I, for one, will risk being a very unpopular person right now and say that I'm disgusted with people saying, "Oh, those poor impoverished people of New Orleans who couldn't get out," when those same people of New Orleans are fucking turning over ambulances, stealing emergency generators in use by emergency services, and carjacking nursing home vans (CNN).
To paraphrase omarius, if you need food, fine, smash the Piggly Wiggly windows and grab some food. If you need shoes, fine, grab some Manolo Blahniks, even, so that you don't slice your foot open when you step on some submerged debris. But don't steal fucking televisions and shoot guns at babies and ICU patients who are being evacuated.
I'm sort of with you on that. I was wondering over the weekend what happened to the people (e.g. homeless, very poor) who didn't have the means to evacuate...did the government lay on buses and stuff?
Having said that, anyone who stayed there by choice quite frankly gets NO sympathy from me WHATSOEVER. Bad choice, you are an idiot.
You're right; it's a desparate situation but there are still general, common standards which you ought to adhere to if you're any sort of a human being at all.
You are an idiot. The people who did not have the means to evacuate did not evacuate; that is all. The evacuation plans for NOLA were based on the assumption that evacuees had their own transportation, could put themselves up at hotel rooms, et cetera. There is a percentage of persons who remained in the city by choice, but it appears that there is a larger percentage that didn't really have that choice at all.
It's been four days since the disaster. I don't know why looters are shooting at evacuating helicopters, but they've had time to get organized at this point, and I'd be willing to bet it's because they want something. While it's possible -- even likely -- that their goals are ignoble, I think that we should consider the possiblity that they are being denied access to the Superdome and told they will not be evacuated. Could get someone's blood up.
So, if someone's blood is up, it's okay for them to shoot at the people who might well be their only chance of getting out? I can't say I follow the logic of this. It sounds too much like, "if I can't have it, noone can". What if they're just being told to wait in line like the rest of the 20,000+ in the dome, and they're figuring since they've got guns they don't need to do that?
Plus, if you read suzylou's comment again, you'll see she was, in fact, referring to the people who stayed by choice, not those staying because they had no other option.
It sounds too much like, "if I can't have it, noone can". What if they're just being told to wait in line like the rest of the 20,000+ in the dome, and they're figuring since they've got guns they don't need to do that?
That seems like the mostlikely explanation to me, but who knows? Among other things they might very well be delirious at this point. It is possible that a person living there might not have had fresh water since Sunday afternoon.
Yeah, anavolena points out much the same thing below. I guess it's easy for me to look at it rationally from this rather comfy couch with the sun shining and not a hint of rain outside.
Not entirely sure how that makes me an idiot. I expressed concern for those UNABLE to leave, but not for those who CHOSE to stay. I asked the question as to whether the govt. had assisted the evacuation, as I simply didn't know the answer.
Being told I couldn't get out would get my blood up too; however, that would be in conflict with the current plans to take people to Texas, Baton Rouge etc. Even the US govt wouldn't be that two faced, surely?
I appear to have leapt to the conclusion that you were not aware that some people were unable to leave at all; I apologize, but would point out that it is nowhere explicitly stated in your original comment.
Even the US govt wouldn't be that two faced, surely?
The US government barely enters into it; we are talking about some small number of people with guns guarding the Superdome talking to some small number of people with guns outside it, and the rules of normal civilization don't apply. I think it's quite conceivable that the people guarding the Superdome would tell, say, a group of obvious professional criminals that they would be kept off of helicopters.
anyone who stayed there by choice quite frankly gets NO sympathy from me WHATSOEVER. Bad choice, you are an idiot.
:) I'm not sure how much more explicit I needed to be!
Fair point on the guns etc though - I don't really know how things are working on the ground there at the moment. It's kind of sad, though, that there are people out there prepared to shoot at and climb over others rather than wait their turn.
Still, shooting at the helicopters, and thus stopping evacuation altogether (of yourself and others) seems remarkably disingenuous.
Hmm, I'm not sure now ;) I meant it in a "cutting off your nose to spite your face" kind of way.
