April 22, 2010 archive

I drive home from having been with the Earth Mother for any length of time and feel clarity about our artificial environment. The longer I’ve been with her, the more profound the clarity is. I stare straight in the face of “progress” as phone lines, gas stations, and eventually the hazy horizon over the city appears.

I can’t help the feeling of wrongness I feel, though I can see some progress is useful, schools are for example. Still, I can’t help the feeling of wrongness. This isn’t meant to be a judgment of the wrongness of civilization, but by the time I describe this feeling; it probably will be.

This is an essay about what’s wrong with Amerika since DHS was invented. I am thoroughly pissed, and am about to reveal extremely personal information about myself because… because… it doesn’t fucking matter what I care to reveal about myself, since I have been officially informed by both state and federal authorities that I do not exist.

Now, that designation wasn’t a problem back when we were involved in some serious skullduggery on the ‘official’ federal level investigations end of things nasty and nuclear, but that was more than 30 years ago. We’ve lived a quiet life for the most part since then, and just live on our homestead and work wherever we can for enough money to stay. Grow some food, raise some kids and grandkids, do a little entertaining here and there as clowns, puppeteers, jugglers and fire-eaters. Being officially non-existent on the skullduggery end so the nuclear mafia will stop shooting is fine. Being officially non-existent in the real world and still having to pay taxes is downright ridiculous.

Deal is, my Mother-In-Law is dying in another state, last parent we’ve got on the planet. Hubby and I flew out there a couple of months ago to get her into assisted living, but she lasted less than a month before having to be hospitalized with end-game dementia and unidentified infection. She’s in the hospital and going down fast. So it was decided I should fly out there again to help spell other family per the death-watch, as hubby won’t have time off again until late May.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponlin…

YEah, baby.

Another fine idea there president O’Bush.  

Say it ain’t so, Peter!

Bloomberg News and HuffPo reporting that the White House’s Budget director and bonne vivant “deficit hawk” (sic) Peter Orszag may be considering taking the first lifeboat off the Titanic  leaving President Barack Obama’s cabinet soon.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

Orszag will make his decision soon, according to a person familiar with the matter, Bloomberg BusinessWeek will report in its April 26 issue. The 41-year-old budget director had been signaling to White House officials that he didn’t plan to remain for the next budget cycle, the person said.

“Signaling ?”  

Per Reuters, a spokesperson for the Office of Budget and Management, Kenneth Baer, said that it was merely “idle speculation” and that he was “focused on his job.”

http://www.reuters.com/article…

The Obama Bipartisan “Debt Commission” is scheduled to meet at the White House next Tuesday the 27th.  

http://www.reuters.com/article…

The President is scheduled to speak, followed by remarks from Orszag and Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, who was roasted yesterday in a House hearing before the Financial Services Committee. Most inspiring video and transcript here: https://www.docudharma.com/diar…

No doubt Orszag, who has been following North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad’s conservative views on freezing the domestic budget (and blaming it for deficits)  while expanding the military one, is not really looking forward to it as much as the Republicans are.

My earlier diary, on just “Who is Peter Orszag ? ”   https://www.docudharma.com/diar…

Officially called the Bipartisan Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, the new fiscal watchdog grouping is intended to find ways to bring public spending in line with revenues and slim down massive government borrowing.

It is to offer recommendations to the White House by December 1 to get spending and income back into better balance so deficits fall to 3 percent of total national output by 2015.

Dont forget that War Supplemental Budget for FY 2011 is still pending before Congress and needs to be approved soon-  what’s another $33 Billion for Afghanistan, and $159 billion for the rest of the mid eastern occupation,  off the regular budget, between friends ?

Kewl. No wonder Arizona is leading the way on the plan to deport 20 million American residents who weren’t able to obtain legal status because of our border paranoia and chintzy, racist immigration laws.  Because there is nothing like pandering to the mythology that if you just remove your scapegoat enemies from the territory, you’re going to solve all your own self made problems.  

Courtesy of Firedoglake.com…

Watch:

My son just got back from a week in Haiti.  Haiti was impoverished beyond belief before the earthquake.  And now it is difficult to describe the pervasive suffering.  His descriptions bring me to tears.

And then there’s this:

NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas (AP) — After the Haitian national soccer team couldn’t eat another bite of chef-prepared pork or ice cream, and before going back to its cabins at a Texas resort, coach Jairo Rios asked for a favor.

Tents. As many as they could haul back to Haiti.

”I eat well here. I sleep well,” forward Charles Herold Jr. said in French, speaking through a translator. ”But I cannot help but think of my friends and family who don’t have that. I can’t get that off my mind.”

I can’t get that off my mind either.  I hope you won’t be able to get it off your mind.  The futbol players can’t get it off their minds, either:

Players are already wrestling with the guilt of their relatively better fortunes. Forward Eliphene Cadet, 29, escaped from his house in Port-au-Prince after the roof caved on him and two children.

Leaving Haiti meant leaving his family in a tent in a field, near where his house once stood. Other players left their families in similar conditions.

”All the guys talk about it,” Cadet said. ”I know that they’re here. There are still tremors now. That’s our biggest worry.”

So as the rains come, shelter is extremely important.  And of course medical aid continues to be important.  And, of course, drinking water and sanitation are critical.

There are so many of us, and we have so much.  Can we use this essay to develop a list of organizations that will accept our small donations to continue aid in Haiti?  Can we work together on this?  Can we make some donations?

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simulposted at The Dream Antilles and dailyKos