Cody
Williams
“Stuck on Stupid”
Grammy
award winning hip-hop artist Kanye West shocked a national television
audience during an NBC concert produced to raise funds for displaced Gulf
Coast victims of hurricane Katrina. The guy Time magazine recently dubbed,
“the smartest man in hip-hop,” who has won numerous awards for his debut
CD, “College Dropout” went off a prepared script and ranted, “George Bush
does not care about black people.”
In doing so, West may have proved that he should think about going back to school and completing that degree. It does not take good sense to be a successful rapper. West’s view is overly simplistic. George W. Bush has in no way proven himself to not care about blacks. I honestly believe our president is a ‘good Christian man,’ (flawed like us all) who has appointed more blacks to greater positions of power than any other White House resident. What W. has proven, yet again, is how grossly incompetent he and his administration are. It does not take good sense to be a successful presidential candidate either. Borrowing the words of General Russel Honore -- the commander leading the troops cleaning up New Orleans -- our president and those he selected to run the new Department of Homeland Security and FEMA are, “stuck on stupid.”
When the US Supreme Court handed young Bush the presidency in December of 2000 my wife and I looked at each other and said, “oh well, what’s the worst that can happen? At least we’ll get a tax break.”
Well, W’s incompetence has since directly led to our being unprepared and undefended on September 11, 2001 when terrorist struck New York City and the Pentagon.
His incompetence kept him from capturing Osama Bin Laden, the guy who masterminded the attack on our homeland and brought down (as promised) the World Trade Center, the symbols of our financial and economic success throughout the world.
Our incompetent president led us into an unjustified war that turned much of the world against us.
Our incompetent president has wreaked havoc with the US economy.
And now our incompetent president, mishandling the greatest natural disaster in US history, has undoubtedly cost more lives, caused unfathomable heartache and a lack in confidence in our government’s ability to be there for us when we need it most.
This confidence gap has led Oakland resident Ophelia Long to help people in her earthquake prone city to better prepare themselves for inevitable disaster. Long is chairperson of the DC based activist group, the Black Congress on Health Law and Economics. The group’s aim is to promote the educational, social, political and economic health and well-being of African American people by identifying and addressing issues that impact on our livelihood.
“I keep a flashlight, important papers, drinking water and food handy in my home at all times,” says Long. “We need to be able to survive on our own for at least several days in the event of a disaster. We can’t rely on others to help us.”
Long says the federal government was supposed to be prepared for three major disasters. One was a hurricane hitting New Orleans. The other was a terrorist attack. And the third is a major earthquake leveling a California city; the ‘big one’ which has been predicted for years. New Orleans’ ‘big one’ was predicted too. “Just look how they botched that one,” she says.
We live in a world where any number of major disasters can hit almost any American city, any day. A nuclear plant meltdown, toxic gas or waste escaping a freight train wreck, natural disasters or a man made one has the potential to kill or displace a large numbers of Americans. It could happen in urban cities, suburbia or in rural areas. We all live at risk.
After Katrina and the devastation of the Gulf Coast can any of us say we have full confidence in the Bush administration to protect us, our families and those we love?
As I write this, fully eight days after the storm devastated the ‘Big Easy,’ bloated bodies of the dead still lay uncollected on the streets of an American city.
Eight days!
It was the Rwanda genocide that we last witnessed this type of desecration of the dead. The timely burial of the dead is a mark of civilization. Some religious customs require their dead to be buried before sunset of the next day. We haven’t even attended to ours after a week. Corpses have been left to rot and be eaten by rats and starving dogs.
Kanye West was not right. George W. Bush does not care less about blacks. He’s not an evil man.
Sadly, he’s a man put in a job that he simply can not handle, and our entire country, like those on our Gulf Coast, is paying for it: black, white, brown, yellow and red, young and old. Our president is just “stuck on stupid.”
God help us!
If we do not stand up and demand that those responsible for this ineptness be fired we deserve exactly what we get.
How long are we going to accept incompetence from our government? How bad does it have to get before we demand better?
© 2005 www.codywilliams.com
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