Off-topic: New Orleans and priorities

[J]

In the midst of this incredibly destructive tragedy, one would assume that the first order of business would be to rescue people, to evacuate those trapped in the floods, to get the sick to hospitals for lifesaving care.

Yet yesterday, the New Orleans Police Department was ordered to STOP search and rescue efforts in order to go after 'looters' (mostly people scavenging for food, water, and basic necessities; plus all the goods are insured anyway...)

National Guard troops, heavily armed, are arriving in New Orleans. To do what? Stop looters. They have orders to add to the death and destruction by shooting poor desperate starving folks on sight! Wow, they're poor and black, so they don't count??

I am beyond disgusted with my money-hungry, property-before-people nation. This is sickness and amorality, indeed EVIL. Add that to how the Army's work on levee restoration (ongoing for years) was halted by Bush before the storm... (yes, the flood could have been avoided!!)... most of the local national guard was deployed to Iraq for that illegal invasion/occupation (a 'war' that's a war crime by ANY objective standard)... Bush sat at his ranch for a whole day before beginiing his halfhearted response... We airlifted thousands of troops out of Dunkirk during wartime, and we can't help our own citizens at home?? What the hell is wrong with these idiots running America anyway?? (and they claim to be Christian).... just another in a long line of buckets full of the blood of innocents that's clotting on Dubya's greedy little hands.

This is insult atop Katrina's injury. I get sick to my stomach just thinking about this utter disgrace.

 

[redlady]

Capitalism = property before person. You get more prison time for robbing a bank than you do for killing or raping someone - i guess it's even more disgusting now because of all the progress we have 'seemingly' made to protect people and their rights - although ironically as that occured so did the onslaught of big business and even bigger money.
But jesus christ how the hell do they justify the 'prioritising' of haulting looters over saving peoples lives - i would have liked to have heard that piece of political rhetoric ie load of shit.
To me i don't know what is more frustrating the fact that these elitist assholes - we have one in power here - keep getting voted back in or the fact that the majority of voters keep swallowing their bullshit and continue voting for them.

 

[Isawthelight]

i feel sorry, but...

if they can get those lawless people to stop looting and being thugs then our good people wouldn't be so afraid and hesitant to help them. Don't forget, you're talking about people who were in gangs and participated in antisocial behavior before Katrina occured.

 

[SPECTACULAR]

National Guard troops, heavily armed, are arriving in New Orleans. To do what? Stop looters. They have orders to add to the death and destruction by shooting poor desperate starving folks on sight! Wow, they're poor and black, so they don't count??

who said all of that?
They are killing people?
Oh, give me a break. you're trying to convince me that the national guard has no black people? of course there are. then, are they killing their brothers?
anyway, those theives are armed and dangerous. Don't expect them not to get shot if they refuse to stop, drop their weapons and get on their knees. Just imagine an armed person, regardless of his color, is holding his gun and strolling with it, what would you do if you're a cop and he refuses to stop?

Most of these people are staying in the US illegally. If it isn't time to get rid of them now, then when?

Don't worry about America. She can get up quickly when it's been hit on her back.

 

[Remus]

the more I see on the news the more piss poor I think the situation is being handled

 

[J]

who said all of that?

Um, the NEWS.

Most of these people are staying in the US illegally. If it isn't time to get rid of them now, then when?

Um, no, they're the poor black residents of N.O. Illegal aliens tend to be Hispanic (if only because most of them come from Latin America). The people you're incorrectly calling 'illegals' are citizens and longtime N.O. residents! I have no clue where you got such an erroneous idea from (did they run it on Fox or something?). BESIDES, even if they WERE illegals, they're human beings ferchrissake. Grow some humanity, will ya?

And yes I worry about America. I only live there, after all. And the place is run by dimwitted, utterly incompetent and delusional sociopath with an endless legacy of death and suffering on his record that, since Monday, has only gotten longer.

 

[J]

This English columnist has it right-on: http://www.alternet.org/story/24966

 

[Kezada]

Gearge W Bush is a m*********g retard full stop

Kezada

 

[Chilling__Echo]

i think the federal government is doing a shit job but i don't think it's about race. i hate how everything is about race. gemme a break...

