How Can People Be So Heartless?

Once upon a time, I chose to believe that, although things go wrong and sometimes people can be cruel, in the end, it'll all work out.

I want to share with you where I am at least part of the day, when I am not on dailykos or at work.  I spend time on the NOLA.com forums.  The Times-Picayune is the local New Orleans newspaper.  Their on-line newspaper is located here.

I'd like for you to imagine that you are from New Orleans and are black and have just watched the Spike Lee movie. Hell, you don't even have to pretend you're black.  If you're a normally compassionate person, I think you'd be equally appalled by the following:

This morning, this is one of the many hate-filled comments you'll read:

87956. In all the film footage of desparation and rescue
by noladolly, 8/30/06 11:02 ET
ever notice how FAT these po' helpless people are?....tie a few together you could have floated out.

.

In fact, here's the link to the forum.  I'd suggest ya'll head over there to comment on comment #87956 if you feel motivated and then read the rest of that forum.  Hey, if you still have some stomach left, try reading the Orleans forum and the Uptown forum or any of the others.  I haven't read them today, I'm only so masochistic.  Those forums are sometimes benevolent but sometimes the same, hateful sons-of-bitches are over there, getting their jollies spewing their hate.

What I'm really hoping is that you, like me, will be compelled to add a comment or two.  These forums are the newspaper's public forums.  New Orleanians use them and, during Katrina, we relied heavily on them to find friends and relatives, to find housing, to communicate with each other and to get reports from people who had "snuck" back into the neighborhoods about our houses, pets and damage.

It is appalling, simply appalling that people like these, these scum, who are the seem to be the same people who are avid supporters of George Bush, are allowed to go unchallenged.  I suppose it is no suprise but it is wrong, simply wrong that they can get away with this crap.  It's as if the enemy has been allowed into my own house.

So, if you feel like kicking some neocon, bigot's ass, and you do it well with words, stop these diseased people from spreading their sickness any further upon people who have already suffered enough. It is enough to feel violated by  external, uncontrollable changes caused by nature, it is another to be violated, willingly, wantonly, by your fellow men and women, in your own, barely salvagable home, where you are already suffering.

But....be prepared for what you will encounter.  It's not for the weak.