While I sympathize with the sentiment behind it, I think that the idea of a sending a letter to the the "good people" in Gretna is counterproductive. First of all, they aren't children. Anyone who is upset about the actions of their police and council is smart enough to figure out what to do about it. Lecture someone like a 2-year-old and their reaction is likely to be a big "f--- off", whether they agree with your political position or not, because they don't like being patronized.
Secondly, why send the message to the people who are already in agreement with you, anyway? It's the rest that you want to shame.
The ostensible danger of letting "those people" in is that they will get out of control and destroy your property.
The real danger of letting them in is that you might actually get to know them. That would require you to care about them. It would also remind you of your own vulnerability. That means you can't avoid recognizing the social contract, and therefore it is far more dangerous to the complacent than property crime.
Yes to the disappearing links, with Safari on a Mac running Tiger.
I could get them back by fiddling around a bit. I can't quite remember how I did it, but I think it involved clicking on the disappeared links even though they weren't there. I remember it felt rather like stalking invisible kittens. It was kind of fun, in an irritating sort of way.
There was a letter to the editor in the local major paper in Vancouver, Canada, by a cretin who said that the only reason Canadians are criticizing the Katrina response is because the critics are anti-American. We should all just help and Not Make Everything Political.The letter also implied strongly that all those nasty critics were actively denying assistance to the needy.
Some people are not prepared to admit the possibility of human, much less personal, responsibility for catastrophe, no matter what the circumstances.
Did anyone notice this? It says something about what this guy is capable of understanding. Maybe about what TPTB are capable of understanding.
"Someone saw the storm coming. Somebody made the call early enough to get over a million people out of that city which is a magnificent and significant achievement that seems to be totally overlooked."
1. Watch weather forecast.
2. Oo, hurricane coming!
3. Tell people to leave.
Magnificent and significant achievement indeed.
"Treehuggers?"
Don't recall any discussion of trees, or even the environment in general. Seems a tad reflexive.
Recommendation: at least make your insults match the content of the discussion. Otherwise it's really hard to convince people that thought processes are actually engaged, as opposed to bigotry.
Even among those who accept that looting for essentials like food, water, clothing, diapers, etc. isn't really looting, there tends to be amazement expressed when looters steal things like jewellry or TVs. Surely these are druggies and criminals taking advantage of the breakdown in law and order!
I'm not so sure. Consider this:
The worst has happened. There has been a disaster, from which you could not flee and for which you could not afford to be properly prepared. You have nothing but the clothes on your back and whatever small things you have been able to snatch at the last moment. You have a family, small children, that depend on you.
You might be left to rot in the ruins of your city. Or you might be sent to a refugee camp in a different place, and be stuck for months in a squalid, perhaps unsafe situation. If so, you will likely be stigmatized as someone from The Camp (and we all know what Those People are like, they were the people who were too lazy or stupid to leave before the disaster struck).
In either case, you won't have a job. There aren't any jobs in your home city anymore, because the city has been shattered. Jobs may come as rebuilding begins, but when will that happen? And do you have the skills that will be needed? Even if you do, in the meantime you will be living a hand-to-mouth existence and depending on the charity of others until you can find some kind of employment, and you will be competing for that job with an awful lot of other people. When you live close to the line, when everything that you have worked out that allows you to survive while living that close to the line is gone, you know that starting over is going to be pretty damned hard.
So I'm not prepared to write off all the "non-essential" looting as demented behaviour by criminals and junkies; under the circumstances I can also see why normally law-abiding people might steal jewellry or other valuables on the chance that they might be able to pawn them later for $20. Cash is freedom. Cash gives you options. Cash might make the difference between sitting in a camp and getting your feet under you again sooner. Between the bleak minimalism of simply managing to stay alive and the ability to live with an occasional comfort.
I don't mean to condone all looting, btw, or to suggest that it couldn't possibly be done by criminals and druggies. I just think it's important to recognize that in a survival situation, you do what makes sense to you in terms of your survival. That doesn't mean that you didn't live a law-abiding life before and won't go back to a law-abiding life afterwords.
And this applies to any affluent middleclass people caught in a disaster just as much as it does to those in poverty.
If you've got the guts to break into a pharmacy and grab what you need to survive in a disaster, then you should have the guts to quietly accumulate those same supplies now, through the much safer method of exchanging cash for them and storing them somewhere safe. Anyone who claims that they can't get a prescription for antibiotics or painkillers is either incredibly naive or simply isn't trying very hard.
