Can’t you see it’s not about politics, there were and are all sorts of people who came to New Orleans after Katrina to help rebuild, democrats, republicans, independents, evangelicals, atheists, black, white, brown, our brothers and sisters, and they are still there, still helping, some of them even moved to Louisiana after the storm, can’t you see this is not about politics?
Is there an expiration date for compassion? I’d like to know, really. I have a New Orleans friend still in Houston, her family, the nicest folks you’d ever want to know, she’s now working as a fellow for Obama, but she’d like to return home, there’s no home to return to, so many have not come back, so many died and asked to be buried back home, at least they’d rest back home.
When I’d go down to New Orleans from New York City, my friend and her husband and wonderful daughter would take us everywhere and we’d have such fun, eating giant seafood feasts at Deanies, Kim and I laughing wildly at the Monteleone Hotel when the car wouldn’t start and we had to call her husband to come get us, listening to the brass bands at Donnas Bar & Grill on Rampart street, taking in the French Quarter Festival, now she’s in Houston and she told me there were times, oh yes there were times she wanted to just end it all but she didn’t, she’s still here. She's just not home, is all.
There were real people who made real decisions that cost us the lives of our countrymen and women, and it wasn’t about political party, it was about the inability to feel compassion for another, the inability to understand we are all connected, all interrelated, it’s a punishment in itself, the immense isolation of the ego slamming the soul right out of the body leaving only a monster machine who lives off greed, disaster and the suffering of others, it’s a punishment in itself to shut off your soul that way, to do a bad job so that others die or are harmed and no one will help.
There were real people who headed to the cash register when the federal flood hit the City of New Orleans, they made money and are still making money off the suffering of good human beings. This is not politics, this is not about politics. It is about what happens to a human being when their capacity for compassion is stunted and drowned by greed and arrogance and the evil of ignorance.
Anniversary, oh that is just a date, a mark on a calendar, it has gone on and it has not stopped for three years now, it is still going on and we are all affected even if we choose not to see it, our brothers and sisters struggling, the golden hearts of those who continue to help, to care, to keep compassion in their hearts for those who have suffered, who lost their homes, who go through the pain and anger and bewilderment of even now, even now folks not understanding, of trying to score political points off suffering, of indulging in irony to avoid the pains of the human heart, to rage practical and say it’s human, it’s not, no it isn’t.
Is there an expiration date for compassion? Is there a limit to the compassion we can generate in our hearts and minds, no there is no limit, it is only our fears that tell us there is.
It is still going on, it is still going on, and it spreads all across the land. There are no islands of the soul, we are connected and there are no islands where we can hide from each others’ suffering, we can pretend and lie and dress ourselves in the fake sophistication of the intellect, but it’s all a sham, it is still going on and we are in this, too, our destinies intertwined.
I love you New Orleans. I love you and I’m sorry there have been any people here who would try and paint this day as something for political gain, I am sorry any words have added to your anger and pain.
This one is for you, chigh, and nolalily, and all my other friends here at Daily Kos who love New Orleans:
This diary is dedicated to my friend luckydog, who was one of the first to tell us, and make us understand, that "They are not Coming."