Me, Excluded

I'm at war with many things, not the least of which are plastic wrap and all the safety seals that arose after the Tylenol scare, but I'm not thinking about that now.

What's bugging me is I feel sorta left out of our national dialogue / debate, and I blame that on sixties and seventies. The Internet, the print publications, the airwaves are all full of moronic Bush apologists blaming the Katrina tragedy on local government. It's hard to miss the pics of swamped school buses they paste and the snippets of documents showing whatever role Homeland Security and FEMA had.

On the other hand, it should be noted, are endless claims about racist AP photographers of looters and finders and much talk about levee money wasted in Iraq.

The thing is, for me, I spent most of last week sickened by what I was seeing and dumbfounded. Words failed me, and I spent a good deal of time responding emotionally to what I was witnessing. I don't particularly enjoy or respect plays on my emotions, but I'm susceptible to them and cry or get goose pimples, depending.

What I miss, though, is the sense of outrage so many people feel. I think what's happened to me is I've given up on government and no longer expect very much. Instead of being pissed at the failings of FEMA, I never expected them to be much help.

Part of that comes from having my idealism stunted early on. Watergate hurt, but so, too, did JFK appointing his brother Atty General. I think that's when the scales fell from my eyes, when I started feeling that politicians have no more concern for me than car salesmen do. Instead of the product being food slicers, it's "public service," and I guess I lost some sense of altruism that I really miss.

So, while I've abandoned politicians and government as being helpful, I've not given up hope. It's the system, dammit.