But one more thing...
Sep. 1st, 2005 06:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyI'm watching, and feeling, sadness turning into physical horror turning into rage. And people wonder why folks in New Orleans are rioting?
For ordering 1,500 police to leave search-and-rescue operations to stop looting when there are still survivors, Mayor Nagin deserves to be strung up, Mussolini-style. I'm not usually one to condone capital punishment but for that I'll make an exception.
For this, I hope they use Condoleeza Rice and her shoes to plug the levee or something. Then we could actually say that one of those neo-con bastards had done something useful.
Okay...so nothing could have prevented Katrina. But a hell of a lot could have been done to prevent the misery and suffering we're seeing now.
The other day I came out at work. (There are a few new people, and they don't know about my politics.) One woman was insisting that, well, socialism didn't work, and anarchism wouldn't work, because people were flawed and that capitalism, though it was flawed too, was the only thing that seemed to work. (Never mind the historical inaccuracy of that statement; this was a casual lunchtime discussion.)
I replied that what we're seeing in New Orleans now is capitalism in action. The rich had cars and got out. The poor got drowned. The system works, perfectly.
I can't help but contrast this, being removed from the situation and not an American, with the media coverage of Sept. 11, the outpouring of sympathy, the "We Are All New Yorkers" bollocks. I don't see that now. We are not being asked to identify with the people too poor to get out, the people trapped in the Superdome, the "looters," the rioters. That's part of why I can't read the news right now. It's a spectacle. We're meant to be horrified -- not for the human lives lost, not for the beauty of the city, not for the animals who drowned, probably wondering why their owners weren't coming back -- but at this grotesque display of people at their worst.
Anyway, this seems to be on the right track.
On a comparatively trivial note, I really, really wish my landlords (father and son) would agree to discuss rent disputes over the phone instead of insisting on getting together with me in person. Just because my landlord has nothing better to do with his time doesn't mean that I have nothing better to do with my time. They always show up late and I waste my entire evening on what could be solved in a few minutes of discussion.
For ordering 1,500 police to leave search-and-rescue operations to stop looting when there are still survivors, Mayor Nagin deserves to be strung up, Mussolini-style. I'm not usually one to condone capital punishment but for that I'll make an exception.
For this, I hope they use Condoleeza Rice and her shoes to plug the levee or something. Then we could actually say that one of those neo-con bastards had done something useful.
Okay...so nothing could have prevented Katrina. But a hell of a lot could have been done to prevent the misery and suffering we're seeing now.
The other day I came out at work. (There are a few new people, and they don't know about my politics.) One woman was insisting that, well, socialism didn't work, and anarchism wouldn't work, because people were flawed and that capitalism, though it was flawed too, was the only thing that seemed to work. (Never mind the historical inaccuracy of that statement; this was a casual lunchtime discussion.)
I replied that what we're seeing in New Orleans now is capitalism in action. The rich had cars and got out. The poor got drowned. The system works, perfectly.
I can't help but contrast this, being removed from the situation and not an American, with the media coverage of Sept. 11, the outpouring of sympathy, the "We Are All New Yorkers" bollocks. I don't see that now. We are not being asked to identify with the people too poor to get out, the people trapped in the Superdome, the "looters," the rioters. That's part of why I can't read the news right now. It's a spectacle. We're meant to be horrified -- not for the human lives lost, not for the beauty of the city, not for the animals who drowned, probably wondering why their owners weren't coming back -- but at this grotesque display of people at their worst.
Anyway, this seems to be on the right track.
On a comparatively trivial note, I really, really wish my landlords (father and son) would agree to discuss rent disputes over the phone instead of insisting on getting together with me in person. Just because my landlord has nothing better to do with his time doesn't mean that I have nothing better to do with my time. They always show up late and I waste my entire evening on what could be solved in a few minutes of discussion.
