In former times entire nations found the strength to rise to the occasion, ordinary people understood that survival depended on their shared common decency and respect for their fellow citizen. That, by co-operating and persevering, they might create coping mechanisms through pooling skills and resources, and to be sure, the majority of those trapped in New Orleans will have done just that.
But, in former times, whole nations were not living in a time of entitlement, where all and any are provided for by an all-encompassing “social safety net”, funded by those faceless others with more, who have life easier, whom we have been trained to envy.
Those human failings, irresponsible and anti-social behaviors that once brought consequences in the community – shame, ostracization, and deserved personal deprivation – are today excused, assigned new and neutral nomenclature (all the better for medical diagnosis), prescribed “tolerance”, and if possible, assigned the politics of race or class, so that collective guilt may be mined to ensure that self-destructive behavior gains not only acceptance, but state funding.
The predatory violence and anarchy befalling New Orleans is not the result of a freak convergence of forces brought on by unnatural disaster.
It’s a warning.
Make sure to read the whole thing.
Kate’s piece is, at base, about the erosion of self-reliance, though I suspect some progressives will declare that the incidental alignment in New Orleans between race qua race and poverty, coupled with Kate’s critique of the underlying political ideology that drives the mindset of entitlement cultures, makes the essay “racist” (which, that’s just what “progressives” do when they don’t wish to argue a thesis on its merits)—and will therefore dismiss it as hate speech.
But that ain’t gonna cut it this time.
Over at TalkLeft , for instance, Jeralyn posted a link to Kanye West’s bizarre, accusatory, racialist NBC rant, delivered during a Hurricane Relief broadcast (Dan Riehl has video here). Immediately, comments such as these started showing up:
Posted by Ernesto Del Mundo at September 2, 2005 08:56 PM
Outstanding. The truth is something I haven’t [heard on] TV in so f-ing long.****
Posted by aw at September 2, 2005 09:04 PMI’ll second that. Maybe it’ll become an epidemic.
…to which I replied:
You people are celebrating the fact that this guy made the claim that Bush “doesn’t care” about Blacks?
Good.
A lot of us “wingnuts”—who you are going to find out are really classical liberals—are itching for this fight.
Turning a hurricane into a “racist” event is just what this country needs to have the conversation it’s been too afraid to have for 30 years.
Bring it on.
And I mean just that. Rich Lowry sees the writing on the wall and is wary of what he presumes will be the “toxic and unhealthy” “post-catastrophe debate.” But I welcome it, suspecting as I do that any attempt to racialize this catastrophe will result—after the inevitable and necessary public debate—in a huge setback to the identity politics movement.
And the US needs that just now—an ideological victory for classical liberalism that reaffirms the primacy of the individual, the very foundation upon which human liberty is built.
****
update: Evidently, the Red Cross is receiving a ton of complaints.
Good.
Bring it on…
****
update 2: Rick Moran has a very informative piece on the dependence culture here.
Magnificent post, Jeff – and I am grateful that I’m actually able to post online to that effect. We were far enough from the Gulf Coast to avoid the direct effects of Katrina, but close enough to fall victim to subsidiary effects; to wit, a whole honkin’ lot of wind and water damage and power outages that persisted until this week.
We went south to help out the in-laws in Jackson, who had taken even more of a hit than we had, and witnessed gas lines and storm damage far removed from the coast that was difficult to register. This one was worse than Camille, but one thing comes across in all of this:
Mississippi had the planning and infrastructure in place to deal with this, while Louisiana manifestly did not. The difference in response and meeting needs is marked, and I can’t help but lay it at the feet of those in Louisiana who did not develop an adequate response plan, dithered when action would have been the obvious choice, and are now looking to shift blame on anyone, and anything but themselves.
This is admittedly somewhat removed from the substance of your post, but what you say is spot on, and I hope that someone out there is listening.
Glad to hear you and yours are safe.
You make a good point, too. We’re not really hearing much about Mississippi—and today on FOX, Rick Leventhal was showing a major road that had already been cleaned and cleared.
Of course, NO’s problems were mostly secondary, but I’ll be eager to see how the two catastrophe plans match up.
