Anniversary? What anniversary?

Just like last year, what's left of my brain has gone into lock-down, juggling all of the other problems so that I don't have to think about Katrina.

And there's plenty to be worried about, scared of, or just plain fucked-up about: Gustav's projected to fly right up my ass (no, I do not expect damage, unless a tree flies into the GMC, but others around here have reason to worry, especially those in outlying areas), though I think that he will, like others this year, track slightly west of the predictions. The worst thing this far inland is a hurricane that spawns-off tornadoes, and in a state that still largely wrapped in aluminum and formaldehyde, that ain't no joke.

Teh republicunt MSM of this state make SUCH a fucking point of coming all over themselves as they point out the "brilliant preparations" of their fellow powers-that-be are making, like Vanna White on testosterone and strap-ons. They spent FOUR MINUTES OF BILLABLE AIR-TIME talking about ELLLLESSSSYEEEEWWWW (LSU) TAILGATERS, who are "BRAVING" the storm (which won't hit Baton Rouge before tomorrow night) to GET DRUNK IN PUBLIC AND HOOT AT ONCOMING TRAFFIC. As much as I miss drinking, I don't think that I'll ever miss it THAT fucking much. "Oh, look, we're just LIVING OUR LIVES, 'cause WE KNOW HOW TO PREPARE FOR THIS STUFF, AND OUR INCONVENIENCE, IF ANY, WILL BE MINIMAL, BECAUSE WE'RE GOOD REPUBLICUNT CONSUMERS!!!"

Piyush rents "hundreds" of tour buses "in case," FEMA and its Skeletor motherfucker Chertoff is in Orleans vibrating like a coke whore, and (Formerly)Blonde Niece has probably already been deployed to street duty in the Lower 9. Oh, yeahhh, they've got this shit WRAPPED UP, they're never gonna let 'a few dead people' embarrass THEM again. If only it didn't have the stench of mercenary self-interest about it, if only it didn't reek of "IT WAS ALL KATHLEEN'S FAULT!!!", if our magnanimous gubner (keep yer eyes on '08, you WILL be meeting this motherfucker, because the GOP has an ASSLOAD of money invested in him. Like McSenile's new running mate, he'll be the perfect "answer" to the white, bigoted, capitalist-swine history of the post-Civil-War republicunts) was doing this shit because he actually GAVE A FUCK ABOUT POOR PEOPLE WHO STILL HAVE NO TRANSPORTATION, I might be tempted to think that this was about more than the fucking campaign.

You know how they'll portray "Bobby" in 4 years: The great penile rescuer, who "saved" Louisiana from "gawd's" wrath/storm destruction AND brought "economic stimuli" to the state. The antidote to "MeeMaw" Blanco. He'll be their pocket-sized (unauthorized) replica of Barry.

YES, EVERYTHING IS ABOUT FUCKING POLITICS, BECAUSE OF THE CORRUPT MOTHERFUCKERS TO WHOM WE'VE ENTRUSTED THE MOST IMPORTANT JOBS.

We share a country with people who think that A FOUR-CELLED WAD OF PROTOPLASM IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE LIVES OF ACTUAL HUMAN BEINGS. We rub elbows every fucking day with people who would just as soon run over us in their fucking humvees, if they knew how we voted from looking at us (and don't think that they don't stereotype and wish they could plow us under like a Long Island housewife!). One of the "real people" (a condescending fucking term if I've ever fucking heard it) who spoke up for Barry last night MADE A POINT OF EXPLAINING how she ONLY turned away from teh republicunts BECAUSE OF THE MONEY SHE, HERSELF, LOST. Not because of any of the horrors that they've perpetrated upon the world, not because she values her almost-gone civil rights, and fuckin'-A RIGHT she didn't leave "Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Bush" BECAUSE SHE WAS TIRED OF THE BACK-HANDED CLASS WARFARE, THE OUTRIGHT SEXISM, AND HOW SHE, AS A WORKING-CLASS WOMAN, WAS *DEVALUED* BY THE MOTHERFUCKERS SHE FORMERLY PRAISED. She left because of the dough.

No, we don't live in an idealogical bubble where our best intentions, hope, and good deeds will cover the mortgage or the rent when the shit hits the fan. No, having money or not having money does not determine our actual value, either. But the coldly-calculating methods I saw at that convention (not to mention the HORRIBLE excuse for sound editing) made me sick in a whole other way than republicunts make me puke up my toenails.

