It is an interesting subject.
I found the following piece
http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=3998
"From AJR, December/January 2006
Myth-Making in New Orleans "
"By Brian Thevenot
Brian Thevenot, a reporter at New Orleans' Times-Picayune,"
Also here
http://www.onthemedia.org/yore/
t...0905_first.html
NOLA has this
http://www.nola.com/katrina/superdome/
Thevenot seems to take some blame for one of the stories not being properly researched.
I can hardly understand anything Stegall has said over there, other than, as you say, his insistence that the Superdome stories were unsubstantiated. I am actually rather surprised that the commenters didn't jump all over him right from the first time he mentioned "noble lies" -- that idea being associated with Leo Strauss and hence normally with neocons.
The only argument against race realism that was at all cogent was Zmirak's argument that it would bring about a eugenics movement similar to what we had in Margaret Sanger's time. That is at least debatable, though there are several reasons I don't agree with it. But Stegall seems to think the essence of conservatism is just not rocking the boat, so to say. He denies that he is influenced by PC or egalitarian ideas, but his denial of the Superdome stories rather reveals his true colors.
Matt Welch was the first journalist I'm aware of to claim the Superdome atrocities didn't happen. He made a big isseue of it at the libertarian website Reason indeed I'd call it a crusade. Welch is now the editor there.
I also recall at the time Justin Raimondo, also a libertarian, complained about white European nationals being escorted out of the Superdome by National Guardsmen. He was upset they were getting preferential treatment over the Americans (ie blacks) in the Superdome. It is true, of course, and it was no doubt political - it would have hurt US relations with European allies if they'd been all been raped and murdered. But it gives one an indication of how libertarians cannot distinguish between different groups. We know who was committing the crimes and it was not the European tourists who would have been easy prey for the criminals. To a libertarian it would have been better to sacrifice a few Europeans than to discriminate in any way.
Speaking of TakiMag, commenter Sid Cundiff has just made some nasty comments about "gringos".
The comments policy says, "Personal attacks, ethnic slurs, the riding of hobby horses and the beating of dead ones will be deleted as soon as they are detected by our small but alert staff." (emphasis added)
So are they going to do anything about this comment?
Somehow I think not.
Of course, if someone used an anti-black or anti-Jewish slur, they would certainly delete it. But anti-white slurs are OK, I bet.
It would be surprising if such events had not occurred. New Orleans has always been a hellhole with a black underclass that gave respect, grudgingly (few respected anything worthy of respect), to criminal elements in the black race. Intergation (meaning handing them government transfer payments since the time of Johnson's "Great Society"), did not change the attitudes of most blacks. They only learned that to get more for free they had to yell louder and associate themselves with the criminal underclass. Many of them continue to do so.
It was probably not the violence that the media was trying to hide. It was the fact that the extensive violence had a minority base, being primarily black against blacks. That would not suit the media's preferred theme that all racism springs either from traditional white societies or from patriotic minorities.
I know one thing for damn sure. The looting was real and overwhelmingly perpetuated by blacks. We all had a front row seat as it was live on TV until the blacks and their apologist got up in arms at looking at the oppressed peoples doing what we have seen them do many time before. Plus the whole world was watching too and we can't have that. Then there was the whole issue of the term "refugees" and some of the "professional" black TV anchors started pouting. It was right then and there that race(ism) became the central issue. Except instead of the critical eye and discernment it went the opposite direction and "George Bush hates black people". We all KNOW that most of the stories that came out of NO were true. We know this because the behavior was nothing new and we could see the very same patterns we have seen before except as noting the scale was large. Add to that the barbarian mixture that lives(ed) in the 9th Ward and it is not even close to a stretch that most of the horror stories were in fact real.
Old Atlantic, thanks for those links. I think I read some of them when they first appeared. It looks as though Thevenot tried to retract what he wrote, although I wonder if he did that of his own volition, or was 'asked' to so as to quell the 'racist' reactions to the ugly stories.
The excerpt I quoted certainly contained names and supposed eyewitness details but I guess we are to believe it was all just rumor and urban legend. However if we believe that, it doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the media if they publish a lot of wild rumor as fact, and so many reports telling similar stories. If that was all so much fiction, then what can we believe? Personally I see every reason to disbelieve the revisionist version of it, the denials.
John Savage - much of what I see lately over at TakiMag is an effort to distance themselves from the undesirables to their right.
As for Sid Cundiff, I have never been able to figure him out; he claims to be from the South and white, but he is unlike any southerner I've ever known. How can he be white and be so anti-gringo, and supposedly conservative as well? The character posting as 'tz' has some bizarre views too. Cundiff rather confirms my impression that many Catholics are not on our side.
Matra - if I recall correctly those Europeans had been threatened and were being escorted for their safety but of course the likes of Raimondo would not see the rationale behind protecting them.
Flanders, yes, they wanted to cloud the issue of who was perpetrating most of the violence, and the media tried hard to deflect attention from that, even ginning up a story about the 'all-white' town which refused to let Katrina escapees cross the bridge into their town. 'Racism!'
Ernest - no doubt. The looting was live on national TV, and as I recall there was an effort to try to find images of whites looting to offset all the blatant images of blacks engaging in mass looting.
-VA
I'm going to keep it up. I think Taki himself likes hardcore people, but we'll see how it plays out. What's the over-under until I'm declared an enemy of the people?
I lived in Houston during Katrina. Some of the details were very apparent from local news, conversations with refugees. Even a black guy I new from Louisiana and played cards with said, "Them folks from N'Awlins is crazy."
How long were the Superdome and Convention Centre were left unsupervised? Read Lord of the Flies. It takes time for societal norms to break down.
Libertarians may be covering up for the criminals because Katrina gave us a glimpse of a stateless society.
Roach, thanks for the comments.
Keep up the good work over at TakiMag.
Milton Vine - I don't remember the statistics as to how long the chaos reigned at the Superdome but I would bet it takes less time for societal norms to break down in some areas, where the societal norms are pretty darn weak at the best of times.
Matra - that's a plausible explanation which hadn't occurred to me. At the time I do remember thinking how the situation there did not provide much reassurance about some of our fellow citizens, should law and order break down.
-VA
Well, I think that if you're going to hold forth on the subject, it's the kind of information you should have. Establishing a timeline of events is a pretty basic matter.
Don't let things rest here. Dig deeper and get back to us. At the very least, you should be able to determine the veracity about reported incidents which claimed dozens of victims.
Milton Vine - how precisely is a citizen like me supposed to determine the veracity of those news reports? I am just one woman living thousands of miles away in a small town.
Investigative journalists have the resources, the contacts, and the training to ferret out facts; am I supposed to do their job? Or your job of searching out the truth, if it is important to you?
The BBC report, like many others you can find online, provides names and details.
Readers with common sense can only judge, using available information and common sense and discernment, what they will believe. Suppose I go, as you expect me to, and investigate personally, providing you with documentation and evidence in favor of believing the atrocities happened as first reported. You would still have to use your own judgement as to whether you believed me. Some people, despite the evidence available, choose to disbelieve, based on their preconceptions. There is no way I can 'prove' anything if the professional journalists haven't succeeded in doing so.
And does the fact that I am not able to verify exactly what happened mean that I cannot express an opinion about it? I can't agree with you on that.
Not all bloggers claim to be investigative reporters or journalists. Most of us don't. And lacking those credentials does not mean I am compelled to hold my tongue.
As far as the timeline - anybody here can use Google or some other search engine just as well as I can. If you are insistent on knowing, you are free to search it out for yourself, as is anybody else, and you can get back to us about it.
-VA
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