Bennett

There is something of a storm growing over the bizarre statement William Bennett recently made about aborting all black babies. Lawrence Auster has an interesting take on the subject, which seems quite possible:

Here’s my theory of why he did it. On racial matters, Bennett, a member of the neocon camp, is a strict liberal, constantly invoking Martin Luther King, and also expressing withering contempt for immigration reformers as un-American. Now one thing that is true about liberals is that they ruthlessly suppress in themselves all rational thought about racial realities and race differences. Because they refuse to let the rational part of their mind deal with race, the only part of their mind that can deal with race is the irrational part. And that’s what happened here. Bennett had suppressed his true thoughts about race differences in crime, and so, unexpectedly, without their having gone through proper channels, they just popped out, in a highly offensive and foolish form.

This fits with the general idea that it is liberals who are the real racists, by which I mean people with irrational negative views about other races. By contrast, traditionalists and race realists deal with race issues with the rational part of their brain. They have assimilated and integrated these matters into their conscious thought processes and can talk intelligently and morally about them. Traditionalists are not inwardly divided between an anti-racist Superego and a racist Id, as liberals are.

Third World Immigration and Australia

I have been rather distracted these last few days, but I wanted to suggest everyone read this excellent article by Andrew Fraser.

The most revolutionary, by far, of these radical changes has been the decision to open Australia to mass Third World immigration. Since the end of World War II a strange alliance of Communists, Christian churches, ethnic lobbies and other pressure groups working through the corporate sector and within the centralised apparatus of state power has set out deliberately to flood the Anglo-Australian homeland with a polyglot mass of Third World immigrants.

Guard the Borders Blogburst

I have been falling behind in not writing about this sooner, but Euphoric Reality is hosting/promoting the Guard the Borders Blogburst, which I recommend everyone who blogs about the border join.

I can't get Blogger to allow me to post the JavaScript required to include the blogroll of GBB bloggers in this post, so for now check the full list out over at Euphoric Reality.

Fred on Looting and New Orleans

Here is an excellent article from over at Fred on Everything:

Yet it happens time and again. There was Los Angeles, burned in 1992. There have been Cincinnati, Miami, Seattle, Washington DC, Chicago, Detroit, Crown Heights, Watts, Newark, on and on and on. When the law loses its grip, the looting begins.

...

Writers speaking of the looting in New Orleans regularly say that poverty causes looting, and that as a society we should do something about it. But why are blacks poor, and what could society do that it has not already tried? Blacks are always poor, in Africa, in Haiti and Jamaica, in New Orleans. It is a global pattern. Would that it were not, but it is. No one knows what to do about it.

With the inevitability of gravitation, commentators attribute the incompatibility with what we think of as civilization to oppression or neglect by whites. Oh? In Washington, the mayor is usually black, along with a majority of the city council and school board. The principals are black, as are most of the teachers, almost all of the students, and their parents. The funding per student is high. Yet the schools are horrifically bad.

Washington could have any schools it wanted: It is hard to imagine anyone denying blacks better textbooks or forbidding the assignment of more homework. I conclude that they do have the schools they want. Perhaps they don’t want schools at all.

...

What will happen if, or when, the economy weakens under rising Asian competition, if good jobs are shipped to India and gasoline hits unheard of prices and the standard of living falls hard? Under the imposed amity of today there lurks powerful resentment on both sides. Prosperity has held things together. A flourishing nation can afford affirmative action. But when prosperity goes so will the amity. I can think of no solution other than a passport and a Euro account.

Globalism, Reflected in a Mirror

Lawrence Auster has been doing some excellent blogging about the problems facing the UK, especially London, as it is increasingly plagued by Third-Worldization and Islamification. As he notes, this does not have to be our destiny:

The doom of Britain is not a material, determined event. It is the outcome of thoughts and choices in the mind and soul of the British. They have abandoned themselves spiritually (and by spiritual I don’t necessarily mean God, I mean a transcendent sense of their historic being as a people and a nation), and so are allowing themselves to be dispossessed materially as well. If they find themselves spiritually again, they can re-take possession of their Island and their destiny.

The great piling of foreign and Third-World peoples into Western countries has been a rather recent and modern event, directly resulting from globalism and the advances that have made it possible. Fast, safe, and cheap transportation between distant locations, easy communication, atomized communities, ideologies like multi-culturalism which promote enclaves of foreign cultures, and so many other things have enabled this great migration to take place, without which it would never have happened.

There is a duality to this however, one which liberalism does not like to mention. For the longest time, while exploiting modernity and the accent of globalism to further their goals though population relocation, liberalism has pretended that any push-back against this phenomenon would put us right back at 1939. We are to believe that either we go along with liberalism, multi-culturalism, and the slow suffocation of Western Civilization, or we will find society digging large holes in the ground and filling them up with the bodies of these newly imported individuals.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

We find ourselves in this situation largely because of the rapid advances of technology and changes in society which have been cynically manipulated by leftists before society could adjust to these changes and establish a new equilibrium. However--and this is the key point--just as changes in technology and society have made it possible to facilitate this mass migration, so too technology can reverse the problem.

Consider for example how advances in transportation and logistics make it possible for literally countless millions of individuals to fly each year, or how for a few dollars, a package can be reliably sent across the country and delivered, all in a few days.

No, the question of repatriating Britain's illegal aliens, its migrants, its false refugees, its unassimilated and unassimilatable Islamic component, is hardly a question of debating genocide. The reality is that not only is repatriation possible, but it is perfectly feasible (and obviously, desirable) to do so in an efficient, human and ethical manner. Further, given the cost of these groups to the UK, and the cost of living differences of their home countries, it is quite possible that this could be an entirely mutually beneficial transaction for both parties.

Despite what liberals might want us to believe, given even a small amount of public will, we can use today's logistics to easily return say, Radical Islamist X, his wives, children and their possessions to Pakistan or Egypt without so much as cracking the good china. Add to this a stipend consisting of essentially what UK taxpayers would have spent anyway, and not only are Britons citizens better off, but X and his families are nicely positioned to settle in, perhaps even open a McDonalds franchise. By all means, let the parting be as amiable as possible; they can be given a gift basket with a little Union Jack and everything, even be allowed to keep the hotel towels, just so long as everyone realizes that it was never meant to be. "Sorry, old chap, it just didn't work out, but better we all recognize this sooner than later."