When in the FUCK are we going to STOP TRYING TO BE LIKE THEM?!?!?!?!?

When are we going to stop letting obscene greed be our measuring staff, so that we'll be "accepted" by the rich, popular kids? When are we going to re-grow our spine, kick the corporate whores AND the lobbyists out of the democratic party, and WORK FOR WHAT WE REALLY FUCKING BELIEVE IN AGAIN?!!??!

I have no fucking idea. Oh, sure, they hit all the right talking points (gag), they praised all of the right groups and their needs (*sigh*), and they stood up tall and proud in Wall Street suits, to show that WE'RE ABOUT THE MONEY, TOO, BUT ONLY 'CAUSE WE'RE THE GOOD GUYS.

That's the problem. Money IS how you get shit done, all of the petitions and posters and marches in the world can't do what the properly-funded charity or activism group can do. We have learned this much the hard way. But why in the FUCK can't we go back to doing it OUR way, instead of their Gordon Gekko way? Efficiency, my ass. We're still the self-conscious, sensitive kids who need to be "liked." Nothing that we say matters unless it is approved by a huge population of followers. We have to be "popular" (Nancy Pelosi) instead of EFFECTIVE (Hillary Clinton). We have to APPEASE the bibul-bangers who HATE OUR FUCKING GUTS, because that somehow makes us "better" than their bigotry. Yeah, sure, there's OODLES of "progressive" xians, right. Ask 'em how they feel about a woman's right to privacy and primacy over her own body.

Oh, we can't alienate "The Heartland." Y'know what? I bet if we could RE-EDUCATE the heartland, if we could SHOW THEM THE TRUTH, if we stop placating them and TEACH THEM. You know why so many people cleave unto the bosom of giant cults? BECAUSE THEY NEED CONSOLING, they need somebody to tell them that they're "good enough." They're every fucking bit as insecure and fucked-up as we are. We just tend not to spit upon the families of dead soldiers. They think that they're so fucking "pure" and "right," because to think for themselves would be to put themselves out there, on the line, in the line of any sniper rifle. It's safer to pair-off like Noah's Ark. Even if the person you're with is batshit fucking crazy, you're still a "better" person if you got yerself a MAYUNN. For the guys, though, it has to be ARM CANDY, the chick that their buddies wanna fuck. And even that isn't enough protection from scrutiny. They still must belong to a bigger group, a group that says, "You're BETTER than THEM!" The ones who call themselves "libertarians" are really just the same people, they just want to LOOK like they think for themselves.

I'm not a people person. Duh. I can't build coalitions. I'll never be Edwin Edwards.* I'll never be Jimmy Carter or Huey Long. I can sometimes get other people behind the same causes that I care about, but I have no fucking idea of how in the hell that I pull that off. I'm not a uniter, I'm just one cranky bitch.

And in our current culture, that's the last thing that you're supposed to want to be. Don't believe me? Watch the reruns of "Sex & The City."

But others of us CAN do this shit. They can teach the people who hate us why we are more alike than we are different. No, it won't work everywhere, it sure as hell won't work in Louisiana (outside of a metropolis, anyway), because they are too fond of their hatred to release the death-grip on it. They still want to wear their "adopted" (like a Chinese baby) fleur-de-lis pins and pretend like they know anything about New Orleans, when they've done nothing but HATE ON New Orleans since Reconstruction. They'll deny it to their last fucking breath, but go home with them, talk to them in private, away from critical eyes. On their home turf, that's all that they've fucking got.

I really don't like the timing of the democratic convention, because they only wanted to remember the 45th anniversary of The March On Washington, only the victories, never the defeats, right? No, I wouldn't be sitting here, able to say this shit, if it hadn't been for MLK, Malcolm X, Angela Davis, don't think that I'm downplaying The March. But no truth comes from only remembering the conquests. Yes, I am still shocked and horrified when I see footage of what white people perpetrated upon black people, when I see it happening right the fuck in front of my face. I tend to forget, in day-to-day life, that I'm "supposed" to be a cracker. That's what my "family" wanted, that's what I was raised to believe, that's what the public school system in Klan Central inculcated. It just never fucking worked for me, because I just didn't function like that. Maybe it's the hyperlexia, maybe it's Mrs. Pearline, maybe it's Tawannye and Mrs. Grant, I don't fucking know. Maybe it was watching "too much" television back in the social-worker-euphoria '70s, when we still believed that, despite the rot at the top, government programs really could still make the difference. You get that populist shit in your head, it's hard to get out. But the world today tells us that that's not "good for the profit margin," that "big government" is the "enabler" that "allows" people to live in poverty. Yeah, that's it. Poverty happens to people BECAUSE THEY FUCKING DESERVE IT, for not being capitalist greed-whores, for not being willing to fuck-over everybody they know to "get ahead." Pull the other one.

