Those who "chose not to leave"?????

I'm trying very hard not to swear. But if I hear "chose" again I'm going to scream.

The people who stayed in New Orleans stayed because they HAD no choice. People who say otherwise are engaging in projection. They are projecting their OWN blatant ignorance of the facts on those who truly had no option to go.

• Many of them had no car, and no public convoys were offered before the fact.
• Many of them had no income, so where could they go? They can't afford even a Motel 6.
• Some were sick and could not leave.
• Others were taking care of those who were sick, and dared not leave.
• Some were old, and felt if they left they'd never return.
• Some felt that if they stayed, they might be able to protect something of the little they had.

Can we please not blame the victims??? People who had the means to leave, left. Not the education, not the intelligence, the means. The mulah. The bling. The cash. The credit.

The gap between the wealthy and the poor is now so large that we hardly recognize one another. People who are rich tell themselves they deserve it, not that they were born to privilege. The few who made it on their own have a lot to be proud of, but they combined some genetic intelligence with hard work and a bit of luck to get where they are. They should honor that luck and their native gifts as well as their hard work. I know lots of hardworking smart people who never made it very far up the ladder, possibly because they spent a lot of their time trying to make the world a better place for others.

If God made the rich rich and the poor poor, it sure as hell wasn't to reward the rich and punish the poor, but to test our humanity. I'm not a religious person and I haven't read the bible in years. But when I was and did, the common thread was that we would be judged by how well we treated the least, not the richest, among us. On that level, it's quite certain Bush and his crew are going to hell, and the dying in New Orleans are on their way to heaven. But that's no comfort for someone such as myself. I want to stop the dying and punish the profiteers who brought us to this point. The open greed of the Halliburton employee in the Vice President's office, the open disregard for humanity shown by our unprovoked, unwarranted war on Iraq led by our Thief in Chief Bush, and the open contempt of those not exactly like themselves by the hatemongers of Limbaugh, Coulter, and others are to blame.

Limbaugh has been telling us for years global warming doesn't exist. Yet scientists say global warming is in part to blame for Katrina's lifespan and intensity. Coulter and her ilk have told us for years that government is the problem, that less government is better. So public programs have been cut, the poor have gotten much poorer, and now those chickens are coming home to roost. Had social programs for the poor and indigent in the New Orleans area been more available, these people might have had the means to leave the city, reducing the overall bill for rescue efforts. Had the government payed the bill for fixing the levees, thousands of our fellow human beings would still be alive.

We always have to pay for each other one way or another. That or we devolve into barbaric monkeys. So the only question that matters then is not how much, but when? Which is cheaper? Prevention or the cure? We can all see really clearly now, in hindsight admittedly, that more prevention was due in New Orleans. But should we have to suffer other Katrina-sized cataclysms to prove that prevention is necessary in many other areas of society now as well?

Government either protects us all equally, or it is not legitimate. And an illegitimate government deserves to fall so a new form of government can take its place. The foundation of our country is based on these words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

It is ironic that these words were written about another George, King George III. In childhood, I learned a little poem about the tyranny of the Georges:

George the First
was always reckoned Vile,
but viler George the Second;
And what mortal ever heard
Any good from George the Third?
When from Earth the Fourth descended
(God be praised!) the Georges ended.

I won't wait to be rid of a fourth before singing. I'll be happy enough at the political demise of George the Second. I don't want him dead. I want him repentant. I want him to understand the evil he has wrought in the world. I want him to really GET it.

How dare he. HOW DARE HE play golf, strum a guitar, and eat cake while people in New Orleans were gasping in their attics for their last breath? Can he be human? And if the answer is no, can he be president? Should he be president?

Can we finally, now, begin impeachment talks in earnest, before he has the chance to do us even greater ill? There's never a "good time" to impeach a president. By definition, if things are going well, he probably doesn't deserve to be impeached.

This isn't about placing blame. It's about taking responsibility. I hear the right cry over and over about "personal responsibility." Well boo hoo. When it's time for THEM to take responsibility, surprise surprise, it's always someone else's fault. It's the fault of those who "chose to stay." I have only one word for people like that. But I can't say it. I'm trying not to swear.