Thanks, Jeff – I’ve got to give major props to Governor Barbour and the state civil defense officials, who were on top of this from the beginning, and have made some very good, very solid decisions that deserve praise. I wish too that more was in the news about all the kind people that have stepped up to the plate here – for example, Mayor Bloomberg of New York, power and light crews from Canada – that are down here right now doing yeoman work, with little notice or credit. God bless them.
Damn Jeff, I couldn’t agree with you more and I couldn’t have said it better.
Er…. on that ,last post, I may have inadvertantly created the impression that Mayor Bloomberg was down here – he’s not, but NYC ponied up some major funds to help with the disaster along the coast. Sorry – emotion kicked in here, from a desire to credit the people who are doing some fundamentally decent and heroic things to help their fellow Americans, with little or no media notice.
And if you’ll excuse me robbing a little more bandwidth here, one of the most heart-breaking aspects of the last few days has been listening to radio broadcasts in which a refrain occurs again and again:
What about Waveland? We’ve just got a report. Waveland isn’t there anymore. Substitute any of dozens of other little communities in the stretch of the Gulf Coast that includes Long Beach, Gulfport, and Biloxi, and that’s the reality. Not there anymore. Swept away by storm surges that left… nothing.
Jeff,
Great post and glad to see you putting the classical liberal label front and center. With any luck the “progressives” will make that their title, abandon the word liberal, and we’ll have our word back after more than 100 years of appropriation by the left.
As for racist hurricanes and so forth, I look forward to the debate as well. I also saw a lady in the Baton Rouge shelter screaming about how Bush won’t get her vote—never mind that the election’s over. It made me want to puke.
This is more of a devil’s advocate kind of comment, but it seems to me that your “Turning a hurricane into a ‘racist’ event is just what this country needs” is a little shallow.
Of course, I think West’s comment was flat-out ridiculous. But if I were a “progressive,” I would point out that it is not the hurricane itself that is racist, but rather that the distruction which disproportionately hit blacks indicates underlying racial problems. That is, if a fire knocks out the black part of town, it’s not because the fire hates blacks, but because blacks can’t afford (because of past racism) to build buildings according to the firs code. Similarly, in New Orleans, the fact that the first pump to fail was in the mostly black Ninth Ward might be read to reflect lack of political power to attact the funds to keep that pump in working order.
Again, I’m making this argument as a devil’s advocate, more to point out what I see as a stawman on your part than as a legitimate complaint by the race-warriors.
In addition, I’m less optimistic about the result of the debate being an ideological victory. The ideological polarization has little to do with reason, and therefore the efficacy of reasoned debate would be blunted.
Point taken, Sobek, and I understand that you’re taking on the mantle of devil’s advocate here, but I still feel that catastrophes in New Orleans have more to deal with failures in planning and plain administrative incompetence rather than racism. For whatever reason, it seems that Louisiana let every parish decide for itself what to do and didn’t make any effort to develop a planning framework adequate to the potential risk.
I mean, for God’s sake, if Mississippi can do it – a state visited by delegates from third world nations because the conditions are so similar, in their view – why couldn’t Louisiana step up to the plate?
If the destruction disproportianately hit a particular color, Sobek, then one of two things are operative: the color, or something else. And I’m suggesting it ain’t the color.
And yes—of course I understand the argument as the race warriors try to make it. But what I’m seeking to do is remove color from the equation altogether (unless we believe the hurricane to be looking for a particualr color, which is absurd) in order to get to political ideology and the identity politics mindset that promotes the condition that resulted in the disproportionate destruction we’re now seeing.
Which, for those who wish to argue the racialist line you cite above, forces them to connect color with condition—and to do that, they’ll have to invoke past racial injustices, as you point out. In turn, such a move on their part allows me to bring up the the Great Society, affirmative action, and the decades of black mayoral rule in New Orleans. Did such things work to alleviate the institutionalized racism the race warriors insist is still at play? If not, why not? And why do we continue on with such things if they aren’t working? Etc.
You may be less than optimistic about the outcome, but I’m convinced that most Americans are ready to speak out given the right provocation. Similarly, I’m convinced that identity politics is completely anti-American, and that if enough people can be shown how and why—on the big stage of a national debate—then the tide will turn.
Kate’s post aptly encapsulates something I’ve been thinking for quite some time.
Frankly–and I’m being perfectly straight forward here, no hyperbole intended–I’m rather inclined to think the forces of insanity are going to prevail in the end. History suggests they always have in the past, after all.
