by hilzoy
Glug, glug, glug.
(Sorry; couldn’t resist.)
I have not been thinking about who, if anyone, is responsible for the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Whenever I find myself on a web page that has anything to do with those questions, I save the link and move on. I just can’t begin to think about that yet.
However, I did follow a link in comments to this post by Thomas at RedState. Since he is from Louisiana, I’ll give him a pass on the rhetoric: I don’t get bent out of shape by what people say two days after large chunks of their home state have been destroyed. But it did make me think: maybe now would be a good time to lay out, in general, the kinds of criticisms I think might be in order and the kinds I don’t, precisely because I haven’t read any of the relevant articles and I really don’t know what they contain, other than what one can glean from the headlines. I have no idea at all what the facts are (which is why, at various points in this post, I’ll probably find myself saying: I don’t know if this is true, but suppose it is… — I really don’t know. This is not disingenuous at all.) Because I have no idea which criticisms, if any, I will end up thinking have some merit, I can’t really skew things one way or the other.
First of all, while of course no one should slant their assessment for political purposes, it can’t be inappropriate for anyone ever to criticize the government’s preparedness or response to this catastrophe. The possibility that exactly this sort of catastrophe would strike New Orleans was not exactly unforeseen. I first read about it years ago, and have been hoping against hope that someone, somewhere, was looking out for New Orleans: shoring up the levees, starting to replenish the wetlands, and so forth. And if I, who am not responsible for emergency preparedness, knew about this, surely someone in the federal government knew as well.
If any criticism of government preparedness for a disaster is forever out of bounds once the disaster happens, then we can never figure out what our mistakes are and learn from them. Obviously, this would be awful: the last thing on earth we should do is doom ourself to ignorance on the crucial question: what can we do to minimize the possibility that anything like this will ever happen again? Moreover, it makes no more sense to me to say that our government’s success or failure at preparing for an entirely predictable catastrophe is somehow not an appropriate topic of conversation than it would make sense to rule out discussion of an administration’s foreign policy or environmental record. This is exactly the sort of thing we should think about in assessing an administration’s record. If we were as well prepared as we should have been, obviously whoever is responsible for that deserves credit. And if not, whoever is responsible for that deserves blame, absent some compelling story about other, even more urgent priorities, which, just now, I have a hard time imagining.
On the other hand…
(1) I don’t think it’s fair to criticize the administration for the fact (supposing it is one) that it didn’t prepare perfectly or didn’t respond perfectly for the hurricane. Things go wrong; stuff falls through the cracks; we are human and fallible; and no one should be blamed for that. Moreover, I assume that if one is dealing with a huge catastrophe, one is likely to do a certain number of things that, considered individually, look like inexplicable mistakes: the kind that make people say, how on earth could you not have done that? But I think that iin a situation like this, in which a lot of people have to make a lot of decisions under great pressure, a number of individually inexplicable errors are predictable given normal human fallibility, and that while we should note them and learn from them, they are not grounds for blame.
On the other hand, I think that there are limits to how big these can be (in a situation like this, you don’t get to forget to mount a rescue effort, for instance) and also to how many you can make without criticism. Moreover, I think the number of mistakes one can accept without blame is a lot smaller during the period before the actual crisis than during it.
The upshot if this is: I will not criticize the administration for the mere fact that some mistakes were made, nor for the fact that, during the actual crisis period, some number of apparently inexplicable mistakes were made, so long as these seem to me to fall within the levels that you have to accept, given that the preparation and response were made by human beings. I will criticize them only if they made more mistakes, or worse mistakes, than normal human fallibility would explain.
(2) I think that we can only criticize the administration for the foreseeable effects of its policies. This means, I think, that blaming this particular hurricane on Bush would be wrong even if, let’s say, global warming does increase either the frequency or the severity of hurricanes. Since, as I said, I haven’t been able to read the relevant articles since this happened, and don’t know the science offhand, I have no idea whether this is true. However, assuming it arguendo: we would still have no idea whether global warming played any role in this hurricane, and if so, how much of one; nor would we know how much any action of ours would have affected it. We might, however, ask why preventing this sort of hurricane has not been more of a priority.
By the same token, however, I don’t think it’s much of a defense of the administration’s policies to point out (as Thomas does) that they would not have protected against this particular hurricane. If there is any blame, which I don’t know, it would have to be for failing to take appropriate action given the likelihood that some hurricane would strike New Orleans at some point, not for failing to anticipate this hurricane in particular.
(3) I think criticizing the administration’s priorities is absolutely fair game. If it turns out that we underfunded this, then I think it would be perfectly appropriate to ask why so much energy went into, say, the tax cuts, especially the porkier ones, and not enough into avoiding the predictable devastation of one of our most wonderful cities, with the attendant horrific loss of life.
In general, though, while I find the idea of skewing my views for political reasons particularly grotesque in this instance, I think that criticizing the government for failing to plan and prepare adequately for a completely foreseeable (and foreseen) disaster is completely appropriate when that criticism is warranted. It’s not warranted if it amounts to pointing out normal human fallibility, and it’s not warranted if it amounts to saying: you failed to predict the exact form that catastrophe took: the exact size of the hurricane, for instance. You can only criticize people for failing to act given what they could and should have known at the time, not for failing to be omniscient. But criticism is appropriate if it amounts to saying: there were steps you should have known you should take, and didn’t; and if that statement is true. And while, as I said, I am nowhere near thinking about this stuff now, I thought I’d lay down a marker from behind my veil of ignorance, for when I have the heart to read the things I’ve bookmarked.
Since he is from Louisiana, I’ll give him a pass on the rhetoric: I don’t get bent out of shape by what people say two days after large chunks of their home state have been destroyed.
Thanks for reminding me of this: I bore it in mind as I read. Currently I am still feeling numb and angry over the ‘mandatory evacuation’: what else should have been done is something that will doubtless be argued back and forth for years, but one thing I hope will be a legacy of this – when it becomes necessary to evacuate people from a disaster-site-going-to-happen, it’s just not acceptable to rely on a Titanic-based model.
This Knight Ridder article is relevant.
So is this 2004 article on FEMA, via Kevin Drum.
How would one determine which errors are “beyond the normal range of human fallibility”, and shouldn’t even normal errors be criticized to avoid repeating them?
At one point there, you seem to have more other hands than a subway groper! Holy dialectics!
I’m really glad to see a thread open on this here, since most of the places I’d seen the political debate open up were hopelessly partisan one way or another. I’m not sure I’ll be able to add to discussion here, but I’ll surely follow it.
Well, to start with the controversy, I’ll pose a question. How exactly should a democratic government go about prioritizing protections for “our most wonderful cities”?
Jackmormon, I never know about priorities, but something that really adds to a great city is lots of poets to sing its praises, and a nice little house for me and Mrs. R. in say Noe Valley would be a tiny budget item in case you’ve got any pull with the mayor of SF.
(4) It’s probably bad form to criticize policy makers for not planning to completely mitigate a monster hurricane this year. Reasonable ex ante risk/benefit analysis would probably have placed equal likelihood on the event occuring in each of the next, say, 50 years, so it wouldn’t have been rational to spend any more than a couple billion dollars or so each year on improved flood control and whatnot.
This is probably a moot point. I somehow doubt we have been spending anywhere near the efficient level.
(I am particularly curious about the seemingly inadequate National Guard, etc. response. From the reports I’ve seen, NOPD and local emergency response has been completely overwhelmed, unable to, e.g., both rescue stranded people AND stop the looting. Wikipedia says, “The initial call-up of guardsmen was affected by the deployment of some 35% of the Louisiana National Guard troops to Iraq, including equipment such as high-water Humvees that could prove useful in flooded areas.”)
I don’t get bent out of shape by what people say two days after large chunks of their home state have been destroyed.
That is true, but I was struck by the effort he put into searching out people saying things that he could get angry about.
I was also stuck by the fact that many travelers were stuck in NO when their flights were cancelled, apparently as many airlines cancelled flights because they would be flying in empty. I also understand the Greyhound bus service stopped well before the hurricane, trapping more people.
Furthermore, this was the first time that many hotels apparently did not offer help to residents, limiting themselves to only helping stranded travelers, though the practice may also smack of classism
link
I’ve also been thinking about (thanks to dr. ngo’s comments) the Chinese notion of ‘the judgement of Heaven’, (this is dimly remembered from various readings) This is (I think) a Confucian notion that claims that a natural disaster heralds a change in government.
I also note that Mike Brown, director of FEMA, is getting raked over the coals on CNN. Some googling turns up his bio
“The initial call-up of guardsmen was affected by the deployment of some 35% of the Louisiana National Guard troops to Iraq, including equipment such as high-water Humvees that could prove.. ”
Numbers
Tacitus has that pre-empted.
“It can, though, pursue a band of fanatical murderers to the ends of the earth, in implicit recognition that the deaths by their hands, unlike the deaths at the hands of the anthropomorphized Katrina, are something irretrievably foul, base, and — murderous. God save those who would have a numbers game obscure that.”
Every last one of those LA Nat Guard units and equipment were needed overseas to track something “irretrievably foul” to the ends of the earth, and “God save those” who would think otherwise.
Rilkefan,
Alas I have no pull in the region of my birth. And with housing costs there, I wonder how much pull any citizen could exercise. Now, if you were willing to consider Salt Lake or Nauvoo, I might be able to swing something…
At last, to bed.
“Gibbering yard apes”? Why do you consider that level of discourse worth linking to, hilzoy? What’s next, your take on VDARE’s latest?
Mistakes were not made, deliberate conscious decisions were made with inevitable consequences, i.e., not doing whatever it took to increase troop levels in 2002-03-04 so that the National Guard could remain at home to perform its function. Or to do the budgeting, in either tax increases or other budget cuts to insure fragile infrastructure was maintained. This was of choice, not necessity;of irresponsibility, not incompetence;of indifference, not ignorance.
This is directly comparable to whatever economic consequences may derive from the huge deficits; to call the unrestrained spending and insistence on tax cuts “mistakes” or “incompetence” is suicidally overgenerous. They may not know exactly what is coming; they are entirely responsible.
And after repeated patterns of such irresponsible decisions…from ignoring Clarke to Tora Bora to dissolving the Iraqi Army to the corruption of the reconstruction to not having any leverage in Iraq one must make judgements not of competence but of character. Who and what George Bush is is becoming obvious, and when the country has such a dangerous thing with its hands on the levers of power this should be the sole topic of discussion.
Many, many more will die.
Tacitus has that pre-empted.
Ugh. What utter nonsense.
There’s always some uncertainty about the true costs and benefits, but if given a clear choice between spending the same amount of money to chase “Evil” around in the mountains of Afghanistan and save X lives, or to reinforce flood levees (or buy flu shots, or build sewer systems, or research stem cells…) and save 10*X lives, I know what my choice would be.
I guess I must not have Tacitus’ moral clarity.
Every last one of those LA Nat Guard units and equipment were needed overseas to track something “irretrievably foul” to the ends of the earth, and “God save those” who would think otherwise.
I’m tempted to invoke something of “We had to burn the village in order to save it” here, the notion that saving lives is somehow less important than transmuting ourselves into agents of the divine, whether of purgation (the anonymous Vietnam quote above) or retribution (Tacitus’ quote on Red State). The problem is that my mind balks at envisioning that kind of hubris; so all I’m left with is wonder at the nature of a morality that admits of such extremes as to render the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dead in New Orleans a worthy sacrifice. It’s like watching an ethical dumbshow of the St Petersburg paradox and the dangers of infinite expectation.
“Why do you consider that level of discourse worth linking to, hilzoy?”
Obviously as a service to those who may not yet understand the nature of the opposition; who may not realize the response that will be forthcoming to any fair questions and criticism; and those who do yet recognize the physical danger they are in from people who repeatedly label their political opponents as less than human.
Do I respond in kind? I do, but “Who swung first and worse” is the appropriate question in arguments of self-defense.
People are dead;I think FEMA is a good idea, yet I do feel somewhat responsible. Gentle and genial policy disagreements appear futile and self-serving at this time, yet I am so far unable to alert my friends that a suspension of the rules might be in order. The rules are so warm and comforting.
liberal japonicus: That is true, but I was struck by the effort he put into searching out people saying things that he could get angry about.
Well, that is one way of reacting to being in a state of grief, shock, and pain. Anger is a great resource. I’m sorry to say that I know this from personal experience. It’s no more helpful that a big shot of brandy is, but no less, either.
