PO Box 473 • Media,
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KatrinaEvery so often, there is a defining moment in the history of our nation that impacts the American spirit so severely that it has a serious and long-lasting influence on the direction of the country. We are witnessing one of those moments now, and her name is Katrina.Yet the storm is not the full story. The story, and its long-lasting legacy, is how conservative American government has failed its people.September 11 assured George W. Bush a second term. Katrina has ended his second. And not a moment too soon. The era of conservative government is over.There is no way America can ignore the dead woman in the wheelchair, covered in a blanket, pushed up against the wall of the New Orleans Convention Center. Her voice cries out "Remember me." There is no way America can ignore the squalid conditions that tens of thousands of our citizens to the south endured for days in the Louisiana Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center. Their voices cry out "Remember us." There is no way America can ignore the blunt language from Ray Nagin, New Orleans' Mayor, as he pleaded for the politicians to stop holding press conferences and start delivering relief. His voice cries out "Remember this."Ray Nagin stood up and, in no uncertain terms, he told it like it is. It's about time.For five years, the conservatives who run America's government have taken our nation along a dangerous path of misguided priorities and ideological follies. Think about it. What have been the priorities of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Rick Santorum?Massive tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent of Americans while the price of gas and heating oil has doubled.Allowing the most violent and dangerous assault weapons back onto our streets by letting the assault weapon ban expire.Dismantling Social Security so their buddies in the stocks and bonds business can make a buck or two.Appointing judges who de-value the fundamental American rights of privacy and individual liberty.Protecting the right to post a stone tablet containing the Ten Commandments in public courthouses.Creating a massive new bureaucracy called Homeland Security which has failed in the most fundamental of ways.Five years with total control of the government and this is what they've done? Is that what we elected them to do?There are a few basic things Americans expect from their government. We expect our trash to be picked up and our streets to be paved. We expect the Social Security check to arrive on the 1st of the month. We expect the military to defend our nation against the threat of attack (as opposed to the perceived threat from non-existent weapons of mass destruction.) We expect privacy in our homes and personal lives. We expect that all citizens regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, disability, religious affiliation and all other qualifiers to have the same opportunity in America. We expect the air traffic control system to work and the trains to run on time.And in times of national emergency, we expect our government to come to the aid of the people whose tax dollars fund it. Here, the conservative dismantling of government has failed in the most basic way. They gutted the budget of the Army Corps of Engineers so they could fully fund tax cuts for those who don't need it and an unjust war against an enemy that existed only in the mind of the president.The conservative zeal to starve the government of funding and drastically reduce its scope has left the nation and our people vulnerable to natural and other disasters, and this Administration's arrogant foreign policy has left our nation and our people vulnerable to terrorist attack.Can we let this continue? Can we let George W. Bush continue to use the ghosts of September 11 to ruin the nation that so many of us and our forefathers and mothers built? Can we let him and people like Rick Santorum continue to argue that progressive government that funds public works projects like hurricane preparedness, levee construction, emergency preparedness and disaster relief means big, bad government? Can we continue to let them argue that ideology should take precedent over science, facts and expertise?While Americans watch the surreal images on television, the rest of the world wonders how the richest nation in the world could have bungled the provision of the most basic needs of its people in time of disaster…one of the few things our government is expected to get right.Long before Katrina, the majority of Americans believed the nation was headed in the wrong direction. And now, for all the world to see, the by-products of conservative, right wing ideology have been revealed - raw sewage laced with dead bodies in the streets of beloved New Orleans.It's not a pretty sight.We have become a nation of mixed up priorities led by rich brats who stomp their feet when they don’t get their way. We are a nation led by ideology instead of people-oriented problem solving. We are a nation focused on advancing the next conservative right-wing priority instead of fulfilling the basic economic needs of its people.It is a picture of the utter failure of the conservative movement that defined America in the 1980's through the middle of the first decade of the 21st century.And it is over.Americans can no longer allow ourselves to be distracted by right-wing wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage. Americans can no longer allow ourselves to be bought off with the hollow rhetoric of compassionate conservatism. Americans can no longer tolerate the fascist tendencies of those who support this Administration – the Pat Robertsons, Grover Norquists and Michael Marcavage’s of the world.America can no longer afford the luxury of being concerned more with the presence of stone tablets in a courthouse, while ignoring the words that are chiseled into them.As we weep for the victims of Katrina, let us insure that out of the devastation rises a new era of American opportunity – a government that is compassionate not only in its political ads, but in its deeds.September 11, 2001 gave Bush his second term.Katrina will give America the new progressive era we long for, because in the end, better minds will prevail. They must.Tony Campisi
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