Thursday, May 20, 2010

How about you?


Nice rendition of Neil Young's song~ Helpless.

I have to say all that is going on has me feeling overwhelmed. It's hard to remain upbeat when so much is going wrong, in 
such a big way. The man made disaster in the Gulf seems to have reached critical mass. I am not buying the "we just really
have no idea how much oil is gushing, line either. Come on, these are major players in international resource extraction. 
They just don't know?
Well they certainly just don't know how to stop it quickly.
They certainly just don't know if the chemical dispersant will do more harm than good when used "off label" subsurface.
Stupid Congress is playing games blocking the ability to raise the amount Big Oil is liable for.
Make each one of them wear a billboard showing how much cash they took for lobbying bribes.
It's all about the money for big oil & politicians, so easily bought & sold. The drill baby drill crowd has all but shut up now,  
except for Palin, who is still pushing her agenda, based on the fact the U.S. has the most strict drilling safety rules. 
The only thing missing from her statement is the backdrop of this photo.

The death toll in Afghanistan hit the 1000th soldier this week. The 1000th soldier to die was a 19 year old kid.
When a war is alleged to avenge an attack, one must assess the wisdom of having more of your own people die in 
retaliation, when a decade later, your country still uses the excuse that you must punish them for their evil deed, while
imposing that same kind of suffering in the Middle East. the use of predator drone planes- unmanned robots to drop 
bombs is the latest tactic our country is using, as the Afghanistan war spills over into Pakistan.
Just stopping by because we are in the neighborhood?
The reason Russia pulled out of Afghanistan after 10 long years of war, is because it can't be won.
The layout of the land allows the locals to watch movement, and know when the best time to attack, as they did on an 
airfield, yesterday.


Now the death toll has reached 1070.
Why the U.S. publicly announces military strategies in advance is beyond me.
Why we are still involved in 2 wars is beyond me as well.

I feel tapped out. I have done peace vigils, rallies, marched in masse & written editorials.




I'm tired of witnessing the nation struggle with vanishing budgets, and things like education, animal welfare, senior care 
slashed to the core, while we are burning through the cash for wars, no problem.


The situation in Thailand is awfully reminiscent of Tiananman 
square, where an uprising & call for democracy was squelched by militia. There's not much conversation going on when bullets are 
flying . 44 people have died so far.


I won't go on, but I am feeling helpless. How about you?


5 comments:

Christopher said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UbtuLjEyVA&feature=player_embedded

D.K. Raed said...

Helpless is not a good feeling, no way to shade that beast. There's so much bad going on. Have you attended any drum circles lately?

Fran said...

Christopher~ Well that was disturbing! How is it BP is calling the shots over the Coast Guard???
No filming the mess, nothing to see, move it along?
WTF?

DK~ I used to always feel how is it someone could not pay attention to all that is going on.
I am a self admitted news junkie of sorts- but I like a variety of sources- the more sources you check the more depth to a story you can get.
But now I feel like I could use some sand to bury my head in. It's all too much.

I did go to a drum circle last Saturday... it was awful!

I left in disgust.

Christopher said...

The Obama administration and their patronage of the oil industry is baffling and it really pisses me off.

nonnie9999 said...

as lousy as the news often is, i refuse to feel helpless. things change slowly in this country, but when something like the disaster in the gulf occurs, ordinary people wake up and make sure that things change a lot more quickly. will things be all rainbows and unicorns tomorrow? no. but where there's life, there's hope. feeling hopeless makes you stop trying to change things. don't give into that feeling, because that would mean that the BPs of this world win.