Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Riots?


I'm not sure if Barack Obama is issuing a threat, or what:

HAMPTON, Va. (AP) - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Tuesday that the Bush administration has done nothing to defuse a "quiet riot" among blacks that threatens to erupt just as riots in Los Angeles did 15 years ago.

The first-term Illinois senator said that with black people from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast still displaced 20 months after Hurricane Katrina, frustration and resentments are building explosively as they did before the 1992 riots.
If it is a threat, it's stupid. You saw what threats like that did for Ségolène Royal, right? But never mind that. Just what is Bambi asking for? Does he want the federal government to build homes in New Orleans? Does every resident have to move back for none to be displaced? Because I'll tell you what, if I had been a New Orleans resident who had been wiped out by Katrina, I wouldn't ever be moving back to live below sea level in a hurricane zone. And I don't know, but I'd hope that I'd be getting back on my feet after two years of government help. I mean just how much help is needed?

Of course it's devastating to lose everything. But sooner or later you have to get on with your life. Most likely, that means a different job in a different town. It's a losing proposition to wait for a government moving van to come take you to live in a government house.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why did they rebuild the city at all? Why not drive large pieces of Plexiglas into the ground around the place and dedicate it as the world's largest aquatic reserve? You could even cut in the "displaced" for a percentage of the action - even that sweet, sweet T-shirt concession - and keep the gubermint out of things entirely.

Anonymous said...

Such great Americans you are! Stick the knife in your own citizens after devastation (caused by failed federal levees no less) became their world. Sad doesn't even begin to describe what I feel about this kind of response from our own countrymen. New Orleans IS rebuilding with very little help from any government. Why? Because it is our home and is worth the danger, the misery, and the sacrefice it takes to make her whole again.

Anonymous said...

Anon: Leaving aside the fact that you're blind to Simpson's parodies...

Let me see if I've got this right: the 4 BILLION dollars legislated by Congress to rebuild Nawlin's amounts to "very little help." OK - fair enough, I suppose. And "failed federal levees" seems to be meant as an indictment against the government, but you want MORE government intervention. Hmmm...

And for the record, my community welcomed hundreds of refugees and my Church donated freely. But I'm sure it wasn't enough for your tastes or enough to make me a decent American.

Anonymous said...

Thans for the post, LJ. I saw it, too, and pondered the implications of Obama's rhetoric.

I now think the true intent is more terrible than many people can imagine : he is implicitly stating that he has almost certain knowledge that there are some Black Americans who are in the final stages of re-forming Quiet Riot, the glam-rock band of the 1980's.

Shudder.

OMMAG said...

The more Obama speaks the less likely he will be supported.
He's dead political meat already.

Watch for Hillary to try to one up him in the near future.

lumberjack said...

glam-rock? shudder times two

And did you see what anon did? Same thing as Obama. Didn't say where or what the failure was, didn't say what was needed.

The government has been giving aid to Katrina victims, not to a geographical area.

"Stick the knife in your own citizens" indeed. I'm beginning to wish that Bush had never sent the hurricane to New Orleans.

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