Here's why I can't get excited about the "good news" from Iraq: [View All]

I caught snippets of Shrub's talk today before another canned audience, and someone in the audience wondered why the MSM "never talks about the good things happening in Iraq." And of course, there was a lot of hysterical applause when Shrub said something about a new school that had opened there recently, just for girls. Well, I'm not going to disparage that; those kids deserve to go to school too. (And we should build schools if we destroyed the old ones.)

I also heard a politician talking earlier on one of the CNN or MSNBC shows. He just got back from Baghdad. He was just gushing about counting at least 50 cranes in the city, and all the construction going on. (No mention, of course, of the fact that the United States is responsible for the need for much of the building/rebuilding there.) I'm not going to disparage that either.

No, I'm not going to disparage those things, but I am going to say this: How can I get excited about anything positive going on in Iraq when we are looking at the start of yet another hurricane season and many people in the Gulf region STILL DON'T HAVE A PERMANENT PLACE TO LIVE. When NEW ORLEANS AND ALL THE OTHER CITIES AND TOWNS AND BURGS AND BENDS IN THE ROAD HAVEN'T BEEN REBUILT? WHEN NOT MUCH AT ALL HAS BEEN DONE IN ANY OF THOSE AREAS? We can build, build, build in Iraq, but OUR OWN CITIZENS ARE STILL WITHOUT A PLACE TO LIVE? When the levees STILL AREN'T REPAIRED?

Why in the fucking hell are people in this country, who's every possession, including the walls that surrounded them, still without anything? Or are scattered to the winds? Why are the trailers still sitting in Arkansas? Why is there so much red tape holding things up?

Why does this government care so fucking little about the the people who live in this country? That's why I can't get excited about the "good news" from Iraq. When people in other countries get more attention, more help, than the people in this country, I don't get very excited about "good news" from elsewhere.

The country needs to take care of its own in their time of need. Yes, many, many individuals have reached out, given time, talent, and treasure to those in the Gulf who need it, and they are truly good, decent, and caring people. But the government needs to pay a little more attention to what's going on in it's own back yard before they can expect people to get real excited about what they're doing elsewhere.

(PLEASE NOTE: I now exactly why the residents of the Gulf aren't being helped as much as they should be. It's because many of the residents aren't the "right kind of people." If they were all rich, white Republicans, you can bet they'd all be cozy in their new abodes. But poor/middle class/poor white/people of color? Guess they just don't matter as much.)

Just needed to get this off my chest.