Awakening 2: A Rude Awakening Indeed

I awake to desperate refugees amassed in the streets, starved and ragged, driven to near madness from the heat and the hopelessness of it all. No power, no water (thats safe to even touch let alone drink) no food and no help. People have armed themselves in a desperate attempt to take matters into there own hands. The dead are left to die and rot in the streets. Women are raped infront of unflinching bystanders numbed by the insanity of it all.

Although its a sea of black faces chanting for help it is not somewhere in the far reaches of the world, not in some 3rd world country from which we are oh so used to seeing scenes such as this. No this is the good ol' US of A, The Big Easy to be exact. But hey were Americans they wont be left to suffer like this surly the most powerful country in the world will have no problem sweeping in the with choppers full of NATIONAL guard guys along with FEMA and many other brave volunteers. They should be getting there any second....... hmmm....... any moment now...... well its only been 2 days and they did say to prepare enough to keep yourself for 48-60 hours so by tomorrow the help will be here......... 4 days now and its getting ugly maybe we can steal food and water to survive, but wait whats that? Oh Great theres no help in sight but that old woman just got arrested for stealing sausage!!! Well by day 5 the help will be here...sure...anytime now.......Anytime....

Wait whats that? Yes, yes off in the distance... I think I see someone... No no wait thats just Brownie wrapping the city in red tape to help slow down the rescures...oh....hmm HEY WHAT WAIT A MINUTE!!! Isnt FEMA supposed to HELP in times like this? Yes, No, Maybe? Or does anyone even know? How dare they stand in the way of so many ready to help! The food, the ice, the water, the doctors, the aminal guys, all held back from helping, made to wait for days! WHY?!? Can someone just tell me why? Hmmm no I didnt think so! But hell Mr. Bush says that Brownie doing a good job so maybe were all just imagining this nightmare.

Well we know why the choppers were so scarce the were sent to fly the NATIONAL guard all around IRAQ! What was the 'NATIONAL' guard doing in IRAQ anyway? Are they not ment to Guard The NATION? Hence the name 'NATIONAL' guard! Are they not trained and to be held in ready for just such events?

If nothing else if they werent out fighting a war that should have never been then thousands of men and women would have been home to be there with their families to help get them through such horrible times.

But that aside it is clear that the blame lands directly on the doorstep of FEMA and their task masters the Homeland Security guys who just couldnt care less what happened to a bunch poor people down in the Big Easy if only there had been a terrorist involved then nothing would have stopped them from getting in there and doing their damn jobs! Sure Bush didnt show up for 5 days but that doesnt matter all he did was get in the way much like he has done over and over again during Hurricane Rita, Besides he's far to incompetent to be held accountable for anything more demanding then which jammys to wear to bed at night.

Now the total damages are estimated as high as $200 billion, 1000+ Fatalities (and still rising) The areas affected were the Bahamas, South Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida Panhandle over all most of eastern North America. But more importantly it has, along with Hurricane Rita, affected our country deeply, many communities are completely gone! All too many lives are changed forever, The crazy haphazard way we sent off refugees to the far corners of our country not even knowing or even having any say in where they were going! Again this begs the question, WHY?! I see no reason why they could not have stayed at least in their geographical region how are these poor people survive in many of these places theyve been sent off to where the cost of living is far to high for them to get by. Why did we separate these families like this? Not only from their homes but from other parts of their extended families like their brothers and sisters, parents and grandparents, uncles and aunts. These ties are so important to these people and now in a time that they need each other the most they find themselves cut off from these support systems many by thousands of miles. How are they ever going to get back to their homes? Just because many of these poor souls rented the places in which they lived doesnt make this any less their home.

Awakening

Who...What...Where am I? It looks familiar but it is clearly not the world I know. I used to live in a place of beauty and freedom. A place much like this place but somehow...different, the sun shown brighter in the world I had known I'm sure of it! People smiled more in the world I have seen, of that I am certin. It is a rare thing indeed that my own smile is ever returned, more often then not, I am rewarded for my happy efforts with a look of part distain and part wonder. I am sure they are wondering "What the hell are you smiling about? What’s worth smiling about in this dark and gloomy time, in this forsaken land?"

