The Necessity of Money

It is easy to react with contempt and incredulity at the people of New Orleans who are not leaving the city in anticipation of Hurricane Gustav, especially after Katrina's destruction only three years prior. But that does not take into account something rather rudimentary, and that is money. Some of these people do not have the money to get out, to pay for shelter during their time away from their home, and to continue living on while they are without work. For some, the reality is that they are forced to stay. Michael Kennedy, a dishwasher, says:

Most people don't have cars to leave, don't have money for gas. Pay for a hotel that long? I mean, you have to do whatever you have to do, and I guess I'm gonna stay and work.

Jeremiah O'Farrell, another dishwasher:

If I left, I'll probably lose my job. I really don't have anywhere to go if I could leave.

Sidney Williams:

I wish I had the money to go... ....Lot of folks around here are gonna make do with what they have, and you won't hear a terrible amount of complaining. You can't just come in here and expect to hear people fussing about how they don't have nothing.

Mayor Ray Nagin warned "residents that staying would be 'one of the biggest mistakes of your life'", and "emphasized that the city will not offer emergency services to anyone who chooses to stay behind". But for too many, staying behind is not an independent choice, but a decision tempered by other factors. And even though the city is providing transportation for those who have no other way out to shelters in northern Louisiana, that does not protect the poorest (or just poor) from losing their source of income. It does not offer much in the way of actual shelter or assistance once the storm is over and they return (or not) to their old lives, with less than they had before and very possibly no way to pay for necessities like food and shelter.

It is easy to blame the poor, the immigrants frightened of deportation, the disabled, and the wary for their fate in this storm. But that isn't the whole story. It doesn't take into account that these are people existing on the precipice, and it doesn't take into account that people -regardless of race, gender, or income level- deserve to feel safe enough and secure enough in their position to take whatever assistance is available in preparation for the onslaught of the storm. But that isn't the reality these people who are staying in New Orleans live with. They aren't guaranteed anything after the storm dissipates and life returns to some semblance of normalcy. And that is a modern injustice and a tragedy.

PETA Sinks To All New Lows

I'm sure most people know about how bad PETA is in terms of public relations and how they have continually dehumanized women, their reason being, "We're justified in using women's bodies to make our point because that's the only way we can think to get people to listen to us". And while there are many counterpoints to be made to such a statement, like the fact that they're dehumanizing women and women are continually a portion of society looked upon as objects anyway, those points have been made countless times by many people.

But it turns out that PETA wasn't done. No, those ads comparing the Holocaust to factory farming wasn't the end of the extreme, nauseatingly bad campaigns PETA could come up with. I was appalled when Feministing reported that PETA sees the border fence between America and Mexico, the one that is destroying natural wildlife habitats and communities like Naco, Arizona, as a golden opportunity to spread the message via billboards on the wall reading "If the Border Patrol Doesn't Get You, the Chicken and Burgers Will --Go Vegan" in Spanish and English. Because that's not callous in the least, right?

But then, I found something worse: PETA is using the recent Cannibal-On-The-Bus tragedy (the one that made Greyhound reverse their "There's a Reason You've Never Heard of Bus-Rage", something I found morbidly humorous) to highlight the similarities between what happened to Tim McLean and what happens in slaughterhouses:

Yeah, I thought the border fence was a low blow; but this is beyond the pale. I really have nothing to offer, except how sickening I find this whole ad campaign and how disturbed the whole of PETA's advert board has to be to think ads like this do anything to further their cause.

Senseless Tragedies and Media Reaction

In the wake of the weekend church shooting, I had been thinking about writing a satirical/ironic post about how country music and the conservative culture drove Jim D. Adkisson to attacking the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. After all, there was his note detailing his hatred of the liberal movement in America, and the fact that "literature" like Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder (Michael Savage), Let Freedom Ring (Sean Hannity), and The O'Reilly Factor (Bill O'Reilly) was found in his home. There is no evidence Adkisson actually listened to country music, but given his age, his region, and his political views it seems likely; after all, that is all it took to rally against Marilyn Manson after the Columbine school shootings, so it shouldn't take much to do the same in this situation.

But I couldn't; because I don't believe it, and because the shooting is too much of a tragedy to use for political umbrage. However, I am incredibly curious about the fact that the media -which was so quick to blame video games, music, and style choices when the perpetrators of these crimes are teenagers, or religion when the perpetrators of these crimes are anything less than Christian and/or white- has been all but silent on how the conservative "culture" may have a part in exacerbating these prejudices and these feelings. Culture is what they turn to in other times, to explain other phenomena. But not here. In this situation, the focus isn't so much on conservative thought, on Ann Coulter, hate-mongering, and the like, but on this one lone guy. Which, in all truth, is where it should be. And our issues with conservative talking points and images shouldn't be "It is the root of murder" but that it is bigoted, hateful, and does nothing to elevate conversation. At the same time though, I can't help but feel as if images like this:

should be condemned for promoting -though not causing- intolerance and violence. That we should be looking more deeply at literature and networks and people who advocate things like giving San Francisco to the terrorists and have consistently and diligently spewed offensive and hateful but ultimately accepted and apparently acceptable statements about women, gays, feminists, atheists, liberals, and their allies. There are nuts on both sides of the isle; and liberals can be petty, small-minded, and mean. But I do agree with a post at Shakespeare's Sister about how, in certain ways, both sides aren't "just as bad". I agree with the assertion that images like the above and "humorous" statements in line with that sort of thinking aren't just jokes.

I understand why it is easier to categorize teenagers as being part of a different "culture". For one thing, it is harder for them to fight against it. Start talking about conservatives being hate-mongers and possibly partially responsible for this type of tragedy and there will be a blood bath. For another, many people really do see teenagers as being profoundly different and separate from the "norm". It is easier to blame things like video games and music and television shows and movies because in many cases there is less of an overlap between "their" interests and "mainstream" (AKA "adult" and often "white") interests. It is easy to bemoan the fate of society should it ever fall into these hands, and it is easy to demonize the different media as being part of the problem, when those hands (and that media) don't resemble yours -especially on a cursory glance. 

And so it is easier to take Adkisson as one crazed man and easier to take school shooters as part of an epidemic, because in each case the take on the situation best reflects preconceived notions and prejudices. But I think that the reality is closer to an amalgam of the two. People who are already prone to violence will do violence with or without Marilyn Mansons or Ann Coulters seemingly promoting it; but a media that espouses violence and hatred can and does influence and reinforce values. That is why the battle for things like women's rights, minority rights, and gay rights often revolve around changing images. And that is why it is important for liberals and conservatives to both refrain from dehumanizing the other; to recognize that there are living, breathing, complex people on both sides and that although we may disagree -and disagree profoundly- on what is best for our country and its citizens, we are both still fighting for the betterment of that nation.