Something I need to say before today passes by

[capri0mni]

Politics -- therefore, behind a cut, to protect those of sensitive, Conservative dispositions.


I don't want to remember the victims of 9/11. Not today.

Their lives were reduced to a symbol by terrorists, and used for nothing more than a message of fear.

And we've reduced their deaths to a symbol. And we're spreading the same message of fear.

Bush used the symbol of their deaths to justify the Department of Homeland Security, and to convince us that terrorists are a bigger threat than hurricanes. But a hurricane hit first, and the DHS failed to respond to the suffering it caused.

Bush used the symbol of their deaths to convince us to go to war in Iraq, hoping that the symbol would distract us from the fact that the war was built around lies.

Because of that war, there was not enough money to maintain the levees in New Orleans. And now, that city is all but wiped from the map. Families all along the Gulf Coast are scattered like leaves in the wind.

So many still living are suffering, because we've been using the dead as a symbol.

I don't want to remember the victims of 9/11. Not today.

Comments

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I thought it had been sort of cheapened... now that you've said it out loud, I realise that what's been bothering me is that 9/11 is being used as a sort of advertisement for the conservative government and its paranoia.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Yes. Exactly. And I bet if we could ask the spirits of the 9/11 dead, every one of them would be angered by that use. And they would want us to use their memories, if at all, to promote peace.

[drox.livejournal.com]

Far be it from me to defend the current administration (there is simply no excuse) but I feel it has to be said that those levees were in disrepair long before 9/11 or GWBush came along. Democrat and Republican, one administration after another has found reasons not to rebuild the levees.

As much as it hurts to admit it, my kind of people, i.e. the environmentalists, have been among the loudest voices against levees. Because they're horrible for the environment and they exacerbate the problem of the sinking city. New Orleans wasn't below sea level when it was built; mismanagement of the Mississippi River -- including too much reliance on levees -- caused it to sink.

Still, love 'em or hate 'em, letting the levees crumble into disrepair was not the way to deal with the problem. But that is what was done year after year, and this is the result. Untold suffering and death.

I agree completely, though, about abusing the memory of the 9/11 victims. That made me sick from day one.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

New Orleans wasn't below sea level when it was built

Actually, I think it was... just not as far below sea level as it is now...

Mostly, I was referring to the fact that Bush cut the 2004-5 for annual maintainance budget for the levees by 80%, so that he could pay for the war in Iraq. This was the first year since these new levees were built that there were no repairs done on them at all. You can't blame that on previous administrations.

And, besides, as an environmentalist myself, I think the greater threat to the city was the overdevelopment of the wetlands, right up to the shore.

[rob-t-firefly.livejournal.com]

Well said.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I was feeling sort of blasphemous the last few days for just thinking that, and that was making me feel even worse about it.

BTW, my mother grew up in Manhattan; her mother (whom I never got a chance to know) grew up in Louisiana... I think around N.O., but I'm not sure.

So this week, I've been feeling angst in the roots of my family tree...