Another aspect where modernity, specifically multi-culturalism, has made this both feasible and rather easy, is that by never really separating from their home culture, any culture shock would be minimal. Quite the opposite, the culture shock would likely be much smaller for many of these Islamists once relocated that it would if they were to remain in the UK.

I don't mean to deny that there would be significant challenges involved in repatriating Third-World or unassimilatable individuals. Certainly the public will is not yet there, though it is rather inevitable in my view. Nor would much of this be a good job for the government to do; there are plenty of companies which are much more suited to running the logistics in an efficient and cost effective manner. Obviously getting people to leave peacefully would be one of the biggest challenges, but with sufficient incentives (both positive and negative) most would see the writing on the wall. Certainly by the time radical Islamists are running around shooting at police and proclaiming their enclave as an infidel-free zone, any possibility of the public changing its mind is quite over.

There might also be the issue that some have pieces of paper or records which show they have become citizens. But once citizenship becomes a matter of what a piece of paper says, well, citizenship becomes merely another piece of paper. Certainly the concept of citizenship entirely decoupled from shared history or ancestors, nationality, ideas, values, or even a minimal shared interest, is a weak social construct, and a very unnatural one at that. The situation is best compared to that of an individual issuing his own currency. The currency may have some value as long as others agree to recognize it, but it has no intrinsic value. As soon as others cease to agree to accept it, it is valueless because it not based on anything of actual worth.

In the same way, the "citizenship" of say, a radical Islamic cleric who not only has no shared similarities with most Britons, but even more so, professes his disloyalty and hate for these same people, is only a "citizen" as long as Britons agree to this social construct, and while the government can force or coerce others to recognize this piece of paper or government record. Certainly however, from a historical perspective, the accepting of dislike individuals with different self or group interests onto your family/tribe/nation is both entirely unnatural and unstable.

The key point of this post however, is that just as modernity has made these rapid, destructive and unnatural changes to Western societies possible, so too can it make reversing the problem both feasible and humane. I don't deny that this is an issue which deserves considerable public debate before action is taken, but there should be debate and a realistic appraisal of options, which is precisely what the liberals wish us to believe do not or should not exist. Repatriating these individuals does not doom us to repeating some tribal slaughter or ethnic cleansing of the past. Instead, this is about simply undoing mistakes in a manner that is responsible toward all parties.

Let's face it, someone will have to accept the costs of these Islamists and Third-Worlders. Ideally, it would fall on the heads of those liberals who promoted the mass migration, but this is not realistically possible. Instead, the question will have to be publicly asked and debated, who should bare the costs, those who came here to benefit or even to wreck havoc, or the native population? There is only one ethical answer to this question.

Misundercalculations

I posted recently about the possibility that the perfect storm is brewing, both figuratively and literally, against Bush's open-border initiative. As many may already be aware, Bush seems to be desiring to push his amnesty program this fall with the support of big business and Hispanic organizations. Katrina seems to have thrown the administration's agenda off course temporarily, and Rita looks set to do the same. At least the next week is going to be spent by the media obsessing over Rita and it's aftermath. Come October first, we can expect to see the Minuteman project out in full force, manning both the southern and portions of the northern border.

Looking at the politics of the situation, time seems to be running out for Bush and his trans-national friends. The chances to head-off the Minutemen and their press storm are running out. Certainly the Minutemen will be able to get up and running before the administration has a chance to re-focus the agenda from Rita to a "guest worker" program. The best they may be able to do is co-opt the growing furry over the border by trying to sell their "solution" as a fix rather than a big business/ethnic lobby giveaway. Since Delay seems to have made clear that enforcement must come before any "guest worker" program in the House, it is unlikely that the administration will be able to pull a fast one on us.

Another aspect where the clock is ticking is the upcoming congressional election in 2006. Party discipline may hold for a little while longer, but before long many in congress are going to be looking at this popular revolt and considering how to maximize their chances to get reelected. As I have predicted before, there is likely going to be a significant split this fall or winter as congressional Republicans realize that Bush's lifeboat is really more of a sinking cast iron bathtub. Even Bush stopped talking about his open-border initiative during the run-up to the 2004 election; does he really expect that congressmen think they will gain politically from voting for it?

My guess is that the open-border coalition which the administration built over the summer was designed to be used to counter the Minuteman Project, ideally to saturate the press with favorable "guest worker" noise right before the October campaign, and thus hopefully blunt the grassroots effort. Personally, I think that these two large Hurricanes were not in anybody's plans, and have thrown the Bush camp into a seriously weakened position. Let's hope Rove is kept pre-occupied for the foreseeable future.

Police Looting

Here is a remarkable CNN video about police looting in New Orleans. Watch the NOPD's spokesman invent bold-face lies about what some of its officers are doing. Remarkable.

The Times they are A-Changin'

I have a rather busy week or ten days ahead, projects, traveling to another city for an interview, etc, so I may not be as active on this blog as I would like during this period. I do have plans to have a very important essay coming up for this blog however, which I hope will be a significant advancement in the discussion of political correctness, or will at least provide some new insights. There was one incident today however which I wanted to write about before I forget.

While running some errands today, I had just gotten off the elevator after an undergraduate who looked to be the anti-red-neck: well (and metro-sexually) dressed, likely upper-middle class in background, and by any guess probably the touchy-feely liberal type. I reached the office I was going to while our metro-sexual friend continued down the hall to where about 8-10 other white undergraduates were setting waiting for class. What happened next was surprising, as he greeted his fellow classmates as "my fellow minorities", which they apparently found both a funny and astute observation. They followed with some more politically incorrect joking along the same vein, which I couldn't quote make out in entirety other than when somebody cried out "I can't believe I just said that!". Nothing was especially cruel or hateful mind you, it was just the awareness that was shocking. Since when could you refer to whites in a group, as a group, among a bunch of acquaintances you probably don't know very well?

Of course, it is easy to dismiss this as nothing, and perhaps in the big scheme of things it is, but I would argue that there is much more going on here than meets the surface. I have written before on this blog about the growing awareness on campuses, especially among young white males, that political correctness is aimed primarily at us. This instance, if dissected, revels several interesting things going on. First, an implicit or explicit group identity is referred to, perhaps as a joke, but referred to none the less. Secondly, this was done rather publicly, and not only was there little or no opposition that I could detect, the other members of the group appeared to join in. Third, by referring to whites as a minority (one assumes they were waiting for a class with a large number of minorities/foreign students in it), there was clearly at least a subconscious, instinctive concern being raised about the changing demographics of our country.

