Gimme Shelter

Oh, a storm is threat’ning
My very life today
If I don’t get some shelter
Oh yeah, I’m gonna fade away

War, children, it’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
War, children, it’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away

Ooh, see the fire is sweepin’
Our very street today
Burns like a red coal carpet
Mad bull lost it’s way

War, children, it’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
War, children, it’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away

Rape, murder!
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away

Rape, murder!
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away

Rape, murder!
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away

The floods is threat’ning
My very life today
Gimme, gimme shelter
Or I’m gonna fade away

War, children, it’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
I tell you love, sister, it’s just a kiss away
It’s just a kiss away
It’s just a kiss away
It’s just a kiss away
It’s just a kiss away
Kiss away, kiss away

Notes: Tom K. rightly asks where my post on the tragedy in the south is. But what is there to say? Sometimes life does indeed imitate the darkest art, so I've posted the lyrics above. I'm on vacation this week on the north shore of Puerto Rico, surrounded by sweet, clear water - thankful for my children, my wife, my family, my friends, my work, my home, and for words themselves. The contrast between where I am now, and what is happening in the south cannot be greater. God I love New Orleans. Will it rebuild: yes of course, for it is a cultural phenomenon, not a physical one (great buildings aside). Does it seem that our government is extremely slow? Is our homeland defense - our National Guard - stretched too thin? Didn't we used to be better than this in a crisis? Please post thoughts.

Comments

[Tom K]

Another vacation! The workers of the world need to unite against the parasitical leisure class, if you ask me.

Anyway, have a good one. It is right to be thankful for the things you note, and for vacation, and for work for that matter (even if that isn't always as clear). Last I heard, my Louisiana co-counsel on a case didn't know if her office still existed, or would be salvagable. Makes my own one-week ouster for 9/11 seem positively tame. (But then, the heart of that storm blew a small bit north of here.)

[Brendan]

The administration's response to the devastation is characteristically too little, too late.

When I consider the Bush chose to remain on vacation as the hurricane blew through town, and the levees gave way, I'm reminded of the gaze of utter stupidity that overtook his face as he learned of the 9-11 attacks, and his decision to continue reading to the children in that Florida school, rather than excuse himself and lead, as he's expected to do.
He later claimed he didn't want to alarm the children - a claim that's (as is typical of his administration's distortions) belied by the press conference he held later - with those very children in attendance.
Now I wonder what his rationale will be for again being asleep at the switch.

I'm outraged by his threats of "zero tolerance" for looters in New Orleans. The federal government's slow response is directly responsible for the lawlessness that's ensued. If supplies had been airlifted and dropped into the city from the first moments, the sort of desperation that followed would never have materialized in the first place, the opportunity for chaos was a direct consequence of haning those people out to dry.
It's so typical - we rush aid to every natural disaster in every god-forsaken corner of this planet on a moment's notice, but drag our feet when calamity strikes at home.

Our response in unconscionable, and this whole wretched SUV-driving, borrowed-money spending, selfish, self-centered, delusional country bears responsibility for what's happening right now.

This is not a republican or democratic issue.

The issue is a total absence of leadership, integrity, a sense of fairness, civic-mindedness and social equity in this country.

We have, ourselves, created this monster by permitting deregulation, the bankrupting of strategic assets (like amtrak and the highway system) for the purpose of justifying privatization, relaxing emissions standards, and most importantly by allowing our elected officials on both sides of the aisle to become beholden to moneyed lobbyists who lavish campaign and other types of money on them in exchange for access to the public trust.

New Orleans is the culmination of all of these things, and our government's response to it is perfectly reflective of the kind of society we've become.

I'm sure there's a great sense of relief that the new bankruptcy bill takes effect in 6 weeks. The potential losses by the credit card companies caused by victims of this catastrophe will be mitigated - there will be no more wiping of slates by activist judges. These people will pay off their Visa balances if they have to collect and redeem 5 cent deposit bottles. As it is, I'm sure they'll be able to find plenty empty Poland Spring bottles on the streets of New Orleans. All they need is a little entrepreneurial initiative.

Now more than ever, we stand firmly with business to ensure that the enriching of executives continues unabated while we dig out from this storm.

Just imagine how much worse it could have been if there really were such a thing as Global Warming!

[Ralph]

The National Guard JUST got to New Orleans. Today is Friday!! This is insanity. This Bush admin must go. Do you think that if Long Island was flooded like this, we'd be having this discussion? It's no accident that the vast majority of those stranded in N.O. are poor black people. No surprise then, that the FEMA budget was cut for the levee. A red state with a blue mayor? They don't vote for us anyway, fuck em! If you cant see that attitude in the sick grin of GWB as he plays golf during the crisis, you need thick glasses.

[fred]

this is my experience so far too.

great post

[Rob]

This week has been a sad one for this country. We have seen, up close the absolute failure of this nation's communications system, Republican -led political system and a joke of a department known as Home Defense. No one it seems could come slow enough to the aid of New Orleans as looters took to the streets, elderly residents died in their wheelchairs and those less fortunate were left to fend for themselves on the heat-baked asphalt of I-10. And those adrift in the water, were as lost as the thousands stranded at the Convention Center.

There is no excuse for the failures of the administration, and particularly the man who call's himself a president, to come to the aid of those left stranded by this storm. For all the false bravado that has been spent on the war in Iraq, the inability to take proper care of our own, is symptomanic of a leadership that is totally out of touch with its own people.

[Gary Parrish]

The Rolling Stones (by Mick Jagger) met with the old rulers in England in the early 60s.
Jagger set the old Bob Dylan theme (about change) into something about this new music just trying to identify where the new generation was coming from : and he was a politician about it ;and it worked. The Rolling Stones stay a rock group because the words of the song "Gimme Shelter" combine with the bone-chilling jangle of an old friend's guitar.old friends count.