Rumors are just that

[DoYouEverWonder]

September 2, 2005

Rapides Parish Sheriff William Earl Hilton toured New Orleans on Thursday as he tried to stop panic from spreading in Rapides Parish.

Rumors of gang members and increased crime parishwide may have come from a deputy, said Hilton, and he said he plans to deal with the incident when he returns.

An e-mail detailing rumors as fact circulated in print and in cyberspace throughout Central Louisiana on Thursday. The e-mail disparages the residents of New Orleans' Ninth Ward and applies other misrepresentations, such as safety issues and gas rationing, supposedly made under the auspices of the Sheriff's Office.

Public safety and other official information, Hilton said, only comes from himself, Chief Deputy Ronnie Sellers and Maj. Mike Slocum.

http://www.thetowntalk.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050902/NEWS01/509020322/1002


BushCo is trying to spread panic. Let's not play into their hands.

[Dickie Flatt]

1. Uh...

Based on that article I don't think there's any legitimate way to blame Bush for spreading panic. Actually, if they were doing that it would be pretty stupid because pretty much everyone thinks the Republican federal government fucked up.

[1932]

4. Bush's central theme: zero tolerance for looters.

And clearly, they're trying to find a scapegoat.

[JoFerret]

11. Blame, blame and

take no/ avoid responsibility. The Bushco mantra.

[1932]

13. Not only that, but they blame it on things that ensure that solutions

fit within their world view.

See my post below.

If "order" is the problem, the solution is oppression and punishment (and it allows you to pretend that protecting private property is moral).

If the failure to help people is the problem, the solution is to invest in the infrastucture (and to alleviate the great disparities in wealth that made these people so vulnderable).

[bahrbearian]

2. they are over playing the snipers, and gangs,,instead of swat

teams they should be bringing in water and food!

[Eloriel]

5. Yes -- it fits their "blame the victim" approach very well

Make them all look like thugs, gangbangers, criminals, crackheads, and then no one cares when they die, or when our NG and others with "shoot to kill" orders gun them down.

[mirandapriestly]

6. Exactly.

I have also heard right wing types insinuate that rescue attempts have been foiled because the rescuers "don't feel safe" because of thugs & guns. that is what who they will blame when the casualty numbers come in.

How can the media be talking about people stealing a six pack of beer when there are people dying and suffering the way they are? It sends up a reg flag for me.

*co is the real looter for taking down FEMA and money out of the levee

[MisterP]

7. hell, that message is astroturfed all over the Net

excuses for FEMA, money for NRA

[1932]

12. It also influences how you concieve of the solution to this problem

If you define the moment as a crisis of law and order, the solution is to crack heads, put people in jail, etc. You say the problem is with personal choices people make about following the law and that punishment solves them.

The implicit solution is that, next time we have a natural disaster, we better have everyone in jails BEFORE it happens (can we put even MORE people in jail in our society which has the highest incarceration rates in the world?).

If you think the problem is that people are suffering and nobody is there to help them, the implication is that the solution is to HELP PEOPLE: to have good infrastructure, well-funded first-responders, and you take preemptive measures like you evacuate all people, rich and poor.

Conservatives don't want that because they don't want to pay for that, they believe everything should be privatized, they believe in survival of the fittest, and they don't like the leveling of opportunity and outcomes that helping people creates (they'd prever the polarization of opportunity and outcomes).

The other thing about "looting hysteria" is that there genuninely is a problem with lawlessness in the US and a lot of it is caused by a society that creates a lot of misery for people on the bottom. If there weren't huge disparities in wealth, we would have less crime, less greed, a society that isn't so consumption-oriented, etc. There was almost no looting during the Tsunami, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was because there was less of a sense that it was everyone's opportunity to get things they wouldn't have any other chance to get. When everything is within your reach (regardless of wealth of the society) you're not always thinking about how to get things that are just out of your reach.


That's not the way the law and order people talk about this issue. They don't want to talk about it turns of polarization and about whether the way we constructed our society has create the reality of crime.

[Historic NY]

3. What a way to displace blame for failure........

I wouldn't put it past them. Blame the people who are allegedly looting and shooting for the failure to get supplies in and get people out.

[VegasWolf]

8. Damn!! Now Charlton Heston will have to go the NO to speak out

for the NRA.

[RatRacer]

9. Actually...

...there is a group of people from Directnic.com that are still in an office bldg in NO. They've been posting a live web feed and blogging online (there's a story about them on MSNBC.com) and they say there are indeed groups of armed thugs roaming about attacking people and such. I'll go with the first hand accounts.

[1932]

14. There was no electricity or phone service in N.O.

How do you know this is not part of the astroturf?

I don't doubt there have been acts of violence, but I don't think the obsession with it among a few here is justified by the evidence of it. The emphasis on it it has been disproporionate.

Even though there are many many first hand, confirmed stories about other kinds of suffering, the violence is usually described in non-hearsay evidence as a "feeling" of threat without. in most cases, violence ensuing.

And again, for emphasis, I'm not saying that I don't believe that there's been some attrocious violence. It's just that without having reliable first-hand descriptions, it's hard to contextualize the information.

Look at that CNN story above. The point of the story is to contrast truth and reality. The reality under the "violence" subheading is still not evidence of actual violence taking place but is about a sense of violence impending.

[skypilot]

15. OK. I went to the site...

...and checked out some of the pictures. I'm confused. Are they trapped in the building? The part of the city they are in seems to be bone dry. Are they afraid to come out because of the armed thugs roaming about? Some of their pictures loaded extremely slowly so I didn't get to see alot of them but the ones I did see didn't seem to show any armed thugs. There was a series of photos showing four black men walking down the street. They did not appear to be armed. Too many of the photos were of the same thing photographed over and over again: a burning building or a person walking down the street. Some of the photos were apparently taken outside on the ground and not from inside the building where they are supposed to be holed up. I don't quite understand what this site is all about.

[RatRacer]

16. They are keeping internet traffic

...going in that area since almost all other forms of communcation are off. They have diesel powered generators that are running everything. Then they set up this blog initially just to give a first hand account of the storm. But with the pandemonium that has ensued, it's evolved into an inside account of the hysteria and the rescue efforts nearby. They've ventured out a little to do "recon" and have reported back that there are armed thugs out there.

I guess the reason they haven't left is because they feel like they need to keep the communication lines open, they do have some water and food, I'm not sure what their transportation options are, so if they had to wait for buses, why go out into that hellhole when you have enough provisions to take care of your small group? Not to mention the safety issue.

[JoFerret]

10. CNN The big disconnect on NOLA

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/katrina.response/index.html

They said v. They witnessed. Good piece.