None of this was especially ideologically well defined I am sure; as I have mentioned before, this growing realization or consciousness is largely ad-hoc in that there is no real theoretical or abstract thinking behind it (yet). And interestingly from my (albeit finite) experience, the phenomenon is at least as strong among nominal Democrats, suggesting that this is no red-neck conspiracy either. What to make of this in its entirety, I don't yet know. I do believe however that increasingly among the young "intellectual class" there is a growing refusal of the riches of Egypt for the hope of the Promised Land. All that I can say with any certainty is that just as when our Founding Fathers expressed the natural rights and traditions of Englishmen in terms of the ideas of the Enlightenment, so too we must re-express these eternal and ancestral rights that form a part of our heritage in the ideas of today, be that genetics, evolutionary psychology, bio-politics, or any number of new and powerful tools that await our use. We can only fail if we don't try.

Frame It

This is an excellent chart which everyone should print out and keep as a handy reference. It will go a long ways in explaining many aspects of society. I will probably refer back to it often, but I just re-found it and wanted to share. Article here.

Playing Grown-Up

Hurricane Rita is going to be providing an interesting opportunity for comparison and contrast in the response of the state governments. At this point we still don't know much about how it will turn out of course, but so far the response of Texas has been sharply contrasting to that of Louisiana.

Although Galveston police don't plan to drag reluctant residents off the island, city officials reassured residents no one who wants to leave would be left behind. Sharon Strain, head of the Galveston Housing Authority, said anyone who can't make it to the buses would be picked up.

"We've got more bus space than people and I'm not going to send them off empty,'' said City Manager Steve LeBlanc. "We are going to hold empty buses until the bitter end."

Evacuating the frail has become a top priority. Clear Lake Regional Hospital and Mainland Medical Center began evacuating patients today, along with the Isle's only hospital, the University of Texas Medical Branch Galveston.

This morning UTMB Galveston was evacuating 450 patients by helicopter and ambulance. Plans call for adult patients to go to the Univeristy of Texas Health Center at Tyler and children to go to Children's Hospital of Austin.

This is all very strange, if we are to believe the liberals and the multi-cultural right. Louisiana was blessed with diversity in leadership, in the form of both a female governor and a young black mayor for New Orleans. Surly with the blessing that these normally repressed groups bring to our fair land, one would expect things to be exactly the opposite, with the white man's oligarchy in Texas mired hopelessly in cronyism and groupthink as the killer storm approaches.

One of the things about the disaster of Katrina that was hard to miss was the feeling that the leadership both in NO and of the state was playing grown-up. To them, this wasn't a real life or death event, instead it was like playing cop or mommy; they were living in their own little make-believe world. After all, they had watched the white man's oligarchy enough to see there was nothing to leadership. Anyway, it was there turn to run the show, so who are you to criticize them? Their make-believe world did not last long however, ultimately leaving them even more child-like as they screamed and thrashed about, blaming everyone but themselves and demanding someone come and clean up their mess.

In all of this, we can clearly see the hand of political correctness which has cut its path of destruction across our society in true hurricane-like fashion. Words like discipline, accountability, and responsibility are precisely what is required to run a tight operation in an emergency situation like Katrina or Rita, however these are not very PC. After all, the leadership in Katrina was new and improved Humanity 2.0; anything that might hurt anybody's feelings just wasn't allowed.

All this covers up much of what is behind the white man's supposed oligarchy that makes it so efficient (generally). First among the keys to success is competition; real competition, where nobody gets to make excuses and if you fail, there is always somebody else who wants your place. One of PC's favorite sins is to be harsh, to fail to be understanding; however this is precisely how the outside world, reality, is.

There are of course women and minorities that are on an equal plane in the white man's world; however the problem with political correctness is that it is so hungry for a "desirable" candidate that it looks past qualifications or merit, even to the point of denial of faults or failures. In the grown-up world however, this is a recipe for disaster.

Disloyal Party Members: To the Gulag!

From Jim Gilchrist's site:

Attendees at the state convention of the California GOP were shocked and dismayed to learn that operatives of candidate John Campbell had attempted to move a resolution that threatened with “expulsion from the California Republican Party” any member of the state GOP who “supports, advocates, or assists in any way” the campaign of Congressional candidate “Minuteman” Jim Gilchrist.

Phil Paule, who works closely with advisors of the Campbell campaign, introduced a draft resolution to the Rules Committee against Gilchrist that would have effectually made the State Chairman of the California Republican Party a “Grand Inquisitor” of political conformity.

Also listen to Jim on the Terry Anderson Show here.

Like Locust to the Corn

Vie American Patrol, here is a recent account from an Austin, TX parade:

Near the end of the melee, one of my Hispanic friends walked over to me and began pointing out people wearing shirts promoting the author of the Plan of San Diego. Another friend who has taken Latin-American studies pointed out another shirt directly mentioning the Plan of San Diego.

Folks, every time I think I know everything about Texas history, I learn how ignorant I am. I asked my friends what the Plan of San Diego was and they told me that it was a plan in Northern Mexico and throughout the Southwest hatched in 1915 that called for the genocide of all white males over 16.

I’ve known my friends for many years, but I couldn’t believe them. I got home and spent three hours on the Internet at the University of Texas’ historical website, at other universities’ websites in Mexico and Illinois, and on the website of the Hispanic Historical Society.

What I learned chilled me. They didn’t just write up a plan, they acted upon it, killing at least 21 white males in South Texas in cold-blooded murder. We’re talking helter-skelter, Charlie Manson-type cold-blooded murder of random white ranchers and farmers: cornering people and hacking them up.

American Patrol also reminds us of the quote by Presidential Medal of Freedom recepiant Mario Obledo who a few years ago said:

California is going to be a Hispanic state. Anyone who doen't like it should leave.

Compared to advocating genocide, that statement sounds quite mild today.

What is most frustrating about both of these instances however is just how large of lies they are. These Third World Hispanics don't want their own country or state; they already have it south of the border, and it is a veritable hell hole.

No, this is about something different. As much as white-flight may be politically incorrect to talk about, it is certainly less so than its unmentionable cousin "minority tag-along". From a previous post:

One of the results of a politically correct, multicultural (PC/MC) society is to radically reinvent society into a form of bondage or coerced association between a collection of productive individuals on one hand, and parasitic individuals or groups on the other.

...

