And I've never even come close to it. But as an American citizen, it belongs to me as much as my own hometown does. I had the right to someday visit New Orleans, and I had the right to know that even if I didn't, its jazz and cuisine and Mardi Gras were carrying on just fine without me.
And its people are my people. My sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, mothers and fathers. The republicans have been working very hard for many years to divide this country into the haves and the have-nots, but it didn't work. We all watched in stupefied horror as this miserable, inhuman transgression against our fellow Americans played out on live TV. I don't know a living soul in New Orleans, but I felt like I should get my butt down there and help somebody, even just one person.
One person not far from me is on his way.
When It's Your Family, You Go . Similar stories are probably appearing in small town newspapers all across America right now, because none of us could have watched the news this week and not felt our hearts break at the sheer misery endured by so many of us.
The point of this diary is this: we are one country, indivisible. Bush has not managed to divide us. The federal government may think it's okay for our grandparents to die from lack of medicine, but we don't. The federal government may think it's okay for our babies to die for lack of water, but we don't. The federal government may think it's okay for our brothers and sisters to fend for themselves for days on highway overpasses, but we don't.
Tonight my family had dinner at the home of an acquaintance whom we hadn't seen since before the 2004 election. At the previous get-together, his wing-nut 'witticisms' got me so furiously angry, I swore we'd never see him again. Tonight's dinner was unavoidable, but I knew that getting through a few hours in his company was nothing compared to what others in my extended American family have gone through this week. Anyway, he jumped right in with all his "so do you liberals blame Bush for the hurricane?" crap, and you know what? It had no effect on me at all. I saw what a small, divisive person he was, and as I looked around the table I realized that no one else was listening to him either.