How comforting…
Dear Mr. West,
Just because a man is white (And not a Dem), doesn’t mean he is racist. Please keep this in mind to prevent driving further wedges between ethnic groups with innane drivel.
Thank you for your time.
OHNOES
Well, I’m waiting for the race-baiters to come to terms with the fact that cracker-barrel red state Texas is absorbing thousands, probably a couple hundred thousand, of New Orleans’ and Louisiana’s least fortunate Americans, most of whom are black.
We’re housing them at the Astrodome – site of countless heartbreaks in both football and baseball – and surrounding buildings and other locales.
Our businesses are running round-the-clock telethons and radio promos that allow you to request any song in the universe in exchange for a donation. Yes, that includes “Tiny Bubbles” and “She Bangs” (Hung verson).
We’re providing round-the-clock volunteers, “three-hots-and-a-cot”, a stable place to stay, toys for the kids. There’s an effective medical clinic on site. It’s air conditioned. Showers are provided, as is clean underwear, a change of clothes, and a bag full of soap and toothpaste and shampoo. We are not offering a devil’s soup of BO, feces and urine. People (so far) aren’t beating the crap out of each other and engaging in the occasional rape.
The world-reknowned Houston Medical Center is nearby for acute cases. Psych professionals are arriving to do much-needed pro-bono work for people who have been traumatized, not the least by the pathetic city and state officials in Louisiana.
Volunteers, among countless other acts, are cleaning up trash and washing out bathrooms and showers so that our guests will have some order, some cleanliness, some dignity.
SBC, the local phone conglomerate, is providing free phone banks. Trucks upon trucks from Randalls, Kroger, Walgreen’s, etc. are stacked virtually on top of each other.
My employer, HP, is offering cash, clothes, food and technical assistance to networks and databases used to help people locate friends and loved ones. Local companies are offering previously inexistent jobs to everyone from Software Engineer to Diesel Mechanics.
Houstonians are turning up in droves at the Dome, at local churches, at shelters, at food banks. We’re dropping off diapers and PediaLyte and water and clean clothes and toiletries and games and stuffed animals.
If we can’t handle the influx, we work our asses off to find out where they can go, which might be San Antonio, might be Dallas, might be Buffalo TX. Each one of those big cities have graciously and remarkably agreed to house up to 30,000 people. 30,000!. The smaller cities take in 100, 1000, whatever.
Houstonians are opening their homes to evacuees, letting total strangers occupy their houses, their hotels, their churches, their mosques, their temples regardless of color. So are little flyover towns never heard of by coastal journos, towns like Beaumont, Corsicana, Waco, Livingston, Lufkin, Atascosita, Cut-N-Shoot, Tyler, Waller, Tomball, Orange, Port Neches, Galen Park, Clear Lake, Sugar Land, Galveston, Nacogdoches, Bryan-College Station and countless others.
In other words, blue-state country and world: Fuck you, I’m from Texas. You assholes trying to turn this into a race debate should look at the floor of the Dome: What’s the predominant color there? Are we herding them into squalid pools of urine and feces, waiting to gas them like the Germans gassed the Jews and gypsies and gays? Are we failing to provide succor and security? Are we waiting on government to tell us how to behave?
No, you fucking fuckwits. We saw a need, we offered help, and we acted, without asking for help or approval from the Feds. We treat the “bus stealer” Jabbar Gibson as a local hero – a baddass mofo who assessed his situation, gathered as many people as he could, and hightailed it to the Lone Star State. Run for governor, Jabbar, we’ll elect you in a landslide because you know what to do when the shit goes down. I don’t care if you’re a R or a D or an I.
And yes, that’s from a redneck cracker red state. What the fuck are you doing California, and Washington, and Massachussets?
Yeah, that’s what I thought, losers. Oh, and by the way, if you ever get plagued by ice storms, earthquakes or volcanoes, we’ll treat you precisely the same. Our first words will be “Welcome to Texas, we’re glad you’re here” and then commence to taking care of you. WE DON’T CARE where you’re from.
(TW: sent, as I hope I sent my message)
Sorry Jeff, but I’m inclined to agree with Beck. The professional race baiters and poverty pimps are the proverbial squeaky wheels in a situation like this, and we’ve got a MSM that I have no doubt is going to make matters worse (especially on the editorial pages).