Dictionary.com does have it as meaning "naive" which I guess is what I was getting at, but says the usage is shifting. (Hey, this has been an educational day)
There's probably a better word for what I was trying to get at; dunno what it is though!
I don't get this correlation between some assholes with guns and all of the poor impoverished people of New Orleans who couldn't get out. Do you think the majority of the people stuck in the city, or even a significant fraction, are among those turning over ambulances? If not, why is sympathy for the majority so disgusting?
I don't see what's so complicated here: the people stealing TVs, and certainly the people shooting at rescuers, are criminals.
The people who are not doing those things are deserving of our sympathy.
What I'd like to know is why the Army isn't there in force right fucking now.
What I'd like to know is why the Army isn't there in force right fucking now.
Because they're already stuck in a quagmire of their own? Because their commander-in-chief waited until two days after the storm broke to direct others to call a committee meeting to decide what to do next? etc. etc.
You've said it for me, thank you. Just as in an area not effected by hurricanes, there are criminals and there are people who are not criminals.
It's so very easy to tell the starving people of the world to just move to where the food is and the homeless to go to where there is shelter. Well, if it were that easy we wouldn't have any of these problems, would we? My sympathy is not worth a penny but it extends to anyone going through a natural disaster.
My wording was unclear but I did not mean to lump everybody in a desperate, dire situation in New Orleans with the few murderous looters and snipers who are preventing helicopters to evacuate hospitals, homes, and other buildings and areas.
"Why is sympathy for the majority so disgusting?" is like asking me "Why do you hate America so much?" or "When did you stop beating your wife?" In case people haven't noticed, I've been ranting for a few days now that it's reprehensible that the National Guard is being used in Iraq rather than being used here to guard our nation. My rants have come from compassion for the victims of Katrina. For people to accuse me of having no sympathy for the dead, dying, and suffering is unfair and hurtful.
Apologies to waider for starting a tempest in his journal.
I, for one, will risk being a very unpopular person right now and say that I'm disgusted with people saying, "Oh, those poor impoverished people of New Orleans who couldn't get out," when those same people of New Orleans are fucking turning over ambulances, stealing emergency generators in use by emergency services, and carjacking nursing home vans (CNN).
I accept that you didn't mean it... well... the way it reads, but I have no idea what the heck you meant. "Those same people." "Disgusted with people" for saying "oh those poor impoverished people of New Orleans who couldn't get out." Um. What did you mean then?
I meant just what I've explained. I did not mean to lump everybody in my first statement, which I worded very badly. I gotta say, anger at me over my strongly emotional, and ultimately inconsequential, comments and opinions about the situation is badly, badly misdirected. Do you really think that I have the same opinion about the hospital sniper as I do about the little old lady left dead, covered in a blanket, in her wheelchair at the Superdome? I honestly didn't realize that my original comment could be interpreted as being so heartless, though now it is obvious to me that I used a lot of absolutes and no qualifiers.
I also think it's reasonable to suspect that some number of people stayed in New Orleans on purpose with the intention of looting. It's probably not a very large number. There are also a lot of impoverished people who don't practice thrift, for a number of reasons, including a current culture and educational system that don't encourage it, and who could have put money away, over the very long term, to get out. Before everybody dogpiles on me, I'm not saying that anybody at all in New Orleans right now deserves the current horror there.
But for all the people there, they have a choice right now whether to take a gun and shoot at people. There is an intersection of the set of people who had no means to evacuate and the set of people who are turning over ambulances, stealing generators, and carjacking nursing home vans. Excusing acts like that because the people are impoverished and desperate -- which I've been seeing in some people's ljs -- is absurd moral relativism.