Jesurgislac, that’s also a standard method of ‘slime and defend’. Expect much more of that.
As for Josh Trevino, “It can, though, pursue a band of fanatical murderers to the ends of the earth, in implicit recognition that the deaths by their hands, unlike the deaths at the hands of the anthropomorphized Katrina, are something irretrievably foul, base, and — murderous. God save those who would have a numbers game obscure that.” is a flat-out lie. The vast majority of the NG/Reservists are in Iraq, not Afghanistan, and certainly not in Dafur.
I should add, before I meander off to bed, that there is a legitimate argument that’s related to the one Tacitus made, namely that we needed to send those Guard units to Iraq in order to curtail the activities of people who would otherwise have killed as many people as died due to Katrina. [One can make a better, more refined statement of position, but I’m simply illustrating a point here.] It’s a valid utilitarian argument, albeit a greater remove and one I don’t agree with. To argue, however, that it’s immaterial what life was lost because of the pursuit of this quixoticism — excuse me, this most noble of causes, whatever the heck that might happen to be this week — is a completely different kettle o’ fish, and (I think) the subject of most of the scorn here.
Barry: Jesurgislac, that’s also a standard method of ‘slime and defend’. Expect much more of that.
Oh, I do. Amanda at Pandagon nailed it. We’re going to hear that the people who didn’t leave for the most part chose not to go: we won’t hear that there was no way for anyone without a car to leave. We’ll hear that one reason people who didn’t go stayed behind was so that they could loot. (Rumsfeld will probably not claim that “Freedom is messy”, however.) We’ll hear that the money that was diverted to Iraq from the levees was well-spent, because look, the levees broke anyway! And I doubt that anyone will ask IEM what went wrong – or inquire what contracts Halliburton has been awarded to rebuild.
But I’m with Hilzoy: for the next few days, anyone living in/near the disaster zone gets a free pass on overblown angry rhetoric.
I should add, before I meander off to bed, that there is a legitimate argument that’s related to the one Tacitus made, namely that we needed to send those Guard units to Iraq in order to curtail the activities of people who would otherwise have killed as many people as died due to Katrina
There is no such legitimate argument.
Jesurgislac: “But I’m with Hilzoy: for the next few days, anyone living in/near the disaster zone gets a free pass on overblown angry rhetoric.”
I would be also, except that that free pass will be heavily abused, on behalf of people who are at least partially to blame.
While there were in fact people who chose not to evacuate, I wouldn’t expect the argument that everyone didn’t evacuate chose to stay. Then again, no one expects…
Slarti:
Whoops. The above quote is from Cherie Priest’s blog.
Barry: I would be also, except that that free pass will be heavily abused, on behalf of people who are at least partially to blame.
Oh, we don’t have to agree with them. We can accept that they’ve got good reason to be grieving, angry, shocked, and mad as hell, without actually agreeing with or supporting their choice of targets.
Good post, Hilzoy.
One salient point made by Thomas, I think, and some commenters on the thread is why can’t local and state residents tax themselves to rebuild the levees, etc. and stop relying on the Federal government.
This is, of course, a multi-dimensional problem, with bi-partisan subtleties and in New Orleans’ case, full of historical precedent. I mean, it could be argued that New Orleans is a gigantic festering puddle of moral hazard and that rational people would never have built there, if not for everyone else picking up the tab. Probably true. Also true about Israel, oddly enough. Thing is, I like Mardi Gras and Yom Kippur. It’s my reward for subsidization. One place has too much water and the other has none. We should only build where the water table is just right. That would be … ?
But, my answer to this tax question is that the anti-tax crusade run so ferociously by Grover Norquist and the Club for Growth (merely the militant arms of the wider Republican Party’s crusade) is not just a national campaign, it has its chapters at the state, county, schoolboard levels, too, right down to the smallest unit of government.
This is a bi-partisan problem; the anti-tax crusade has been so successful that any ballot-measure to raise money to rebuild levees would have been demagogued and defeated successfully in the city of New Orleans and surrounding parishes.
It’s easy to demagogue taxes because nobody likes them, except for me, and I only like them because it tickles me to see the veins stick out on the necks of the sputtering tax-haters.
The Democratic Party, particularly in the South, has been completely intimidated on the tax issue for which they should be roundly and viciously condemned, he said, rending his bi-partisan clothing. They watched Republican Governor Riley get his n— handed to him on HIS tax proposals — and even God liked that tax hike.
So, I’m in downtown Denver about a month ago, and we are currently gearing up for a ballot issue to make some mild changes to the Tabor Amendment which strangles government, especially during bad times, you know, the very times for which government was created. There are pro-tax folks on the sidewalk and a few feet over there are anti-tax folks.
I give a thumbs up to the pro- people and then I notice that the anti-tax people (all equally and fully human despite recent evidence of a 99% genetic link to chimpanzees) have a sign claiming heroically that one of the Amendments — C — stands for “Communist”, because it will let the State keep a little more money rather than refunding it constantly. These anti- folks were from the Independence Institute, funded by Coors, Norquist’s organizational web, and
Club for Growth.
No thumbs up for them; I engaged them in civil discourse with another finger. After all, when a simple ballot measure is deemed Communist, there’s only one way the discussion can go. Somebody kicked my fender, and being an unarmed liberal, I spared the guys’ life.
Credit where credit is due, however. Republican Governor Bill Owens, whose tax-hating creds are impeccable, is campaigning to loosen the Tabor Amendment to ease the State’s fiscal crisis. Like me, he is a fully human, pragmatic chimpanzee, who should have a very fine career in the private sector after Norquist and his goons in the Colorado State House get done with him.
“Many are concerned that federal disaster assistance may have evolved into both an oversized entitlement program and a disincentive to effective state and local risk management,” he said. “Expectations of when the federal government should be involved and the degree of involvement may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level.” …The FEMA article, at Drum’s, as linked by Katherine
Understand clearly now, that to the degree that private charity mitigates the suffering,
it will be seen as a vindication of this right-wing ideology, and a justification for further cuts and elimination of Federal disaster services. Any protests that it was not the intention to enable the callous and uncaring will go unheard, and mitigation and prevention will lose more funding. And people in the future will die.
Whereas a giant unalleviated crisis on national tv might draw the nation’s attention to the debate. I am sure most Americans believe in insurance, and pooling risk in anticipation of the unexpected. These Americans may not be aware that the people in charge of this country would prefer to withdraw their own money from the pool, and leave those of modest means on their own. The debate should be as public as possible, but will have no force or immediacy if the victims of Katrina become invisible.
And, of course, as Thullen said yesterday, the debate is directly pertinent to Social Security, Medicare, etc. They are deliberately trying to destroy the safety net, and it will be destroyed unless its necessity is demonstrated.
“We’re going to hear that the people who didn’t leave for the most part chose not to go: we won’t hear that there was no way for anyone without a car to leave.”
Hmm, my closet friend at work is from New Orleans and knows people who stayed. They weren’t all poor, they were proud. His aunt’s house was completely destroyed (by falling trees, not water) though she was at a sister’s house elsewhere. I don’t know what percentage of those who stayed could not have left, but to discount the idea that many who stayed really did choose to stay is to misunderstand the hard-headed nature of many Americans. (Not to mention Americans from Louisiana).
Sebastian: I don’t know what percentage of those who stayed could not have left, but to discount the idea that many who stayed really did choose to stay is to misunderstand the hard-headed nature of many Americans.
To discount the idea that many who stayed stayed because they could not have left is to misunderstand exactly how poor most of the people were who stayed.
One Southern writer summarises it with chilling precision: They stayed because they could not run, and now they might die because they cannot swim.
How many of your friend’s friends have a total household income of around $13,263 per year, Sebastian?
This is a question I’ve wrestled with for years on a personal level, since I have a highly variable set of chronic health problems and so do a lot of other people I happen to know and associate with. The question “How much slack do you grant them for the rough spot?” can be individual as well as big collective like now.
It seems to me that there’s one particular category of outburst that I’m least likely to cut slack for: the angry tirade consisting of precisely the same vile points that the person likes to make all the time, and has good reason to know are unacceptable then as now. If Uncle Willamettey is prone, for instance, to white-power diatribes, and wants to use his fibromyalgia to justify this particular one, that’s not very okay with me. If Aunt Berubia is normally very decent and kind but has a moment of anger that leads to a racist outburst when she gets in a tangle while having a sudden down swing thanks to a misadjusted dosage for one of her medications, that’s what I cut slack for. I say “Let’s get you home and safe now, and we can talk about it more after you rest up.” And then often we don’t, or we do only for her to say “Oh no, that was awful of me, I’m sorry” and me to say “I knew you would see it that way when you recovered.”
Basically, the more it actually is shock, pain, and grief speaking for a moment, the more I forgive. The more that it’s just a cover for recurring bad behavior, the less I forgive.
Similarly, the idea that because someone doesn’t have a car, they cannot hitch a ride with, say, a friend or neighbor, is not worthy of regard. So, we have sets of extremes that ought not to be inhabited by anyone reasonable (except as supported by loads of data, which so far haven’t made an appearance):
1) Everyone who stayed was stupid and/or stubborn.
2) Everyone who stayed could not find transportation.
And given the true dearth of data, even occupying a specific place in the middle ground seems untenable. It’s probably safe to say that some people stayed because they couldn’t evacuate, while other stayed because they wouldn’t.
Consider this my entire avoidance-of-a-position for the day; I don’t have time for anything more elaborate than this.
What strikes me is, “what if it had been a small nuke hitting N.O. instead of a hurricane?” Or, hell, someone in the al-Qaeda fan club dynamiting a levee or two?
Isn’t that what we’ve been preparing for since 9/11? It would present many similar problems: evacuees, food water shelter, etc.
What have we been doing to prepare for a major attack on a city? Nothing, evidently.
This is a question I’ve wrestled with for years on a personal level, since I have a highly variable set of chronic health problems and so do a lot of other people I happen to know and associate with. The question “How much slack do you grant them for the rough spot?” can be individual as well as big collective like now.
It seems to me that there’s one particular category of outburst that I’m least likely to cut slack for: the angry tirade consisting of precisely the same vile points that the person likes to make all the time, and has good reason to know are unacceptable then as now. If Uncle Willamettey is prone, for instance, to white-power diatribes, and wants to use his fibromyalgia to justify this particular one, that’s not very okay with me. If Aunt Berubia is normally very decent and kind but has a moment of anger that leads to a racist outburst when she gets in a tangle while having a sudden down swing thanks to a misadjusted dosage for one of her medications, that’s what I cut slack for. I say “Let’s get you home and safe now, and we can talk about it more after you rest up.” And then often we don’t, or we do only for her to say “Oh no, that was awful of me, I’m sorry” and me to say “I knew you would see it that way when you recovered.”
Basically, the more it actually is shock, pain, and grief speaking for a moment, the more I forgive. The more that it’s just a cover for recurring bad behavior, the less I forgive.
Slarti: Similarly, the idea that because someone doesn’t have a car, they cannot hitch a ride with, say, a friend or neighbor, is not worthy of regard.
(cite):
-10,000 people left behind in 9 city hospitals. Should they have hitched a ride?
-7,600 prison inmates left behind. Is this really excusable? They surely can’t be accused of “choosing to stay”.
-Between 30-80 thousand other people left behind.
I’d say there were an awful lot of neighborhoods where there just weren’t friends/neighbors with cars you could hitch a ride with.
How many families can be squeezed into one car, in your experience, Slarti?
Sorry for the double post. I’m trying out Opera and not reading all of its cues right yet.
“How many of your friend’s friends have a total household income of around $13,263 per year, Sebastian?”
Considering some don’t work at all (and not because they are rich), quite a few. And that doesn’t even answer the question since I have no idea if the rich ones stayed and the poor ones left. I’m not sure if I’ll ask him. Doesn’t seem like a natural way to work that into my conversations with him.
But since we aren’t talking about hundreds of thousands of deaths, or even tens of thousands–in a situation where most of a city of more than 400,000 is much closer to wiped off the map than I ever thought I would see outside of a nuclear blast–it is readily apparent that even the average poor person got out of New Orleans so links to genocide of poor people are just ridiculous.
And your most recent link doesn’t prove what you apparently think it does. Of course everyone wants to get out NOW. Even rich people who foolishly stayed. And of course they will both rich and poor. The question if you approaching it from this intentional genocide angle, is how many of them tried to get out at the time?