I shudder to think about how this debate would go (or even whether or not there would be any debate to speak of on matters like this) if we didn’t have the internet.
Sean: it goes beyond this specific instance. The Cindy Sheehan circus, a Middle East firmly in the grips of insanity, an intelligetsia firmly entrenched in the grips of self-destruction… meanwhile voices of sanity grow fewer and further between, are more quickly dismissed, ignored, or shuffled aside. After all, what need to refute an argument when you can simply ignore it, confidently assured it’ll disappear into the vacuum of a predetermined media agenda.
Yeah, gloomy, but then, I don’t have (or plan on having) any kids, so I’m mostly just focused on having a good time in the hear and now–things should hold up at least another 50 years. In the words of Nietzsche, “What, me worry?”
Rant addendum:
We’re giving half-off tickets to Astros game. Last night, when Houstonians found out there were Louisians at Minute Maid, they offered a standing O, then bought those folks some nachos and Cokes.
University of Houston fans found out that a bunch of Louisia kids showed up at the Cougar-UO Ducks game … and they bought the kids nachos, Cokes and paraphenalia.
The Texans may make part of Reliant Stadium available to evacuees.
Zoo and museum admission in the Museum district is free. So are tickets to the opera and ballet.
Tickets to the Six Flags theme park across the freeway from the Astrodome are 1/2 off for Lousiana residents, as are tickets to SplashTown USA up on I-45.
Hotels are offering to cancel taxes for those in residence over 30 days – not a small sum for the city with the highest hotel taxes in the country.
Local restaurants are offerning pizza, fried catfish, barbecue, etc. for people to eat in addition to their regular meals.
Houstonians are taking Louisians bills at local restaurants and paying them, from Wal-Mart all the way to fancy-schmanzy restaurants.
Sorry to rant, but the only TV personality mentioning this effort is Greta Van Sustren. CNN’s Aaron Brown can only issue his marble-muth, pregnant-pause-laden anti-US “I’m only asking the question” rhetoric.
I hate him.
What Steve is saying is so on the money – that’s Texas, to the “T.” Generosity and a heart as big – well, as big as the Lone Star Republic, and more besides.
I don’t know what’s more disgraceful: West’s opinions, or NBC’s incompetence in letting him spew them.
Whther any one wants to have this debate or not it is here. There is never a good time for this sort of thing, but history won’t let us avoid it either. None of us are going to be able to hide from it. Jeff’s right it has to be faced, right now.
” A professor at the University of Massachusetts, Martin Espada, told the New York Times: “We tend to think of natural disasters as somehow evenhanded, as somehow random. Yet it has always been thus: Poor people are in danger. It’s dangerous to be poor. It’s dangerous to be black. It’s dangerous to be Latino.â€Â
It’s more dangerous to be stupid.
Steve in Houston – very well put. Kudos to Houston!
Houston has behaved admirably and don’t you think the rest of the country can’t see that and appreciate it. I’ve been riveted by the television reports. Your town rocks. I was so impressed by what I saw at the Astrodome. What a wonderful community you have.
*My hospital in Massachusetts is ready to take transfers and patients – just got the e-mail at work yesterday, they haven’t been asked to send medical teams quite yet (from the last e-mail) but they are ready to go if needed. I volunteered to host a medical student or resident with me if they come to our hospital. We haven’t all drunk the kool-aid up here
But anyway, I think Jeff is right. Talking to my mom in Iowa yesterday. She is totally non-political and down the center – she’s usually a pretty good gauge of general center public opinion and she says that that things just can’t happen immediately; any rescue effort takes time. Mom said people on the local radio show were pissed at the reporters – if you can get in why didn’t you try and help coordinate things? But then she was born and raised in India so she has a different view of things.
Anyway, the rescuers, Coast Guard, Military, nurses, docs, police, all the good people who are volunteering to help – wow. Some of the refugees were saying that they loved Houston and wanted to stay – I hope they are able to rebuild their lives in some way. I really pray for them. They do need our help.
Jeff –
Great post.
It IS time for this debate and has been for a long time now.
