Little fucking progress

Society doesn't fall into anarchy nearly as quickly as it falls into stereotyping.

That the nation's frontline emergency-management officials believed the body count would resemble that of a bloody battle in a war is but one of scores of examples of myths about the Dome and the Convention Center treated as fact by evacuees, the news media and even some of the city's top officials, including the mayor and police superintendent.

The vast majority of reported atrocities committed by evacuees — mass murders, rapes and beatings — have turned out to be false, or at least unsupported by any evidence, according to key military, law-enforcement, medical and civilian officials in positions to know.

"I think 99 percent of it is (expletive)," said Sgt. 1st Class Jason Lachney, who played a key role in security and humanitarian work inside the Dome. "Don't get me wrong — bad things happened. But I didn't see any killing and raping and cutting of throats or anything ... 99 percent of the people in the Dome were very well-behaved."

Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan said authorities have only confirmed four murders in the entire city in the aftermath of Katrina — making it a typical week in a city that anticipated more than 200 homicides this year.

Little attention will be paid to this by right-wingers who were all too quick to jump on bad stories about the poor, and especially the black.

Every widespread biblical disaster in the South (and the bible belt ironically seems to have more of these than other areas) seems to lead to some sort of scapegoating or singling out of African-Americans as behaving like "savages" -- and it always turns out to be bullshit.

In the aftermath of the Galveston Hurricane blacks were falsely accused of looting and pillaging and pressed into gangs to dispose of bodies, many were shot on sight.

During the 1927 flood in South, this happened again.

And now, once again, in New Orleans, the right-wing jumps on this canard.

Not only is the Federal Government under Republicans remarkably tone-deaf (AT BEST) in providing huminarian relief, their conservative supporters are more than delighted to play on the most craven and false of stereotypes.

I have no doubt this marginalization was encouraged by Rove, no doubt at all.