Something I Haven't Mentioned Yet

Lost amidst all the depression, soapboxing and cute kittens that have comprised the past few weeks here in Gladystopia has been something that pretty much just ripped my guts out and handed them to me.

If any of you have not taken the opportunity to watch "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts" on HBO, I urge you to sit down and take the time to do so. It's the story of New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina, full of testimonials from people who lived through it. This, to me, leaves "Farenheit 9/11" in the dust as an indictment of the current administration. It takes a lot for me to cry about something I haven't personally experienced; this movie made me cry at least half a dozen times. With sadness, with rage, with total incomprehension. This happened HERE, in the most affluent country in the world. My god. Bodies floating in the streets and thousands of people subsisting in filth at the Superdome and the Convention Center, no food and no water, old people and sick people and babies dying from the heat and dehydration while Condi Rice shopped for shoes and Bush said "Brownie, you're doing a hell of a job." My god.

I'm watching it again, right now, and I wish there was a way to get a hold of Spike Lee to tell him "Thank you for telling this story." There is so much we didn't know and couldn't imagine, and I was working at the time and couldn't sit in front of CNN--which is in hindsight maybe a good thing, what with the magnitude of lies and misinformation and unsubstantiated rumors that were reported as fact. I can't imagine what it would be like to be someone who loved that city the way I love Chicago, to see what was done there and what was left undone. And it goes on. That's one of the main things about it that rips you apart: this is not over. This may never be over in our lifetime.

The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, along with the casualties of the war in Iraq, should constitute the whole of George Bush's historical legacy. There's no amount of spin that can make this go away; there's no pretty face to put on this catastrophe. Yes, the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Louisiana and just about everyone else on up the line made their share of mistakes--but the man who was President of this country had the power to order every possible thing done to help those people, from the first day the winds started blowing--and he didn't. I'm not saying Gore or Kerry could have done any better--but they weren't the ones in the position to try. Bush was, and he didn't. And people died, and people suffered, and people continue to suffer. Nothing can undo that. Nothing can make that go away.

If you have a chance to watch this movie, watch it, please. I think it's a story everyone should know.