  for

those with no money, no health, no ability to leave New Orleans,

there was no choice.

   do we, the people, really have a choice as to how our leaders spend

our tax dollars?  do we have a choice as to whether our young

men and women continue to die in Iraq and Afghanistan?

   or is our "choice" just an illusion?