For some, the thought of calling the parasitic elements of society "parasitic" may seem cruel or hard-hearted; however there is no other word which better describes the situation. It is certainly true that if some individuals take, then some productive individuals somewhere else must in turn give. In this way, there is a clear hierarchy of dependence, but it is only a one-way dependency. It should be obvious that these parasitic elements of society benefit from a system that they neither created, nor could ever create if left to their own devices. Further, it is certainly right to call this state of affairs unjust, for that is what it is.

When California becomes mired in crime and corruption, when the coders and engineers leave Silicone Valley, when the people in the city by the bay find they are surrounded by not so "gentile people" anymore, when this "New Mexico" is achieved, what then? Perhaps Colorado or Washington will become the new California or Texas to be beset upon?

Like locust to the corn, like fire to the ripe field, these raiders know no fullness or end.

Gilchrist for Congress: 15 Days Left

I have put up Jim Gilchrist's banner on the right sidebar. I strongly believe that he is a very good person to send to Congress, both on his own merits, and to send a message to our political leaders.

Please do your part. We hear a lot about patriotism, but if there was ever an opportunity where such a small price could pay such huge dividends, this is it. Consider doing one or more of the following:

1. Donate! Jim obviously does not have the backing of big business or other deep pockets.


2. Put one of his banners on your site. Get them here.


3. Volunteer if you live in the area, or if you have friends in the area, encourage them to do so.


4. Talk it up. Spread the word, post about it on your blog, tell anyone you know who is concerned about the border, etc. Encourage others to donate and spread the word too.

UPDATE: I posted this yesterday, but I may move it up again periodically for the next couple of weeks. 15 days left!

Friends of the Border Patrol versus Third World Enrichment

Here is some more news about the recent violence against the FBP which will break anyone's heart who believes in and loves America as the land of the free:

The organizer of an anti-illegal immigration group that has attempted to launch a border-watch effort over the weekend said he may take his operation underground, it was reported today.

Andy Ramirez, organizer of Friends of the Border Patrol, told the San Diego Union-Tribune that he was worried about his and participants' safety after a run-in with protestors during a training session Saturday.

"We're not scared," Ramirez told the newspaper. "If it means that we put our people out there quietly, then that's how we do it."

Ramirez says his plans to stage civilian border patrols have not been canceled despite the low turn out of only 25 participants at the training session at the Mission Valley Resort Hotel.

Some participants have told the Union-Tribune other prospective participants were scared away after a confrontation with a small crowd of protestors at the Scottish Rite center, where sign-ups were held Saturday morning.

Where did we go so wrong? As Americans, we were taught that we had certain rights, certain inaliable rights, that could not be infringed upon. What difference does it make if the government is going around attacking people who they disagree with, or if it is violent "residents"?

NRA to the Rescue

Vie Michelle Malkin, the NRA is looking into the shameful issue of gun confiscation in New Orleans.

On Monday, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, and NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox slammed New Orleans authorities for this incredible action.

“What we’ve seen in Louisiana-the breakdown of law and order in the aftermath of disaster-is exactly the kind of situation where the Second Amendment was intended to allow citizens to protect themselves, ” LaPierre said. “For state, local, or federal government to disarm these good people in their own homes using the threat of imminent deadly force, is unthinkable.”

“The NRA will not stand by while guns are confiscated from law-abiding people who’re trying to defend themselves,” Cox said. “We’re exploring every legal option available to protect the rights of lawful people in New Orleans.”

...

If you have personally had a gun confiscated in Louisiana since Hurricane Katrina hit, please call (888) 414-6333. Be prepared to leave only your name and immediate contact information so we can get back to you. Once again, we are seeking contact information from actual victims of gun confiscation in Louisiana only.

Also see this previous post, about the importance of practicing the Second Amendment.

National Policy Institute

I am very happy and proud to have discovered a new think tank organization which has just opened its doors in Washington, DC. The National Policy Institute is a organization which we have been needing for some time, poised to fill a void with responsible, academic quality information and publications. They are just getting their site online, but more publications will be coming soon it looks like. Look at the organization and consider if it might be something you would like to donate to.

Some Things Never Change

I was reading this article about the envisioned potential expansion of the ability of the military to operate on US soil, and it reminded me of something that I was reading last night from Tacitus' account of the German people about two thousand years ago:

They choose their kings by birth, their generals for merit. These kings have not unlimited or arbitrary power, and the generals do more by example than by authority. If they are energetic, if they are conspicuous, if they fight in the front, they lead because they are admired.

It is interesting in several aspects. First, we see a President Bush, a President Clinton X 2, a President Bush X 2, and now many Democrats are hoping for a President Clinton. Monarchy anyone?

Secondly however, is that one of the outcomes of New Orleans is that for perhaps the first time (at least in over a century) we are looking at the military as a prime source of domestic order and authority. Certainly with the combination of increasing ethnic instability and distrusted public officials, the military (which I believe is the single most trusted institution in the country, reportedly as I recall with about 80% approval) has grown in power and sway. While still a crazy though, the idea that a military coup could take place in America, given the right circumstances, no longer seems quite as ridiculous.

I can't help but wonder if we are not moving backwards, though ironically I would worry much less about a military government than Jesse Jackson running the show "democratically".

Hey, General Franks seems like a nice guy...

Smelling Blood in the Water?

Drudge reports that Clinton is "turning" on Bush. From this article:

Former US president Bill Clinton sharply criticized George W. Bush for the Iraq War and the handling of Hurricane Katrina, and voiced alarm at the swelling US budget deficit.

Breaking with tradition under which US presidents mute criticisms of their successors, Clinton said the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq "virtually alone and before UN inspections were completed, with no real urgency, no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction."

As I wrote in a previous post today, Bush is defiantly looking weak. He has pulled out of some tough situations before, and Clinton's duplicity may yet hurt him and the Democratic party. However it is interesting to see someone with Clinton's political instincts sensing the weakness right now, as opposed to earlier (i.e. the presidential election) or waiting till at least the congressional elections. This is no time for Bush and the Republicans to be disappointing their conservative base, or giving hand-outs to big business and the open-border lobby.

Many conservatives will be inclined at this point to complain about how it is all the fault of a negative media, and this is no doubt true to a certain degree. However many of Bush's wounds are self-inflicted. In politics, "what have you done for me lately" is always the question of the hour. Let's look at a few areas where Bush and the Republican congress could have shown some leadership and action:

Spending
Illegal immigration
Protecting the border from terrorist and WMD crossing
Radical Islam state-side
Public education
Affirmative action
Competent global diplomacy
Having public communication skills
More...

