(The following letter was sent out to my entire addressbook. Thought I should share it. So here we go)
On this fine, Aug 29th day, my sister’s birthday even, our nation finds itself considering its priorities...
In the headlines is the report that our president will be asking for an additional $50 billion, for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. From the Washington Post:
The request -- which would come on top of about $460 billion in the fiscal 2008 defense budget and $147 billion in a pending supplemental bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- is expected to be announced after congressional hearings scheduled for mid-September featuring the two top U.S. officials in Iraq. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker will assess the state of the war and the effect of the new strategy the U.S. military has pursued this year.
The cost of this war is now over $3 billion a WEEK. In one week, it costs more money than every single person on this mail thread COMBINED would make in a single year. Hell, in FIVE years. Take a look for yourself at the costs, in money and in blood, both our own and others. Please at least visit those links and get a grasp of the scope of those numbers. Each one represents a person's life, be it breath or food in the form of funds.
Increasingly, we're now hearing about what a "danger" IRAN is and a lot of the same (un)reasoning we heard towards the end of '02, before that fateful March '03 day. What AREN'T we hearing from those banging the war drums?
How much more blood and money will conflict with Iran require?
Now, I would ask you to think about today. Think about this very day, 2 years ago, and what we all watched unfold right here at home, not too far from where it is you now sit. A city renowned for its music, art, history, color, and it's joy. The city that was the site of the final major battle in the War of 1812.
Jazz, blues, Mardi Gras, Anne Rice's tales, Cajun, Bourbon Street, and much more.
A city through which flows the blood of commerce that extends throughout the heartland of America via the Mississippi and it's tributary Missouri, Arkansas, Ohio and many other rivers.
A city that was drowned and left for dead.
Two years have gone by, since I personally walked into the Red Cross and asked them to send me to help. All I heard after training was my certification of training card 9 months later.
Two years, since we saw far too many of our fellow American's sitting on their roofs shouting desperately for help as the helicopters flew on by. On the news, saw thousands stranded on bridges, in the Superdome, the convention center... and they were the luckier ones. Far too many others were found floating in the toxic waters filling the "bathtub" that the city had become.
And where, should we ask, are the people and the city we watched desperately swimming to survive not so long ago?
Here it is...
When the Saints
From the site:
We put together this short film, "When the Saints Go Marching In," to tell several heartbreaking stories. The Aguilar family lost their home and only received $4,000 from the insurance company. Mr. Washington, an 84-year-old man and former carpenter, owned three homes prior to the storm, but is still living in a FEMA trailer. Julie can't return to her job and normal life because the government won't open the public housing she lived in prior to the storm. There are thousands of stories like this.
There is something very specific you can do to help. Sign the petition urging the Senate to pass Chris Dodd's Gulf Coast Recovery Bill of 2007 (S1668).
The bill is expected to come to a vote soon. Its passage will be an important step toward rebuilding the infrastructure in the Gulf Coast region. In addition to S1668, please also encourage your Senators to go further in helping the public and low-income housing residents who lost their homes in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Please sign the petition, at the very least. Also, if you're inclined and able, consider seeking out ways to offer direct aid, to those left to fend for themselves via Craigslist, which has been sustaining an ongoing effort to connect those from the area in need, with those elsewhere in need of filling the vast gap left by the government and politico's who SHOULD be responsible enough to provide, yet aren't.
Many here know about my involvement in politics and journalism via my adopted, virtual, online community, DailyKos. Today, we were honored to receive a new member of our online community from the New Orleans City Council, Shelley Midura, detailing many of the present realities in New Orleans today. I suggest you take a few moments to read the "situation on the ground" there in New Orleans for yourself.
She provides a reference to many facts and figures concerning the recovery and aid efforts in the Gulf Coast region, New Orleans in particular of course. Here's part of that fact sheet, only concerning the rebuilding effort:
22% or $7 billion of FEMA’s 2005 disaster relief budget was spent on administrative costs, not rebuilding(Institute for Southern Studies)
The figure used consistently by the Bush administration when discussing the amount of federal dollars allocated to Gulf Coast recovery is $116 billion. Of that amount, only 30% or $35 billion goes to long-term recovery projects (Jeffrey Buchanan, RFK Memorial Center for Human Rights)
Of that $35 billion, less than 42% has been spent to date(RFK Memorial Center for Human Rights)
The City of New Orleans has received approximately $187 million from FEMA and $150 million in Community Disaster Loans (City of New Orleans)
Most of the day today, I've found myself furious that in the face of the continued need right here at home, our "glorious" leaders are still more concerned with pouring the lion's share of our tax dollars into the war in a country that neither wants us there, nor should be expected to. It is an effort that has been rife with corruption, profiteering, and waste, such as the apparent loss of some $9 billion in our tax dollars for reconstruction efforts there.
Our own federal government, has been more willing to dump in total so far, almost $500 BILLION to date and projected to surpass the trillion mark before an end to this occupation is reached.
What do they provide for the citizens of one of our OWN cities, devastated through no fault of their own? They offer a fraction of that, with much of the same corruption, profiteering, and waste that we see in our Iraq effort. Would you find it an innocent coincidence that many of the very same corporations that have received those all too poorly accounted for reconstruction contracts in Iraq?
Here, believe that Occam's Razor is apparent;
"All things being equal, the simplest answer is usually the correct one"
In truth, the only people capable of deciding the fate of the nation of Iraq (which in reality is nothing more than an almost century long, arbitrary creation of the British, after WWI), is those that call it home, that love their home enough to save it. Just as WE here, that love our home, need concern ourselves with saving THIS nation.
So the question I have for every one of our elected officials, for every single American is... Are we a people that want to create and restore what good has been lost or a people more interested in destruction?
Just WHO exactly are we? What is it that we have become to let our society reach this point in the first place?
To many, questions like these might seem rather minor. To many, so long as our lives change little, our bellies full, our homes apparently secure, what more need be considered?
But its questions like these, which determine our future and the consequences that future brings. 230 years ago, it was questions like these that brought this nation into being on the principle of liberty and equality, of the pursuit and realistic attainment of happiness as individuals and a community as a whole.
I ask again, are we a nation of "I've got mine" or one that believes that "we're all in this together"?
I know which of those we as a nation are long meant to stand for. It's a principle that has been reaffirmed time and again in our national compendium.
One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all...
This IS after all the UNITED states of America.
It's time we began to believe in that dream again, don't you think?
Síochán!