I've been taking a small but necessary break from active blogging this week as I start a new job, and boy did I pick a week! Hurricanes of rain, wind, and 'compassionate conversatism'. That's the only way to truly describe the lack of foresight, funding, preparation, and planning that have caused the present catastrophe in New Orleans. Anyways, the most I've done on this website for the past four days has been to read the front page. Even with just that much, I've been able to discover that not only was the Bush Admin response desperately inaqequate, but also that
the flooding disaster would have been preventable had the federal funding not been cut in 2003 and contractors hadn't been working on it for over a year for free, because at least they knew it was more fucking important to finish than to get paid for it!!!!
Just out of curiosity, I took a look over at our younger, often-misguided red-headed blog sister RedState.org to see if there was some kind of outpouring of real live compassionate conservatism or some kind of overwhelming response from the culture of life.
What I did find on the flipside....
Now, I'm a fair-minded person here. I give everyone a good chance. That's why I'm using
this post from the RedHots as an example. It's a response to BradBlog toying with the idea that people in the Blue States shouldn't donate a single dime. I couldn't disagree more with such a position.
We should be volunteering our time and donating what we can afford to help the effort. I don't expect everyone to be able to donate money, or time, or either. But those who have the means should do so.
That means you Paris Hilton. Also, to paraphrase Randi Rhodes, I wish corporations would put their damn profits aside and
take advantage of the magificent free advertising exposure that only helping these people will bring!!
However Dales, who posted this article on supposedly not helping, then uses it (out of context) to say that all of us are of the same mentality:
The American left has entirely too many completely unhinged, evil, hateful, despicable lunatics-- and entirely too many others willing to co-exist with such scum for political expedience.
Oh really?!
What the fuck do you think you're doing, dipshit?! I just spent over 20 minutes typing a response to that article you posted.
You actually had me agreeing with you, Dales!! It was a breakthrough! BUT you had to ruin it by writing your own little snide partisan comment insulting everyone who doesn't support Bush. Give me a fucking break. I'm not going to insult every poster at RedState for your idiocy and RWTP-based attacks - it's all on you buddy. You sir are a fucking moron, and your post is no better than the brief moment when BradBlog flirted with non-compassion. Unbelieveable...
Moving on, I found a diary by DanielMN:
I read Trevino's call this morning for information about shooting looters on the streets of New Orleans and advocating same. I understand the outrage behind this.
At the same time, I am a Christian man. I believe that all life is precious and none can be replaced. Life and death are of God and we ought to be very circumspect if we would take these things onto ourselves.
I cannot find it in myself to believe that anyone deserves to die over, for example, a television set. I believe that shooting someone down over this would be a crime against man and a sin against God.
I personally feel that
those looters who are doing so to feed themselves, their families, and their fellow citizens are unsung heroes. The ones who are stealing televisions are just plain stupid - what are they gonna do float on it? Anyways, here's a sample of the responses he got.
From Still Thinking:
You criticize the idea...but give no credible alternative. What do "YOU" think should be done to those who violate the property of their own neighbors?
I don't think death is necessarily warranted, but then again, when anarchy becomes the norm, it sometimes takes extreme measures to restore some order.
...
Sorry, but unless you want to play to the stereotype, it is important to understand that there is very little respect for those who merely criticize.
Not shooting them is not a solution...it is a reaction...what do you propose to STOP the looting?
With a name like that, you'd think he would ask that question to Bush and DHS Secretary Mike Chertoff.
The solution is to stop ignoring and shooting the people who are stealing food and FEED THEM DAMNIT! Bush said in his little speech that he had 1.5 million MRE's sent to the area. Ok fine,
that's one cold powdered meal to over a million displaced and newly-homeless people in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, with maybe a couple hundred thousand left over for some people to have a second cold powdered meal. What happens after that? What happens to those who are left to die, like those in the Convention Center were? How about the people on rooftops and raised enbankments with TV news choppers and vans passing by to film them, but not to pick them up.
Why doesn't the President or DHS order all those damn news choppers to help? Why don't they order cruise ships to get over there and provide some lodging - they'd be there days before hospital ships and other naval vessels steaming from Norfolk!! But most of all why doesn't Bush order his corporate buddies to get off their compassionate conservative asses, dig into their fucking pockets, and help these people!
And of course, we have the inevitable response from Trevino:
Well.... ....I hope you're able to report back to your dKos comrades that this particular heuristic exercise got you neither banned nor flamed. It is a little silly, though, to come in feigning sincerity while letting your pals in on the ploy on a public site.
I get that Trevino is advocating killing people, Americans, on the streets of an American city.
That's true, I am. This is how one deals with insurrections and wholesale distintegrations of law and order. There's plenty of precedent for it.
I get that they haven't rioted, they haven't killed anybody, they haven't formed up into mobs....
This is untrue. There are several reports -- I've posted on a few of them -- of organized armed bands maurauding about what remains of New Orleans. There are reports of purposeful looting of weapons depots and merchants for this specific purpose.
Don't misunderstand me: I have no desire to see cops shooting kids with pilfered Pop-Tarts out of hand. I do want law enforcement to have the authority to shoot to kill when confronted with a group of armed men ransacking commercial establishments. One of the few points of agreement between the modern left and I is that this is what should have happened in Baghdad in April/May 2003; I don't feel differently about New Orleans.
There may indeed be a good reason to take food from a grocery store. There's no good reason to take guns from a Wal Mart. Forceful restoration of order will, in the long run, save lives.
Forceful restoration of order will fix nothing as long as these people are ignored, not lodged and not fed! Get them out of the area and get them something to eat, and they will not roam the flooded streets carrying guns and televisions, or food for that matter.
By the way, in this entire thread I didn't see a single person post about how FEMA and DHS were not in place to address this disaster two days ahead of time. I didn't see a single post about how Bush played golf and stayed on vacation in Crawford while the Gulf Coast was turned into something out of Lord of the Flies. I didn't see a single post about how while Bush was 'gathering the Cabinet', Condi Rice sat in a theater on Broadway laughing her ass off. I didn't see a single post about how Bush flew overhead in Air Force One for a few minutes, instead of cruising by in his Marine 1 chopper for a few hours picking people up off the rooftops and concrete barriers. I didn't even see a single 'Hallelujiah' about how when looking at the devastation in Gulfport MS, Bush managed to notice only that a church was still standing.
Then again, this is RedState.org we're talking about. I need to keep my expectations low.
Anyways, I can only deal with ignorance, blatant or not, and constant apologizing for laziness and our incometent federal government for a very short time. That time is spent, and so am I.