Personally, I'm not ashamed of what Huey & Uncle Earl Long accomplished. They were no fucking saints, any more than Hillary or Barack are pure as the driven fucking snow. But they knew that POOR PEOPLE WERE FUCKING PEOPLE. They weren't "the service industry" or the kids who only "deserve" TRADE SCHOOLS. They were the people who truly held the power, maybe because there are just SO FUCKING MANY OF THEM. Us. We keep buying the FUX "news" bullshit that THEY, teh republicunts, teh bibul-bangers, are the "majority," and we damned well know better. WE are the motherfucking majority in this country, and it's about fucking time that we started fucking acting like it.

Sure, my nipples would get hard over the idea of trampling the sheepul into the fucking dirt, but then, I don't wanna be the Stalin who fucks up the whole concept. We need them. We should try to teach them, to bring them out of their self-appointed "right side" and back over to "the dark side." And not just because it'll allow us to gloat about being "better people" for it.

BUT THEY DON'T FUCKING OWN US, and we have GOT to stop acting, thinking, feeling LIKE THEY ARE. J.Edgar would have a tent under his dress big enough to hold Barnum & Bailey's, if he could see the fear-mongering BULLSHIT that they've shoved down our throats, to keep the middle and working classes OBEDIENT and BUSY WORKING.

Fuck yeah, I'm still pissed about the way that Hillary, and most women, were treated over the past 2 years. I'm still pissed as a MOTHERFUCKER to be called, even in the slyest, most "subtle" fashions, a motherfucking BIGOT for not jumping onto the Barry bandwagon at day one. And there are men who call themselves "liberals" whom I will probably never forgive for letting their dicks run their brains. Especially when their brains are capable of so much better.

But that ain't the only fucking thing. Even the genocide after Katrina ain't the only fucking thing. It still hurts, it's still a fucking rusty pike through my chest, and that probably won't ever change. It is, at this point, a perfect example of "compassionate conservatism," it ISN'T a fucking TALKING POINT to be used to milk that genocide for polling points. Even the sexism and the audacious OBNOXIOUSNESS of McSenile picking a "BROAD" as a running mate aren't the point. (Teh local republicunt teevee stations praise her "refusal to bash Hillary!" like that's A FUCKING MIRACLE PERFORMED BY A MOTHERFUCKING SAINT.) While I hope to hell that the "older white women," whom McSenile is trying to "steal" from the democratic party, don't fall for that BLATANT LAWNMOWER-SALESMAN TACTIC, 'cause it'll fuck us all if they do --- that's still not the whole or only fucking thing.

There's too much fucking work to be done, to let the bastards, even those who claim our own party, keep us down. I refuse to be ashamed of having chosen Hillary over Barack, I will never forgive the powers-that-be for locking Bill Richardson out ENTIRELY. But even I, the woman who can nurse a grudge to the DEATH, have to move the fuck on. I know that some men will never come back to us, they're fucking CONVINCED that we "bitter old feminists" are the "death" of the democratic party, and they'll pat us on the head while they're doing it, but no matter how they do it, they're still gonna try to fuck us. BUT THEY'RE NOT ALL OF THE MEN. They're not all of the democrats, they're not even all of the Americans. They aren't the majority any more than the fucking bibul-bangers are the "majority." I may not be able to kill them with my bare hands, but I don't have to let them hold ME back, either.

And believe me, that first option is tempting as hell. "You can't divide the party!" You can't get your head out of your nutsack.

Such is life.

And death.

How in the HELL that that motherfucker wasn't impeached on September 2, 2005, I will never fucking understand. Why "our" people in Congress didn't rip him a new asshole and throw the original up on the ceiling, no idea. Don't get that "go along to get along" mentality what-the-fuck-so-ever. Especially when the people who voted for their fucking asses are now DEAD AND FLOATING IN THE FUCKING STREETS.

There is much work to be done, and many towtrucks will be needed to do the overhauls. And if one more motherfucker tells me that I'm just "perceiving" any of this shit "that way," I'll be stealing a towtruck TONIGHT.