My problem is: How do you have a reasoned debate with someone who is so ignorant of facts that they leave you dumbstruck within two sentences? How many times have I just given up when someone with an IQ obviously in the range of 95 – 100 starts a conversation by calling George Bush a “stupid chimp”? I mean, I might as well have a debate with my dog. From what I am seeing and hearing, the only acceptable action would have been if W. was in NO on Sunday, personally evacuating the town with the presidential limo.
What do you say to people who think that the appropriate response to this disaster was for the governor of Louisiana and the mayor of NO to both throw their hands in the air and shreik “HELP! WE ARE TOTALLY INCOMPETENT! AND IT’S W’s FAULT!”?
Welcome to the new millenium. I fear that the left has finally found their nutcracker…
God damn thee cursed cancer Freedom!
Behold what thou hast wrought.
Hey Jeff, I saw something somewhere that said they crunched the numbers and if Jews were considered a race for college applications, they would receive an incredibly large penalty for their race, much larger even than Asians (who get it worse than whites).
Makes you think. Sounds kind of familiar, even…
That’s the kind of thing that exposes how terribly, obviously flawed the whole racist system is.
We need to be a colorblind society, not one that classifies all its people by their ethnicity.
Bing it on!
Why would you want to bring on a race debate when you could be pitching in and helping. Didn’t even Bush say this was no time for politics?
There is enough bullshit out there, like the black ‘looters’, white ‘finders’ on face value could look suspicious.
But if you’ve got the time to find out there is a contests that explains why ‘whites’ could be perceived as ‘finders’ and not looters:
In this climate I don’t think you should be bringing anything like that on. Learn from the C-I-C’s own
mistake.
contests = context
When they (MSM) first started showing the people crying and ranting about being abandoned (by the State), crying, “Where are THEY, we need food and water and it is HOT”, I wondered aloud what those able bodied men were doing, screaming for someone else to come supply them. First of all I couldn’t believe that they decided to ride out the Cane with no thought of the aftermath – preparing several days water, caching food, meds, diapers, etc.
Then I realized that most of the people we were seeing were indoctrinated into the dependency culture. They have continually been told by the political machines that they are incapable of achievement without help. Their sense of self reliance has been subordinated to the Nanny State. They have abdicated their responsiblity to think! They have basically traded their futures and the futures of their children for subsistance.
I ask you, what kind of evil would put people in a system that denigrates achievement, that punishes effort, that creates generations of hoplessness, that actually believes in the inferiority of these individuals? Folks, you are looking at evil in it’s most vile form – a political system intent on creating a sub class of citizen. A system that, in order to continue to exist, relies upon creating a culture of dependence!
This system has sucked away the tools that man uses to survive in situations such as this – the ability to think. When one has traded his survival tools for a meager subsistance, what is one to use? They use what they have left – nothing but brute force.
What we have witnessed is not a failure of the State. What we have witnessed is the success of Liberal America. This is their creation, their crowning achievement, yes this is how they interpret the American Dream. God, I hope they are proud.
TW:need, as in “You need us and we need your vote.
Steve in Houston,
Hope you don’t mind, but I posted your rant and its addendum on my site, because I liked it so much.
rls: bingo
I have called these people “professional democrats” for some years now because that is their gig. They vote democratic and the liberal/democratic beaurocracy supports them. It is important now that they see the naked emporer is the local governments who truly let them down, and that self-empowerment is the only way they can truly expect to be protected.
Steve’s exactly right–Texas is stepping up to the plate: my own hometown (McKinney just 20 minutes outside Dallas) will welcome some 15 or 16 thousand refugees from New Orleans: the huge First Baptist Church is lending its available space, the Walmart which just moved into a new building is putting its old building to use. Many other smaller organizations are also making all their free space available: one man who pastors a small church in the area which usually provides space for about 8 or 9 recovering drug addicts, but has no one in the program at the moment, will be taking in some 8 or 9 of the N.O. refugees. Everyone in town is contributing blankets, soap, towels, etc.
Kayne West/David Duke, one in the same.
Jeff hits one out of the park again. Is it human growth hormones, steroids or other performance enhancers? Time for you to piss in the cup mister.
TW: want. I want to be able to write good like Jeff, but alas, I have not the required prowess because I went to engineering school. Well, at least they didn’t have a chance to brainwash me.
Excellent posts. I also took this cataclysm as a warning. Lesson: The State is not your daddy. We in California shrug off earthquakes and mock anyone who thinks a spot in the garage for the preparedness kit is a good thing. I’m building mine today.
