Are you mocking me? ;)
Posted on 09/14/2005 3:32:33 PM PDT by HairOfTheDog
Excellent Post. We have the ideas that can truly lead people out of poverty...not short term fixes. They just haven't heard it yet. We need to offer people a real chance for hope, not condescension and blame.
Only a small minority sees this event as the result of a right -wing conspiracy of overt racism. Only a small minority thinks that those blacks got what they deserved. The majority - and indeed, the only people whose opinions are worth listening to - recognize that this is a tragedy caused by nature, and exacerbated by the gap between rich and poor found in America and by incompetance by New Orleans, Louisiana, and Federal officials.
Pay no mind to the racists - either the ones who take the entitlement mentality or the ones who think those blacks got what they deserved. No one gives a crap what they think. They don't speak for me.
In your dreams. There are a LOT of people on the Left who thrie and survive by keeping class warfare alive. They need to keep people as permanent victims, unable to deal with the results of their own decisions.
When the grand duke or whatever of the KKK speaks, people just chortle. When the Lefty race pimps speak, it gets heavy coverage and their words repeated as if they are gospel truth -- you have but to look at the MSM coverage of the usual idiots, plus some new ones, to see I am correct.
You need to take of your rose-colored glasses. And soon.
Some people paint with a very broad brush indeed..I consider those posts as seriously as I do posts about turning the whole ME into a glass parking lot..Not at all.
I indeed have been fortunate..and had a family support system to see me through a rough spot..and have seen some others through some rough spots..
There are those who need us to be the family to get them through a rough spot..Perhaps those who can improve their lives can be helped by people like you and your fellow workers.
I have had to move out of my home for months because of a house fire...I have had to help a beloved family move in one day from their home heavily damaged by a tornado..Kind friends took them in, as housing was unavailable where they worked due to large numbers of people left homeless.
Texas is being a good neighbor at the moment.
I thank all the volunteers trying to help them.
There are rotten apples , sure..but many just need a leg up right now...and recovery from a very traumatic uprooting and loss.
I will decry waste and fraud..and lawlessness..but not generalize and lump together..There is hope and I thank God for those who work to help people help themselves..
OK - they're off.... Now what? What do we do about it?
Agreed.
Thanks for that posting...I also, was greatly saddened to see some of the really nasty discourse on FR about Katrina...when we try to lump all people together, because of their race, or where they live, or what educational level they have reached, or what their financial status is, we do then avoid seeing the real people that are there...we cannot and do not know why people were caught up and in harms way caused by Katrina...
You know I am a white woman, my husband is a white man, we always worked and paid our own way, and tried to raise our two white boys right...a terrible series of incidents(the death of one of my children, job loss, mental illness), caused us to be on 'Welfare' for a few years....we felt saddend and shamed to have wound up like that, but there we were...dependent on a welfare check, food stamps, and Medicaid....we lived in a little 3 room shack during this time, we bought my remaining son what he needed to go to school and live his life as a child only because my husband and my self wore shoes with holes in them, and often skipped meals so that our son would have enough food...we were poor, and it was scarey...
Thankfully we worked our way out...and today are happy that we were able to provide our son with a college education, and me and the hubby are both retired with a nice nest egg for our senior years...but all those years ago, my family was in a bad position, and often felt desperate and hopeless...we did not give up, we knew what life before welfare was...but for many, for whatever reason, they remain poor and do not climb up...but had my family been in New Orleans in our welfare days, and had Katrina hit, we would have been one of all those families who needed assistance...and I would have greatly resented the nasty smart aleck remarks by many freepers, who think that they do know why some people are in a bad situation...
I also miss rdb3 and mhking...I think their departure is a great loss to FR...
Thank you :~D
I appreciate your posts, always. :~D
Gracious, this is the first I've heard of this. FR is diminished without them.
Good post. Great quote.
Well, I can hope they'll come back....
If they want to talk issues, this is the place to be.
Will do.
Oh my!..I did not know...I am heartbroken.
Prayers for our FRiends to return.
Thanks....I sure do miss mhking...I had just a few short discussions with him, but always found him to be one of the best posters on FR....his loss is really great, and it diminishes FR...I read his last post, and he just seems so sad, and unhappy with what he had been reading on FR....like he said, he just felt so 'tired' of it all...
I hope he one day returns...
Are you mocking me? ;)
Yeah -- it was a truly sad day when I learned of Mike and Rod's departures.
Heh.... No - not at all, I agree with you. :~D
I'm just gong to chime in and add that I, too, have been disgusted with some of the overt and subtle postings that have made it to FR. It's become clear that some of the things the Left says about conservatives (racist, sexist, homophobe, and other smears) are, in fact, true in enough cases to keep the stereotype alive.
Like everyone else seeking to understand a complex situation, the first goal should be to get the relevant facts on the table. One of those facts, which you wither did not know or neglected to mention, is that there was an Evacuation Plan for New Orleans.
Had this Plan been carried out, using the buses designated for it, most of the deaths in the City, and all of the horrors in the Superdome, would have been prevented. That did not happen because of the failures of two public officials, Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin, both elected with the overwhelming support of the citizens who were abandoned in the teeth of Hurricane Katrina.
There is a political subject you have to deal with, which does not appear. What are the dynamics by which the poor people you sympathize with, tend to elect political leaders who will either be incompetent, or corrupt, or both?
The suffering people of New Orleans WERE betrayed, but not by circumstances, or society, or the nation, of the Bush Administration. They were betrayed much closer to home, by people they entrusted with their welfare. That is a central fact you need to deal with. You haven't even mentioned it.
Congressman Billybob
I thought I was keeping up pretty well..but I missed it all.
Geez, you mean MHKING and RDB3 are gone? JUST DAMN. Those guys are worth 10x some of the people that are still here.
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