UPDATED: My father works for FEMA. He is 75 years old and, like many men of his generation, [View all]

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

Last edited Thu Nov 1, 2012, 09:00 AM - Edit history (1)

he doesn't handle not working very well. Also, my parents lost over half of their retirement investments in the crash, so it's not completely by choice that he works.

Also, like many white Catholic men of his generation, he retains vestiges of the racist culture in which he grew up. He balked at voting for Obama in 2008. He said things about how the races were never intended to mix and some other weird race-related negative things about the candidate. Also, he really wanted Hillary.

But my mom and I called him on that racist crap and worked on him leading up to the election. He is a curmudgeonly, generally difficult man, so it wasn't easy. However, as we suspected he would in the end, he did vote for the black man who would become our president.

He has, over the past 4 years, become an ardent supporter. And, he despises Romney with a vehemence that may, however unlikely, surpass my own.

Yet, he still will not answer back to all the RW emails he gets from the Republicans he and my mom play bridge with. He gets mad when my mom does. He will not tell the Rs who start trashing Obama at the bridge table that he disagrees. He hates it when my mom does. Even though she generally just says, "We all don't agree, so let's not discuss politics here."

So, it is with great surprise and pride that I read these recent posts he made on facebook:

1. I came to FEMA in Sept 2011 to assist in the disasters Tropical Storm Lee and Hurricane Irene. My work is with the municipalities - townships, school districts, waste water treatment plants roads and bridges. Tears came to my eyes when the oath of office -- to defend the constitution etc -- was administered. Helping to restore these entities to pre-disaster or better condition has been a high point in my life's work.

I am very much convinced that this work could never, never be done by anything but a national government entity.

Update -- Yesterday, our FCO in Harrisburg, PA exhorted us to extend the same effort in responding to Sandy. Today too, I was very much heartened to see the Governor of New Jersey praise FEMA and to hear an NY congressperson look directly into a TV camera and say "Thank You FEMA". i am very proud to be able to help!

2. I find it utterly reprehensible that a man who has never held a position in the federal Government would stick his nose in the response to the event, and would do so by using it as a way to pretend that he cares. Care Sir, BY DONATING $30,000,000 of your wealth to the relief effort. send several of the Caddys lying around in your closed mansions. Put people in those homes. Stay out of the way of the Federal Government now and on election day.

3. It is slowly coming to me that anyone who buys Romney's BS can only be doing so out of racial bigotry.

Update: It's kind of late to add this, but I just remembered that my dad is on twitter: http://twitter.com/donhennigan

He doesn't post much, but if you want to encourage him with a follow, maybe he will start. (Please don't be misled by the "wealth management" tweet. As I said, he's still working not just because he likes it. And if Iggy tweets his ageist crap at him, my dad will probably tell him to go f*#k himself.) Here are a few of his old ones:

Chuckling at all R's antics to no avail ..POTUS will still be POTUS in Dec 2012 to 16.

@EricCantor Your tactics are BLACKMAIL. Be a man and address spending/revenue issue separately Don't ruin the [Republic] with mafia tactics.

If the R's have, as they say that they do, a plan to create jobs, they must disclose it to POTUS. Otherwise Criminal & reprehensible