Peace Please - peace! we are not paying attention

And to this I would add the photo of my friend and great artist, Dave Falciani - in memoriam. He knew.

New Orleans 2 years hence - Death of our Society

Losing - we are losing. Recently enduring the loss of four friends, all under age 60 - one a genius jazz artist only 46, I watched the recent newsreels updating information on the rebuilding of New Orleans. The only accurate programs were on Democracy Now! and even with more than one day dedicated to the Democracy Now! programming, it still does not depict the loss and suffering STILL THERE today.

True much of society and numerous organizations came into the area as immediately as they could to help, but our government did not. And while many organizations did do as much as they could do humanly, why are organizations such as the Red Boss ...I say that since the bosses of this group generally pocket much of the money raised!! - still listed as "lifesaving". It is time for the truth to come out across the country.

One of the goals since this horrid storm has been to privatize the city. This is a goal in many places in the U.S. and the ever present private military contractors such as "PollutedWater" and others - immediately sent into New Orleans and other storm areas - testify to this. It has only been the strongest and healthiest of the poor minorities in the city that have been able to either remain there - or rebuild. Were I strong and fiscally stable besides I would have hoped to have participated somehow...having visited the city in happier times to partake of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

The New Orleans climate always was awful for me personally - even in April/May at Jazz Fest time you would wring the perspiration out of your clothing if you were outside five minutes. Sunblock 100 was needed all the time. However the city was one of our most beautiful - but that is - not just buildings and homes and tropical growth. What matters? should easily have been the beautiful people and the culture and the music and artistic community...which were unique and cannot be replaced. And a good portion of this community were minorities - most were poor besides.

Similar to the neocons today and their blasphemous hatred of those in the gay community, this country has never really come to grips with it's hatred of minority populations, much less the poor besides. We don't acknowledge that the caste system is alive and well here in the U.S. Hell it is alive and well in the building I live in - those with their yachts here only a few months each year, will not even say hello to this white face in the elevator!!

Hatred needs to end here. And along with that, a proper sense of values based on a standard of honesty - integrity - sharing - kindness - and knowledge of the realities around us. We need to find new guidelines for judging both humans and situations...and based on a loving honest spirit and nothing else. I'm old now and won't be around a great many more years and I do not expect anything to change. Greed and avarice are the bywords here. A dulling of the senses has taken oven long ago - and the rich and powerful rationalize everything!!

Do most people recognize that ALL of the teacher's in New Orleans were fired as part of the aftermath of the storm? And now they are setting up private schools there? Will they use those same school busses that were allowed to flood instead of taking the poor out of the city? For me those busses symbolized the death of our culture - only the roof of what was, still appearing beneath the polluted waters below.

Then, we have been killing hundreds of thousands in Iraq, much less our own soldiers. For what? Oil? Land grabs? This area was the cradle of civilization and had a culture and system far outdating our own. New Orleans was "our" city with a cultural wealth that made it one of our finest examples of peoples living together, albeit in a less than perfect order. However do the executives and monied have the right now to take over and squeeze out the real citizenry? No. No, no, no, no - open your eyes America. New Orleans is only the first city in line for privatization because it was wiped out by the storm. It is the middleclass and poor that are being squeezed out.

What a place.