And, given that a so-called “mandatory evacuation” was ordered, why didn’t city and state authorities, using emergency powers, commandeer a number of school buses and/or Greyhounds, take them into neighborhoods where they knew people without means were likely to be found, and bloody well evacuate them? Mandatory means mandatory, for heaven’s sake, and if you’re going to order it, you need to be prepared to help those who are unprepared.
Ohh, partial retraction, the intentional genocide link wasn’t the one Jesurgislac linked to, it was somewhere I got to right after that. My bad.
Clown families: a lot. Other families: not so many.
If it’s your contention that I’ve said everyone that stayed, stayed by choice, better go back and read, this time with comprehension.
But since we aren’t talking about hundreds of thousands of deaths, or even tens of thousands–
I hope you’re right. I hope the scale of casualties remains in the thousands rather than the tens of thousands, but right now doesn’t seem to be the time to be optimistic without data. The death toll of Katrina so far is in the thousands, but it will take weeks before accurate numbers are known: for obvious reasons, right now everyone’s focussing on getting out the living rather than enumerating the dead.
In any case, the point I wanted to make (to Slarti, rather than to you) was:
Everyone who wanted to get out should have been able to do so. This was certainly not the case. That being so, pointing at the survivors and asserting that you know some of them chose to stay is… well, we’ll call it unhelpful, shall we?
Slarti: If it’s your contention that I’ve said everyone that stayed, stayed by choice, better go back and read, this time with comprehension.
Ah, you were being intentionally ambiguous again. My bad. Okay.
Actually, I was being very explicitly unambiguous about that folks should avoid being unambiguous without being equipped with proper data. Looks as if I failed to properly convey the warning, though.
I didn’t find Slart’s comment particularly ambiguous. He’s reacting as I do to a “debate” that seems to consist of the following:
“Some people stayed because they couldn’t get out!”
“Oh yeah? Well, some people stayed because they wanted to!”
I think Slart’s saying that maybe it’s a floor wax and a dessert topping.
Phil: Mandatory means mandatory, for heaven’s sake, and if you’re going to order it, you need to be prepared to help those who are unprepared.
*nods* This is what drives me nuts about “they chose to stay”. As Slarti says, though it appears he misunderstood my response to it, some people may actually have chosen to stay. Others, unable to get out, may have claimed they chose to stay. But it’s certain that, if you didn’t have a car and didn’t have $300+ disposable money, you couldn’t get out.
The only function that assertion fulfils (that some/most/all of those who stayed, stayed because they wanted to, not because they couldn’t leave) is as a defence mechanism for the heart: if they chose to stay, it’s no one’s fault they drowned, and no American needs to look at the bodies floating in the bowl of poisoned water in New Orleans and think: that was our Titanic.
I can’t give him a pass on this.
I no longer see the Left as a set of political opponents. I understand them now to be what they are: An uncompromising, barely human mass of malignancy, that exists only to be crushed electorally and culturally once and for all. Or, as a wiser man than I put it, The Evil Party.
It’s eliminationist rhetoric and it needs to stop.
It’s eliminationist rhetoric and it needs to stop.
Yeah, this Thomas fellow wrote more or less like that *before* Katrina, so pardon me if I spare him my sympathy. He’s just not veiling his wish to see me dead or in Gitmo quite so much as usual.
I mean, when you’re writing stuff that is indistinguishable from Nazi rhetoric, that should be a sign to you. Sort of a corollary of Godwin’s Law.
Jes–
In this case, I don’t find Slartibartfast’s statement ambiguous.
“Similarly, the idea that because someone doesn’t have a car, they cannot hitch a ride with, say, a friend or neighbor, is not worthy of regard.”
If you lean on the “because”, then I find the statement unambiguous. It simply says that, whatever caused these people to be unable to hitch a ride, it was not simply the mere and unadorned fact of carlessness.
That is, the suggestion that mere fact of one’s own carlessness, all by itself, presents a bar to hitching, is absurd, as Slartibartfast says. Someone would have the cited idea, only if they thought that a person’s carlessness *caused* them to suffer a blanket inability to hitch, and that would surely be a strange idea to have.
So I’m very glad that Slartibartfast steered all of us away from thinking that carlessness, in the absence of any other factors, *causes* an inability to hitch rides.
I don’t know that anyone ever thought this, or that it would have come up in any discussions of the case, but it certainly is a thought that is not worthy of regard. And Slartibartfast expressed it unambiguously, provided that we really lean on the “because”.
Of course, if you *don’t* lean on the “because” as I have done, then it sounds more like:
“Similarly, the idea that someone who doesn’t have a car cannot hitch a ride with, say, a friend or neighbor, is not worthy of regard. ”
If he had said that, then I would disagree. But Slartibartfast did not say that.
So, having set aside one idea that is not worthy of regard, now we can perhaps turn to other ideas.
What were the causal factors that prevented some of the carless from hitching? Surely personal choice in some cases. Perhaps, in other cases, it was the fact (not of their own carlessness, but) that no one around them had a car. Perhaps in some instances it was the fact that rides were being sold for money they didn’t have.
Perhaps, in fact, a wide range of socio-economic factors made it impossible for many people who lacked cars to hitch a ride with a friend or neighbor.
But whatever caused them to be unable to hitch, it was not simply and only *because* they lacked a car. That idea would not be worthy of regard.
Thanks for that, Tad. You are the wind beneath my…uh, wings, I guess.
Slart? Before thanking Tad, I’d reread his comment looking for signs that it might be dripping with something (seven letters, starting with an ‘s’ and ending with an ‘m’.)
Tad, as I said earlier: given the sheer numbers of people who could not get out and whose “choice” was therefore to stay at home or try to get into the Superdome, I find it singularly unhelpful (though doubtless soothing to people’s hearts) to protest that some of those who didn’t get out could have done, no problem, but chose to stay because they are “hardheaded Americans”.
Where no mass evacuation using public transportation was organised, and where Greyhound and Amtrak closed down, airlines refusing to fly empty planes in so that they could pick up people who wanted to get out… what, precisely, is the point of asserting that among all the people who had no choice but to stay, there may be some who stayed out of choice?
Well, I see the point – or I see a point: it makes people feel better in an effortless kind of way about the thousands drowned.
And if it will end this topic forever, I’m quite willing to acknowledge that if you don’t have a car but you know someone who does, you can hitch a lift. Unless, of course, that someone packed their family into their car already and got out of the city. In which case, your ability to hitch a ride suddenly becomes meaningless, doesn’t it?
LB, I meant the thanks in exactly the same spirit that Tad wrote his last post. Maybe I wasn’t dripping nearly enough.
I address this next especially to the highly sensitive Left, most of whom have never been to Louisiana, and think of it as That state where Mississippi Burning happened, or maybe it was In the Heat of the Night?
What a jacklegged fool. The longer I stare at this sentence the dumber it looks. Thomas would undoubtedly regard me as a member of his hypostasized “Left” and I’ve not only lived in New Orleans, but I have family in D’Iberville who lost nearly everything in this storm. Thousands are living in filth while this boy sits at his computer and rages at imaginary enemies. I blame assburgers.
LB–
I’m sure both my original post and Slartibartfast’s thanks were meant in the same spirit, which involved no sorghum, spagnum, stick ’em, or any other drippy products.
Yeah, this Thomas fellow wrote more or less like that *before* Katrina, so pardon me if I spare him my sympathy. He’s just not veiling his wish to see me dead or in Gitmo quite so much as usual.
I have to say…I found his post shocking for it’s hate. I mean what, at this time of true disaster, could be the motivation for such words.
Especially if he is, as was mentioned, from Louisiana.
Biting the hand that helps, I guess.
[MegaSnark] Well, look who Mr. Compassionate Conservative is running to for help again in the midst of a humanitarian crisis: His daddy and his predecessor. It’s like he’s trying to tell us something.[/MegaSnark]
From the comment section of Kevin Drum:
This afternoon Blitzer had the guy from LSU on whose team has been computer modeling this disaster. So far, the guy said that their modeling has been right on. He said that the model predicts that one third of the some 250,000 people who stayed in New Orleans were killed.
Good lord. Even if a fraction of that.
Well, look who Mr. Compassionate Conservative is running to for help again in the midst of a humanitarian crisis: His daddy and his predecessor. It’s like he’s trying to tell us something.
“In time of trouble, turn to real presidents.” Yep, I heard that loud & clear.
And I’m sure that the federal response would be even worse if John Kerry had been elected. Didn’t he say he wanted to deal with hurricanes as if they were mere natural events, and not acts of God? Just like a Democrat.
Thank you, Tad Brennan, for your persistent efforts to steer these conversations away from unending cycles of… I don’t know what to call it – argument for argument’s sake?
Bush states
“I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.”
Sounds just so much like Condi’s classic:
“I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile – a hijacked airplane as a missile.”
In each case, it was widely known among experts. In each case, they were on vacation.
This has never been an administration. They have never been interested in governance–the hard work of keeping a country in good health.
It has been an organized asset-stripping operation. They got into control, and began systematically siphoning off funds for their own interests–whether to enrich their friends, or to settle their personal vendettas.
They are leaving the country in ruins–trillions of dollars poorer, our world-wide reputation sullied and besmirched, our infrastructure artificially bulked up with pork in some districts, atrophied by neglect in the poor and Democratic ones.
No wonder they have a soft spot for looters.
I can’t let this one slide.
Sebastian: But since we aren’t talking about hundreds of thousands of deaths, or even tens of thousands–in a situation where most of a city of more than 400,000 is much closer to wiped off the map than I ever thought I would see outside of a nuclear blast–it is readily apparent that even the average poor person got out of New Orleans so links to genocide of poor people are just ridiculous.
My aren’t we smug. Look, we are talking about thousands of deaths, quite possibly in the low 5 digits. It’s going to take many days to get an accurate estimate. The scale of this disaster is staggering.
Oh, and those 25,000 people who ended up at the Superdome – I’m pretty sure that a lot of them would have left town if they could. In addition, CNN is reporting, on Thursday morning mind you, that tens of thousands of people are still seeking evacuation, beyond those that were already at the Superdome :
Look, I agree with Slarti that there’s no way to judge how many people stayed out of choice rather than necessity. But the fact is that over 100,000 people didn’t get out before the storm and are now facing serious health and safety issues.
re the Redstate thread: wow there’s a lot of hate over there.
Now, it seems to me that the politicization of everything on a 24/7 basis really took off during the Clinton admin, that a lot of what goes on now is largely payback, and therefore that a lot of the vileness directed toward the “Left” by Redstate is, in some cosmic sense, unfair.
i’m willing to be proved wrong, though. So, conservatives, what were the liberal equivalents of Rush “feminazi” Limbaugh during Bush I and Reagan?
unending cycles of… I don’t know what to call it – argument for argument’s sake?
Lord, yes. It’s a classic pattern.
A: [Statement.]
B: Aha, [statement] can be construed as [horrible/stupid thing to say].
A: But I didn’t mean that.
B: Well, you said that.
A: No, I didn’t. Or at least I didn’t mean to.
B: But you have to admit that [statement] can be construed to mean [horrible/stupid thing to say].
A: Whatever.
B: Ah, so you *don’t care* about ….
Interpretive charity, please!
“The critical thing was to get people out of there before the disaster,” he said on NBC’s “Today” program. “Some people chose not to obey that order. That was a mistake on their part.”
–Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff
Now that is leadership. I feel ill.
TV Coverage is all looting, all the time. Pictures very bad for Republican politicians. Too disorderly in NO, well violent, to do the evacuation. Private busdrivers and helipilots refusing to work in a free-fire zone. Simply not enough security forces soon enough.
Reporters told not to eat or drink on the street, could cause a riot. Networks have called for private security, but they needn’t bother. The cameras will be moved out fairly soon as the cleaners move in. Evacuation will proceed smoothly when we can stack em like cordwood. Nobody will be doing autopsies.
