Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <And it seems like, with the exception of myself and Dabob and perhaps a few others, the overall response has been "let the city burn! They deserve it!"> It's much like what some people say about Iraq, isn't it?
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <Sounds like someone using their political position of power to elicit mob rule to me> Since when is a peaceful protest of 50 people "mob rule?" The author of the piece 2oony linked to had it right. Savage and the protesters are using each other; essentially they need each other. Like the flowers need the rain Like a masochist needs pain Like...
Originally Posted By Dabob2 ecdc, post #19 is very well stated. No doubt there are genuine criminals in new orleans, plus some people who are genuinely working the system, feel entitled, even genuinely lazy. However, there's a tendency to want to brush all poor people, in N.O. and elsewhere, with that same brush, and by and large that just isn't true at all. I dare say that many people working 40-60 hours a week at minimum wage or just above work a lot harder than many of us in offices with time to log on to LP during part of our working day do.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<I dare say that many people working 40-60 hours a week at minimum wage or just above work a lot harder than many of us in offices with time to log on to LP during part of our working day do.>> That would be a correct statement. It would be correct if there were actually a bunch of people working 40-60 hours at minimum wage. The sad fact is that there is not. Twenty-one percent of the households in Orleans Parish have income of less than $10,000 per year. Even at minimum wage, working 40 hours per week would result in more than $10,000 a year. If both husband and wife worked 40 hours per week at minimum wage they would be making over $20,000 per year. There is no excuse for them earning as little as they are. Either they don't want to work, or there are no jobs in New Orleans and they should move some place where there is. Either way, large numbers of people in New Orleans are responsible for the situation they are in. Every major city has poverty. But I can think of no other U.S. city where 21% of the households have an income under $10,000. They don't call it the "Big Easy" for nothing. In New Orleans many just don't like working very hard. Sad but true. Source: <a href="http://www.no-hunger.org/Hunger/NewOrleans.htm" target="_blank">http://www.no-hunger.org/Hunge r/NewOrleans.htm</a>
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <It's actually nothing like Iraq.> How is it different? Why should I feel bad about not helping the people of New Orleans but not feel bad about abandoning the people of Iraq? It seems to me that the people of New Orleans have had more chances to improve their situation than the people of Iraq have.
Originally Posted By barboy The N.Orleans topic is quite different than Iraq. N.O. is our country, our heritage, our pride and our responsibility. What is Iraq?---a desert and distant godforsaken land full of misery which drains us daily like some galactic leech.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <That would be a correct statement. It would be correct if there were actually a bunch of people working 40-60 hours at minimum wage. The sad fact is that there is not. Twenty-one percent of the households in Orleans Parish have income of less than $10,000 per year.> Which means 79 percent of the households earn more than that. Which would constitute "a bunch" of people working hard, no?? Again, why the need to brush the entire city (or the entire poor part of the city) with the same brush? Are there people content to stay on welfare? No doubt. Are there people there who probably work harder than most of us on this board? No doubt.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip I probably should not have gotten the whole N.O. thing going again. It was my reaction to reading how the murder rate in N.O. had increased 18%... 18% from what was already the highest rate in the nation. And it brought back to mind all the horror stories of many people from New Orleans abusing the disaster assistance both the government and private citizens tried to provide. And then I read how much of the current crime is against Hispanic immigrants who have come to help rebuild the city. Easy targets with cash in their pockets from day labor. Day labor which COULD have been done by the poor downtrodden residents of New Orleans. But hey... this is the Big Easy. It is a lot easier to kill some immigrant guy for his money than to actually WORK for it. And I was disgusted. Disgusted that just like enabling an alcoholic; we as a country are enabling a totally dysfunctional city to continue it its ways. If that makes me a terrible person... oh well.
Originally Posted By Mrs ElderP I know from the lives of some very strong people around me that NO ONE pulls themselves up by their bootstraps, NO ONE. We all have to recieve a ladder to climb up out of the pit of poverty. For many of us our parents were able to provide this, so that we were only "poor students" and not just "poor". I don't know what the answer is for generational poverty, I just know that with every generation, for some reason, it gets harder to get out. Maybe it's because after so many generations you become more and more isolated from anyone with any of the correct resouces to help. I do know I was thinking about this some more after my earlier post and thinking that almost 150 years after the Civil War, and over 50 years since the begining of the Civil rights movement our country is *still* dealing with the (very long term) consequences of slavery.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <If that makes me a terrible person... oh well.> RT, no one said that, and the hyperbole is not worthy of you. I think you just let your understandable disgust get the better of you, and it led you to brand an entire city with the brush of its worst citizens, forgetting the thousands and thousands of hard-working honest citizens that also live there.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <forgetting the thousands and thousands of hard-working honest citizens that also live there.> And apparently keep electing people who are unable to solve any of the problems plaguing the city.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <And hardly limited to New Orleans.> True, there are lots of cities that keep electing liberals.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<True, there are lots of cities that keep electing liberals.>> Yes, and virtually all of them are a heckuva lot better run than New Orleans! Corruption in the government and police force is so entrenched in New Orleans I don’t know that any mayor could ever get rid of it.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <True, there are lots of cities that keep electing liberals.> As well as locales that keep electing corrupt conservatives. It really isn't black and white, you know (shocking concept I guess).
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <As well as locales that keep electing corrupt conservatives.> I can't think of one city that has a majority of conservative leaders that has anywhere near the problems New Orleans has. Can you?
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Buenos Aires? Seriously, it's hard to think of any city as corrupt as New Orleans, but you think GOP precincts in rural Louisiana are any better, you don't know LA very well. To say nothing of Senator Vitter's troubles lately.
