The Worst People in the World.
In the 1980s, as the apartheid controversy ripped through the U.S., Hunter Thompson boldly proclaimed that white South Africans, if they didn't knock off their heinous racist shit, would be considered THE WORST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD.
That phrase has always stuck with me. If the New Orleans disaster doesn't wake us the fuck up as a nation, then we will officially take up that mantle. If we let this shit go, if we don't ask the questions that beg to be answered and DEMAND a fucking answer from these incompetent, bloodless scumbags, then we will have abdicated all of our claims to genuine humanity, will deserve the worst that nature and man can offer.
Earlier today, I wrote, optimistically, about a potential satori moment in American politics, when the sheer horror, and the sheer lack of concern, competence and compassion among the ruling class will become impossible to ignore and we will collectively demand a real change. As horrible as what we've done in Iraq is, our blind complascence in that war is, to a degree, understandable: people, too busy to immerse themselves in the facts of the issue and traumatized by the September 11th terror attacks, trusted that their government was telling them the truth. This continuous murder in New Orleans is another story altogether: there is NO EXCUSE. There is NO EXPLANATION that does not conform to partisan bullshit. My earlier posts belied a goofy optimism in the character and intelligence of my fellow Americans.
Now, I'm drunk and it's past 1 in the morning, and America looks like a cold-blooded monster. Compassion, reflection, thoughtfulness, seem like completely foreign concepts. It seems much more likely that the Administration can hold out for a few months, talking about people who "chose" not to get out of New Orleans and those damn kill-worthy looters, waiting out the questions about Iraq and its impact on the hurricane relief effort until they can whip up some more hatred of gays or wild negroes. If that happens, if the potential mass realization that tantalizes behind every horrified newscaster's report from the disaster zone dies from our notoriously short memories, petty, stupid prejudices and penchant for distracting shiny objects, then we will pass forever out of the human family, becoming nothing more than vile, stupid, hateful pigs worthy of the blade.
That phrase has always stuck with me. If the New Orleans disaster doesn't wake us the fuck up as a nation, then we will officially take up that mantle. If we let this shit go, if we don't ask the questions that beg to be answered and DEMAND a fucking answer from these incompetent, bloodless scumbags, then we will have abdicated all of our claims to genuine humanity, will deserve the worst that nature and man can offer.
Earlier today, I wrote, optimistically, about a potential satori moment in American politics, when the sheer horror, and the sheer lack of concern, competence and compassion among the ruling class will become impossible to ignore and we will collectively demand a real change. As horrible as what we've done in Iraq is, our blind complascence in that war is, to a degree, understandable: people, too busy to immerse themselves in the facts of the issue and traumatized by the September 11th terror attacks, trusted that their government was telling them the truth. This continuous murder in New Orleans is another story altogether: there is NO EXCUSE. There is NO EXPLANATION that does not conform to partisan bullshit. My earlier posts belied a goofy optimism in the character and intelligence of my fellow Americans.
Now, I'm drunk and it's past 1 in the morning, and America looks like a cold-blooded monster. Compassion, reflection, thoughtfulness, seem like completely foreign concepts. It seems much more likely that the Administration can hold out for a few months, talking about people who "chose" not to get out of New Orleans and those damn kill-worthy looters, waiting out the questions about Iraq and its impact on the hurricane relief effort until they can whip up some more hatred of gays or wild negroes. If that happens, if the potential mass realization that tantalizes behind every horrified newscaster's report from the disaster zone dies from our notoriously short memories, petty, stupid prejudices and penchant for distracting shiny objects, then we will pass forever out of the human family, becoming nothing more than vile, stupid, hateful pigs worthy of the blade.
posted by matthew christman at 10:06 PM
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