Where has the media been on these issue? With few exceptions, the media will not even touch most of these issues, so we know that leftist media is not really to blame. Who is then?

If conservatives want improvement, they are going to have to express their disappointment, and even more so, withhold their support. With a year to go before the mid-term elections, now is as good a time to do it as any. Perhaps if enough bloggers and pundits give Bush and Co. the cold shoulder, they will wake up before it is too late.

UPDATE: ShrinkWrapped has another theory why Clinton is doing what he is doing, specifically, that he fears that there is going to be dirt coming out against his administration concerning perhaps the Able Danger story, and he wants to be on the offensive rather than defensive. Not a bad theory really.

Of course, you could combine the two: Clinton could have been waiting for an opportunity to attack Bush when he is weak, while working with him when he was strong. This is classic Sun Tzu:

When ten to the enemy's one, surround him.
When five times his strength attack him.
If double his strength, engage him.
If equally matched, be capable of dividing him.
If less in number, be capable of defending yourself.
And, if in all respects unfavorable, be capable of eluding him.

A Country Boy Can Survive

Steve Sailer posts this bit from the AP, which I thought was remarkably hilarious:

The Wal-Mart store in uptown New Orleans, built within the last year, survived the storm but was destroyed by looters. "They took everything -- all the electronics, the food, the bikes," said John Stonaker, a Wal-Mart security officer. "The only thing left are the country-and-western CDs."

Yes that's right people, the racist media just took pictures of black people looting and cut all the honkys out. Sure...

Ok, I am going to stop before I get myself into trouble.

UPDATE: Ok, more trouble.

Bill "pink/grey" Whittle has this to say...

Tribes. Pink. Grey. Green, red, yellow, pink. Rainbows! Rainbows...I love gay people. Rainbows everywhere. I have a dream. I see a light. Light everywhere. A thousand points of light!

A thousand points of light!

Light everywhere. A thousand points of light...

UPDATE 2: Ok, it was gray tribe, not blue. Well anyway, don't drink and blog I guess.

Katrina, Bush, and the Defeated of the Spanish Armada: Could History Repeated Itself?

I think that we are all familiar with the story of the almost miraculous defeat of the Spanish Armada, a critical junction in history and especially that of the Anglo-Saxon world. I have started to wonder however, if history might be repeating itself in some blessed way, if the wind may be turning to favor our sails and thus save America from the dark future the leftists would have in store for us.

What am I talking about? Well there are a number of events coming together which may produce the perfect storm against the open-border advocates. Chief among them is the October Minuteman Project border watch, which will once again put the issue of border control front and center in the public mind. Without the proper political environment and dynamics however, the efforts of these patriotic citizens would be seriously hampered, as leftists and multi-cultural Republicans work together to defeat the broad will of the American people once again.

We are probably all aware of the plan that the White House has been developing for this fall to combine open-border activists, Hispanic organizations, and big business donors to launch a massive campaign to sell some kind of amnesty program (sorry, "guest worker program") which Bush has made clear that he wants congress to pass this year. Yet no matter how treacherously many of our leaders and elites have behaved, a storm seem to be developing both literally and figuratively. A combination of events, from growing public awareness of the problem of illegal immigration, to Katrina and the tragedy/farce that was New Orleans, to the continued peace keeping operations in Iraq, to the London Bombings, are forcing Americans to think about where the country is headed, and about the credibility of our leadership.

Vie Real Clear Politics, the poll numbers for support of Bush and congress are falling to record lows. Bush has what I assume is the lowest approval rating of his career, at 41.9% (avg), which if falls much lower will probably be a sign of irrevocable damage among the base. Our hope is probably found more in Congress than with world-citizen Bush however, and here is where numbers really start to hurt (and motivate). As a whole, Congress has an approval rating of 33.3% (avg) which is rather low by any standard. Worse still, a generic congressional ballot poll gives the Democrats a 7.3% (avg) advantage over Republicans, which has to make incumbents in many districts quite nervous. One of the worst, yet perhaps most honest signs however, is the fact that on the "is the country headed in the right direction" question, Americans who are normally optimistic to a fault give yes 30.3% (avg), versus 64.7% (avg) for no.

The reality of the situation that is developing is that voters are going to be in no mood to hear about the latest open-border initiative; instead, they want solutions, and not solutions which are supposedly going to make the problems better sometime in the far future. The American public is increasingly in a bad mood, ready to finally quite taking the abuse and neglect of the political leadership.

As I have mentioned before, congress seems to be very bi-stable, in that they are either going in one direction or the other, but they rarely dally around in between. There is a strong herd/flock mentality, in that each wants to be the first on a new trend or popular cause (once it is clear it is actually popular of course), and the first to leave one that is growing stale. In this way, I believe that the Tancredos and Coburns can greatly amplify their principled and normally marginalized positions, as they lead the way to solving some of America's worst problems.

On of the great tragedies of the current political climate is that the American people really don't have very many options with regard to how they can vote when they get fed up with the current regime. As bad as the mainstream Republican party has become, the Democratic party is completely unsuitable for governing. However it is quite possible that many may turn to the Democratic party, third parties, or simply stay home in 2006 to express their dissatisfaction. Increasingly, any national politician which wishes to get elected to Congress on the Republican ticket is going to have some tough decisions to make.

If I were to make a prediction, I would predict that soon, probably this fall or winter at least, we are going to see a major shift in the Republican party and between Congress and the White House. The only way that many in congress are going to survive the potential nuclear winter of the mid-term congressional elections will be if they can make Bush out as the multi-cultural "conservative" of the Republican party, a veritable Hillary if you will, and define themselves against him. The message is going to have to be populist, and the core Republican platform will probably have to be re-evaluated for the sake of expediency. Free trade, border control, the environment and over-population, energy dependency and (increasing) the size of the military are just a few of the issues that likely could be hit upon. The results may not be the rise of some principled arch-conservatism of days past that some may imagine (sorry folks, times change), but instead should be aimed at building common ground with middle-class Democrats which share concerns about illegal immigration, US jobs, schools, and explicitly or implicitly anti-white practices and policies (I know a lot of Democrats which fit this category, so don't even thinking about laughing). However if we do not turn around the immigration/demographic situation in this country soon, all our conservative dreams of government are going to be permanently lost as we are suffocated by the leftist's "bread and circuses" program of resource re-allocation and vote buying.

