One of the mightier acts of bullshit sophistry that's already started (and will continue) is the comparison of how "well-behaved" are the people who have evacuated to San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium from the fires engulfing the nearby areas and how utterly degraded and savage were the people who made their way to the Superdome and Convention Center in New Orleans before, during, and in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
[...] And certainly what Glenn "If You Hire a Cretinous Retard, Expect Him To Say Cretinous, Retarded Things" Beck spewed about America haters getting their houses burned down will be less offensive than what's coming. Yeah, it's all race and class-based, and it's also pathetically narrow and simple-minded.
Yes, what's happening to people in California is hideous, awful, and other adjectives, and it's great that the evacuees there are being treated like human beings. But other than the desperate president trying desperately to not look like a desperate boob and trying to make sure everyone sees he's in charge and that he's "learned lessons" since Katrina, there is no reason to compare. Indeed, comparing the two masses of people at the evacuation sites is not unlike comparing apples and drowned people.
Well...they both float. For a while.
The two disasters have nothing - I say again, nothing - in common other than bad things of wildly different severity happened to people in wildly different circumstances. The demographics, logistics, emergency response, the aftermaths - all as different as night from day.
The SD evacuees' houses weren't on fire for the most part, just in danger. They were warned by methods ranging from a loud hailer on a cop car to personal calls by a 'reverse 911' system. Most of them had plenty of time to load essential shit in their SUVs and boogie to Qualcomm or wherever. I guarantee you that every last swingin' dick and dickette drove themselves out of harm's way. Public transportation in SoCal is for 'the help', and usually involves a lot of walking anyway. Those folks have bank accounts (Boy, do they!), credit cards, resources. Even if their houses go up in smoke, they're in no physical danger. The evacuation facilities are plush, to say the least. Good eats, plenty to drink, rock bands, crafts for the kids, shitters that work, pet care, grazing for horses, the works. The roads are open and resupply is not a problem. Emergency responders, firefighters, cops - they all showed up. If their houses burn down, we have LtGov Garamendi (who would make a good Governor, but that's another story), former state Insurance Commissioner, to make sure the "pay as little as late as possible" insurance companies cough it up.
Contrast that with Katrina. Those who could evacuate, did. Those who didn't own a car were stuck. Emergency responders, public transportation, medical personnel, everybody who could, got the fuck out. And couldn't get back in, partly because of road conditions, partly because of government bungling (all levels), and in many cases were not allowed to. The floodees were without food, water, operating toilets, etc., etc. , for days. Many died due to government ineptitude. We all know how much help the Chimp and FEMA weren't. And still aren't, really. The insurance companies played their despicable games all along the Gulf Coast, except amongst the rich and powerful who wouldn't stand for it.
Two years on and we see how well things are going on the Gulf, particularly in NOLA. Not very.
Of one thing I am certain: the SoCal evacuees will not be dispersed to try and turn their area into a Repuglican region. It already is. That's the reddest heavily populated area (I know where my 'reddest area' is, even though I can't see it without hurting myself. Heh.) in my state.
In short, it's a lot better to be an upscale, if not rich, white suburbanite in a predominantly Repuglican area than it it is to be a poor black city dweller in a Democrat(ic) one.
The thing that's most irritating about these bullshit comparisons between the 'good' evacuees and the 'bad' evacuees is that it comes up at all. It's only happening because of the poisonous atmosphere in this country brought about by the newly resurgent tolerance, even promotion, of racism, and the class and culture wars started against the have-nots by the haves and the right-wing administration they side with, to further their fascist corporate war-mongering agenda of domination.
The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, all by design, with the aid of a carefully oiled conspiracy to divide the American people and thus conquer all of us, including their unwitting toadies. Luckily, even some of those morons are starting to catch on.
They must not - I say again must not - prevail. They won't. There are many like me who consider themselves in the fortunate half of our society who demand fairness and justice for the other half.
I was right. I didn't do this subject justice. There's so much more to say. I guess I've got time to get back to it if the sap rises again. Later, and please pardon the rant.
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