I love reading Frank Rich on Sunday’s The guy is a great writer. So when he wrote this yesterday:
It’s not just torture we want to avoid. Most Americans don’t want to hear, see or feel anything about Iraq, whether they support the war or oppose it. They want to look away, period, and have been doing so for some time.
I finally can disagree with him and start to consider him a media elite. Someone that may not be AS in touch as I thought. You see, Mr. Rich. We don’t want to avoid, WE ARE TOTALLY POWERLESS TO DO ANYTHING. You see, we have people like Torturing Tom Carper that suspend habeas Corpus. People Like Mike McCastle that vote lockstep with Bush. That are ok with letting lawbreaking companies get a free pass. We have these elected officials people that DON’T ANSWER TO AN EMAIL YOU SEND THEM? A PHONE CALL YOU MAKE or a letter you type them asking them why they supported Alberto Gonzalez for so long, still support the war in Iraq and on and on and on. We have politicians that have strokes for God Sakes and still get re elected!
The only thing we look away with shame, sadness and disgust is the people we elected into office. The shameless pieces of shit, clinging on to their precious seats by doing their masters bidding. If they don’t listen and do as they are told another person will replace them. The RNC’s $$$$ will find a way into another person pocket for the next election. You see Mr. Rich we don’t look away because we don’t care. We look away because we have been marched down a ten-mile long road of death, corruption and greed. Somewhere along the road we realized we are powerless. That the shackles we have tied to our legs and arms are not going to be unlocked until 2009; until a NEW LEADER steps in and makes CHANGE, brings his own version of EXPERIENCE to the white house and invokes change. Until someone that isn’t a bullshit artist gets behind that desk of the oval office, we have finally realized that no matter how loud we scream, we are being looked at like a minor annoyance that can be silenced by quickly rolling up the tinted window of a limousine.
We are dead inside and as we march down this road towards 2009 in shackles we are hanging on to the millions of Americans that we are intrinsically tied too. We shuffle with a collective will and hope that something has to change this time around. Frank, I’m tired of the nightmares I see on the side of the road and can do nothing about. Tired of trying to put images of children missing legs on my blog for the world to see. Tired, dog tired from it. We are sore from being socked in the balls every day with news about the FUCKING CONSTITUTION BEING SUSPENDED TO MAKE US SAFER, the greed and corruption occurring at the Vice Presidents former Company. We are numb to the fact that you never see on the news the link to Bush being an Oil Man that bankrupted 2 companies and now has set oil at over $110 a barrel. We don’t understand how it is that more war makes us safer. We don’t get how the cost of everything has gone up in 8 years and we are told it is all fine when it isn’t. Shuffling, (clink, clank) shuffling we go…
You see Mr. Rich, something like 75% of this country opposes this war and think we as a country are headed in the wrong direction. A majority of this country knows that this is wrong. That what has happened to our country is wrong. That this, everything, not just the war, but also ALL of it is so, so god awful wrong. It’s a sad day though because all along we knew that the people with the money and the mighty corporations that make DC suck their collective cocks run this country. We always knew that 75% of us are at their mercy. It is the 25% that still have control and laugh at us as we try to make them change. Now though this is beyond a Nor Easter. There are so many storms pounding on our hearts that we don’t know which way to look other than straight ahead to 2009. The one crippling blow has just occurred. The constitution was suspended and nothing has happened. Period. Shuffling, shuffling, hanging on till 2009, there is black, thick, tar like smoke encasing us…shuffling shuffling down the road, hanging on to the person in front of us…
We have hardly any savings, Frank. Our 401k’s are sucking hind tit b/c of this war and the policies of a “free market” system that is hardly free has bailed out the rich time and time again over the past month. We know that the odds of us getting Social Security are slim and none. We are powerless Mr. Rich and the last bastion of hope we had. The last branch of government we hoped would always side with the people has totally and utterly failed us. They attend dinners in Washington. Laugh at a President that jokes about being unable to find WMD’s. Shuffling shuffling, a woman runs up to us, screams at us, MY BABY IS DYING, PLEASE HELP ME…shuffling shuffling we go by. Not looking down at her holding her child with it’s missing head, blood pouring out its neck. Puddling at our feet that shuffle right on through, shuffling shuffling
My country makes me sick Frank, PERIOD. My country’s leadership sickens me, PERIOD. The people in power in this country disgust me to the point of red-faced anger when I start to type about it. There are millions more like me Frank, but we have to wake up each morning and go to work to pay the bills my man. I don’t get to go to the MOMA and watch a play in my tuxedo on the weekends, Mr. Rich. If I don’t show up to work with my broken foot, I will get canned and someone else will take my place. And I may never find another job like the ones we have or so we are told. Shuffling, shuffling a teenager wheels their father up to us…screaming help my father! He is dying of Parkinson’s…the old man barely 80 lbs is heaped over, vomit running down his chin, grey from dehydration, the clouds are grey all around us, she clutches at our feet, begging for help…shuffling shuffling we go by, to numb to stop or care
I disagree with you Mr. Rich. Most Americans don’t want to look away, PERIOD. Most Americans want the people in power, the people that supposedly have our best interests in mind. We want them to step up and do the right thing. Them to see what we see everyday. We want THEM TO recognize that the 4th Amendment is actually, well, just a teensy-weensy bit important and not some impediment to keeping American’s safer. Most Americans, want to be treated like adults. Most Americans want this all to be a fucking nightmare that they can wake up from. Most Americans want their country back. They want to believe the words on the Statue of Liberty. They want to believe the Constitution is above being manipulated and cast aside by the rich and powerful when inconvenient to them. Mr. Rich, we always thought that OJ Simpson was guilty. We knew he got off because he had good lawyers, because he was rich and was able to manipulate the system through the little loopholes created for and by people like him. We were tired of that and just wanted it to go away.
Well, now Mr. Rich we have much more important people getting away with murder by the millions. They too have fancy lawyers and tons of money. Only this time there isn’t a rich white family crying foul. There is a nation being water-boarded to death and being told it is only the backstroke.
I am not looking away, Mr. Rich. I am shuffling by it all. A numb father walking through the streets, carrying his dead daughter’s arm with one hand and her leg with the other. Blood splattered on his white shirt. There is no sound. Only smoke and fire in the background. He’s shuffling down the street, walking, eyes half shut, past dozens of people that are doing the same thing. Now picture that happening down Wall Street Mr. Rich. Now picture the people in the buildings at Wall Street working and never looking down from their offices to see what is happening below them. There, in those offices, behinds those windows, those are the Americans Frank; those are the ones that want to look away. PERIOD.