The evacuees who gave testimony got pretty intense when describing their ordeal. They said that American troops aimed guns at young girl’s heads, living in temporary shelters was deadly, and that they’re victims of a crime as big as the Holocaust.
Uh huh. The US government set up death camps and shoveled millions of black residents into the ovens. Got it.
That surely happened because, if it didn’t, then the people who testified are nothing but a bunch of jerks who are trying to game the system for their own gain.
I’ve seen a great deal of this hysterical crap over the past few years, particularly from the Left. What they can’t seem to understand is that comparing having to go hungry for a day or two to actual genocide isn’t impressive or compelling. They can claim that they’re the biggest victims in the world all they want, most of us can tell what real vicitmization and genocide really looks like.
Something tells me that they’re not going to shut up, though. Not while they’re being invited to Washington to speak in front of a Congressional committee.
(Cross posted at Hell in a Handbasket.)
The problem in New Orleans wasn’t racism. ‘T was internecine politics of stupidity. A semi- illustrious, incompetent, mayor bungled his mission; the equally incompetent governor sought to embrace a policy of political obfuscation against the president. Now we’re witnessing a cadre of professional victms whining to Congress about a perceived slight. What baloney!!!!!
Enoch – they voted for them. For decades, if not a century or more.
Blanco’s emails are coming to light – how too blame the administration for this.
Wait, did I miss something? I didn’t see anything in that article where people were claiming that Katrina was similar to the Holocaust. Are you saying that in order for something to qualify as being racist in your mind it has to be at the scale of the Holocaust? No need to point me to Jonathon’s “Attention Chicagoboyz Commenters” post from Nov. 29. I read it and get it. But you’re the one who’s saying that people are either Holocaust survivors or “a bunch of jerks.” So maybe you are being totally sarcastic, that’s fine, but what’s your point here? Do you disagree that there was any racism going or are you just annoyed by what you see as an overreaction to racism?
Also it’s funny that you say about the Left, “They can claim that they’re the biggest victims in the world all they want, most of us can tell what real vicitmization and genocide really looks like.” Because I’m always feeling like the Right is constantly trying to play the Victim Card in more and more absurd ways. Best recent example: the whole thing about a “War on Christmas” and how opporessive it is to have someone say “Happy Holidays” to you.
Wait, did I miss something? I didn’t see anything in that article where people were claiming that Katrina was similar to the Holocaust.
The problem with using the Yahoo news feed is that they have this annoying habit of rewriting the whole story. The link I originally used led to an account of what the evacuees said in front of a Congressional committee, now it leads to a story about rebuilding money.
Lucky thing that Fox News is more reluctant to play fast and loose like that. Go ahead and click on the link now and you’ll see what I mean. An excerpt…
At times, black survivors who testified likened themselves to victims of genocide and the Holocaust, a comparison that didn’t sit well with some lawmakers.
Notice, chel, that more than one person who spoke compared their experiences to the Holocaust. It appears that it was a common theme.
I hope that this clears up any confusion, and I apologize for the rewrite on Yahoo. (Although I have no control over their content, of course.)
So far as the War on Christmas (as you put it), I’m wondering why people keep trying to construct a straw man when they engage me in debate. Here I am talking about hurricane survivors claiming that they’re targets of genocide, and you want to talk about Christmas.
James
Mama D’s life in New Orleans revolves around going to open meetings and playing victim. The woman gets around. One poster on the nola.com forums wrote “OMG! It’s the crazy lady from the school board meetings!” Jarvis DeBerry in Friday’s Times Picayune wrote an opinion piece titled “Sane Witnesses abound, but not in D.C.” The link isn’t up yet, but in it he bemoans the fact that Rep.Cynthia McKinney, a non-resident, picked the people to speak. Mr. DeBerry, an African-American himself, writes:
Hurricane Katrina ushered in a week of immense suffering in and around New Orleans. I saw some myself and have heard multiple people describe what it was like to be in an attic, on a roof, on the interstate, in the Superdome – and not know whether they would survive.
Not one of those people has had to reach for comparisons to the Holocaust. Most tell their stories quietly. They pause a lot, but there’s no embellishment. There is no need. The stories are already painful enough.
America needs to know how we suffered here. But there have got to be others who can testify to our pain in a way that doesn’t encourage the world to tune us out.