None can tell the future, and there is certainly no reason to slack up or believe that things are going to be fine. However I have recently come to believe that we should be heartened, as I think our fate may be about to change. Once again, the Anglo-Saxon world may be saved by a set of circumstances beyond anyone's control. Let us hope.

Wisconsin Six

I have got to admit, I had heard nothing about this tragedy:

Chai Vang, the Hmong immigrant who murdered six Wisconsin hunters last November has been found guilty on six counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder. However, this verdict is not enough. All of his victims were white and his vicious behavior went much farther than simple murder.

Vang was trespassing on private land, when he came upon the group of men and women on a yearly Thanksgiving hunting trip: Robert Crotteau, 42; Joey Crotteau, 20; Al Laski, 43; Mark Roidt, 28; Jessica Willers, 27; and Denny Drew, 55. Only one person in the group actually had a gun!

There has been a growing problem with Hmong hunters trespassing on private lands in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Hmong regularly hunt game out of season, none have licenses, and many reportedly use AK-47 assault weapons.

Robert Crotteau confronted Vang and ordered him to leave as well as report him to game authorities. Vang began walking away, then turned and opened fire on the group.

Vang used a semi-automatic rifle, which held a 20-round clip. He gunned down all eight of the hunters. Five of them died in the woods, one succumbed to his wounds in the hospital, and two survived the attack.

Sawyer County Chief Deputy Tim Zeigle described the murder scene by saying: "Vang was chasing after them and killing them. He hunted them down."

Maybe this is why...

Make no mistake, had a white man been chasing down a group of unarmed Asians, picking them off one by one--the news coverage would trump that of the Natalee Holloway case. The FBI would also consider the massacre to be a 'hate crime.' However, it is never considered to be hateful nor racist when the murder victims are white.

Unarmed Volunteers Attacked and Terrorized in San Diego, US Flag Desecrated

Vie American Patrol, Andy Ramirez's FBP had a meeting yesterday, here is some of what happened:

...The Captain instructed our volunteers where to meet up and was almost immediately confronted by an angry mob. An American flag was immediately desecrated by being torn away from our volunteers, off its pole, and onto the ground where it was stomped on and kicked. This vile act was committed by an individual who had concealed his face from cameras. We do have video footage, which was released by the volunteer to the media and shown in San Diego on their television newscasts.

Individuals on tape were also assaulting and battering a number of senior citizens. Here's something to consider. These young people assaulted our volunteers, many of whom have served our nation in the military with distinction, which includes senior citizens. To show the footage, which we'll post asap on our website, will absolutely leave you speechless, and angry. The protesters stalked our volunteers around the site, screamed in their ears, were cursed at, physically assaulted and battered, trespassed on private property, and participated in crimes of hate and acts of terrorism.

The video is supposed to be up soon, and I will link when it is. Please do your part to pass this information along. It is simply unacceptable that Americans be deprived of their rights by foreigners on our own soil.

The Revenge of the Productive, Revisited

A few months ago, I wrote a three part series titled “Revenge of the Productive” which was essentially a thought experiment looking at what might happen if mass underclass immigration continues indefinitely. The assumption was made that the underclass would be fairly content and happy, as long as they could be subsidized by the productive class, which would ironically imply that the productive class would be the most likely to agitate for change.

Since the events in New Orleans a few weeks ago, much of what I wrote in the series, especially about the weaknesses of a multicultural, politically correct society, seems to have been clearly demonstrated. It is with that in mind that I am amending and annotating the series. Besides some spelling corrections and edits, the posts are essentially the same in content however.

Part I


Internally or externally imposed order?

One of the results of a politically correct, multicultural (PC/MC) society is to radically reinvent society into a form of bondage or coerced association between a collection of productive individuals on one hand, and parasitic individuals or groups on the other. In every society there have always been children, the elderly, handicapped, and others who could not fully support themselves. However, this new coerced association is marked by the degree to which fully capable adults and feral youths do not contribute, and by the presence of an underclass which is disproportionally costly to society or even anti-social. One of the results of a highly developed, highly educated, yet redistributive society is that even individuals who do some form of minimum-wage work may still be a net-loss to society due to the degree to which they are subsidized, directly or indirectly (consider health care, or driving without auto-insurance as examples).

For some, the thought of calling the parasitic elements of society "parasitic" may seem cruel or hard-hearted; however there is no other word which better describes the situation. It is certainly true that if some individuals take, then some productive individuals somewhere else must in turn give. In this way, there is a clear hierarchy of dependence, but it is only a one-way dependency. It should be obvious that these parasitic elements of society benefit from a system that they neither created, nor could ever create if left to their own devices. Further, it is certainly right to call this state of affairs unjust, for that is what it is. If one doubts the necessity or value of the productive elements of society, Bangladesh, Mexico, and Zimbabwe should provide sufficient examples to learn from.

While the parasitic elements have benefited from this redefinition of society, many of the leftist and elitist fetishes which have been foisted onto society in these last few decades have only been possible as long as the law-abiding citizens have keep society functioning. It would seem that the democratic process would easily solve this abuse, but there have been several major obstacles which have prevented this from happening. First, those most influential and well off often benefit from the system, or tend to be protected from its negative effects. Secondly, politicians have long since realized that redistributive government measures make it easy to buy the votes of the parasitic elements. Finally, our PC/MC society has made it very difficult to even raise the concerns and interests of the productive elements of society in a direct and honest fashion, much less to actually build enough consensuses to generate political results except in the most extreme instances of abuse, such as welfare reform in the 90's. This produces something of a conundrum for the productive middle class however, because unlike say, the riots during the civil rights period, they cannot easily engage in mass-scale civil-disobedience without collapsing the very pillars that keep society held up.

The rather obvious danger is that society will slowly sink to the level of the lowest element, or at least diverge into an overclass and underclass as is the case in many third world countries. However there is a second possibility which could emerge, especially in an Anglo-Saxon, common-law culture, specifically, that the productive citizens might turn the tables and force the rest of society to recognize their importance. It should not be forgotten that the productive elements of society also have the potential to be far more effective in their application of destructive action than others: what they create they can also destroy. Their superior social organizing ability, education, sense of order, and productivity trace back to what Victor Davis Hanson calls the Western way of war, and has long provided the West with an advantage over its adversaries.

