Hurricane Mathew vs. shock and awe of empire

On Friday, October 7, we were awaiting the hurricane named Mathew that was fast approaching Daytona Beach Florida. My wife and I were hunkered down in our master bedroom in what was supposed to be the safest part of our townhome, that being the western part.

Mathew was slowly getting closer from the east, and the winds were picking up. At around 11 A.M., a category 3 monster attacked us with its shock and awe. As we were ready to crawl into our bedroom closet, with our two kitty cats in their travel cases in the bathroom, the 100 mph winds were causing havoc to our neighborhood. I went past the barricade of our two chests of drawers to peer out the bedroom windows. I could see the pine trees out back just bending to and fro. At that moment I felt this uneasy, frightened feeling in my gut. I was scared shit! I looked at my wife and tried to hide the desperation that overwhelmed me . . . thoughts of all of us being killed by a tree crashing into our bedroom!

Moments later, before we went into the closet to ride this devil out, a crash! A powerful crash that felt like a bomb had hit our house. Boom! I ran to the window and saw where the pine tree behind our house had snapped from the middle, flying into us. Then the heavy rain had found its way into our domain. It ran like a fountain down the walls! We used up every towel and comforter we had in our home to soak up as much as we could . . . for two hours we did this, and then the storm began to ease up.

A neighbor down the street from us invited us to go and stay in her late father’s empty house. It literally took us two hours to finally have the courage to leave our home, run to our car outside, pack it with clothes and our kittens and drive down the street. There were two pine trees wavering out front, looking like they were ready to crush our parked car. Fallen trees and debris made our street look like perhaps Berlin in April of 1945.

I wish everyone, and I mean everyone who had ‘waved the flag’ and vociferously supported our country’s attacks on Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, using shock and awe in all instances, could have been here with my wife and me on that fateful day a few weeks ago. To experience what we went through for but a few hours, and then pause and study the damage our carpet bombing campaigns had done to the people of those three nations would be most enlightening to say the least. Imagine being a mother and father with a few small children, hunkered down in some highly vulnerable home, and hearing the ghastly whistle sound of the bombs being dropped on them. Take that one solitary boom and shock that we heard and felt on October 7 here in Daytona, and multiply it by a hundred recurrences over a period of days or weeks. Seeing your child’s arm or eye blown away, with the blood flowing like that rain down the walls of my home, and maybe then one can realize just how brutal our Shock and Awe was.

It’s so easy for the two empire’s puppets, Trump and Clinton, to talk of being tough and powerful, when it isn’t their families that are under the jackboot of Uncle Sam. Shame on them! And shame on those of you out there who will support leaders and wanna be leaders who strut like peacocks waving MY flag. Yes, MY flag should not be for sale. Too many good men and women have lost their lives for it. Too many other good men and women have lost their limbs, eyes and even their brains because of phony Shock and Awe con men whom they believed in.

Philip A Farruggio is son and grandson of Brooklyn, NY, longshoremen. A graduate of Brooklyn College (class of ’74 with a BA in Speech & Theater), he is a freelance columnist posted on World News Trust, Nation of Change Blog, Op Ed News,TheSleuthJournal.com, Intrepid Report, Information Clearing House, Dandelion Salad, Activist Post, Dissident Voice, Counterpunch and many other sites worldwide. Philip works as an environmental products sales rep and has been a street corner protest activist leader and Green Party member since 2000. In 2010 he became a local spokesperson for the 25% Solution Movement to Save Our Cities by cutting military spending 25%. Philip can be reached at PAF1222@bellsouth.net.