where was all the indignation and outrage when babies died...

[mike_c]

...of thirst, malnutrition, water-borne disease, and sheer bloody murder in Iraq? Babies, children-- 500,000 children, by U.N. estimates-- the elderly, and other poor brown people have been dying under our boot heels in Iraq since the Gulf War. THIRTEEN YEARS, followed by a brutal occupation. Someone last night even posted that "NO is worse than Iraq!" And before everyone chimes in to say how much they ARE outraged about the suffering of innocents in Iraq, answer me this-- when was the last time DU went to level 3 because people were dying in Baghdad? The kind of suffering we've been seeing in NO has gone on everyday for YEARS in Iraq, has been far worse, and is INTENTIONAL rather than the result of incompetence and neglect.

Sorry for the rant, but this discourages the hell out of me.

[nonconformist]

1. You're preaching to the CHOIR

DU has been at reduced levels many, many times when horrible news from Iraq has come in.

I don't dispute that the media and many people in this nation can gloss over the atrocities in Iraq (and elsewhere in the world), but the vast majority of us HERE do care a great deal.

[mike_c]

4. I know we care-- it's just discouraging to see this much emotion...

...expressed about NO and comparatively less over Iraq, where the destruction is far, far worse and has been going on for so long. We've both been DUers for a long time, and we both know that only the invasion of Falluja caused anywhere close to this outpouring of indignation and rage, and that even that fell far short of what we've seen on DU this week.

[still_one]

2. this event just might bring it all home

people in the U.S. are now seeing that the president has no clothes

maybe they will also realize how much suffering has been done in our name in Iraq

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. You really think we weren't outraged? And it was a guardsman

who said NOLA is worse than Iraq.

There is horror happening in every corner of the earth. Everywhere. All the time. And yes, we are pissed about it. But what are we supposed to do?

-----------------------------------------------------
Save New Orleans, then save this country!
http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/electionreform.htm

[mike_c]

5. I know that we're all angry about Iraq, but we've never seen...

...anything close to this level of outrage expressed here about the war. That's what I find so discouraging-- I don't mean to suggest that DUers are not angry about Iraq-- this is one of the most receptive sites I know for peace activists-- but WHY haven't we ever expressed this much outrage about the destruction of cities in Iraq? Cities PLURAL.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. Because it hasn't been real to John and Jane Q Public... the media

has hidden SO much of what has happened over there. They can't do that now because it happened HERE.. "someone who knows someone who knows someone" is in effect.. and it is doing an end-run around the media. (And then too, the media has been doing its job for a change...although I hear FAUX is back on track to being propaganda central.)

-----------------------------------------------------
Save New Orleans, then save this country!
http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/electionreform.htm