By "destructive action", one should not take this to mean anti-government para-military action, terrorism, or any other such extremism however. The probability of any actual revolt by the productive elements of society would tend to be exponentially more likely with respect to lowering the threshold of action. This is to suggest that civil-disobedience/civil-disorder type behavior would both be the most likely result of middle class frustration, and probably the highest degree of disobedience and danger which would still draw large support. For this to be a possibility would require that these social-disobedience/civil-disorder type actions would need to be effective enough to have at least some chance of generating change. If this condition can not be established, then the chances of such instability are quite low.

Part II


Internally or externally imposed order?

Now I will state here, in case anyone who is not already familiar with this blog is unsure, that I am not suggesting, condoning, glorifying, or in any other way supporting any form of revolt. Rather, at the center of my reasons for this blog is a belief that our PC/MC society is rapidly approaching a point of becoming socially and politically unstable; my hope therefore is that we can correct the problem before it is too late and while these changes can be made peacefully and democratically. In other words, the motivation behind this post is to sound out what we might be looking at in a decade or two if we do not take action soon. [Recent events suggest that one to two decades may be far too optimistic.]

Now back to the primary topic: what actions might the productive elements of society take should their frustration reach a tipping point? Some would be rather predictable -- forming associations to promote their interests, lobbying congress, protesting, and even strikes all seem rather plausible. On the other extreme end of the spectrum, we would likely see a rise of extremist groups, especially among youths. However none of these actions seem very effective except for national strikes, but even such strikes would be difficult to actually pull off effectively.


Internally or externally imposed order?

As in any case where resources are at a minimum and efficiency has to be maximized, serious thoughts must be given the methods used. Since the aim of any such actions would be ultimately political rather than merely destructive, a careful evaluation of the political situation would need to be made. Further, all available opportunities would need to be used to exploit the weaknesses of the opponent, and to trick them into working against themselves whenever possible. This would require a careful eye for their weaknesses, fissures, contradictions, and critical nodes.


Internally or externally imposed order?

What then, is the effective weakness, or at least a prime one, of the PC/MC society compared to the Jacksonian social order? It seems that the weakness is effectively whether individuals and groups have self-imposed order, or externally-imposed order.


Internally or externally imposed order?

The disadvantage which the productive elements face is that they not only have to maintain a self-imposed order, but they are also required to provide a minimum amount of external order for the parasitic elements of society. This boundary, where order is imposed internally or externally, is a core weakness of any PC/MC society, and one which presents a weakness which is very vulnerable from attack by any enemy, be it Islamic extremist, China or other foreign powers.

In keeping with the above then, it seems that creating the conditions to separate society clearly into these two groups, and emphasize the difference would be the political objective. In order to do this, it would be necessary to remove (temporarily) the means by which to effectively impose order, thereby allowing what amounts to an exaggerated opportunity for the exercise of free will. At the same time, individuals in the productive majority would be forced to reevaluate their ideological foundations in light of a more honest and realistic picture of society, shaking off the contradictions of the the PC/MC society.

What practical implementation might this strategy take? While there are many possibilities, one is given as follows. Using tactics which are non-violent (though possibly not generally considered merely "civil-disobedience") 3000-5000 individuals would carry out vandalizing attacks on key civil infrastructure: traffic control for major intersections, blacking out of the power grid, and obstructing major highways and transportation infrastructure. At the same time, further efforts to create disorder and swamp the civil authorities might be taken, such as setting tires and refuse on fire, agitating crowds of the unproductive elements, etc. All these activities would be taken simultaneously in 30-100 major urban centers, creating a sudden and unexpected disruption of order.

It should be clear that the efforts would not be designed to be especially destructive in and of themselves. Certainly with the lack of manpower available for such action and potential as few as 30-50 "activists" per urban area, their direct effect would be fairly limited. Rather, the objective of these actions would be to spark further unrest and disorder, as the parasitic elements realize that the civil authorities can not impose order on them, for the time being.


Internally or externally imposed order?

The efforts of the initial disruption of order would be a classical guerilla maneuver, which would be aimed at exposing the opponent and forcing them to overreact and show their true hand. By removing the effective enforcement of order from these parasitic elements, much in the way of their true nature would be reviled. Not only would there be the rather traditional rioting, looting, and opportunistic behavior that characterize such events, but radicalism, be it Islamic, La Raza, or other, would also likely be revealed. As these parasitic elements revel in their new-found "freedom", they would almost doubtlessly begin to display the arrogance of the mob as they overestimate their power and misread their opponents.

Certainly such a scenario would be a potential death-blow for the PC/MC society. With much of the media infrastructure (TV, internet, papers) temporarily disabled, there would be no way to reframe the situation or scapegoat it onto a less politically correct group; rather, individuals would be forced to make up their own minds based on the scene before the. By putting the instability of a PC/MC society on full display, there would be no room left to believe utopian schemes. Finally, the shared experience would tend to create a new sense of unity and identity among the productive class, thereby bringing the sense of "us" and "them" unmistakably out into the open.

Part III



Internally or externally imposed order?

From part II, it does seem reasonable that fairly low-threshold, non-violent action could prove to be very disruptive if targeted at the fault-lines of an unstable PC/MC society. Also, given the fairly small number of "activists" required to initiate such a situation, there would not necessarily need to be a unified productive class before-hand, but rather simply a dedicated core.


Internally or externally imposed order?

Despite the potential danger of such a situation unfolding, there is little reason to expect such a scenario would develop in the near term. First, there is still a significant lack of awareness of the problem among the productive elements of society. Further, multiculturalism has not yet reached its peak, and good economic conditions have masked over much friction between groups. Finally however, even action by a few thousand individuals in a coordinated manner would be quite unrealistic at this stage because of the difficulty of planning and recruiting members without detection by the authorities. Without an established infrastructure in which the productive elements could associate, plan, organize and built trust and relationships, executing such a plan would be essentially impossible.

However, should conditions continue to disintegrate, it is likely that organization on the part of the productive elements will increase. In a sense, the Minuteman Project is an example of the early consciousness of the collective interests of the productive class. The very existence of such an organization, combined with the publicity and the negative attacks directed against it also serves to further concentrate this group identity.


Internally or externally imposed order?

It has been mentioned by others that any violent attacks on the Minuteman Project volunteers while on the border, say by drug or human smugglers, would likely spawn a resurgence of the militia movement of the 90's (though probably not by Minutemen volunteers themselves). It is certainly true that much of the militia movement was in response to the perceived threats of the Clinton administration, and seems to have largely receded since the Bush administration. So it does seem rather plausible that continued failure by Washington to protect the border, combined with violent attacks on non-violent observers might cause the politically sensitive militia movement to reemerge.