Seb, if you would give me the name of your friends who stayed, I would be happy to scan the pages that I’ve been looking at (primarily the nola.com site and the hurricanekatrinasurvivors.com. cnn.com has also started a survivors page)
I’m really glad Tad has tried to move us away from the no car meme. I’m not sure where people would have gone had they had a car, and if you are living from paycheck to paycheck, with the beginning of the month being payday, it’s hard to imagine packing up and going away just before payday to spend whatever savings you have, especially given the uncertainty with hurricanes. Also, it wasn’t the hurricane itself that is causing so many problems, it was the failure of the levees. Given that the levees have never failed to this extent before, it is hard to imagine a calculus that would have gotten people to leave without providing them both means and a landing spot. The areas that were most dangerous are the lowest income neighborhoods and more than 25% of the people in New Orleans live below the poverty line. When I flew down to see my parents the week before last, I was really shocked to see how East New Orleans (which is now submerged, and it is impossible to leave towards the East because the I-10 bridge is gone and this is probably why we don’t hear of Florida offering to take anyone, because there is no way to get them over there) had really declined. The Ninth Ward, which is next to Lake Ponchartrain, is also a low income area and it is completely submerged. A previous proposal to conduct a second set of levees that would have protected the Central Business District and the major hospitals floundered because it basically offered up the lower class neighborhoods as a way to deal with flooding. Unfortunately, there are a lot of social/racial/class faultlines in New Orleans and they are being exposed.
I would like to say that there are not similar problems in Mississippi, but this article about NBC hiring private security for teams in Gulfport suggests that I am optimistic. Many of those who have relocated to the coast have come there for jobs in the gaming industry, with few ties to the region, and probably absent the safety net that long time residents have, which I would think would be a factor in this kind of behavior.
cnn has just said that FEMA has suspended all rescue operations.
Anderson–
“Interpretive charity, please!”
Bravo, seconded, and hear hear.
But charity on the uptake end is only half the game–it is also important for people to strive for clarity on the expression end. *Some* of the impasses are caused by uncharitable reading. *Some* are caused by unnecessarily obscure writing.
I think it’s Pope who says to an aristocratic amateur author “you write with ease, to show your breeding/but easy writing is curst hard reading”. Taking less effort on the typing end means off-loading more effort onto the reading end. And it is never wise to force your readers to be charitable too often.
So: “Intepretive charity, please! Expressive clarity, please!”
“Intepretive charity, please! Expressive clarity, please!”
I like this as a motto.
Now, if we could just get some frickin’ sharks with laser beams attached to their heads, everything would be groovy.
I realized there’s a bright side to all this: At least Thomas called you human filth.
“Similarly, the idea that because someone doesn’t have a car, they cannot hitch a ride with, say, a friend or neighbor, is not worthy of regard.”
It’s not worthy to regard such facts as that it’s perfectly likely to be poor and urban and have only a handful of friends and family with cars, and to find that they’re all full or gone or unavailable?
I know only one person here in town I might think it reasonably possible I could get a ride with out of town, and if her car were full of her possessions, or broken or gone, odds are extremly high I’d find that the couple of other acquaintances I have with cars were full or gone or I couldn’t reach them. Odds are very high that I’d have no way to evacuate from here in similar circumstances. (And if I did, I’d be doing it with about $20 in toto, and a small bag of clothing [and possibly a pulled hard drive or two].)
I don’t find it comforting that you regard this idea, this fact of my life, that I’d likely not be able to get out in a “mandatory evacuation” as “not worthy of regard.”
This was, perhaps, an unfortunate choice of phrase.
Every other phrase out of Scotty at the gaggle:”We pre-positioned FEMA assets.”
From the CT comments
The other thing may be that people we consider rich are actually poor.
Fats Domino hasn’t been heard from since Monday.
Allen Toussaint (Allen Toussaint!) is stuck in the Superdome, waiting for a bus.
I wonder how many other people in my cd collection are there.
Anderson: Yeah, this Thomas fellow wrote more or less like that *before* Katrina, so pardon me if I spare him my sympathy. He’s just not veiling his wish to see me dead or in Gitmo quite so much as usual.
Thomas is a hatemonger, through and through, and a crass one at that. I found his admonishment for “peeing on a grave” particularly ironic in light of this diary he posted on the occasion of Arthur Miller’s death. He is perfectly happy to pee on others’ graves, and he is perfectly happy to politicize death when it suits his agenda.
He sources his animus for all things liberal to Erick Erickson’s inexcusable treatment at the hands of a few miscreants. Now, I know for a fact that Thomas followed the Terri Schiavo circus very closely. He is one of RedState’s most outspoken culture warriors, after all, and he commented on pretty much every Schiavo thread I read on that site. I find the idea that he was unaware that Michael Schiavo and his family received quite a lot of threats incredible. Yet he considers this phenomenon peculiar to the left?
And here we can see Erick dancing a jig now that Katrina has, in their view, blown Cindy Sheehan off the media’s radar. But of course, to Thomas, it is those who ask why so many lives had to be lost who are politicizing this tragedy.
I stopped cutting Thomas any slack sometime after he demonstrated that children are fair game in a political fight, or was it after he proved himself incapable of argument without personally attacking his opponent? At this point, I can’t recall. His oeuvre is such a swirling cesspool of incoherent, abusive filth that it is hard to pick out just where he revealed himself for what he truly is.
Bob‘s gagging at the gaggle should be exacerbated by this
For example, in the 1990s, in planning for a New Orleans nightmare scenario, the federal government figured it would pre-deploy nearby ships with pumps to remove water from the below-sea-level city and have hospital ships nearby, said James Lee Witt, who was FEMA director under President Clinton.
Federal officials said a hospital ship would leave from Baltimore on Friday.
The whole article is replete with autonomic reflex moments.
Some people chose not to obey that order. That was a mistake on their part
Why do I think that the usual suspects are going to excuse this disgusting statement based on the qualifier “some”…
This is a quote from Bush on Good Morning America this morning:
“I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached. And as a result, much of New Orleans is flooded. And now we are having to deal with it and will.”
It’s so unbelievable that I’d dismiss it as a misstatement, except that they acted like they really did not anticipate it.
A few weeks ago, I posited the question why neoconservative pundits and supporters should be allowed back into polite society. I think this can question can now be extended to the Thomas’s and Erick’s of RedState.
If you go to RedState right now, it’s simply a litany of excuse making, topped with the cherry of smug self-righteousness. A pathetic spectacle, if ever there was one.
For example, The Un-Missing National Guard, which focuses solely on the LNG ability regarding “fixing the levees”, ignoring the more pressing problem of simply re-establishing the rule of law.
And that’s one of the nicer stories.
Good Lord.
I wonder if Thomas thinks Leftist parents love their children?
I wonder if Thomas thinks Leftist parents love their children?
Silly McDuff! We’re too busy sodomizing each other to have children! What do you think we are, breeders or something?
Deploring idiocy on RedState is, in my opinion, not unlike deploring nudity in a strip club.
To be sure, most of the people in any given strip club are clothed. They’re just there for the entertainment value of seeing the nude people. OK, not even all of the clothed people are doing that: some are there supporting their friends who are getting married, sheepishly going along with a modestly degrading but generally harmless bit of embarrassment. Others are there just trying to make a living. Still others show up from time to time to deplore the whole thing, and maybe try to evangelize the strippers a little.
Based on very infrequent reading, I’m sure that a great many of the RedState people — posters and commenters — are not consumed with hate. It seems undeniable to me, though, that there is just enough tolerance of hate in that community, that posts like that of Thomas are within the Pale, if not the mainstream. In my view, this tolerance significantly impairs the site’s ability to reach its true potential, but I have no doubt at all that my views on this subject are neither welcome nor sought.
I am fair and reasonable.
You have an understandable bias.
He is just being political.
But as a wiser fool than I might have said, “Political is as political does.”
Granted, wmr. Calling people ‘filth’ hardly fits into any of those three categories.
OT, but I’m more annoyed right now by this. Hey, I’m all for avoiding injury to our troops, when it can be done in a manner consistent with democratic governance. So I have a porposal to make: the Court should appoint a special master to write a very detailed description of each and every photograph, and video. Then the President signs it, with a statement saying ‘We did this. And it’s bad. And I ask that no one who works for me, or supports me, offer any excuses for this.” I’d accept that in lieu of release.
CharleyCarp: Deploring idiocy on RedState is, in my opinion, not unlike deploring nudity in a strip club.
But, unlike nudity, idiocy is to be deplored wherever it is found.
Other than that, I am in complete agreement with your comment.
Tacitus wanted to make Redstate a more elevated and popular dKos for the right. Unfortunately he may have done all to well in the emulation.
Unfortunately he may have done all to well in the emulation.
I freely admit I avoid dKos comments like the plague, but are there any comparable examples from Kos? Because at some point it’s no longer “emulation”, it’s “pioneering”…
Anarch–
Classically, “emulate” included the idea of not simply imitating, but excelling or exceeding the original. Seems like it’s pretty easy for Red Staters to be excessive.
CharleyCarp–
Calling people ‘filth’ hardly fits into any of those three categories.
Too soon to tell. If later we hear a call to, ummm, “take out the garbage”, it becomes political retroactively.
“Bush states
“I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.””
Wow. Is that actually a quote?
Re: RedState, I unsubscribed from the feed yesterday. The only recent value I’ve found was the excellent Horserace Blogger, who seems to have left, and Tacitus’ less righteous and embittered side, which is also incommunicado.
“is that actually a quote?”
Yup. On Good Morning America. Right around 7:05a.m.
Follow the link up top.
Compare what was forseen with “I don’t think anyone anticipated.”
“foreseen,” that is.
For the record: when I said I’d give Thomas a pass on the rhetoric, I meant him, not the rhetoric itself, which is of course wrong. (Chalk my attitude up to one too many accounts of people at funerals criticizing the bereaved for not grieving in the right way, whatever that is, and a resolution that I would never, ever do that.)
I agree with those who say that if the person saying the hateful things does so regularly, it’s a lot more likely that it’s not grief at work, but settled character. On the other hand, since Thomas is not someone whose every mistake must be caught (e.g., he’s not translating a holy text, or conveying military orders, or something), generosity costs us little. If he does this sort of thing generally, then he’ll present us with another opportunity to jump all over him soon enough; if not, then we’d be wrong to do so now.
generosity costs us little
Do you ever get the feeling, though, that “Thomas” wouldn’t hesitate to have you put up against a wall and shot if he had the power?
Anyways, that’s a very magnaminous attitude from someone who has just been labelled subhuman.
“Do you ever get the feeling, though, that “Thomas” wouldn’t hesitate to have you put up against a wall and shot if he had the power?”
He lives his life; I live mine.
A summary:
1. Cutting to the bone federal flood control spending for essential structures to protect New Orleans with full knowledge of potential catastrophic consequences if the work is not performed.
2. Forcing the resignation of the head of the Army Corps of Engineers in 2002 (or so) because he protested the cuts.
3. FEMA an agency that had been reformed and was functional after its problems were disclosed in the early 90s; then turning it into an outfit run by cronies, and underfunded. (Including the corrupt FEMA cash give-away in Florida in the 2004 election cycle; any doubt now about the political manipulation of the agency at the time?)
4. Homeland Security was supposed to take over some FEMA functions, which was the justification for reducing FEMA — I assume that would include emergency preparedness in response to major terrorist disasters, or natural disasters since the response is functionally the same. So what’s happening?
5. Plenty of advanced warning of a potential impending disaster in New Orleans/Gulf Coast. If per 3 or 4 above, there were emergency response plans in place by FEMA or Homeland Security, they should have been ready to jump pre-Katrina landfall.
6. The disaster response? Horrible, including Bush claiming that levee failure was not anticipated (truly scum bucket behavior). Others blaming the 20% either not able or unwilling to leave. Excusing inadequate levees on the assumption that better ones would not have made a difference (although the fired head of Army Corps of Engineers per 2 above says otherwise). And by the way, how about all of the victims along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi or Alabama, who were not under mandatory evacuation, but where there is also a heavy loss of life. Can they be blamed also?
So, it seems to me that something this seriously wrong certainly merits political comment — right now. Criticism is absolutely fair game — right now.
Those who jump to the front to revile the critics? — just another episode of the right wing politics of hatred. No different than sliming soldiers or grieving survivors of dead soldiers who also happen to criticize Bush.
“…including Bush claiming that levee failure was not anticipated (truly scum bucket behavior).”
Perhaps I’m naive, but I have no trouble believing simple ignorance and briefers who didn’t bring up the point.
If it’s ignorance, it’s pretty spectacular ignorance, and shameful in itself.
“If it’s ignorance, it’s pretty spectacular ignorance, and shameful in itself.”
Ya think?
Ya think?
