HEAR! HEAR!

There Is No Compassion In Conservatism
by Libby Post

In a stunning act of contrition, George W. Bush actually took responsibility for a job done poorly. For the first time in his presidency, he admitted the fallibility of the loose confederation of political cronies he calls his administration.

Poor George. There’s no “Mission Accomplished” photo op for him here. No battleship background with thousands of adoring naval boys cheering him on as he gives the nation a “thumbs up” on our fumbling war on terror.

Now the only backdrop for George is a devastated toxic hot-zone of a city where the mostly African-American poor were left to fight their own war on terror while George, Dick, Donald and Condoleeza all fiddled as New Orleans drowned. With his approval rating at below 40 percent, the nation is giving the Commander a “thumbs down.”

As he scurries to reclaim the dry ground and fend off the Herbert Hoover-type legacy that will be his presidency, Bush looks to neo-conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute for ideas on how to rebuild the Big Easy. These are the same folks who helped to shape his domestic policies-like dismantling Social Security and destroying the environment. But hey, why not leave the responsibility to rebuild in the hands of “private entrepreneurial activity and vision” as the Heritage Foundation’s website says. After all, if there’s a buck to be made, George’s friends will be there with their hands out for no-bid contracts just as they’re with us now to bank our hard-earned paychecks as we pay over $3.00 for a gallon of gas.

The federal response, or lack thereof, to Hurricane Katrina exposes the dark reality of compassionate conservatism-it’s an oxymoron. George’s mom, Barbara, defined the contradiction in terms clearly and concisely when she toured Houston’s Astrodome and said “What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this-this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.”

Perhaps Babs needs to spend a day in the shoes of one of the domestic refugees to see how well it’s really working. In fact, perhaps Momma Bush should try on Arpollo Vicks shoes. Vicks is a 20-year old, pre-op male to female transgender person who was arrested for using the women’s shower at an emergency shelter at Texas A&M University’s Reed Arena.

A substitute teacher at a New Orleans middle school, Vicks told officials she felt safer using the women’s showers, I assume to avoid the possibility of harassment and violence if she used the men’s shower. Their response was to charge Vicks with criminal trespass and throw her into an isolation cell in the Brazos County jail for six days. Katrina left her with no money and no way to get any so she couldn’t pay her $6,000 bail. When she was finally allowed to use the phone, she made a collect call to the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights organization.

Rest assured, the University heard a Texas-sized mouthful from HRC, the National Center for Transgendered Equality and others. Vicks was released Friday afternoon without an apology for making her a two time victim of Hurricane Katrina.

I invite Momma Bush to try on the shoes of any gay or lesbian domestic refugee who is kept out of or mistreated by a shelter or other facility because of her or his sexual orientation, gender identity or HIV status. Or walk in the shoes of those who lost a partner and will be denied Social Security survivor benefits because our relationships are not recognized. Or in the small shoes of the child of a deceased l/g/b/t adoptive or birth parent who is taken away from the surviving non-adoptive or non-biological parent because there is no legal relationship between them. The list of possible shoes to fill is quite lengthy.

But instead of really feeling anyone’s pain, Momma Bush, Baby Bush and all the yes men and women who surround him, will continue to feign empathy while trying to blind us all with the brilliance of their new thousand points of light. What they don’t realize is that their brand of light exposes an emperor with no clothes and the nation is ready to change the bulb.