----Here's one for you. Of course it's not on FR:----
Of course it isn't on FR. It doesn't bitch about the tax bite.
-Dan
Posted on 09/02/2005 9:28:23 PM PDT by onyx eyes
(Vanity) 9/03/05 Where is the compassion? Where is the feeling for another human being?
After a brief hiatus I come on here expecting to find an outpouring of outrage and/or sympathy for our fellow human beings, citizens of America trapped in New Orleans and all I can find so far is sniping at the other party and recriminations against Jesse Jackson or some such political wag. And I find paranoia all over the place here about how the media is treating Pres. Bush and even jokes about who is right or wrong about the hurricane aftermath.
Granted, that I have been at home during the daytime and maybe have seen more of the media coverage and that you turned it off instead. Believe me, I did turn my TV off or walked away from it many times this past week because it got too horrific for me to keep watching.
I really did think I'd find a great or greater outpouring of sympathy for the people stranded in New Orleans.
Here's one for you. Of course it's not on FR:
---It is reported that black hurricane victims in New Orleans have begun eating corpses to survive. Four days after the storm, thousands of blacks in New Orleans are dying like dogs. No-one has come to help them.
I am a sixty-four year old African-American.
New Orleans marks the end of the America I strove for.
I am hopeless. I am sad. I am angry against my country for doing nothing when it mattered.
This is what we have come to. This defining watershed moment in America’s racial history. For all the world to witness. For those who’ve been caused to listen for a lifetime to America’s ceaseless hollow bleats about democracy. For Christians, Jews and Muslims at home and abroad. For rich and poor. For African-American soldiers fighting in Iraq. For African-Americans inside the halls of officialdom and out.
My hand shakes with anger as I write. I, the formerly un-jaundiced human rights advocate, have finally come to see my country for what it really is. A monstrous fraud.
But what can I do but write about how I feel. How millions, black like me, must feel at this, the lowest moment in my country’s story.
Randall Robinson is a social
justice advocate and author
whose works include The Debt –
What America Owes to Blacks---
But heh, let's all give one another a hug!
Yessss, yes indeed. Sounds a lot like my neighborhood. And you can fit nearly all of your tv's and gameboys in a big ole' Caddy, too, if they aren't already mounted to the dash!
Of course it isn't on FR. It doesn't bitch about the tax bite.
-Dan
Now there ...you have said it. What kind of idiots would build a city or let a place become a city that is between a lake and a massive river and an ocean and is 10 - 12 feet below sea-level to begin with?
You're absolutely right. Waveland, MS took the hurricane "dead-on", and we barely hear much about it. Could it be because it's a majority-white town? Could be, I don't know.
The squeaky wheel DOES get the grease, and the incompetent mayor of NO and the governor of LA, who's worse than incompetent, have screamed the loudest, demanding the Federal government intercede. Of course, by now we all have seen (or should have seen) the picture that is most damning against "Hizonner" Mayor Nagin, which shows all of NO's school buses sitting in the middle of a lake...gee, you think, maybe just maybe, those buses could have been used to evacuate the city BEFORE the storm hit?
Having said that, we have to admit that NO is a more compelling story (kinda) due to the enormous number of people who ignored the order to evacuate, and are now trapped. Add to that the complete breakdown of civilization inside city limits, and you have "must see tv" news.
I saw it; evidently you didn't bother to listen to the press conference afterwards where all the press wanted to know was was the reason it was "taking so long" to get the aid to NO because those people are black.
For the sake of the dead folks in the other states, I think it's appalling that what's happening in NO has overshadowed their plight. I think most of our fellow FReepers here would agree.
Here's a thread listing FReepers who are willing to open their homes to victims for however long they need a place to stay. I don't think any of them have changed their minds, despite the insanity in NO.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1473656/posts
And who is to blame for that? They are. They are responsible for their situation.
Further, it's not as though they haven't been given help. They've been given housing, food, money and education for their children. And what have they done with it? Less than nothing.
I don't feel sorry for anyone who doesn't have the decency or the will to try to make things better for themselves or their children. I prefer, in my own way, to save my compassion for people who've at least made a effort, who've done something to improve their lives. Compassion for these people is neither rational nor moral. In my view, it isn't even sane.
this is from Onyx Eyes. Ok, guys. (Sorry, I should have put the caps in it: FReeper to be official....)
Now listen. If ya'll really want our Pres. Bush and the party to survive this you darned well better do a turn around in some of your posts and be extremely sympathetic to the victims of Katrina. Otherwise you are going to make us have a real problem in '08.
What an idiotic thing to say.
One of many you've posted lately.
Yep, hugs all around!
Dang, FOX cut away before anyone posed any questions.
-Dan
“For They That Sow the Wind Shall Reap the Whirlwind” Robert F. Kennedy Jr."
"As Hurricane Katrina dismantles Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, it’s worth recalling the central role that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour played in derailing the Kyoto Protocol and kiboshing President Bush’s iron-clad campaign promise to regulate CO2. ..... "
"Perhaps it was Barbour’s memo that caused Katrina, at the last moment, to spare New Orleans and save its worst flailings for the Mississippi coast."
I, being of sound mind, do not think Katrina spared New Orleans, as Mr. Kennedy does.
Seamole, you apparently have not stopped ROCKING since I moved!
It don't matter. We can't win (anything) by being "coldhearted".
Hey. Did you ever ever think that a person may not be able to drive out of town?
Next, as a Florida resident I can tell you that the hotels and motels are usually full to capacity way ahead of a hurricane's landfall. Even if a person did have the money for a hotel or motel it's full-up. Understand?
Like, Where were the buses before the hurricane if the gov and mayor knew a cat 4 or cat 5 was coming?
I know how you feel.
Some of the condemnation of the "citizens" of New Orleans is rightly deserved. There have been accusations of everything from robbery to rape to murder, and that's just in the "shelters!" F--king animals. I hope they drown trying to steal a DVD player. F--kers.
However, the vast majority of those stranded are just people like you and me. They either stayed because they couldn't leave (invalid relative, no car, new baby, etc.), or because they just were unwilling to leave their homes (their home is all they own, the incessant hurricane warnings never turn out to be anything, "I was born here and I'm gonna die here," etc.). I can TOTALLY identify, because all of those things apply to me, too. When we are warned of a hurricane, Mr. Small_L and I stay put until we know for sure where the storm is going to go and how bad it will be (we do have our evac plans and supplies ready, but we don't move out) before we go anywhere. There are just too many false alarms.
I feel so sorry for these people. They are human beings and deserve, at the very least, dignity. I am torn up thinking of them being stranded amongst savages. Not only do they have to deal with the animals themselves, they have to deal with their fellow citizens telling them that they got what they deserved. They DON'T deserve this! Being poor is not a sin. Do YOU deserve this?!? What makes them different from you?
It's enough to make a person cry, not only from heartache, but from sheer frustration.
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