So does that make it any less scum-bucketty?
Gary:
Perhaps I’m naive, but I have no trouble believing simple ignorance and briefers who didn’t bring up the point.
If you are simply ignorant (as in unaware — which seems to be your context), then you should say “I don’t know whether or not levee failure was anticipated.”
If you were not briefed on the topic, then you say “I don’t know whether or not levee failure was anticipated — I’ll have someone from my staff give me that information and get back to you.”
What you don’t do is make up baloney to try to rephrase the issue as one of “Act of God” vs. official screw-ups re disaster preparedness and planning.
I tried to get a transcript of the Bush/Sawyer interview to get the exact context of his remark, but did not find one. So I’ll speculate that Bush volunteered the remark — I seriously doubt that Diane Sawyer, of all people, was pressing him to answer a question about whether or not levee failure was anticipated.
In other words, he just made up crap to avoid accountability for what looks like Bush administration incompetence making a bad thing much worse. Hard to see the logic supporting a less damning interpretation.
Gary:
Found text from here
Sawyer: “But given the fact that everyone anticipated a hurricane five, a possible hurricane five hitting shore, are you satisfied with the pace at which this is arriving? And which it was planned to arrive?”
Bush: “Well, I fully understand people wanting things to have happened yesterday. I mean, I understand the anxiety of people on the ground. I can imagine — I just can’t imagine what it is like to be waving a sign saying ‘come and get me now’. So there is frustration. But I want people to know there is a lot of help coming.
“I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached. And as a result, much of New Orleans is flooded. And now we are having to deal with it and will.”
He just made up crap to deflect heat regarding the crappy response to the emergency. He is literally saying “no one thought it could be this bad” in response to the question “are you satisfied by the level of response given that a category 5 hurricane was expected?”
I take this break from not defecating in someone else’s sink to add this to this debate:
hilzoy, you’re wrong on some particulars, but I have to confess to thinking more highly of you now. I may need to go bathe.
2shoes, “up against the wall” is mostly associated with the Left. We on the Right drop walls on people.
Gromit, the love’s still there. Come home.
Sebastian, this does explain some things.
Jack Lecou, no, you don’t.
sidereal, no loss on either side.
To the rest of you: Adieu.
“What you don’t do is make up baloney to try to rephrase the issue as one of ‘Act of God’ vs. official screw-ups re disaster preparedness and planning.”
Ya think?
Does anyone think I disagree with any of this?
If you, you. Are. Wrong.
Bush Mobilizes a Huge Recovery Effort
President Bush mobilized a broad federal government response to the region devastated by Hurricane
Thomas: I take this break from not defecating in someone else’s sink to add this to this debate:
And why do you feel the need to defecate in any sink, be it yours or someone else’s? RedState can’t spring for a port-a-john, or at least a bucket?
Gromit, the love’s still there. Come home.
I would, but I apparently broke the 11th commandment: “Thou shalt not expose the ignorance of a RedState moderator.” Trust me, if I could have posted my above comment there, I would have. All the same, I’m very glad to know you got the message.
To the rest of you: Adieu.
Gone so soon? It’s a shame, and I mean that sincerely. Going a few rounds in a forum where your opponents aren’t banned for actually fighting back, and where rules of civility are enforced with some amount of equity would probably do you some good, much like a couple of weeks away from his entourage might knock some sense into Tom Cruise, or picking up an honest-to-god newspaper might inform Bush’s appointees (who, frankly, are rapidly approaching Baghdad Bob in the out-of-touch-with-reality department) that everything isn’t hunky-dory in the NO convention center.
Tacitus wanted to make Redstate a more elevated and popular dKos for the right. Unfortunately he may have done all to well in the emulation.
Object lesson: never, ever, resign from the Board of something you care about and expect it will continue as before. Well. Not my problem anymore.
sidereal, no loss on either side.
That, at least, is completely wrong.
Doh. With Jay and yourself out, I give up hope. Let us (and/or me) know what you move on to. I think it’s worth trying again.
Well, tacitus.org, for the moment. I probably won’t be doing something specifically party-centric for a while.
Dare I ask what it was that specifically prompted this decision? Or, for that matter, was there a specific instigation or was this just a gradual parting of the ways?
It just wasn’t worth fighting over anymore. I have friendships among the editors that I want to preserve, and being the only one digging in against the ethical and ideological directions of the site — specifically but not only the party-line bent that has been growing in the past few months — was, in the end, not worth the effort. Yes, there were specific incidents and conversations in the very recent past, but they culminated a long process.
I didnt totally read this thread, but listen. this is not a time for politicking, though helpful criticism is okay. What happened is an act of God or Nature. We humans are subject to certin frailties, procrastination about addressing problems, (one of my frailties), wanting some “grown-up” to take care of things (too damn close to home, I wish I were grown up), and wanting to blame other people for things that, well, just happened, that some people anticipated but others did not take action on. (and really there are so many bad things that COULD happen, where do you begin?)
Please give what you can to charities, especially those serving Mississippi, which has not gotten the publicity. Really, what the hell is a hundread bucks or so to you? Well that could make a huge difference to people with nothing. It is outstanding what the Red Cross is doing for the people at the Astrodome, but dont forget the charities that are serving people by way of local church’s kitchens and giving people a place to stay. Thiz is why I urge everybody to consider giving to more than one charity. Twenty, thirty bucks where it can get to local folks can make a lot of difference.
Thank you.
DaveC, thanks for the reminder about the rest of the coast re giving.
The other thing may be that people we consider rich are actually poor.
Fats Domino hasn’t been heard from since Monday.
Allen Toussaint (Allen Toussaint!) is stuck in the Superdome, waiting for a bus.
Fats is still alive. Or was as of Monday night. Probably sweating it out at the Superdome if the story is accurate.
specifically but not only the party-line bent that has been growing in the past few months
Who would have ever imagined that a website named “redstate.org” would have issues with a party-line bent. So very sad, and unexpected. In any event, welcome back to the reality-based community (until it is time for you to gear up for the next election, one must assume).
Please give what you can to charities, especially those serving Mississippi, which has not gotten the publicity.
I’ve been hollering as loudly as I can about Mississippi to all my friends, precisely because of that point. Anyone know any good charities worth donating to that would serve the lesser-publicized Gulf areas?
Also: I just heard that my local Red Cross blood banks are “full” and I won’t be able to donate blood here for another few weeks. WTF? Is this usual?
Be nice, felix.
Be nice, felix.
Do unto others, Anarch.
And besides…come on. That’s just screamingly funny. The “party-line bent” at REDSTATE.ORG just became too much. Really. My face hurts from laughing so much.
So very unexpected.
I’m kinda sad about Redstate.org. I liked its original vision, but became less and less comfortable with it as time went on. I haven’t ever resigned from it, if I was blogging regularly I might try to write for it again, but who knows if that would work well. It seems to have become the right’s Kos–and that isn’t even close to a compliment.
I just heard that my local Red Cross blood banks are “full” and I won’t be able to donate blood here for another few weeks. WTF? Is this usual?
I don’t know if it’s usual, but the same thing was accounced in the NY area after 9-11. It turned out later that the Red Cross didn’t end up needing that much blood, given the nature of the injuries, which tended to be rather minor or fatal.
Another possibility is that right now the ARC is unable to deliver blood effectively and so the stock is getting backlogged.
The happiest possibility is that Americans have been very very generous with their blood donations.
Give it a rest Sebastian, you keep repeating that crap. Show me a front page post on Kos in the last week or so that comes close to the vitriol, incoherence, and casual racism of Thomas’s post. I’m not talking about comments. What front page post from Kos do you think stoops to that level?
I haven’t read Kos in the past week. Hell I haven’t read Redstate in the past week. I don’t blame you for focusing on the past week though. The garbage Kos pulled about the contractors whose bodies were dragged around Fallujah was plenty enough for me. “Let the people see what war is like. This isn’t an Xbox game. There are real repercussions to Bush’s folly.
That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries. They aren’t in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.”
Not my definition of nice.
Come on Sebastian. You are being foolish.
I’ll ask again. What from Kos do you think is comparable to the vitriol, incoherence, and casual racism of Thomas’s post? You haven’t found anything yet.
I’m not even looking. I saw it for weeks on end during the election. If you choose to believe that Kos is a wonderful highbrow intellectual site, mostly free of pointless vitriol and incoherence, you are free to be completely wrong. I don’t really care about your opinion of me, my thinking, and your inability to recognize crap on your own side. And if you think: “But the mercenary is a whole different deal. They willingly enter a war zone, and do so because of the paycheck. They’re not there for humanitarian reasons (I doubt they’d donate half their paycheck to the Red Cross or whatever). They’re there because the money is DAMN good.” is an apology you have more serious interpretation problems than I already had thought. The fact that he can’t see the good contractors try to do in Iraq is his own failing not theirs, and certainly not worth defiling their names over while their dead bodies were still being dragged around the city by Islamists.
Once again, I don’t feel the need to link to things that any idiot should be able to realize on their own.
If you can get hilzoy, or katherine, or anarch or one of the other coherent liberals to say something along the lines of “I think Kos is generally a nice place, why do you have the impression that it isn’t?” I’ll bother to subject myself to the filth in the archives and dredge it up. But not for a troll.
Sebastian: to say something along the lines of “I think Kos is generally a nice place, why do you have the impression that it isn’t?”
That isn’t even close to the question felixrayman asked. What he asked was:
Now, me, I have no dog in this fight: I don’t read DailyKos and I don’t read RedState, except when (for either site) someone links to a post there.
But I think that I’m not even looking. I saw it for weeks on end during the election. is actually a fair enough answer: your comment about Kos v. Redstate may be taken, in that context, as a settled politically-based dislike rather than a rational comparison.
I’m not even looking
This is so obvious that it need not be stated.
If you choose to believe that Kos is a wonderful highbrow intellectual site
If you choose to ascribe to people views they never said nor hinted at….well that would be pretty silly, wouldn’t it?
And if you think [blah blah blah]
Mercenaries fight for money. This is hard for you to comprehend? They didn’t offer Latin at your high school, that’s a real shame.
Once again, I don’t feel the need to link to things that any idiot should be able to realize on their own
Can you link to something for those of us who aren’t idiots? Think of it as expanding your audience.
Ah yes, of course we hear from the other person whose method of discourse is:
Felixrayman asks “Show me a front page post on Kos in the last week or so that comes close to the vitriol, incoherence, and casual racism of Thomas’s post.”
Notice all the ridiculous qualifiers. Front page (he doesn’t want me to quote the Markos pages that get some of the most hits), last week (he clearly is aware that the site in general and Markos in specific has all sorts of vitriol and incoherence. Casual racism (he knows that there are all sorts of really nasty things I could point to, but obvious racism is typcially hard to find on a lefty site).
In other words he only finds an argument by completely redfining what I say and then saying that I haven’t proved my point. He knows he can’t disagree with what I actually said.
That is the operation of a troll.
“Can you link to something for those of us who aren’t idiots? Think of it as expanding your audience.”
Sure. Hilzoy or katherine, do you believe that dKos is not full of vitriol and doesn’t engage in incoherence? I don’t believe I’ve been asked by a non-troll at this point. But if asked by someone who is engaging in actual discussion, I would be happy to.
I’ve been hollering as loudly as I can about Mississippi to all my friends, precisely because of that point. Anyone know any good charities worth donating to that would serve the lesser-publicized Gulf areas?
Let me give you my understanding of the Mississippi situation, which I think explains why there are no charaties that are immediately obvious, but I hope someone might correct any mistakes I have made.
While there was no mandatory evacuation, many people went to shelters that were safe, and as there was no flooding, the loss of life occurred among those who remained in their homes which were below the flood surge. So, there are structures on the Gulf Coast that can house people.
In addition, I-59 is open for emergency vehicles and in a day or two, people will be able to bring supplies down and those who have lost their homes will, if they have relatives upstate, be able to go with them. Those who have relocated to the Gulf Coast to work recently will probably be able to depend on the various local groups (especially churches) that are working on helping people.
I also understand that Nat Guard have made inroads, but some of the roads are impassable and efforts have been concentrated on the slim possibility of rescue and recovery. There were some prepositioned assets, but they were placed in locations that succumbed to the storm. The absence of serious crowd trouble also has made a difference. Contrast this with this report from the NO Convention Center
Clearly, where charity will be needed will be in rebuilding efforts and financial support, but those problems are down the line for the time being as the mess in NO is sorted out, it would be difficult to imagine charities opening up for something that is in what now seems like the distant future.
