I Hate the Way They Portray Us in the Media

Well you know what he said already and it was obvious but it was so excellent that he said it on General Electric Network. Matt Lauer, fresh from his beatdown of Tom Cruise, said this:

"Emotions in this country right now are running very high. Sometimes that emotion is translated into inspiration, sometimes into criticism. We've heard some of that tonight. But it's still part of the American way of life."

The General Electric Network said this: "Kanye West departed from the scripted comments that were prepared for him, and his opinions in no way represent the views of the networks. "

In the spoken word game they used to say we were flippin' the script. Long live Kanye and anyone else who dares to flip it. Yes, even Lil' Flip.

All this stuff that's going on is too intense for my casual comments. Here is the latest op ed I prepared for the Progressive people outta Madison:

Poor people bore the brunt of Hurricane Katrina

By Ed Morales

One of the unintended consequences of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe is that it shed light on the disproportionate suffering of the nation's poor when confronted with a natural disaster.
People living in the path of the killer storm were twice as likely to be poor and without an automobile, according to a recent Associated Press study.
This was the major reason why there were so many left behind to face the severe flooding that left New Orleans -- as well as counties in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama -- uninhabitable.
Recently released data shows that 60 percent of residents of the 36 most hardest hit neighborhoods in these three states were minorities, and their median household income was $32,000 -- that is $10,000 less than the national average.
Two in 10 households had no car, twice the national average.
Single mothers headed 12 percent of these households, compared with the 7 percent national average.
One of the most adversely affected neighborhoods in New Orleans had a median household income of less than $7,500.
These people of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, most of whom were black or elderly, became victims of the Katrina catastrophe largely because of their poverty. They were unable to afford passage out of the city, and had to stay to face the brunt of the hurricane and the ensuing flood.
A disaster of this proportion, where officials estimate as many as 10,000 deaths, should have been met with the same speedy and compassionate response we saw in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 tragedy.
But the federal government has failed these people.
It has cut funding to flood-control projects, diverting part of this money to fund the failing Iraq War.
It has sent many of our states' National Guard troops to Iraq, making the response time to this disaster horrifically slow.
The administration has continued to deny the problem of global warming, although scientists have found links between the intensity of hurricanes and recent global warming patterns.
And the Bush administration has made the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) answer to the Department of Homeland Security instead of having a cabinet-level presence, as it once did. This additional layer of bureaucracy hinders response time and may make the difference between life and death for people caught in a natural disaster.
Our government is not working for the people. It is cutting funding for programs here at home that could protect lives.
The Bush administration's skewed priorities should be in the spotlight.
Baghdad and New Orleans are two sides of the same issue, and the poor are being left to drown in the wretched waters of neglect.

© Ed Morales 2005

How about, did you hear that one of the three organizations that the FEMA website listed to send donations for the N'Orleans catastrophe was owned and operated by Pat Roberston? Check this out!

I'm also a big fan of C. Ray Nagin now. This is also another extraordinary example of someone speaking the truth to power.
I want to write a little something about Century of the Self but I'm kind of out of it at the moment. The line from Freud to Bernays to Wilhelm Reich. Pretty staggering. I'm still wondering whether my desires are actually mine at this point. Well obviously the most important ones are. But I guess it's that Puma windbreaker I just bought that worries me.