What you're saying here, I agree with entirely. It's possible to try to understand the behavior (why the fuck are they doing that shit? Because extreme situations make people sick, and make sick people sicker) without making the mistake of sympathizing with it. What next? Sympathy for the... ahem. Almost Hitlered the conversation there.
omarius has managed, I think, to address the tragedy of having to shoot a rabid dog without shying away from the fact that we have to shoot the rabid dog. (http://www.livejournal.com/users/omarius/97739.html?mode=reply)
Not to patronize, but I would do well to remember that we're all pissed off and upset and I'm probably not at the height of my rhetorical powers either. If somebody says something I suspect they didn't mean, I could be a mite more polite in asking what they were really trying to say. Sorry about that.
there are a hundred thousand people stuck in new orleans right now, many of them children and the elderly. the vast majority of these people are not turning over ambulances and stealing generators.
the families starving outside the superdome right now are, i guarantee, not happy about the lawlessness that's interfering with their rescue.
at the moment, according to the weather underground, the heat index in new orleans is 105 deg F/41 deg. C.
that's essentially outside, in the shade.
imagine you've been inside. for days. with no AC, no working toilets, the stench of backed up toilets inside and rotting filthy disease infested water outside, no food, nowhere comfortable to sleep, 20,000 plus people around you, nothing to do, nothing to entertain you...oh, and you just lost everything.
i know *i* would find it beyond my capacity to be rational.
why the hell are they only just evacuating people? that's my question. they knew tuesday the superdome was untenable.
why the hell are they only just evacuating people? that's my question. they knew tuesday the superdome was untenable.
The last time I was paying attention to such things, the mainstay of the US Army's heavy helicopter fleet was the Boeing Chinook. It holds 44 people as a commercial carrier, so let's say 60 if you cram them in.
333 helicopter trips. How many Chinooks are currently available to make these trips? Some were probably still involved in levee repair operations as of Tuesday...before the mixup in communications that led to the levee breaches. Some were or still are engaged in rooftop rescue, and the situation for those stranded on rooftops is marginally more dire than for those in the Superdome. It may have been (mistakenly) decided to complete rooftop rescues rather than begin evacuation of the Superdome.
In any case, I think we've seen that moving 20,000 people by helicopter is an enormous proposition, and time-consuming. Meanwhile, those who have been in the Superdome since Thursday must be beginning to die of thirst at this point, unless they've somehow been supplied with water -- I haven't heard of any such supply attempts.
I conclude that it's possible they can't get everyone out of the Superdome before they die.
The more chaos the city is in, the better the lotters can loot. I heard last night that some snipers shot at the fire truck dudes who were trying to set up a comms tower. Someone is pretty organized there.
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To paraphrase
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Having said that, anyone who stayed there by choice quite frankly gets NO sympathy from me WHATSOEVER. Bad choice, you are an idiot.
You're right; it's a desparate situation but there are still general, common standards which you ought to adhere to if you're any sort of a human being at all.
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It's been four days since the disaster. I don't know why looters are shooting at evacuating helicopters, but they've had time to get organized at this point, and I'd be willing to bet it's because they want something. While it's possible -- even likely -- that their goals are ignoble, I think that we should consider the possiblity that they are being denied access to the Superdome and told they will not be evacuated. Could get someone's blood up.
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So, if someone's blood is up, it's okay for them to shoot at the people who might well be their only chance of getting out? I can't say I follow the logic of this. It sounds too much like, "if I can't have it, noone can". What if they're just being told to wait in line like the rest of the 20,000+ in the dome, and they're figuring since they've got guns they don't need to do that?
Plus, if you read
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That seems like the mostlikely explanation to me, but who knows? Among other things they might very well be delirious at this point. It is possible that a person living there might not have had fresh water since Sunday afternoon.
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Being told I couldn't get out would get my blood up too; however, that would be in conflict with the current plans to take people to Texas, Baton Rouge etc. Even the US govt wouldn't be that two faced, surely?
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The US government barely enters into it; we are talking about some small number of people with guns guarding the Superdome talking to some small number of people with guns outside it, and the rules of normal civilization don't apply. I think it's quite conceivable that the people guarding the Superdome would tell, say, a group of obvious professional criminals that they would be kept off of helicopters.
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anyone who stayed there by choice quite frankly gets NO sympathy from me WHATSOEVER. Bad choice, you are an idiot.
:) I'm not sure how much more explicit I needed to be!
Fair point on the guns etc though - I don't really know how things are working on the ground there at the moment. It's kind of sad, though, that there are people out there prepared to shoot at and climb over others rather than wait their turn.