Again, this is my impression of why there are no Mississippi charities, but I may be wrong. I welcome any corrections.
“If you choose to believe that Kos is a wonderful highbrow intellectual site
If you choose to ascribe to people views they never said nor hinted at….well that would be pretty silly, wouldn’t it?”
Heh. So nice of you to publically recognize your primary method of argumentation.
Sorry, that excerpt was from the livejournal I’ve mentioned several times.
Notice all the ridiculous qualifiers. Front page
Ridiculous? The point was that Thomas’s piece ran on the front page of redstate.org. You can certainly find offensive comments on kos’s site, as he doesn’t conduct “purges” (redstate’s word) of commenters, as redstate does.
obvious racism is typcially hard to find on a lefty site
Why is it so easy to find on righty sites, Sebastian? These are the people you decide to align with. Come on, can’t you at least find me one lefty site calling people “gibbering yard apes”. You disappoint me.
He knows he can’t disagree with what I actually said
This was all begun by me disagreeing with what you said. What you said was horse crap. I disagree with what you said. You tried to compare Thomas’s vicious, puerile, racist, piece of crap post to what is posted on dKos. I disagree with that. I can disagree with what you said. I actually am. What you said was simply wrong.
Sebastian: Ah yes, of course we hear from the other person
…whose questions you don’t want to answer.
Yeah, well.
Sebastian, I truly hope your friends in New Orleans are all okay: and I’m really sorry I mixed in. I don’t actually care about Kos v. Redstate at the best of times: I just happened to pick up on that point.
Getting back to the original topic of the post, I found this linked via livejournal from a Red Cross volunteer:
Yes.
Can you link to something for those of us who aren’t idiots?
Doubtless Sebastian can; however, you cannot fault him for tailoring his response to his audience in this case.
One thing I should note: Thomas is no racist, your incomprehension of the term “yard ape” — a Southern expression referring to small kids of all colors — notwithstanding.
Speaking of politicizing the situation, could someone tell these people that the aftermath of a natural disaster is really not the time to campaign against women having access to birth control kits or the morning-after pill?
Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas says:
A decent, kind, helpful response, you’d think… unless you really were out to politicize the disaster.
My views on dKos, for the record: first, I think it’s absolutely appropriate to ask for front page stories, since they are the only ones that necessarily reflect the site. Anyone can post a diary — I could go over there right now and write some appalling vitriol-filled screed, and there it would be — but the front-page posters are kos’s choice, and reflect on him.
I think that the kos posters are opinionated, hard-charging, and that at times they shoot from the hip. But I do not recall anything like what Thomas posted being posted there. That doesn’t necessarily mean much — I don’t read kos religiously — but for what it’s worth, I don’t. They match the level of partisan passion at RedState, but they don’t match the level of vile invective (nor, in my opinion, is the average quality of their front-page people nearly as good.)
they don’t match the level of vile invective
This is a pretty difficult thing to try to compare, since one salient difference between liberals and conservatives is in what sorts of statements will evoke a visceral reaction. Thus, the other side’s wingers always seem so much worse than our wingers.
accountability for the unnatural disaster
Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding of NOLA were the first, “natural” disaster to strike our nation this week. I have argued that the Administration and the President in particular cannot be blamed for this in my last p…
kenB: true enough. But I was thinking specifically of ‘human filth’, ‘media whore’, and so forth. I couldn’t recall anything like that on kos, whereas on RedState it not only happens, it’s fairly regular.
Harry Truman of St. Helens made a pig-headed decision that cost him his life. I never blamed him for it and even have a grudging respect for someone who sticks to their priciples though they pay dearly for it.
There are not 100,000 Harry Trumans is NO. But there are probably many who determined that the risks of uncertain migration were greater than hanging on to their current shelter. If you have 24 hours and no transportation would you risk it? If you had a car but it gets over heated, or the tires aren’t looking too good do you risk it? Think about it – you might end up naked in the elements and have to face 8-12 hours of furious wind and rain. Would you risk it? You’ve whethered storms before in your little hovel and you’ve survived the occasional flood. Hell, when doesn’t it flood in New Orleans?
Let’s not project our middleclass decision making system on people who don’t have the same choices we have. Katrina is not their fault. It was our responsibility and we failed. Our biggest collective failure was in electing the worst president ever.
Hilzoy – its a little unfair to point to the profane at Redstate and not acknowledge what happens on our side. I visits Eschaton more than any other blog and yesterday (and today) he’s concluded about half his posts by refering to members of the right wing as “fuckers”. I happen to agree with Atrios and disagree with Redstate but I’m not offended by strong opinions expressed strongly. I often try to mitigate the profanity but sometimes join in as well.
And, while I agree with you generally about the two sites, ‘media whore’ is originally an epithet used by the left — I’m sure you can find it at Kos.
If you can get hilzoy, or katherine, or anarch or one of the other coherent liberals to say something along the lines of “I think Kos is generally a nice place, why do you have the impression that it isn’t?” I’ll bother to subject myself to the filth in the archives and dredge it up.
I’m under no illusions about the niceness of Kos or the Kossacks. I am, however, completely unaware of any dKos posts — and yes, I agree with the restriction to front-page material for the reasons that hilzoy mentioned above — that are equivalent or even really comparable to Thomas’ post (or some of Erick’s finer offerings, tbh). I’m not going to demand you produce citations — for one reason, it’s too early in the morning to be laughed at — but if you happen to have some examples at the ready I’d be interested to see them.
[And thanks for the descriptor “coherent”! Wocky Jivvy, Wergle Flomp!]
Ok, for hilzoy and anarch, I will sift through the muck though due to volume it won’t be until I get home from work. As for “I agree with the restriction to front-page material for the reasons that hilzoy mentioned above” may I suggest that entries from Markos Moulitsas Zúniga (Kos himself) ought to count wherever they appear? (Not that I’m sure I can tell in the archives).
I would also like to note that after his little fun publically reviling the contractors while their dead bodies were still being dragged around Fallujah, and after his alleged apology (which doesn’t strike me as one) he wrote:
cite
That sounds much more like an “I’m sorry I got caught” and an “I was worried what my advertisers would think” rather than an “I said something that was morally ugly”.
And by the way, since when is his above comment not enough to suggest vileness?
Thomas is no racist, your incomprehension of the term “yard ape” — a Southern expression referring to small kids of all colors — notwithstanding.
Nice try. I understand the term all too well. For those who haven’t heard it, take a look at the “HOW TO BE A WORTHLESS, VILE, AMERICAN YARD-APE!!!!” link on this
page entitled “NIGGERS/YARD-APES/COONS/SPOOKS/PRIMATES/MONKEYS” for an example of how the term is used.
“But I was thinking specifically of ‘human filth’, ‘media whore’, and so forth. I couldn’t recall anything like that on kos, whereas on RedState it not only happens, it’s fairly regular.”
Not reading either site, I have nothing to offer. But “Media Whores Online” was one of the earliest and most popular lefty almost-blog websites for quite a long time, I well recall. I found them dodgy enough to never link, but you can find plenty of praise on The Sideshow, Eschaton, and other popular left websites at the time, and since lamenting the loss of the site.
Ok, for hilzoy and anarch, I will sift through the muck though due to volume it won’t be until I get home from work
That’s funny. See, we don’t have to sift through the archives of redstate.org to find vile posts. You just load the page and scroll down. You tried to compare the two, but other than a year-ago comment that wasn’t even on the front page, you’ve got nothing.
I’m thinking here is where you admit you were wrong and move on with your life, but whatever.
And in the just plain psycho rubric, in a post I can’t quote here (but link is because of the posting rules, kos goes completely insane to a comment which essentially boils down to the super-trivial “Edwards never got the full investigative media treatment in the primary season–he never really won enough primaries to warrant it. He will get that kind of tough handling at some point now.”
That’s absurd.
Here’s the quote that was too horrible to post.
So what the f*** is it, Howie? What is this horrible, dark secret that Rove will find? Do you have any idea? No? Are you just making s*** up? Pulling it out of your a**? Because that’s what it looks like.
It’s profane and excited, but considering it hateful along the lines of characterizing half the country as human filth is insane. Sebastian — if this is what you’re relying on to show that the sites are comparable, just give up.
You’re losing it, Sebastian. You think criticizing a Howard Fineman column is on par with vile eliminationist rhetoric directed at half the country? That’s really the best you can find? I think my point here has been proven – you can find nothing at Kos that is comparable to the garbage we see at redstate on a regular basis.
No I believe that goes in the incoherent category that you also wanted me to find. Or do you have trouble reading your own comments too?
What on earth is incoherent about that post? Does it confuse you? Are you in any way puzzled by what point Kos is making?
It’s excited and intemperate, but if you call that incoherent you’re using a highly personal definition of the word.
Or do you have trouble reading your own comments too?
I don’t. You seem to. Were that post incoherent (it’s not, it seems you alone have problems comprehending it) you might start by referring to a dictionary for the meaning of the word “and”.
And just to emphasize the point…that’s the kind of thing you find in any way comparable to the redstate post in question? Really? That’s bizarre.
Well then what was incoherent about the RedState post? It was understandable, just nasty. Is unhinged a better description. Because flipping out just because someone notices that Edwards didn’t go through the wringer in the primaries is more than a bit wacky.
Incoherency was not the charge levelled at “Thomas”.
Indeed, his message was all too clear.
“…whose questions you don’t want to answer.” Ah, Jesurgislac.
Jesurgislac, do you believe that Nicola Calipari was murdered by American soldiers?
I fogot about this one cite . It begins with “Okay, so how is the Christian Right in this country different than Iran and the forthcoming Islamic Republic of Iraq?” and ends apparently finding no difference, “The American Taliban wants for the U.S. no less than what Iran has, and Iraq will soon have.”
Certainly not nasty invective thrown around by Kos himself. Oh, I’m sorry. The fact that it was dated August 23, 2005 puts it outside the one week window you set for me. Clearly I don’t have a leg to stand on.
felix, Tac, I’m seeing both apparently 100% racist uses and apparently 100% benign uses of “yard ape” in a quick google. It’s a bit eerie. Maybe some or all of those using the term in the latter way are unfamiliar with the former connotation. Anyway, it’s not safe to use in public conversation.
And now that I look, kos’ “American Taliban” thing is all over the place. He is constantly says things like “But the American Taliban have Frist in their grip, and won’t relinquish until they have their Afghanistan-style theocracy.”
And now that I look, kos’ “American Taliban” thing is all over the place
Now when you get to the part where he calls them filth and a barely human malignant mass that needs to be crushed you might have something. But no, all you have is posts saying that those who wish to impose religious law on Americans should be opposed. You know, conservatives used to agree with that. What happened to you guys?
No, that isn’t a fair translation of calling someone American Taliban any more than saying that ‘liberal’ is essentially the same as ‘Communist’.
You’ve still got nothing. Keep looking, it’s amusing.
I am hurt.
A plague o’ both your houses! I am sped.
(Mercutio to Romeo and Tybalt)
I shouldn’t jump into a firefight, but Sebastian, do you disagree with a characterization of Thomas’s post (which I just read) as saying that a very large (but sub-majority) fraction of this country is borderline inhuman? Isn’t that worse than anything Kos could say about any particular person or small group of people, except for sincerely wishing death upon them?
“American Taliban” thing is all over the place.
I use that term too, with a clear understanding that it is over-the-top. I don’t view it anything like yard-ape or filth, though, in terms of making a personal insult, nor is it meant to connote treason, which has long been associated with Communist. Yard ape and filth are personal characteristics. The country was founded by a species of Taliban (I’m thinking John Winthrop, for example) and there has always been a tension between that tendency and the more secular version. In discussions on that subject, I frequently invoke my own ancestor Roger Williams, who personally evolved from a very extreme Taliban-like position to as liberal a position as one can find at the time. It’s an evolution that a great many of us who came of age in the 60s and 70s are quite familiar with — having ourselves moved from intolerance towards tolerance, with maturity.
I read dKos much less often than I read RedState, and I read the latter very rarely indeed. The educational value of either is quite low, and the entertainment value tops out after a very short while. I’ve no doubt that Mr. Trevino hoped for an intelligent, conservative, and influential community site. And sincerely so. I wish it had worked out, because I find conversation with intelligent and intellectually honest conservatives to be both challenging and enlightening.
