NEW ORLEANS

NOTE: (Portions of this blog were originally posted by this same author on the dissent channel)

JESUS WALKS, KANYE TALKS (Pt.1)

Such a predictable firestorm over rapper Kanye West's comments during a fundraiser for New Orleans relief that President "Bush doesn't care about black people." Well, duh, but I'm glad he had the guts to say it on national TV--not that many people got to see it or are likely to see it again, now that the corporate/government censorship machine has kicked in.Anyone with a brain who isn't blindly in thrall of the Bush Administration/Fox News has to have realized over the last eight days just how much of a divide between rich and poor, black and white there continues to be in this country. Even actor Colin Farrell, who I would not necessarily consider among the most astute or politically active actors out there, piped in this weekend that "if the victims of the hurricanes had been in the Hamptons, they'd have loaded up every cruise ship in the country to come get them".

The Bush response was what it was, because he is what he is--blind to the concerns of the working class, the lower class, the darker class. He just couldn't be bothered on the tail end of his vacation to put all the pieces in place where they needed to be. And his assertion that "no one could have predicted the levees would break" is exactly the bald face lie it seems to be. Everyone predicted that this was a likely scenario for New Orleans leading up to the time when Katrina struck.What's going to be the fallout for the Bush Administration after a week when one of America's greatest cities was reduced to Third World chaos? Well, it's not going to be good and even that oh-so-effective right wing spin machine is going to bust a few gears trying to put a good face on this one. At least the mainstream media finally woke up when confronted with the sights, sounds and smells of New Orleans, with everyone from Matt Lauer to even Geraldo Rivera starting to ask the tough questions of this administration that they should have been asking for the last five years. And yet even if "semi"-liberal Democrats sweep into power in the midterms and the next presidential election, the apparatus of state has already been heavily rigged to prevent real positive change from taking place. With Rehnquist and O'Connor gone, Bush will continue to keep the Supreme Court tilting right for decades to come. The unholy alliance of the defense contractors, military suppliers and oil companies will continue to keep nudging American foreign policy into intervening in the Middle East (anyone up for invading Iran?) The FCC has been deregulated so much that free speech and the broadcasting in the public interest is already nearly extinct, soon to be discussed in the same context as other endangered or defunct things like the peregrine falcon, rotary telephones and the World Trade Center--another tragedy that happened on this administration's watch, which led both directly and indirectly to the ongoing tragedies in Iraq and New Orleans.

We have leadership in this country that doesn't care about black people--or anyone else, for that matter, that can't help them get filthy rich. Bush claims to be born again, but I have to wonder in his situation, what would Jesus have done? I think He would have had a few more buses and boats ready to rescue the people of New Orleans and the buck would have stopped with Him, not someone else.

If you haven't donated to the New Orleans relief effort, please do so today...

(to be continued later this week)

Quotes from Kanye West and Colin Farrell courtesy of Entertainment Tonight, c.2005

The 100-Word(or less) Review: The Constant Gardener

A beautifully shot, elegantly acted, politically aware gem of a movie, The Constant Gardener is this summer's smartest domestic film, a must see for anyone who is a fan of intelligent writing, skillful plotting and unabashed romance. Ralph Fiennes is the buttoned-up British diplomat posted in Kenya who discovers that his wife (Rachel Weisz) and an African relief worker have been brutally murdered. Fiennes must not only solve the crime, but uncover what his wife knew and speak out about it in order to assauge his guilt--and honor her memory. From the director of City of God (Fernando Mireilles), it is unlikely that there will be a more affecting or poetic movie to be released this year. Go see it now!

Peace...