As for race, bring it on. I saw black people APPLAUDING the military’s arrival today. I saw black people disgusted with their city and its thugs, people who vow to never come back. And why has CNN not mentioned once that the mayor is black and the killers on the streets are most probably black and that NO has been a hellhole for years?
Beck, I agree with you.
Steve from Houston, I love you.
Hmmmm.
Plan? Plan?!
I suggest reading JunkYardBlog if you haven’t yet. DrudgeReport made one picture famous, but there’s one more that puts everything into perspective.
satellite picture
The school bus yard is on the upper right. The stadium is in the lower left. The thing connecting the two is an elevated highway.
I really suggest reading his blog if you haven’t already. It will astonish, amaze and then really piss you off. Everything that happened was completely unnecessary except that f**kwit of a mayor in New Orleans couldn’t do anything more energetic than take someone else’s hotel room and make it his “HQ”.
The jackass.
Man, Jeff – your blog is an oasis of sanity. I can come here, and realize I’m not the only sane person. It really sucks that at a time when everyone should be focusing on how they can help we have these stupid ass race baiters and partisan making asinine statements.
Let’s be perfectly frank here. The vast majority of the people trapped in New Orleans currently are members of the underclass. The city has (had?) a very large, very poor slum area. In every metropolitan slum, there is a significant portion of shiftless people on the government dole. There is also a significant percentage of the population that consists of career criminals. There are also “opportunistic” criminals who, given the right climate (for example, no police around, stores unguarded and an “everybody’s doing it” attitude), will pillage, sack, rape, etc. This has happened in every riot I can remember.
The looting is a function of the composition of the populace. It is also a function of the climate being in place to permit it. But the feckless behavior of the non-criminal element, or at least those who have given voice to it in the media, is quite obviously a function of being on the receiving end of government largess and being dependent upon government help in every significant aspect their lives.
This is what happens in every socialist country; infrastructure rots while citizens wait for the government to “do something.” Feeling no ownership in their society, socialist citizens feel no compulsion to invest their time or energy in making their neighborhoods better places. This is quite akin to the societal rot of nanny-state liberalism, and it is at the root of the looting and savage behavior we have been hearing about.
I came to the conclusion years ago that the only answer to the ‘dependency’ problem of policies designed to ‘help’ people it to make them REAL dependency programs. Simple. If you are unable to make it on your own, until you are you are a ‘dependent citizen’ and your right to make decisions for yourself are suspended.
Get Food Stamps? Tell us what you want to eat and we’ll use them to decide what you get.
Live in subsidized housing? We’ll decide what your curfew hours are and who can visit you or stay overnight.
Medicaid? We’ll decide whether you need to see a doctor or not. No waiting in emergency rooms, call us and explain how sick you feel and we’ll decide.
It’s simple. If you’re incapable of taking care of yourself, you’re obviously incapable of making good decisions, so your decision-making capacity (including voting) is suspended until you demonstrate that you can. Getting a paying job, keeping it and saving money is a start toward proving it, as is staying in school and not making babies before getting married.
I would also not let anyone on any kind of welfare buy or wear any kind of clothes, shoes, or jewelry except standard-issue, uniform style.
No cars except with tracking GPS. No alcohol or drugs.
If you are a real adult and prove it by being able to sustain yourself, then you can have decision making rights. Not until.
Kanye West was more upset that the media wasn’t whitewashing the crime and lawlessness, than the actual lawlessness itself. Apparently, black people are not supposed to be portrayed as anything but victims – it’s bad for the race-baiting business. And what a business it is. Black victimhood is the goose that is laying the golden egg for the Kanye West’s, Al Sharpton’s and Jesse Jackson’s of this world.
Kanye West is just another dumb racist piece of shit in an ocean full of sewage.
Jeff,
I have been reading you regularly for, well, I guess about two years now. I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for your efforts.