Many of us liberals learned a lot from conservatives in the 80s and 90s. The law of unintended consequences, and the folly of trying to impose values on other people — regulating not only conduct but thought principally among them. There was value in mocking PC in the early days. Liberal Hubris deserved to be taken down a notch. Now, however, conservatives seem to have forgotten completely the lessons they taught, and in addition spend time acting as if Liberal Hubris still had anything to do with how public policy is made.
The Sista Soulja moment wasn’t just theater. It was meant: as much as conservatives would like to hang the positions of extremists around the necks of Dem officials — and as effective as this might be electorally — the fact is that leftists are not in any meaningful sense a part of the control group of the Dem coalition. (One thing I find most tiresome about dKos is the constant internecine war: radicals seems to dislike liberals [and moderates] even more than they dislike conservatives, as if the whole ‘nach Hitler, uns’ thing hadn’t been totally discredited.)
Even if dKos and RS were equally offensive, equally moronic, and equally demeaning, there would still be a huge difference. One side is the voice of supporters of (and apologists for) the ruling coalition, and the other the voice of a fractured opposition (and most often, an opposition within the opposition).
It’s the difference between ‘taken down a notch’ and ‘totally obliterated’ that makes the discourse a complete waste of my time. And yours too, apparently.
“Isn’t that worse than anything Kos could say about any particular person or small group of people, except for sincerely wishing death upon them?”
Which small group of people are you talking about? He uses American Taliban to describe most (all?) of the Republican Party at different points. (To be fair it isn’t clear if there are rational limits on the term or not. Sometimes he seems to be speaking about just people like Robertson, while other times he seems to be implicating the whole Republican party). And he came quite close to wishing death on contractors in Iraq. He said that he was indifferent to what happens to them (in actual fact torture and murder) at the hands of terrorists because he didn’t like (what he mind-read as) their motivations. His words as their bodies were being dragged through the streets were “Screw Them”.
“You’ve still got nothing. Keep looking, it’s amusing.”
Nope. I’m done now. The fact that you don’t think the “Screw Them” and numerous “American Taliban” references (you are free to find more on your own–there seem to be at least a dozen) are particularly bad reveals your double standard. And I also note that I have only quoted kos himself, not any of the other–sometimes worse-contributors.
This is yet another in a long line of cites requested, cites provided, cites ignored method of trolling from felixrayman.
I think this episode also illustrates why the conservative commentors less masochistic than myself don’t bother coming back.
I make a comment which is mainly lamenting the descent of Redstate.org into a very nasty place. I note what ought to be a fairly uncontroversial fact–that dKos is also a very nasty place. I note that RedState was modelled on dKos but was supposed to be less nasty. I note that it may have succeeded in the model but not in the less nasty part. I am then subjected to a completely ridiculous ‘link please’ game of trying to prove the dKos is a nasty place. I have provided links to Kos saying that it doesn’t bother him to see contractors captured, tortured, killed and dragged through the streets and pointed to one of many posts directly comparing Republicans to the Taliban. I should not have bothered looking it up, because I ought to have known that proof doesn’t matter.
I understand now. When conservatives use ridiculous hyperbole it is a sign of moral perversion. When liberals do it, it is merely ‘over the top’. Ok. I get it. No need to discuss it further. You are quite right that by your rules RedState is far worse than dKos. We could have saved time if you just made it clear that you were classifying tautologically.
‘Screw them’ is morally perverse. I don’t believe I implied otherwise, and am sorry if you understood my defense of a different over-the-top statement to be a defense of that one.
I’m not completely satisfied with that answer, because I think there are principled distinctions between the rhetoric in a post like Thomas’s and Kos rhetoric, but thanks.
Agreed.
I am then subjected to a completely ridiculous ‘link please’ game of trying to prove the dKos is a nasty place.
For my part, the issue wasn’t to show that dKos could be a generically nasty place, a claim that I think could pass without comment, it’s whether dKos is possessed of the caliber of nastiness that seems entrenched at RedState nowadays. IOW, the problem I had (and have) was with the supposed equivalency between the two sites, not with any absolute declaration of nastiness (which I don’t think you made until just now).
The problem is that there’s no way to argue objectively about that. I agree with you, both that nasty things are posted at Kos, and that much, much nastier are posted at RedState, but there isn’t a satisfying way for two people who disagree about things to come to an agreement as to of two nasty comments, x and y, which is worse.
The fact that you don’t think the “Screw Them” and numerous “American Taliban” references (you are free to find more on your own–there seem to be at least a dozen) are particularly bad reveals your double standard
The question is not whether the posts you cited are “bad”. The question is whether they are comparable to describing tens of millions of people as a barely human mass of malignant filth that exists only to be crushed. They are not. They are not even close, in any way shape or form to being comparable to that. My standard is quite clear, and nothing you have brought up comes close to meeting it.
This is yet another in a long line of cites requested, cites provided, cites ignored blah blah blah whinge blah
You have noted that Kos compares morally conservative literalists that attempt to implement Christian values in all spheres of life with morally conservative literalists that attempt to implement Islamic values in all spheres of life, and find the comparison an unfair one for reasons you are unable or unwilling to explain. You have noted that in a comment, Kos once wrote something that showed no concern for mercenaries in Iraq, and then explained why he wrote what he did, and you can scroll up and read that explanation. And, most shockingly, you have noted that Kos once criticized a Newsweek columnist.
No instances, however, of Kos doing anything comparable to describing tens of millions of people as a barely human mass of malignant filth that exists only to be crushed. Nary a one.
I think this episode also illustrates why the conservative commentors less masochistic than myself don’t bother coming back
Because when they engage in partisan hackery of the silliest sort and make assertions that they are then unable to support they get called on it? How brutal that must be for them. And I thought the people stuck in New Orleans had it bad.
Seb: I’m with Anarch here. (And fwiw, I have never taken kos’ ‘screw them’ remark as a mortal strike against him, but that’s for the same sort of reason as my pass for Thomas: personal history (his, not mine, of course.) I only entered in when called, and didn’t mean to jump all over you.
And felix: I think ‘partisan hackery of the silliest sort’ is out of line.
“but there isn’t a satisfying way for two people who disagree about things to come to an agreement as to of two nasty comments, x and y, which is worse.”
And this problem is compounded by the fact that we human beings are more likely to downplay (even in our own minds) the nastiness of people with whom we generally agree and play up the nastiness of people with whom we generally disagree. It is a species of confirmation bias.
In my book the “Screw Them” comment and non-apology about contractors getting tortured, killed and dragged around the street is just about as bad as “I understand them now to be what they are: An uncompromising, barely human mass of malignancy, that exists only to be crushed electorally and culturally once and for all.” The first comment is specific and allows for very atrocious things to happen to people you don’t like based on your mind-reading of their motivations. The second unfairly implicates a broader number of people (worse) but wants to have done to them a far lesser thing (electoral defeat and unspecified cultural crushedness).
A liberal will likely look at the first statement and think “He doesn’t mean it, he is just venting” but think of the second “He is venting and means it”.
In my view the second is strongly worded, but the wished for circumstances are not as bad. The first has far worse circumstances (torture and death), but he is saying he just doesn’t care about their torture and death (based on his projection of their motivations) he doesn’t directly wish for the outcome.
On balance I think the kos statement is worse, but they are well within spitting distance so trying to parse out which is slightly worse is a nearly pointless exercise.
The American Taliban comments are applied to a much larger group, and a group which was destroyed by force–so I’m not sure if the threat is implicit. The Taliban was one of the worst regimes out there, and the parallel is not much closer than saying “Is there much difference between the government of North Korea and the kind of government control of the economy and life that liberals want? Sure. Liberals aren’t in power to oppress people right now.” The statement is accurate only at really silly level of generalization and when liberals have been in power, nothing like NK came into being in the US. And of course with conservatives in power now, we don’t have a Taliban government.
I think once you notice that the Taliban was one of the worst governments in the modern world, one that was horrifically oppressive and which had to be removed by force, the ugliness of the analogy should be clear.
Felixrayman, please give me an approximate number of people that you believe are implicated by “The American Taliban” as used by Kos.
Is it larger than “The Left” considering the generally understood distinction between “liberal” and “left”? (Friendly hint: I will direct you to search this site under the author ‘hilzoy’ if you deny that there is such a generally understood distinction but will not be wasting time looking for the links myself).
You seem to be artifically inflating the numbers you use for “The Left” and you may be minimizing the appropriate number of “American Taliban” as used by Kos.
Please clarify.
Sebastian: In my view the second is strongly worded, but the wished for circumstances are not as bad.
“An uncompromising, barely human mass of malignancy, that exists only to be crushed electorally and culturally once and for all.”
Once you start defining people as “barely human” and declare they exist “only to be crushed”, it is historically evident that the end-results can be as horrifying as you can imagine.
This seems far worse to me than, as Making Light observed:
For this reason, Thomas’s post seems worse than Kos’s post, just as a one-on-one comparison.
“An uncompromising, barely human mass of malignancy, that exists only to be crushed electorally and culturally once and for all.”
Kos expressed indifference to captured, tortured, killed and dragged about the city.
I presume that implies ‘barely human’ don’t you? Or do you think that Kos is indifferent to all humans who get captured, tortured, killed and dragged about the city? And why do I keep buying his stated indifference. “Screw You” isn’t indifferent. It expresses outright contempt.
This is kind of a weird argument to be having right now, I think. Maybe we could have a thread on the likely economic impact of Katrina, or what effect it might have on the delicate Iraqi constitutional process that all of America has turned its eyes to the Gulf?
(If you want to continue arguing about dKos vs. RS, by all means, go ahead.)
I think there’s a distinction to be made between expressing dislike/contempt for mercenary soldiers (especially, as the Making Light post points out, when Kos grew up in El Salvador) – and expressing the opinion that several million people are “an uncompromising, barely human mass of malignancy, that exists only to be crushed electorally and culturally once and for all”.
The second opinion is far more wide-ranging and far more predictably dangerous in its effects.
This is kind of a weird argument to be having right now, I think. Maybe we could have a thread on the likely economic impact of Katrina, or what effect it might have on the delicate Iraqi constitutional process that all of America has turned its eyes to the Gulf?
Passionately seconded. If you want to have a Dkos v. RS thread, why don’t you make a new thread. I hope everyone can give it all the attention it deserves.
Jackmormon: This is kind of a weird argument to be having right now, I think.
Insofar as it’s DKos v. Redstate, I agree.
With regard to Thomas’s expressions of contempt for his fellow citizens, I think it’s a very apposite argument to be having just right now.
I mean, there ought to be no doubt that this is a terrible screw-up – not even looking at the failure of the levees, but the failure to evacuate and the failure to have relief efforts geared up and ready – I mean, the emergency was known to be real Saturday, that was the time to start getting resources poised and ready to deliver, not Thursday. And it didn’t happen – and you can see it not happening here.
Someone who lives in Louisiana gets a free pass on angry rhetoric right now. But what he’s saying, even past the rhetoric, is appalling. It is not politicizing the situation to ask “Who screwed up?” or to point the finger at some people who fairly obviously screwed up. And Bush is one of them.
Let’s see if i can’t find some middle ground here.
If, hypothetically, someone at Redstate would point to four bodies floating dead in Lake Ponchartrain and say “screw ’em. they had it coming for not evacuating”, I for one would be utterly outraged. While my personal belief is that the circumstances between the hypothetical Redstate comment and the dKos comment justify the latter but not the former, I understand that SH disagrees and I recognize that he has a legitimate viewpoint for that disagreement.
Referring to some 20% (those, including me, who self-identify as liberal) as barely human is, however, unacceptable in polite conversation. If the purpose of RedState and Tacitus is to serve only as red meat echo chambers, I suppose that that kind of dialog is fair game. Just don’t ask for me to like it.
Comparing degrees of reprehensibility between the impact of Dkos’s comment on conservatives and the impact of Redstate on liberals is a fools’ game. Who, precisely, is anyone trying to convince? Don’t like it? Don’t read it.
As to the American Taliban bit, until Pat Robertson is banished from the airways as being an embarrassment unworthy of being included in public discourse, the Taliban comment remains valid. I will refer to, but not cite to, his comments after 9/11. Add in intelligent design, stem cell debates, reproductive freedom debates and the administration’s war on science (see, eg, Chris Mooney) and the Taliban comment has even more bite.