 

[Chilling__Echo]

plus, after 9/11, if this is how the relief efforts have supposedly improved, i'd hate to imagine how it was before - thought it seems to have gotten worse. what if it were more than three states?

 

[ColdFury]

Most of these people are staying in the US illegally. If it isn't time to get rid of them now, then when?

Ummm no.

 

[why_do_I_try]

from what ive seen on the news it seems like theres hardly any help. using police force to stop looters instead of helping the people is the most stupid idea ive heard recently, people should be allowed to loot it these situations (im not talking about stuff like t.v.s but food, water and clothing).

if anyones interested im setting up my own country, i just need a really big island and a population.

 

[redlady]

I have been watching it on the news as well - terifying - i know i implied earlier that it was ourageous that the authorities were focusing on controlling the looters - but apparantly these looters are not just focusing on property, they are actually killing people. Ah look all i know is what i see on the news. But the whole event would just be an absolute nightmare to have to live through.

 

[Chilling__Echo]

i think it's a hard situation for the police too b/c they can't get in if the looters are shooting at them (which is why it took an extra day to evacuate the sports bowl place). but that's not to give the gov't an excuse.

"if they were white they'd have already had help a long time ago"

oh my god. isn't there something else to preach about?? other than calling our government racist? that's total bullshit and uggggggh why is everything about race?!?!

sorry guys, i get worked up about this stuff. all of it's ignorance. i mean, i hate bush too, but do they really think that he was sitting in his little chair in his office thinking to himself "they're black, eh, let em die" ??? come on! there are better things to worry about and more rational things to worry about. instead of bringing about they're meetings and stuff, why aren't they taking in the refugees that DID flee? and are homeless? and in shelters? that only have but so much food and water?

argh!

 

[sensitive]

so you (Chilling_Echo) don't agree with that idea. well, when people all over the world watched the news they were certainly wondering why most victims are black and poor, why african-americans always suffer in America?

i can't directly accuse the goverment of racism however they responded badly, they were too late of aiding people without any excuse :?

 

[Chilling__Echo]

the way i look at it, in that area the poor and those without transportation (b/c they were poor) happened to be black. minorites tend to make up the lower class anyway. if it were the other way around, whites making up the lower class, it'd be the same way (in my opinion). they couldn't leave b/c they were either sick, didn't have a car, whatever the cercumstances.

i do think the government did a horrible, horrible job responding. they can make it all the way out to iraq in a heartbeat but can't even make it to our own state. it's rediculous. and they didn't have a valid excuse. who knows. but over race? it seems too outlandish to me.

but i just hate how everyone is so quick to pull out the race card. (i've probably gotten on this soapbox so many times before but i'll explain myself). i live in the south so i see it daily and i'm sick of it. whether i'm at my g-ma's house in bum fuck nowhere hearing them talk about blacks b/c they think they're racist against us or whether i'm on the job being bitched at by a black woman b/c she thinks i'm following her or watching her b/c she's black (which i don't, i stay at my register all day) (i'm white) - i wish everyone would stop making such a fuss over race. everyone just needs to back down. not just blacks, not just whites, everyone. and i'm sure there is racism out there, otherwise it wouldn't be an issue, but i think it's been blown out of proportion.

but anyway, that's how i look at things. i want to move out of the south but i'm sure every place has it's issues. but anywhere seems better than the south now.

 

[Chilling__Echo]

by the way, sorry if i come off sounding aggressive, something tells me we won't agree on this, nor does it matter to me. you do have valid points, that i do see. but i don't want to seem like i'm bitching AT you. i'm more frustrated with the media and the gov't and the whole situation.

 

[Kezada]

ima buy a video soon, its called "the assasionation of george w bush jr" in stores some were around october.

Kezada

 

[J]

that's total bullshit and uggggggh why is everything about race?!?!