I was almost treated to a crooked little half smile from this elderly woman the other day at the gas station but she snatched it back so quickly that I was not sure that it had even been there at all. Maybe she was thinking of how she just spent half her meager social security check to fill the tank of her old boat of a car that she was still managing to get around in because her Credit Score wasn’t high enough for her to get a new one! Or on the other hand...maybe she just didn’t like the looks of me...Who knows.

As for me maybe the only reason I keep smiling like a damn fool is because I have...well...I have quite simply Snapped!!! It was all just to much to bare so I have snapped, lost it, thrown in the towel, I've giving up the proverbial 'mental ghost', I'm done, gone, Kaputz, finished, finito!

Well who can blame me for wanting to cash in my chips early on the ol' cognitive craps shoot? Hell I went to sleep in a world of bright futures, a soaring, record breaking economy were everyone who wanted to work was working. Every household had a computer and in a time when anything that ended in dot com could make money and the internet was like California during the Gold Rush it was a damn good thing. It was eight wonderful years that made people believe that maybe it really was the "American Century". We ended that century on a very high note to say the least and we looked toward the bright and shiny new millennium, collectively as Americans with high hopes and even higher aspiration. No one would have ever guessed that things could or ever would change so very, very much in such a short time. We thought our biggest problem was the Y2K bug! Ohh if we only knew then what we know now...Nevertheless I have now awoken to a world that had seemingly gone mad.

Our values have turned upsidedown, we have turned our back on the Constitution almost as if now it was somehow merely just suggestions of what the government should do and how it should conduct itself, not the Law of the Land that it is! Everything from the Patriot Act to the Senate's 'Nuclear Option'! I keep waiting for ol' Joe McCarthy's to jump out of my closet screaming "Die Commies Die!!!" But I digress...Now where was I? Oh yes...

A world where you lose your right to vote if your name sounds like or birth date is the same as a convicted felons it matters little if you have a record or not! A world were veterans both male and female of everyone’s favorite war (they say the wars over by the way tell that to the 1524 soldiers that have died since "Mission Accomplished") have to go on the Montel Williams Show to get help getting prosthesis arms and legs! A world where you can be denied aid for college if you are caught with a joint but if you murder or rape someone well that’s just fine just sign the back of the check and your on your way to higher learning. A world where 2,986 innocent people are murdered by four airliners highjacked by a few guys with utility knives and pepper spray!!! A simple steel cockpit door and some defensive training for the crew could have saved so many lives. Indeed, there were many things that could have stopped that nightmare from ever occurring but that is a story for another time. Yes, the world has truly gone mad but they say that our "Pretender-and-Chief" is "The Leader of The Free World" so going mad in my opinion was inevitable.

But that is neither here nor there though I have often wondered how the rightfully elected leaders of these "Free World Countries" feel about the concept that our "Sneak Thief-and-Chief" is the leader of their free country? Probably a lot like President Gore and President Kerry feel...Oh sorry, as I said I've snapped so I'm not responsible. No I am not sure what world this is that I have woken up to nor even who I am. Once I was a middle class guy with the promise that if I worked hard, said my prayers, eat my Wheaties and paid my taxes that I would have a good job waiting for me, a house and a wife with 2.5 kids, a new car in the driveway and another new one in a couple of years. Now the lie has been revealed it matters not how hard you work or how much education you get. The only way in this "Grave New World" to make that impossible American Dream happen is for both you and your wife to work two jobs put off having the kids until the time you should be having grandchildren. Get a dozen credit cards charge them to the max so that you’re never pay more then the monthly interest charges!

Sure there are the fortunate few who get to live out the holy grail of dreams but that group is thin and getting thinner everyday and unless you want to try and sell your soul to Mark Burnett (for what little it will get you) or happen to have a high level position working for the corrupt corporate monsters (Insert almost any major companies name here) who rape the work force to produce products that we probably dont need in the first place and would be better off without and for the things that we do need to survive they charge an arm and a leg for just because they know that it is a product that you must have and there for will pay anything they ask for no matter how outrageous! These pillers of our society who are either killing us with the products they make and the waste they leave behind to make it and/or plunder our land and rob her of her precious resources reward us for our blind loyalty to them as consumers or employees by moving their companies lock, stock and retirement plan in tow off to Mexico and guess what as a bonus they wont be asking you to keep your job and join them there. Not when they can pay someone a tenth of what they paid you to do the same job! But I digress once again; I guess that’s all part of losing it, your mind tends to wander...