I think once you notice that the Taliban was one of the worst governments in the modern world, one that was horrifically oppressive
It was oppressive because it was run by morally conservative literalists that attempted to implement Islamic values in all spheres of life. Kos makes it perfectly clear what his analogy referred to: ‘They’re cut from the same cloth — the belief that a system of secular rules and laws must be replaced with “God’s laws”‘. There is nothing in that remotely comparable to describing tens of millions of people as a barely human mass of malignant filth that exists only to be crushed culturally, not matter how far you try to stretch things.
Kos expressed indifference to captured, tortured, killed and dragged about the city.
I presume that implies ‘barely human’ don’t you?
You don’t have to try to mind read. Kos explained in detail how he felt:
I’m still waiting for you to explain how criticizing a Newsweek journalist is comparable to describing tens of millions of people as a barely human mass of malignant filth that exists only to be crushed culturally. That one seems like a bit of stretch same as the others, don’t you think?
You didn’t only ask for the filth response did you?
You also aren’t answering my questions.
How many people are “The Left”, NOT liberals?
How many people are “The American Taliban”?
He isn’t just talking about Robertson when he says: “‘They’re cut from the same cloth — the belief that a system of secular rules and laws must be replaced with “God’s laws”
He appears to be talking about much of, if not the entire Republican Party.
He appears to be talking about much of, if not the entire Republican Party.
Back in October 2003, Kevin Drum did an interesting post (on the old Calpundit blog) on the Texas Republican party.
As Kevin says:
And what they want, among other things, is:(1) The Supreme Court should not be allowed to decide the constitutionality of laws regarding abortion, religion, or anything else related to the Bill of Rights. In these areas, Congress should be allowed to pass any laws it wishes.
(2) We should completely do away with separation of church and state.
(3) Gay sex should be a criminal offense. Gays should be treated like child molesters and should not be allowed to visit children unsupervised.
(4) The Biblical story of creation should be taught in science classes.
And that’s not even half of it. There was the appalling behavior over “Terri’s Law“. There is the religiously-inspired activism against women having the right to choose, as well as against gays having rights at all.
You are not part of this religious activism in the Republican party, Sebastian – for the first and most obvious reason, if nothing else, that these religious activists want to deprive you of civil rights, regardless of how you vote. But it exists. And there’s no point not looking at it squarely.
How many people are “The Left”, NOT liberals?
How many people are “The American Taliban”?
You must have mistaken me for your research assistant. If you have numbers, and would like to make an actual argument, feel free to do so.
He appears to be talking about much of, if not the entire Republican Party
In other words, the analogy, qualified the way it was, is completely accurate. And like I said earlier, conservatives used to believe strongly in the separation of church and state. Looks like that went the way of fiscal conservatism and a rational foreign policy.
“You must have mistaken me for your research assistant.”
Ah, he who demands links doesn’t like to answer questions. Noted.
You seem to have no trouble defining the Left as “tens of millions”. Are you retracting that?
Why can you not come up with a similar figure for “American Taliban”?
“He appears to be talking about much of, if not the entire Republican Party
In other words, the analogy, qualified the way it was, is completely accurate. And like I said earlier, conservatives used to believe strongly in the separation of church and state.”
Once again you are having interpretation problems. Identifying what someone is talking about is not the same as describing the analogy as completely accurate. He seems to be (by reference from the rest of the post) talking about the entire Republican Party. Me noting the analogy doesn’t make it true anymore than noting the ‘filth’ analogy makes it true. You have been noting Thomas’ argument. Did that somehow vouch for its accuracy?
Ah, he who demands links doesn’t like to answer questions. Noted.
You made an assertion. You were completely unable to defend it. Noted. I have defended every assertion I have made on this thread. Noted. You asked me for statistics that I had made no assertion about and then complained incessantly because I wouldn’t produce them, although you have not produced them either. Also noted. You are batting precisely .000 here.
Once again you are having interpretation problems
No, I’m not. You are.
Identifying what someone is talking about is not the same as describing the analogy as completely accurate.
When given the description ‘They’re cut from the same cloth — the belief that a system of secular rules and laws must be replaced with “God’s laws”‘ you immediately recognized who was being talked about. So come on, take a position here instead of the “Failure to State” fallacy. Would you like the US to be ruled by secular laws, with a strong separation between church and state, or are you a real conservative?
Kos is telling the truth here. There are large numbers of people in this country who wish that the relationship between church and state were more like that in Afghanistan a few years ago. Would you be in favor of, or opposed to that situation, and if the answer is the latter what help are you going to give people like me and Kos in fighting to prevent that from happening?
Thread’s gone weird.
Kos is a terrible speller.
‘American Taliban’ is horrible. While there may be some segment of American evangelicals who believe, for example, that women should be honor-killed after being raped, I’m guessing it’s pretty small.
Thanks for the updates, Gary.
“I have defended every assertion I have made on this thread.”
I’m afraid not. You asserted that: “The question is whether they are comparable to describing tens of millions of people as a barely human mass of malignant filth that exists only to be crushed.”
This suggests that you have some number of “The Left” in mind. I would like you to share what you believe that number to be, and what number you believe “American Taliban” to be. Your entire method is to be a jerk by:
A) asking for links to the obvious
B) mischaracterizing what I write
C) pretending that the mischaracterization is my assertion
D) asking me to defend the mischaracterization
E) making obnoxious accusations about my character when I want to defend what I actually say instead of what you pretend I said
I have allowed you to completely side-track the discussion without you providing anything useful.
You are an ass-hole. And now I have to ban myself for a day.
Oh, oh. I’ll save Sebastian the trouble. Kos personally front-paged a Gilliard rant that includes
(some bits obscured for the more delicate ObWi sensibilities -ed)
Your crap smells worse than my crap! Argument over, please.
Ok, everybody feel better now? Ready to go be useful citizens in the morning?
Good.
Have a safe weekend.
You are an ass-hole
As always, Sebastian, falsely accusing others of doing something that you are doing at the same time you make the accusation.
Hilzoy:
This is bullshit. I have been called stupid in this thread, been called a troll, been called an “ass-hole”. My response has been quite measured, considering, but you still called me out for it. That’s bullshit. I will not sit here and be called stupid, or a troll, or an ass-hole without a response.
If you want to ban me from this site, step up and do it. I won’t argue with one hand tied behind my back – I simply won’t do it.
Either ban me or give me the same freedom of insult that you allow others.
felix, by the standard of your opponent stooping to (oddly-hyphenated) cusswords, you just won the argument. Why go for a draw? Take it to email, take it to the Kitten, ignore SH in future. I’d hate to see you get banned, even for a day.
I don’t know about “American Taliban” but this is pretty damn creepy.
I’m not at all surprised that some people think like that. I am somewhat surprised that they’re lucid and popular enough to put together a parish. Of course, Falwell put together a lot more than that, so what do I know.
Bad times. I suspect the French Quarter’s favorite drink, The Hurricane, is going to be retired.
My response has been quite measured, considering….
Indeed, you’re a paragon of virtue. Having provoked the desired response, you now get to play martyr: a role that by now requires little practice.
Having provoked the desired response, you now get to play martyr: a role that by now requires little practice.
Almost as little practice as unwarranted arrogant, smug condescension requires from you.
“I don’t know about ‘American Taliban’ but this is pretty damn creepy.”
More than it was yesterday? (Click on “Oh, and this whole thing is the fault of homosexuals.”)
Lots more posts and updates this morning.
Tacitus, any comment on a google of “yard ape”?
What, Catsy? Unwarranted?
Actually, rilkefan, I did Google it when I first saw Thomas using it, as I suspected it would be seized upon by dishonest, shrieking types — felixrayman, QED — as evidence of his racism. Being from the South myself, I’d heard it before in the context of (white) children. Between that, the preponderance of usage as revealed by Google, and my knowledge of Thomas as a person, I am more than satisfied that the man is not even slightly racist, and that his use of the phrase in question had no intended racial tinge.
That being said, I am also more than satisfied that the likes of felix lack the fundamental graciousness of character necessary to credit an ideological opponent with any positive quality. It’s what being a prisoner of petty hatred does to a person.
That being said, I am also more than satisfied that the likes of felix lack the fundamental graciousness of character necessary to credit an ideological opponent with any positive quality. It’s what being a prisoner of petty hatred does to a person.
It’s funny how being labelled subhuman makes some people feel uncharitable. Folks are strange that way.
But thanks for the tip that Thomas meant his racist epithet in a non-racist way.
Here’s a tip for him from me: next time, write in a way that doesn’t require the reader to personally know you to understand the context of your words.
More than it was yesterday? (Click on “Oh, and this whole thing is the fault of homosexuals.”)
Yes, because of who’s saying it and how it’s promulgating. I wouldn’t have bothered to mention the fact that some religious types are saying that God was punishing New Orleans (or any variation on that theme) otherwise.
Oh, sorry, wrong URL:
Not important, of course. (I’m not disgruntled about this; I’m disgruntled that after all the work I put in, I got links from about two blogs, Tim Burke and Fafblog, and little else, while I keep reading about what great comprehensive coverage a couple of yet other blogs are doing, and that starts to make one — or me, anyway — wonder why I’m bothering.) Although three or four people have offered thanks, so that’s good. Anyway, don’t mind me.
Being from the South myself, I’d heard it before in the context of (white) children. Between that, the preponderance of usage as revealed by Google, and my knowledge of Thomas as a person, I am more than satisfied that the man is not even slightly racist
Jeebus. So one Southern white guy attests that another Southern white guy’s use of a malign racial term does not indicate that the man is in any way a racist, and that’s sufficient to settle the matter. By that standard, Thurmond’s out, Helms is out, and a young Lott is out. In fact, I’m pretty sure there’s never been a racist Southern white guy in history.
Did you at least look deep into his heart, see his soul, and see that he was a good man?
Clap harder, Tacitus.
I had forgotten all about Ramona Quimby’s “Yard Ape”, but Google is a fine memory aid. As for the use of the term by Thomas, surely “gibbering” renders it pejorative, and we must also consider it in context as it is a link. Does it refer to a “small kid” in context? I don’t know any small kids who throw human corpses, but perhaps I have led a sheltered existence?
I find it perfectly plausible that Thomas doesn’t understand the implications of the words he uses. He’s convinced it’s not pejorative to call a child a “bastard”, after all.
More Blame, or Something
The point of this post is to try and summarise and cut to the bones of what I think the political issues are surrounding Katrina, and why people like Hilzoy are right and people like Thomas are wankers wrong.
Whenever something goes wrong with someth…
I’d normally plead for comity here, but since I just spent the afternoon yelling “The ref beats his wife!”,* well, carry on.
* Welcome to Big Ten football, baby.
My condolences, Anarch. I hate it when the Big Ten gets beat up on by the MAC, even if the MAC gets crushed in the end.
OTOH I love it when Auburn gets beat by GA Tech.
I hate it when the Big Ten gets beat up on by the MAC, even if the MAC gets crushed in the end.
We won. In the end, that’s all that really matters.
OTOH I love it when Auburn gets beat by GA Tech.
And how ’bout them Horned Frogs, huh?
If this thread ever turns to comparative victimization – and which thread doesn’t? – spare a thought for fans of Duke, which lost to a I-A team (East Carolina) that’s gone 3-20 over the past two years.
Sigh.
If it comes to that, spare a thought for the Princeton football team, which, when I was there, was the worst team ever.
Growing up, I went to Harvard football games a lot, and they were lots of fun: plucky not-so-good players trying to win on brains and zaniness alone. I used to think: this is more fun than watching e.g. the NFL, where the games might as well be played by machines; with Harvard, you truly never know what’s going to happen next, so it’s more fun.
But then I went to Princeton, and discovered that there are limits to how bad a team can be before it stops being fun at all. I remember sitting at one game — one of the maybe two I went to before giving up altogether — and thinking: all these novel concepts that I would have preferred not to know about, and do not want to observe. For instance, I was familiar with the forward and lateral passes, but not the backward pass! And I knew that you could go over or around a line, but not straight through it!
If it comes to that, spare a thought for the Princeton football team, which, when I was there, was the worst team ever.
Those were the good ol’ days…
…but our basketball team wasn’t so bad now, was it? 😉
If we’re going to start claiming victimhood for having gone to a college with bad football teams, please make way.
Vanderbilt.
I also oneself something would want to find out on this theme. Very attentively I will read every post.