After all the previous discussions, it seems to me quite incredible that the understanding that not everyone can afford to buy supplies in advance hasn't sunk in.
BTW, Juan Cole has a piece on looting in NO and Iraq that is worth reading.
enjay:
Rhetoric, meet reality.
Paula:
Reality? The delusion and True Belief and I Am The TRUTH, I HAVE NO DOUBTS AND NEVER MAKE MISTAKES! quotient of the Schmuck, Cheney (and where has Cheney been?), and their Good Buddies is so great, "Six cats couldn't make them see." ["My mistress has such a desire [not to see] so strong that six cats [witch familiars for a powerful witch] couldn't make her see [what she didn't want to see." -- The Rescue of Ranor.
Exactly. They will see only what they want to see, and will find ways to see it even when it is contradicted by what is before their eyes.
Our hope is not that they will see, it is that we do—the critical mass of people who will hold them to account. After seeing the anger out there (from the media, from commentators like David Brook), I have some hope that this will happen. If the weasels who normally support them and are angry now don't backtrack for reasons of political expediency.
I've been struck by the feeling of perfunctoriness of the Administration's response to this crisis, and in particular that of Bush. It's rather like yes, yes, of course it's an emergency; now we will go through Process A so that Result B will happen. Ah, and this is such an excellent photo op, I mean tragedy, yes, tragedy, let me hug a refugee. After all, that's all that is really needed.
It's as if it's a movie set, not reality. Maybe that is what they think it is: a disaster movie, where things are terrible but will all turn out right in the end, as per the script.
Or maybe it's simply another example of how they believe their own rhetoric.
"Such things cannot happen in the USA. We are givers, not takers; we provide relief, we don't need it. We don't need to spend money on emergency planning, either; those agencies are bloated and overfunded and don't really do anyone any good, compared to the sexiness, I mean, usefulness, I mean, imminent danger of the terrorist threat—let's slash those budgets. Managing an emergency is simple, requires no particular skills, and can be done by anyone (hey, let's put our buddy in this position)."
Sounds like the same thinking that just knew that you only need a tiny army to win in Iraq, because the Iraqis would all welcome the Americans with open arms and democracy would flower.
Rhetoric, meet reality.
Bellatrys has a superlative rant here about southern poverty.
Julia,
The canadians didn't come until Friday because Homeland Security refused them entry into the country before then, that's why. They started trying on Monday.
And yet they evidently still managed to get there before the American specialists. (Have any specialized American S&R teams arrived yet?)
Today's paper says that a specialized search and rescue team arrived from Vancouver, Canada, on Friday and set to work. Apparently the mayor of NO burst into tears upon seeing them because this was the first such team to arrive.
Friday. From Canada.
Posters. Big ones, plastered everywhere. With every furking half-witted sociopathic quote backed by an image of reality.
Nagin himself can be heard here:
http://www.atypical.net/mm/nagin.mp3
They're not blind, they're wearing blinders. They're keeping their eyes firmly fixed on coverage of the looting, and listening to the talking heads who are blaming the victims.
If the victims are at fault, then the observer has no culpability.
Not MY fault if the things I ignored/accepted/supported have led to this. Nope. No way. Never.
enjay, there's at least one third-world country where you'd clearly get a better response: Katrina: anecdote on civil defense in Cuba (often sans phones, power).
Will, I was blackly amused to see on the news coverage last night the entire Cuban parliament standing in a minute of silence as a gesture of respect and solidarity for the victims of Katrina.
I have been told that Hugo Chavez has offered assistance as well.
From the New York Times:
Even as administration officials pledged vast resources to the region, however, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, told a local newspaper, The Daily Herald, that he was skeptical about using billions in federal money to rebuild New Orleans, given its vulnerability. "It doesn't make sense to me," Mr. Hastert said. "And it's a question that certainly we should ask."
He later sought to clarify his comments, saying in a statement: "I am not advocating that the city be abandoned or relocated. My comments about rebuilding the city were intended to reflect my sincere concern with how the city is rebuilt to ensure the future protection of its citizens.">/i>
(This is from the NYT article titled "New Orleans mayor, in tears, blasts Washington's response" but the links currently are not working properly and lead to a different article.)
I see this as a trial balloon of sorts. If they can save money by abandoning the city and building a new one somewhere safer, I think that's what they'll push for. And as the city slides into more chaos and destruction that decision will become easier, won't it?
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2005 | 18 |
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