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the hurricane region (although I've been through a few earthquakes and catastrophic floods in SoCal), but I, too, felt great shame about this disaster, as of no other disaster in my lifetime. My shame had to do with our society's mistreatment of the poor, especially the black and poor, and of all the hurricane victims. Disasters happen. There is no stopping them (that we know of yet, anyway). What we are responsible for is our preparation for disaster--our wisdom as a society, our collective obligations--and our reaction to the victims of disaster.
Ah, here it is. My unconscious mind just found the image. Early 1960s. White bigots turning fire hoses on black civil rights marchers. On the TV news. And beating them up. People who just wanted to vote, who wanted fairness. Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame at what white people had done to black people, and at it STILL GOING ON. Shame on us, on our country, and on my young concept of myself as a citizen of the land of the free. How could this happen in America?
THAT got me going! A couple of years later, I drove all the way across the country to Alabama to join the civil rights movement!
Lesson (I guess): Shame can change you. It can improve you. It can activate you. It can be the spark. Don't ignore it. Don't obsess on it either. But do HEED it. Allow it to guide you on your path, and open up new vistas.
What I found of black culture and black people in Alabama, in 1965, changed me forever. I never saw such courage. I never saw such beauty and goodness and wisdom and endurance. And I never saw such a commitment to freedom, to what America should be, to what we all dream of it being.
Fast forward to August 2005: Shame at not getting onto the Diebold and ES&S corruption of our election system soon enough. Letting these criminals steal another election. Not heeding my shame at our slaughter of over 100,000 innocent Iraqis and the decimation of their country--or not heeding it enough to find out how our votes were being "tabulated," and by whom, and to what end. Not getting on it soon enough to DO something about it.
And this is the result: 80% cut in FEMA funding for repair of the New Orleans levees and disaster planning. Criminals and thieves in charge of our government. The indirect murder of thousands of our citizens--the poorest, the most vulnerable--and greatly exacerbated suffering for all of the victims. And now--after the horrors of Iraq, and after the thievery in Iraq--they're doing it again, here: looting us blind, with no-bid, profit-guaranteed contracts to Halliburton, Bechtel, Fluor and the whole gang, military rule, the busting of labor protections, probable confiscation of the property of the poor, dispersal of the poor to the four winds, destruction of a Democratic voting base, destruction of one of the most important centers of black culture in the nation, and transformation of it into a fascist white enclave.
We LET these people retain power by being stupid and unvigilant about what they were doing to our election SYSTEM. *I* let them do it, and I feel shame about it, as well as a sort of generalized shame about what our society has come to, where this criminal regime can just flip off our common obligations and our highest virtues as a people--and WE CAN DO NOTHING ABOUT IT!
Well, I can tell you this. It IS a spark. I am devoting every hour I have to give, and every resource, to election system reform. I think that's the problem at the heart of it all.
To my young mind, in the mid-1960s, voting was the key to progress--and, within a decade (sooner than my wildest dreams)--the south (and the north!) began to elect black sheriffs and mayors. An incredible transformation. (To youngsters who don't remember this, we went from WHITE ONLY DRINKING FOUNTAINS, and all that that meant--lynchings, beatings, total exclusion and disempowerment--to BLACK MAYORS AND SHERIFFS within ten years of the protection of black citizens' right to vote!).
And now we have major Bush donors and campaign chairs counting our votes IN SECRET, with "proprietary" programming code! Seems obvious to me.
And so, HeeBGBz, what I'm saying to you is: I AM SO GLAD YOU ARE ALIVE. I'M SO GLAD YOU CAN FEEL. And I'm so glad your unconscious mind is pestering you, but I don't want you to suffer from it. No more suffering, okay? You've suffered enough! But do try to IDENTIFY the shame--or rather, what it's trying to tell you--and think of it as an opportunity for growth, for new insights and for new life!
Something I am proud of, in this disaster: Our society's common recognition of the horror of the federal response, and what it means--our callousness and disregard for the poor; and, the WILLINGNESS of MOST PEOPLE to immediately provide aid, even though the criminals in the White House blockaded that help.
As I have often said, the progressive MAJORITY in this country has been DISENFRANCHISED. We are NOT a fascist country--and not even close to being one. We are a tolerant, law-abiding and generous people. We, above all, desire FAIRNESS. But we--the true American majority, the true believers in democracy--are virtually without representation in Washington DC.
And that has to change. And how to change it is to demand that EVERY VOTE BE COUNTED out here in plain view, in the light of day!
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