 A bumper sticker much in evidence these days – even, apparently, in Red America. |
The reaction was universal agreement, if not applause. Even in North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky, I didn't meet anyone who was enthusiastic about Bush, or the war, or the very clear realization that we are being sucked dry by the oil business on all counts.
In the 60s and 70s, we called it "consciousness raising", exposing an obvious truth that had been taken for granted too long. $3 a gallon gasoline is doing a good job. From convenience store clerks, to the customers in the store, hardware store cashiers, truckers, waitresses, anyone who works for a living, everyone I talked to is fed up.
When we talk about the middle class being squeezed, these folks got squeezed years ago, now they are squeezed dry. Some can no long afford to drive to work. They commute 20 or 30 miles one way to a minimum wage job. If you work an 8 hour shift at $5.15 an hour, you work two hours for gas, two hours for taxes and the other four are what's left for you and your family. These people shop at Wal-Mart because they can't afford to shop anywhere else, and their numbers are increasing.
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Worse, they see little escape and as they look across the media landscape, they don't hear about much that will improve their lot except one of the "Extreme Makeover" shows.
The other thing they've noticed is weather. The concept of global warming is starting to really hit home. From the extreme hurricane season in the southeast to the winter that wasn't in Minnesota and the Dakota's, most folks who I talked to know that something is very very wrong. They may not know the details, they may not know the science, but they know that no one can remember weather like this. Even LA weather has changed in the 22 years I have lived here.
 Ed Garren. By Ryan Gierach. |
I got so many "thumbs up" signs from people passing me on the highway. They were only exceeded by the "Where can I get that bumper sticker, the son of a (Bush) has got to go". I would respond with a rousing conversation about the upcoming Congressional elections, "get involved, work for the Democrat who's running, talk it up to everyone you know. If we can get five Democrats in the Congress, we can impeach him."
The gas pump may be salt in the wound, but what really has stuck in everyone's minds are the images coming from post Katrina hell on the Gulf Coast. Here on the west coast, we may not realize it, but almost everyone in the east has some connection to someone on the Gulf Coast. I even know people in LA who have property on the "Red Neck Riviera", the north Florida Gulf Coast.
Almost every family has a personal Katrina horror story, failed FEMA efforts, destroyed home & lives, floating furniture, floating bodies, the war zone that was once paradise. It's a genuine ripple, and almost everyone I know has some personal connection to it.
A friend I know from LA lives in Atlanta now. He grew up in Gulfport Mississippi and had to go get his mother after the storm. She had no power for three months so she lived with him in Atlanta. He took her back, but she has no desire to remain. Her friends have all moved on, no one appears to be re-building, the insurance company nightmares, etc.
Lots of people realize the country is caught in the throes of rampant greed, and the institutions that they counted on, government and insurance companies, have abandoned them. News travels fast, it gets carried in phone calls, and eMail. Truckers carry it along with the goods they move across the country. On and on it goes.
 The convoy stopped above the plains. |
Shortly after my house sold, and two weeks after Katrina washed through south Mobile, I bought a "bunkhouse" travel trailer and had it delivered to my family in Mobile. Their two houses were flooded, one with six feet of water, one with three. They were living in a tent in the front yard, then found out their oldest daughter (9 years old) needed brain surgery for an Arterial Veinal Malformation. All seven of them are still living in the trailer next to one of the houses. Unable to find contractors, waiting almost two months to get sheet rock and other basic building materials, they are fixing their house one night and weekend at a time, but they are still not back in it.
Six feet of water ruined the other house and all the family heirlooms inside. They had flood insurance. The compensation, $20,000, but the work must be done by a licensed contractor. Try to find a contractor after a disaster. It's easier to find snow in Palm Springs in August. Stuck with an empty shell, working full time, dealing with all this, the local officials cited the grandfather (owner of the house) for not getting his swimming pool fixed. The initial sentence (under appeal) 180 days in jail.
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It's insane, and when I visited them over New Years, the young husband and father all but cried when he told me, "I don't know what we would have done if you hadn't sent that trailer." They have friends and neighbors who are still homeless, living with friends or family members, it has been a nightmare. Waiting for the government is like waiting for the Santa Claus, except at least Santa delivers once a year.
FEMA trailers (like the one I bought) sit in Arkansas empty, other FEMA trailers sit in their Mobile neighborhood, unused because the owners have fixed their houses and moved back in, but FEMA has no plans to remove or re-use the trailers.
And the water is warmer. After a non winter, everyone is holding their breath. Hurricane Alberto, which went from a loose cluster of clouds to a hurricane in 72 hours, already hints at what is to come. Last year's season started the same way. The Gulf of Mexico is over 90 degrees in some spots, a "hurricane super-charger" is the net effect.
 Ed Garren on a recent visit home to WeHo. By Ryan Gierach. |
And what is Bush doing? Trying to get gay marriage banned by congress. Even Lou Dobbs on CNN sees through the cheap political exploitation, and so do lots of Americans. I recently heard Howard Dean speak and he said that in focus groups, voters are bringing up the issue, saying they realize now it is a cheap political ploy.
After seeing "An Inconvenient Truth", I've decided that Al Gore should run again. In fact, it's the only logical thing to do. With luck, he'll pick John Edwards as his running partner, or my other favorite, Loretta Sanchez of Garden Grove. We will need a fast track to turn the country around. The first thing to do it put a hefty tax on all the people and corporations that have had a free ride under Bush.
Will it happen? Will we Democrats put aside our bickering and positioning long enough to do it? Or will Democracy as we have known it collapse under the weight of self serving greed. Only time will tell, but we don't have much left.
In local news, Abbe lost her bid for the Assembly.
Her answers for the loss have been the usual "politic" answers, excuses about name recognition, etc. Like George, Dick, Condee and the rest, reality has yet to set in, and probably never will. I guess the ghost of Ruth Manning hasn't gotten through to her yet. She certainly isn't listening to any constituents who oppose her, or the ones who didn't vote for her. Abbe barely got more votes in this election than George Credle in the last city council race. She got about half the votes she got three years ago when she ran for council.
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If she and John Heilman want to get re-elected next year, they need to wake up and smell the trees, particularly the heritage old growth ones at "Tara" that Elsie loved so much. If they have any political sense, they will abandon their plans to give the property to their buddies at the West Hollywood Housing Corporation to be turned into a housing project. The sad thing is, they are too insecure to realize they made a mistake. If for no other reason, they should realize that if they scrap the plans for "Laurel Place", their primary source of opposition will probably go away. So it's just more railroading, ego driven insanity, in a world where no one in power can graciously admit that they were wrong.
There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times - Molly Ivins.
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Edward "Ed" Garren, MFT, is a Family Therapist, justice activist, former West Hollywood City Council candidate, writer and sojourner. He is originally from the Tampa Bay area of central Florida. Ed has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Frontiers news magazine, and other books, including "Out of My Mind,” a pictorial memoir by Kris Nelson. He is currently working on a book about Addiction in America.
Ed Garren can be reached, even in the Red America’s wilds, at