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I stood outside the New Orleans Convention Center for two days and I passed out copies of the New Orleans Levee. I'll go back again today.
I figured if anyone needed a laugh if may have been a majority of people having to maintain some semblance of dignity going through the indignity they must endure in asking for help from a government that for the most part put them in the situation they now find themselves.
It's like asking a thief that is holding you at gun-point if they wouldn't leave you enough to eat.
What I witnessed was near every social cast of society.
Obviously no limousines pulled-up, but the majority of people I made eye contact with and made a comment to as I passed out copies of the Levee where descent people.
Far too many of them were old, too old and some so crippled as to required assistance in taking what was for them a painfully long walk and than to have to wait in line for up to an hour or more, just to seek some help that would not near give them enough relief as they dare need nor as immediate as needed.
All I could do for them is say, "Hey cheer-up, at least it's not raining."
It was a beautiful day.
Today it's raining.
The majority of people though were the working poor, whose dignity may have suffered the most. Color of ones skin made no difference. It seemed fairly well diverse.
I couldn't say how many of them had been through this before, having to go through the process of asking the thief for some of your money back, but certainly a good share that were there were experiencing it for their first time.
There where low-life’s for sure, but not as many as one might think. After all I can't imagine applying for food stamps ranks you high in Gangsterville.
There were your share of people only a City such as New Orleans could produce, men looking like women, women like men, a few you just couldn’t be sure. There were some who looked as though dressed-up for the occasion to the point you couldn’t tell if they were “strumming”, eccentric or just plain Looney-toon.
What one may call, “yuppies” came, they would anchor their $1,000 bicycles as close to the entrance as they could get, spend just enough time to find out it was an hour-and-a-half wait just to complain about it as they road away. They always came in pairs.
There were many young mothers with small children trying their best to keep their kids in line, or carrying them, or in strollers, the young ones wide-eyed, one asked if this were a fair.
I wondered what it would be like for them after standing in line with a couple of hungry kids for an hour and than be told at the end that the food stamps they were applying for couldn’t be used for four days. I wondered what their response would be to an over-worked low-level relief worker as to how they were to feed themselves for the next fours days. And I wondered how they’re going to react when they finally do get to the store and they find after they’ve spent gas, time shopping that at the end all that food they have piled in their basket has to be put back because that Food Stamp Card isn’t valid for seven full working days.
I wondered about those kids and the confusion on their faces as they were leaving the store with no food and how their mother was going to feed them for another five-days?
What does this government think? Are people suppose to take out a loan? Maybe they could apply to the Fed? They had no problem doling out unGodly amounts of money overnight to already wealthy people.
How can people that have lost two weeks pay, that were struggling before evacuating, that have lost more than the meager $160 worth of food the food stamps they were “applying” for could cover, were suppose to eat for the next nine-days?
The authorities seemed fairly lax and competent, maybe a little but too much inference was put on applicants having not made any false statements, as though people there would to go through all this to scam the government out of $160 dollars worth of food stamps that is rightfully their money to begin with, when our same government just simply handed over trillions of dollars to people that have never known a days hunger.
But having M-16 armed soldiers for an event such as this still seems a little more than over the top, and implies further indignity. It also conjures up darker thoughts.
I asked one of these soldiers if they'd been to the "sandbox" yet"?
He was very spit and polished, and answered "No sir, hoping be deployed next year, sir."
With a raised eyebrow I said, "Really? Why?"
"To fight for our freedoms, sir. That’s what it’s all about, right sir?"
"Freedoms," I said as I pointed at the people in line, "do those people look "free" to you?"
He looked over at them, than at me and said, "No sir, they do not."
But the real travesty is that those that needed this help the most weren’t even there. People so far down that abyss that has robbed them of all possessions, sense of identity, place of being, dignity and sanity. People that for one reason or another couldn’t meet the meager levels to qualify for food stamps, (whatever you do, don’t tell them you have money in a bank) people too sensitive to live in a world of Stanley Kowalski’s, who have been denigrated and forgotten.
As things get worse those hidden numbers will swell to a point where they won’t be hidden any longer. What will happen when we reach that point is why I question why we have soldiers that carried automatic weapons, and view people as not being free, what they will do when ordered to use those weapons, that worries me.
Not that the soldier that told me “freedom” is what he really believed we were in Iraq for, I would prefer he was giving me an understanding of the situation in a coded manner. But what of those that aren’t? Someone drilled into their heads that they are fighting for our freedoms in Iraq and therefore some of those soldiers may actually believe the hype, and those are the ones when ordered that will not question using those weapons against the most defenseless among us.
And don’t think it couldn’t happen. I have seen it happen. We have all seen it happen.
Several soldiers and police took a copy of the Levee, one State Trooper came over to get one saying he’s watching everyone reading it and laughing so he had to get one for himself.
One of the nicer compliments came from a man in his fifties that seemed pre-occupied, professional looking, carrying a briefcase, on his way out of the Food Court, (It thought that ironic that among the people coming for food stamps were professionals and conventioneers going to eat at the Food Court) who at first paused thinking I was going to solicit him, than recognized I was handing him a copy of the Levee and lit-up. “Oh, the Levee! Great! I got to tell you guys this is the best thing to happen to this city after Katrina hit. Boy, do we need this. Thanks.”
Of course the best moment came when I went to retrieve a few more bundles of the Levee that I had stacked near the curb and found a kindly older lady sitting on a stack of New Orleans Levee newspapers. I burst out laughing and said to her that, that was the best use I’ve seen for this rag yet outside of being a bird-cage liner. I chastised myself for not bringing my camera.
There are people that will disparage those whom seek some meager relief with the bones our government throws us, they will bitch and moan about their tax dollars being wasted on no-counts and unfortunates. They will scold those for complaining for receiving “hand-outs” and tell them waiting a few hours or days to get “free” food is something they should be thankful for. They’ll berate these “free-loaders” for not having jobs, planning their lives better, for not going to college and becoming “productive” members of society.
They will do this never taking into account that many of these people through no fault of their own lost everything they had, or never had a chance to have anything, and are trying in an ever increasing hard-to-get-by-in world just can’t seem to keep up.
They will do this while our government will hand over trillions of dollars to thieves that don’t even have to apply for it, and in turn hand them the bill.
It is amassing to watch the propaganda machine that keeps us ripping each other apart as those that own the machine manipulate us.
Those that didn’t have to experience driving for 30-odd hours in grid-lock, only to be prayed upon every mile of the way by disaster-capitalists charging $12 for gas and $200 for a $79 dollar room, and need not worry about little things like having something to eat, who would talk about how well authorities did this time, because that’s what it said in the news, give me pause.
I saw those newscasts to. I didn’t see any news reporters in traffic anywhere going out. I guess they got their story from those high officials that kept patting each other on the back about how well everything was going.
We as a people, when the time comes, and it will sooner than later, must know whom we are to fight. And those soldiers that understand must know which way to point those M-16’s, if and when they're ordered.
