"Partisan Potshots"
Sep. 3rd, 2005 01:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladeanBehind the cut-tag is a comment I posted in and then deleted from a discussion on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pegkerr's journal, since it was a bit rude to another of her commenters whom I don't even know.
I don't understand, not remotely, the attitude that one must not discuss the causes of the disaster and how the relief efforts are being botched. None of us here is laboring in horrible heat to help anybody. The nation is not one huge entity that is incapable of multitasking, though certainly some politicians like to talk as if it were when it suits them.
My fear is that if a great fuss is not made now, it will not be made at all, that those responsible will never be held accountable. People forget the most astounding things.
I also really, really resent the idea that any criticism of the people in charge is automatically a partisan potshot rather than a rational assessment of the situation. This idea is a standard tactic of the present administration, and I don't see why they should be allowed to get away with it.
I am extremely suspicious and disturbed at the continual efforts to stifle discourse. The entire nation cannot concentrate on rescue efforts; we are not a hive mind or a gigantic octopus. So this whole "not now, not now" with its underlying flavor of "Behave, be decent, don't make a fuss" does not impress me. It's evilly reminiscent of the remonstrances that were directed to me as a child, specifically as a female child, and that are directed at women to this day from certain quarters. I don't respond favorably to it at all. I'm tired of decency's being used as a great big shield for keeping culpable and privileged people comfortable. I don't think that everybody who invokes it is doing this consciously, and nor do I think that everybody who invokes it is having that effect, but in this case, I think that's most of the effect.
If you want to make people speak decently about the disaster, it makes more sense to target the people who are mewling and blathering on about how the people stranded in NO "chose" to remain there. Stifle the victim-blaming, but not the government-blaming.
P.
pegkerr's journal, since it was a bit rude to another of her commenters whom I don't even know.I don't understand, not remotely, the attitude that one must not discuss the causes of the disaster and how the relief efforts are being botched. None of us here is laboring in horrible heat to help anybody. The nation is not one huge entity that is incapable of multitasking, though certainly some politicians like to talk as if it were when it suits them.
My fear is that if a great fuss is not made now, it will not be made at all, that those responsible will never be held accountable. People forget the most astounding things.
I also really, really resent the idea that any criticism of the people in charge is automatically a partisan potshot rather than a rational assessment of the situation. This idea is a standard tactic of the present administration, and I don't see why they should be allowed to get away with it.
I am extremely suspicious and disturbed at the continual efforts to stifle discourse. The entire nation cannot concentrate on rescue efforts; we are not a hive mind or a gigantic octopus. So this whole "not now, not now" with its underlying flavor of "Behave, be decent, don't make a fuss" does not impress me. It's evilly reminiscent of the remonstrances that were directed to me as a child, specifically as a female child, and that are directed at women to this day from certain quarters. I don't respond favorably to it at all. I'm tired of decency's being used as a great big shield for keeping culpable and privileged people comfortable. I don't think that everybody who invokes it is doing this consciously, and nor do I think that everybody who invokes it is having that effect, but in this case, I think that's most of the effect.
If you want to make people speak decently about the disaster, it makes more sense to target the people who are mewling and blathering on about how the people stranded in NO "chose" to remain there. Stifle the victim-blaming, but not the government-blaming.
P.
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-03 06:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-03 08:43 pm (UTC)I'm not sure I deserve anything much -- having read LJ and posted this in a furious rush, I then saw that people all over are saying much the same. Though without, actually, the feminist tinge. So sure, okay, if you want.
P.