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Levees Made of Lies: Rage, Grief, and the Chimera of the American Dream

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We have become a society of Willie Lomans (as he might have been written by Joseph Goebbels). In this Potemkin world, the public relations mountebanks of Bushco were convinced they could indefinitely hold back raging rivers of reality by means of media sound-bytes, spin control, cooked intelligence, and strategic leaks to stenographic reporters ... And because they had gotten away with it for so long, I suspect, they actually believed they could respond to the lethal winds and drowning tides of Hurricane Katrina by engaging in a Rovian whispering campaign against her fury. Somehow, it would seem, in their ineluctable arrogance, they went and mistook a level four hurricane for those walking wet farts known as the present day Democratic party.

I'm as serious as a tsunami: I think such madness is in them -- in direct proportion to the fecklessness of the leadership of our so-called opposition party.

And who is responsible for this miserable state of affairs?

We are: We the people of the United State. Our hubris, instilled by having lived our lives within the unreality of corporate disptopia, has deluded us into believing that we can indefinitely hold back the approaching sh*t storms spawned by our delusional sense of infinite entitlement -- all of which have been financed by a pyramid scheme of (personal and national) debt. By the means of our emptiness, selfishness, and corruption, our "American way of life" is an unnatural disaster that has been waiting to happen.

But god damn it to hell (or, at least, its earthly exurb Houston) why did it have to be New Orleans that was destroyed -- N'awlins -- one of the last outposts within this corporate simulacrum of a country where a human pulse and heart beat could be found -- where the primordial songs of bone and heart and flesh and clouds and rivers had not been forced into the Clear Channel/Disney/Time-Warner Uberculture blandification machine?

Just let Haliburton try to build Branson, Missouri on the bayou. You see, in New Orleans, dead bodies will not remain buried underground. By the same token, we must not deep-six our grief and anger. In the name of the dead, we can't allow the truth to bulldozed, buried, and have shlock erected over their memories.

Although, to be of any use to them, first, we Americans must gaze down into the drowning pool that once was the Crescent City, where, superimposed upon the raw sewage, submerged debris, and bloated corpses -- we will see our own face reflected. It is the face of empty entitlement, of exceptionalism, of state sanctified selfishness, of ceaseless ambition, and mindless appetite. What destroyed NOLA is the toxic spill-off from our national psyche.

Frank O'Hara wrote: "In times of crisis we must all decide again and again whom we love."

Perhaps, to properly grieve the loss of New Orleans, we must allow ourself to again be seduce by life -- not by the soul-usurping machinations of the corporate UberCulture. Personally, like so many others who knew the city -- beautiful, disloyal, capricious b*tch she could be -- I retain a lover's ardor for her. For: The enveloping redolence of honey suckle and jasmine on the humid, evening air, as I, swigging a Turbo Dog, would hobbled up Esplanade. For: The exquisite indifference of starlight above the Bywater and the manner in which those distance celestial bodies stood in stark contrast to the redemptive immediacy of the sweat-soaked bodies near me, as we would lie on our backs, on the sidewalk, watching stream rise from the roof of an old Camelback house, listening, as inside, Kermit Ruffin's band played an ode to Louis Armstrong's affection for reefer ...

Living with the keening pain of loss evoked by such memories is the easier part of the grieving process ... Now, through our rage and sadness, we must attempt to love, with the same ardor, the intricate manner that our lives and fates are interconnected, by way of mutual inter-dependance, with intimate strangers -- which is the essential thing that we Americans seemed to have forgotten -- and it is the reason our beloved city of New Orleans has been lost to us.

In a similar vein, we are dependent on air, water, and soil. Tragically, far too many of us have been tricked into believing we are dependent on the corporate power structure -- and its proxy state, presently known as the three branches of the U.S. government. For far too long, we have deferred the hour when we faced the fact that this corrupt cabal cares nothing for us -- and, accordingly, we owe them nothing.

In contrast, we owe the air, water, and soil -- big time. For these things sustain us; they are the face of our beloved.

We should carry snapshots of New Orleans, before and after, in our wallets. And, in times of doubt, despair, and alienation, we should gaze at the photographs, in order that we never again forget: It was not divine wrath that brought on the flood; instead, the tragedy was caused by billions of interconnected acts (personal and collective; private and official) of carelessness, obliviousness, and indifference.

This is the choice our times have given us: continued complicity in sowing the toxic winds of corporatism -- or the passion-agitated air created by the ceaseless need to struggle against exploitation.

Our choice will not only determine our individual fates, but the fate of us all.

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Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/phil.rockstroh

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