General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: DUers post the thing about post Katrina that shocked you the most [View all]Mc Mike
(9,114 posts)our side says 'This happened to part of our country, these are our fellow citizens, we have to do something'.
When their people are in charge, and a disaster strikes a blue area, their side says 'How can we advance our power and agenda.' In NOLA's case, the first idea on their 'get more power' list was 'Let them die.'
One thing that struck me about Spike Lee's documentary on Katrina was that he showed low income whites suffering in the disaster, too. It made me feel better that he included poor non-blacks, too, that some attention was paid to their suffering, also.
I think that's the real key to genuine caring alliances. Frederick Douglass's statements about the horrible poverty conditions among catholics in Ireland, MLK's observations that some of the South's poor whites lived in conditions almost as bad as the blacks, Sitting Bull giving a lot of his Wild West tour earnings to the ragged street kids that were always magnetized to him, observing that 'The white man knows how to make everything. But he doesn't know how to distribute it'. The Southern Irish catholic co-worker of Richard Wright who gave his library card so Richard could teach himself about H L Mencken, the Black Sleeping Car Porters showing Native American activist Kamook Nichols that they were on her side when the FBI used a platoon of agents to transport and terrify her. Those are moments when people who are actively engaged in a struggle themselves see a boundary line where it isn't 'their struggle' anymore, then they cross that line to help someone else who is struggling, too. They're wins for our side, and make me feel good.
Palast is interesting. He's put out a lot of good reporting, and I have two of his books. Recently, he spoke in favor of bircher Alex Jones in one of Jones' stupid controversies. I hope that it is only because Palast is frozen out of most media venues, and was showing Jones gratitude for the times Jones covered Palast's work. But Jones is a nazi, and works for the bad guys, anyhow. I haven't seen anything Palast has written or investigated that pegs him as a bad guy, though.
I'm a white guy in Pittsburgh. When I see what they did and are doing to New Orleans, I see that Blacks were and are a majority of the victims. I don't feel bad for only the white victims, but just think that 'if we let that happen to NO, then NO isn't going to be around to help if something bad happens in Pittsburgh.' NOLA's one of the 50 biggest cities in the country, and had 1/3 of the entire state population. How can the country just let it go down the tubes? And I remember how l'il bush framed his reconstruction 'committment', by saying 'we're going to work for as long as it takes to rebuild New Orleans'. In other words, 'don't expect any speedy action on this'. And that lazy do nothing dithering he promised is exactly what he delivered. Unlike his lightning quick mobilization when he rushed to destroy and 'rebuild' another country's infrastructure. I remember the social engineering he and rove displayed when they denied the refugees the ability to vote by absentee ballots while overseas Americans could vote absentee, the selective shock doctrine disaster capital grants to his pals to rebuild, leaving everyone else to go begging, the turning of NO's school system into 100% charter schools.
It still is our country, fresh. If they had their nazi 10%, they'd have made their move already. Most people aren't on board with them and their freak ideas, and they know it.
It's nice talking to you. We haven't 'spoken' in quite a while, but I always enjoy reading your viewpoints.