When I read the screed drudge linked to in the huffpost, I nearly vomited. As a child growing up in the 70s and 80s, I was inculcated – no, indoctrinated – with a deference toward those of African descent. Ostensibly, this was merited because of a history of maltreatment at the hands of my ancestry. I complied. I have given money to charities serving black Americans. I have stood extra long in doorways to hold doors for black women. I stood in opposition to a Klan rally at my alma mater. In return for my defense of these classical liberal values, I get to listen to Randal Robinson paint this last bastion of those values thusly:
“I, the formerly un-jaundiced human rights advocate, have finally come to see my country for what it really is. A monstrous fraud.â€Â
Well, fuck him. And fuck the whole lot of those baiters who, it seems, compose the largest and loudest piece of the “African-American Community.†I will no longer abide. I, for one, will start to call a spade a spade. I will not defer over matters of substance because of some past injustice. The people speaking out on race the loudest in this country right now – the “civil rights leaders†who do not take stock of how far we’ve come and continue to find racism under every rock are liars and charlatans.
As others here have more or less eloquently noted, the cry of “racism†has become more often than not, a cover for a political ideology. The debate over when and where government intervention is necessary and good is lost beneath claims of racism. This has created a situation where in many circles, simply believing in small government is tantamount to racism.
This is untenable. The bulwark of our social structure is empiricism. It was a passion for and pursuit of empiricism that gave rise to our very governmental structure. Empiricism requires freedom – intellectual freedom in particular – to function. These race demagogues are poisoning the well – it is Orwellian. The time has come to face these dissemblers confidently. The time has come to recognize that the politics of race do not obviate the pursuit of truth.
Kayne who? I don’t do “urban”, man. Any relation to Big Daddy Kane?
At any rate, I’ve got no problem letting him spew his rant (yay, 1st amendment!), as long as he’s ready for the backlash. And the backlash on this baby looks ready to snap nis neck…
Words have consequences, just like actions.
SB: below
The left is already maneuvering to spin Katrina into a platform from which to shout that America is still a vile, racist nation that does not care about blacks. Its all about the caring, as manifested in a paternalistic nanny state accompanied by a healthy dose of identity politics.
The relentless eye of the media spotlight shows us the grim results of the welfare state run by the politically-correct. We can now ask ourselves: do we want more of the same, or do we want to ask some hard questions w/r to what exactly has 30 years of identity politics done for blacks in America.
You know, I’m sure all this race baiting is gonna SO HELP in the donation department. After all, who doesn’t want to unload a bunch of cash after they’ve been called a “brown baby” hater? I mean, other than liberals? Keep it up, idiots, and you’ll see the donations to the REd Cross come to a screeching halt.
I can’t believe my own eyes! You people are sooo niave! Think Evian! It’s a conspiracy! We whupped you in 1812 … and sent the Acadians/Cajuns into deep cover! Bwwahahahahaha!!
I hope you are right. I think this could actually set back race relations.
Steve in H-Town–nice.
And to make his point here’s a linkthat points up what Steve is saying (and to add a few local organizations and churches should anyone care to donate to some places that are working here–the general orgs (Red Cross, etc.) are doing a great job, but for some lesser know places you might check it out.)
..also notice under the notice asking for 300-500 volunteers the addendum that all Saturday volunteer shifts have been filled.
Great job, Houston!!
Personally, I think the only anodyne to the race-baiting of the media is to try to preemptively uncover all the facts and, then, give them as much exposure as possible. I don’t know where the responsibility will land, but I have a lot of faith in the truth. (I hope it’s not misplaced.)
I don’t think the media have any idea how dangerous it is opening old wounds–some of which have been well on the way to healing. They’re like a bunch of kids playing with illegal fireworks: gleeful until someone blows off a hand. They’re acting in an incendiary manner and we’ll all suffer. Whatever happened to waiting for all the facts to come in? I’d hate to see White/Black relations take three steps back after all the progress that’s been made. It’s needless; Americans love the people of New Orleans. And that includes the President.
Wad, I know you’re going to say the condition of Blacks isn’t perfect. You don’t say? There’s plenty of material for legitimate debate. Progress is the result of an ongoing discussion and testing of methods, it takes time.
All morning, I’ve been looking at the emergency preparedness source docs – readily available online – and have been having a conversation with myself going at my site. I intend to go back over all the news documents to establish a timeline and see what I can discover.
Sure, these facts will come out in an inquiry, but by then the Left will have been brainwashing people for months and it may be too late to fix the damage. We have to act immediately. There’s no time to lose.