Still, shooting at the helicopters, and thus stopping evacuation altogether (of yourself and others) seems remarkably disingenuous.
I think I spelt that wrong.
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Dictionary.com does have it as meaning "naive" which I guess is what I was getting at, but says the usage is shifting. (Hey, this has been an educational day)
There's probably a better word for what I was trying to get at; dunno what it is though!
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I don't see what's so complicated here: the people stealing TVs, and certainly the people shooting at rescuers, are criminals.
The people who are not doing those things are deserving of our sympathy.
What I'd like to know is why the Army isn't there in force right fucking now.
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It's so very easy to tell the starving people of the world to just move to where the food is and the homeless to go to where there is shelter. Well, if it were that easy we wouldn't have any of these problems, would we? My sympathy is not worth a penny but it extends to anyone going through a natural disaster.
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"Why is sympathy for the majority so disgusting?" is like asking me "Why do you hate America so much?" or "When did you stop beating your wife?" In case people haven't noticed, I've been ranting for a few days now that it's reprehensible that the National Guard is being used in Iraq rather than being used here to guard our nation. My rants have come from compassion for the victims of Katrina. For people to accuse me of having no sympathy for the dead, dying, and suffering is unfair and hurtful.
Apologies to
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I accept that you didn't mean it... well... the way it reads, but I have no idea what the heck you meant. "Those same people." "Disgusted with people" for saying "oh those poor impoverished people of New Orleans who couldn't get out." Um. What did you mean then?
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I also think it's reasonable to suspect that some number of people stayed in New Orleans on purpose with the intention of looting. It's probably not a very large number. There are also a lot of impoverished people who don't practice thrift, for a number of reasons, including a current culture and educational system that don't encourage it, and who could have put money away, over the very long term, to get out. Before everybody dogpiles on me, I'm not saying that anybody at all in New Orleans right now deserves the current horror there.
But for all the people there, they have a choice right now whether to take a gun and shoot at people. There is an intersection of the set of people who had no means to evacuate and the set of people who are turning over ambulances, stealing generators, and carjacking nursing home vans. Excusing acts like that because the people are impoverished and desperate -- which I've been seeing in some people's ljs -- is absurd moral relativism.
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What you're saying here, I agree with entirely. It's possible to try to understand the behavior (why the fuck are they doing that shit? Because extreme situations make people sick, and make sick people sicker) without making the mistake of sympathizing with it. What next? Sympathy for the... ahem. Almost Hitlered the conversation there.
Not to patronize, but I would do well to remember that we're all pissed off and upset and I'm probably not at the height of my rhetorical powers either. If somebody says something I suspect they didn't mean, I could be a mite more polite in asking what they were really trying to say. Sorry about that.
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the families starving outside the superdome right now are, i guarantee, not happy about the lawlessness that's interfering with their rescue.
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that's essentially outside, in the shade.
imagine you've been inside. for days. with no AC, no working toilets, the stench of backed up toilets inside and rotting filthy disease infested water outside, no food, nowhere comfortable to sleep, 20,000 plus people around you, nothing to do, nothing to entertain you...oh, and you just lost everything.
i know *i* would find it beyond my capacity to be rational.
why the hell are they only just evacuating people? that's my question. they knew tuesday the superdome was untenable.
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333 helicopter trips. How many Chinooks are currently available to make these trips? Some were probably still involved in levee repair operations as of Tuesday...before the mixup in communications that led to the levee breaches. Some were or still are engaged in rooftop rescue, and the situation for those stranded on rooftops is marginally more dire than for those in the Superdome. It may have been (mistakenly) decided to complete rooftop rescues rather than begin evacuation of the Superdome.
In any case, I think we've seen that moving 20,000 people by helicopter is an enormous proposition, and time-consuming. Meanwhile, those who have been in the Superdome since Thursday must be beginning to die of thirst at this point, unless they've somehow been supplied with water -- I haven't heard of any such supply attempts.
I conclude that it's possible they can't get everyone out of the Superdome before they die.
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It's simple really