hello love bugs
it is i rossi of the north-east
and i have returned from my trek
across washington DC
it was rough honeys!!
not only was i forced to stay in a 4 star hotel
but i was subjected to room service, way too much champagne, a very large bath tub, a trolley ride around DC, a steak dinner at a fancy shmancy restaurant and lots of long walks..
it wasn't all sweet and lovely darlins
actually there was a lot of heavy stuff too
like the fact that La C who used to come to DC three days a week had never seen so many homeless and when asked just about everybody we met
blamed it on our current president
this actually caught me by surprise I knew New York was not a Bush friendly place..over-all, but I expected Washington DC to be very very Bush friendly if for no other reason than to be patriotic
but everyone, i mean with zero exception that we spoke with about the current state of DC and anything remotely political just hated Bush
the cab drivers, the waiters and
the security guards all felt he'd ruined the economy
i'm guessing this was the working class poll we'd accidentally taken and might have gotten a different response from the upper crust in DC
but i like to stick with the working class folks to get a real feel for public opinion
what struck me was this city DC is the welcome wagon for people all over the world to come and judge america
and if DC with its beautiful monuments
and endless museums
can not
do anything about the mini-homeless villages forming under awnings, in parks,
at construction sites...then this country's economy surely must be in the toilet..
La C and i also went to the Holocaust Museum..
naturally i expected this to throw me into a serious emotional state
but the state i was thrown into was not the one i expected
oh of course there was the horror and the outrage
but i grew up in a family deeply affected by the holocaust
this was not new
what was new happened in the part of the museum that showcased the ill fated ship the spirit of st louis which carried about a thousand jews
the passengers were photographed in happy spirits
having escaped hitler
then the ship sailed to cuba
and was not let in
relatives pleaded and begged
and offered to pay huge monies
but the ship was not let in
the ship then sailed to america
where it was close enough to see the lights of Miami
but Franklin Roosevelt would not let the ship in
he and America at the time riding a high wave of anti-Semitism
felt this was a "Jewish Problem" and wanted no part of it..
some other KINDER or BRAVER countries took in some of the people on the ship
and the rest were sent back to Germany to die by the hands of the nazis
it was horrible to read about how America stood by
while so many millions of jews were killed
how america did not boycott the olympics there was perhaps Hitler's greated
PR success
i felt so ashamed of my country
that we waited until so many millions were murdered before we joined the war
and in truth did not join the war to save those millions
but because of Pearl Harbor
I'd always regarded Franklin Roosevelt as a great man
but the blood of millions in concentration camps
is on his hands
for standing back and letting it happen
and so
a trip thru washington DC
our nation's capital
wound up
making me feel
ashamed of two or our countries presidents
and yet made me feel
proud of a country that lets me
voice that shame
i also went to see the Ford Theatre where Lincoln was assasinated
i stood next to the clothing Lincoln had worn the night he was murdered
i looked at a piece of his blood stained pillow case
real blood
Lincoln's blood
this was a great man
he'd always been my favorite president
a man who risked it all to do right
who went against half the country
he brought us into a civil war
who inspired such hatred that he was killed
all to fight for the underdog
for the African slave
for the right for all men
to be equal in this country
Abraham Lincoln
where are you now
today
when we need you