Already, some things are suggestive. The Director of the LOEP is the Governor’s agent specifically responsible for coordinating the state and local evacuation efforts–which failed miserably. So, to a degree, the people criticizing Louisiana Homeland Security appear to be correct. Who ever was in charge of front-line response blew it. The question is how.
Right now, I’m looking into evacuation. Between the LOEP, the NOPD and the Regional Transportation Authority, they were to have evacuated willing residents. I’d like to see the evidence of how they cooperated—or didn’t.
And as far as communication: it seems they considered every contingency except the total loss of infrastructure. I see no evidence of a backup plan, but I only started this morning.
The City of New Orleans also has an emergency plan page.
Wadard, go back and read that ENTIRE page you linked. It provides context which you sorely lack.
There are a few of us; Barry over at Cynical Nation, Bill over at INDC Journal, my father over at Vulgar Morality, Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit, yourself, and myself, who never seem to really be anyone’s friends in politics. My father, like you, favors the term “Classical Liberal”. I don’t know if that would be what we are, or if there is another word for it, or if the differences between us are just as great as the difference between one of us and a staunch conservative or lefty.
What I do know is that we fall into the cracks between Red and Blue, and our existence is generally ignored by both sides. As far as liberals are concerned, we are Neocons. As far as conservatives are concerned, we are party traitors, ever on the verge of a ridiculous “de-linking”.
I have said very little on the subject of Katrina over at Sophistpundit. I didn’t feel comfortable saying very much, to be honest.
But if the post-catastrophe debate that you speak of is indeed looming in the near future, then I agree with you that it will be a necessary and potentially important one. But when stakes are high, maintaining a degree of caution can only help.
What I mean is simply this: when the time comes, we, the “Classical Liberals” as you say, must be the ones with the coolest heads, must be the ones to speak clearly through the fog of shouting and motive-questioning. To turn the public away from dogma one must become an example of level-headedness even when one is under stringent personal attack.
In any case, and for what it’s worth, I’ll be right here with you, Goldstein–you and the rest of the Classics. Let us work to bring sanity back to an arena of public discussion that has for nearly have a decade descended into madness.
Italians (italics) attack!
</i> Update 2 looks to be the culprit.
I mean, for God’s sake, if Mississippi can do it – a state visited by delegates from third world nations because the conditions are so similar, in their view – why couldn’t Louisiana step up to the plate?
Never been to MS eh? The reason why we can do it is because people look down on us just because of the slow drawl that we speak in, never mind listening to the points we are gettin across and decide we are “backwoods hicks” instead of smart and intelligent humans with more compassion in our little fingers than a whole hell of alot of other Americans have in their hearts.
MS will get through this and be just fine, with the help of others and the strength and spirit of ourselves.
We may be poor but we aren’t ignorant!!!!!!!!!
Johnson – try reading the remainder of my posts above and perhaps check out a few below. I’m from Mississippi. I was born here. I live here now. I have lived here for nearly a half-century except for a brief interlude in the U.K. in the early Nineties.
The Third World delegates I mentioned are parties from Honduras, Bangladesh, and Panama, just to name a few, who have been visiting the state regularly under the auspices of Mississippi State, because they see a parallel between their infrastructure problems and ours.
You are major league off the mark here, friend. I don’t buy into the whole backwoods mythos because, like you, I know the truth from my own experience.
Perhaps a further proof of my bona fides are in order? How about the complete four verses of “Hotty Toddy”? Ole Miss Alum sticker on the Ford Ranger?
What we have witnessed is not a failure of the State. What we have witnessed is the success of Liberal America. This is their creation, their crowning achievement, yes this is how they interpret the American Dream. God, I hope they are proud.
RS—Uh… from 1969 to the present there have been two Presidents who were democrats: Carter (4 year term) and Clinton (8 year term). Since ‘69 the majority of our presidents have been republicans. I’m missing how you can lay the blame for this on a ‘Liberal America’ which has rarely been in control of the White House.
RT – scroll up and take a look. I said nothing that even vaguely resembles what you’re referring to in your post. You seem to have confused me with someone else, or with a caricature of what someone else has said.
RT – I think the post you’re referring to was written by rls, who, by the way, has not only a way with words but also makes a pretty compelling case.
But I’ll leave it at that and take up no more bandwidth on this thread.
Sorry RS, I meant my post/question for RLS.