Please note: the following is not directly related to natural business. It is however very well written. Additionally, given the fact that the increasingly pathetic state of American politics is threatening my own sanity, it had to be written. To paraphrase that unforgettable line from the great movie ‘Network’, “I’m mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore!!!”–Without at least ranting about it on the web.
Assume you’re an IT guy. Furthermore, assume that the building manager where your office is located informs you, say, a full 36 hours ahead of time, that the power might go out and that you should be sure that you don’t lose any data on your servers. You get the message, inform your CEO and the rest of the staff, but little or no action is taken before the power goes out, your servers crash, there is no backup in place and a lot of stuff is lost and can’t be repaired.
Wouldn’t somebody ask what went wrong? Wouldn’t someone who dropped the ball do something other than cover their sorry butt? Not in this sorry state of political hacks pretending to be public servants. Seems that they actually want us to believe that figuring out what went wrong will actually interfere with helping people. Like having a committee meeting in Washington will interfere with recovery efforts? Unlike of course Dick Cheney’s media tour of the region, which they want us to believe actually did help folks? I mean help folks other than the politicians who fear that this screwup will cost them their wood paneled offices in Washington, or the cronies like Haliburton, who’ll descend with multi million dollar clean up and repair “contracts”.
What are they drinking and where can I get some?
After all HELP and COMPASSION is what they CLAIM they are all about. But wait—how come Bush didn’t interrupt his vacation for two days? And Condoleeza Rice was vacationing in NYC shopping for shoes at Ferragamo and Cheney, as helpful as he is, he was looking at oceanfront homes in Maryland.
Everybody deserves a vacation, nice shoes and, if you’re lucky enough, a house on the water, but aren’t these the same people, those who were away from the helm, now claiming that asking them what went wrong will actually harm people in need? NBN says NO, NO, NO, unless of course, pigs do have wings. Unless of course public service actually has nothing to do with “service” except in the service of getting reelected.
Once again the people Al Franken called BIG FAT LIARS are doing what the media blithely calls spin. Spin is another word for doing what your mother used to call: AVOIDING BLAME. NOT TAKING RESPONSIBILITY. And oh yeah, this one too: LYING.
As Garrison Keillor wrote in Salon.com this Wednesday, “there used to be a sense of shame attached to government incompetence that cost lives –but Katrina struck a different America.” An America where the ruling government serves its own interests above all others. An America where people are told to expect less, unless of course, you’re wealthy. And an America where I am so pissed off I can hardly eat my organic steel cut oats!
Thanks for reading. And don’t forget each of us makes a difference in creating change, whether on the corner of your street, at your job or school, or in the world. Keep the faith.