Well, cuz it's NOT total bullshit. Oh so much in this country is about race; it's just that it's become less politically correct to talk about that. There's a widespread presumption among lily-white areas of the country (like most of the towns I've lived in, even here in the 'liberal' Northeast US) that racism hasn't been a problem since the end of the civil rights movement. Yet I hear people making ignorant, racist comments every day.

Then there's the institutionalized racism; the lingering aftereffects of decades of overtly racist policy. This includes not only things like the fact that black Americans are FAR more likely to be destitute than any other American ethnic group (even relatively recent immigrants!)-- something that has been so for years and years-- but also includes the lingering oft-unspoken biases of the (generally lily-white) people in government (and the effects of that on public policy) It's not necessarily overt or intentional-- things like how one official seemed to blame the poor of NO for staying by saying, and I quote, "Well, there WAS a mandatory evacuation order..."! It never crossed the minds of many that the out-of-sight-out-of-mind poor folks don't have SUVs to hop into to drive away. People with money and power live in a bubble insulated from reality and seem to think that most everyone lives like them. Cell phones, internet access, one car per person, well-paying jobs, homeowner's insurance, etc.... The poor are nearly invisible in America sometimes, yet they are legion. Which leads us to class.

Class is the other thing that it's not PC to talk about in this right-wing age. Between class and race, one can account for a very large chunk of the social problems in this country. The rich are richer and the poor poorer than at any time since the Robber Baron age of the late 1800s (a social condition that in America eventually led to the Depression, while in Europe led to socialism and the totalitarian pseudo-Marxism of the Soviets). They didn't plan for how to get all the poor folks out. This probably would have happened though even if many of them were white; I think class is really the more potent issue these days. But the lingering effects of racism made it so that the trapped poor folks also happened to be almost entirely black.

To America at large, the poor are expendable. To be poor and black makes them doubly so. I'm constantly amazed that these sorts of attitudes exist in America these days. (Maybe I shouldn't be; we didn't stand up for democracy in '00, we didn't stand up against the worthy-of-Saddam illegal/immoral Iraq invasion that was every bit as unjustified as his invasion of Kuwait, we stand behind hateful SOBs who violate every injunction in the Bible and call themselves Christian because they deny gays civil rights at every turn... Forget everything good and right it's disgusting, we're the least civilized country of the civilized world...)

Do I think the poor response to the NO disaster is overt racism? No. Is it an example of institutionalized racism and classism? Largely. (Other parts of it are the stupidity and amazing incompetence of the Bush Administration.)

 

[Chilling__Echo]

I'm not saying there's that our country is racism-free, i'm sure it's still lurking everywhere, but something that blatently shown by our government? i have a very low opinion of the bush admin, but even that seems rash.

It's not necessarily overt or intentional-- things like how one official seemed to blame the poor of NO for staying by saying, and I quote, "Well, there WAS a mandatory evacuation order..."! It never crossed the minds of many that the out-of-sight-out-of-mind poor folks don't have SUVs to hop into to drive away. People with money and power live in a bubble insulated from reality and seem to think that most everyone lives like them. Cell phones, internet access, one car per person, well-paying jobs, homeowner's insurance, etc.... The poor are nearly invisible in America sometimes, yet they are legion. Which leads us to class.

i could see it being about class before it's about racism, but even if that were true (which seems more believable to me and in alot of ways i agree with america forgeting the poor) that if was over class, it' still not over race. it just so happens that they are black. and the poor isnt' always black, they can be hispanic, asian, anything. even white, but i guess they're the minorities of the poor population.

Maybe I shouldn't be; we didn't stand up for democracy in '00, we didn't stand up against the worthy-of-Saddam illegal/immoral Iraq invasion that was every bit as unjustified as his invasion of Kuwait, we stand behind hateful SOBs who violate every injunction in the Bible and call themselves Christian because they deny gays civil rights at every turn... Forget everything good and right it's disgusting, we're the least civilized country of the civilized world...

i couldn't agree more. especially with gay civil rights. but like i say, even if bush intentionally left them there, how would that really help him out? he's already getting less and less support.

anyway, i don't want to fight with anyone, it's just my opinion, i'm open to everyone else's so don't let me step on anyone's toes b/c i'm not trying to