A resurgent militia movement would be one sign not only of an increased awareness and organizing on the part of the productive class, but also potential preparation for action. However there could also be other organizing going on, with aims less radical than the militia. These organizations might center on other common interests or goals: concern over crime, collective political lobbying, or shared culture and ethnicity.


Internally or externally imposed order?

Certainly the next few years will be interesting to see how our PC/MC society develops. It is possible that efforts such as the Minuteman Project and others may gain enough momentum to start rolling back some of the excesses of our current society. It is also possible however that instability will grow as the parasitic elements mushrooms, creating a future which we will all wish we had avoided.



-I think at this point that the New Orleans situation has likely caused far more damage to the public perception of the current PC/MC society than we yet realize. There should certainly be no doubt that it had an effect on our enemies, especially China and Islam, as they realized just how volatile our social mix has become. It has become a very cute fetish for many individuals, even on the right, to talk about reforming these parasitic elements, but there is not an infinite time horizon to try these latest social engineering experiments in. The reality is that the situation at this point constitutes a grave national security threat, which makes it practically impossible that our nation with its current demographics could fight another WWII type situation without looking more like Brazil than the USA.

Help Jim Gilchrist

Katie's Dad over at American Kernel posts on a subject that I have been meaning to get around to for some time. Specifically Jim Gilchrist is running for congress in a special election, and he needs all the support he can get. If he can win, it would be profoundly exciting to say the least. Read his background on his site, and you will see how well qualified he is. Donate today if you can!

JimGilchrist.com

Also read though American Kernel, as it has a bunch of good stuff.

Growing Frustration in Denmark

Mikkel at Enough! has an excellent post about the growing sense of frustration and anger that people are feeling in Denmark resulting from the actions and attitudes of the many third world'ers living in their country.

...a couple of days ago in Sweden, a couple of Swedish girls were first harassed in the shop where they worked, then pelted with objects, called whores and beaten - especially when they began to resist being terrorized! One of the girls argued, when she was discharged from the hospital two days later, that "..one shouldn't be called whore just because one is Swedish and female.." - she does have a point... What she does not have however, is peace - being called whore in the ghetto of Ronna in Södertälje where this took (takes) place, is very normal for Swedish girls - and this particular girl has more ugly episodes to disperse.

Anyway, when the police arrived at the scene of the mini-ethnic-cleansing, they were attacked by the immigrants who quickly gathered into a swarm of 50 (fifty!) through their preferred means of communication through Mobile-phones. As usual, there were no respect for the police at all which were attacked, heckled, insulted, pelted with stones and so on. As the extremely right winged National Democrats reports: "The immigrants gave no impression of being a poor excluded group, to the contrary, many wore Rolex-watches, brand clothing and gold chain-necklaces in abundance".

IQ and Living Standards

To continue with the subject of the post from yesterday about IQ and quality of government, the original blog post over at Right Economy blog also had this:

One IQ point is associated with 6.5% higher living standards, while moving up one country in the Ease rankings apparently raises livings standards by 0.6%. So (again, being cavalier about causality) you'd have to move up about 10 countries in the Ease rankings to get the same (long-run) benefit as raising national average IQ by one point.

What can this tell us about the situation that California is currently in?

First, some rough facts and assumptions. California has become about 50% hispanic. American hispanics are slightly over 10 points below whites. Hispanics from south of the border tend to have an even lower IQ, approximately 85 for Mexico, and perhaps lower still in Central America. I am also going to use the assumption that with all the tech industry in California, the mean white IQ is one point higher. Blacks and Asians won't be factored in. Also, the historical hispanic population will be assumed small enough that it can be ignored for this estimate. Illegal/first generation hispanics guessed at 20% of population.

Given the above, as a rough back-of-the-envelope estimation, I am going to estimate the mean IQ of California is about 7 points lower than in would have been without mass illegal immigration from south of the border. This then gives...

6.5% * 7 = 45.5%

In other words, this suggests that without the major population replacement we have seen in California, the standards of living would be approximately 40-50% higher than currently seen, or are likely to see in the future. (Perhaps it is somewhat misleading to suggest that living standards have changed, instead the changes may be yet to come as they probably change more slowly than the demographics.)

Obviously, there is a lot going on here that this estimation does not take into consideration. However, it is still a very interesting thought to consider.

Fighting Silence

As many may or (more likely) may not know, The Color of Crime has just been released, which is a factual study of race and crime. Many of the findings are remarkable by any measure, but something that the MSN is quite silent about. I strongly recommend everyone read the VDare article about it, tell their family about it, and generally do whatever possible to shame the media into at least mentioning it.

Some interesting points from the article:

The proportion of blacks and Hispanics in an area is the single best indicator of how dangerous it is. The racial mix is a much better predictor of crime rates than poverty, unemployment, and dropout rates combined.

Although Jesse Jackson and Bill Cosby wring their hands over black-on-black mayhem, blacks actually commit more violent crime against whites than blacks. A black is about 39 times more likely to do violence to a white than the other way around, and no less than 130 times more likely to rob a white.

...

Some years back, a group called Violence Free Duluth in Duluth, Minnesota, studied a year's worth of the city's gun crimes. They looked into type of gun used, whether liquor or drugs were involved, the relationship between shooter and victim; age, race, and sex of criminal, etc.

But when they released their report they left one thing out: race of perp.

Frank Jewell, head of the organization, explained that "we didn't include it because it might be misinterpreted."

Duluth's deputy police chief Robert Grytdahl added that race might distract whites from the real problem: "It's a comfortable place for white people to park the [gun crime] problem. It would be a huge distraction, and we wanted to focus on firearms." [Duluth Gun, Crime Study Withholds Race Data, [Pay Archive] By Larry Oakes, Minneapolis Star Tribune, April 30, 1999.]

Mr. Jewell and Mr. Grytdahl are saying, almost in so many words, that the people of Duluth can't be trusted with the truth.

Duluth is about 90 percent white. What if it turned out most of the gun crime was committed by the other 10 percent?

Someone might think Duluth has, not a gun problem, but a minority problem.

When an organization deliberately suppresses its findings like this, it is not doing research: it is putting out propaganda.

Self-Reliance

Pierre Legrand has a good post about why the 2nd Amendment is so important, and why it is so equally important to practice it:

If someone told you that a major city in the United States could descend into anarchy all of us would have probably dismissed them as a nutty survivalist that we might need to be careful around. If he went farther and declared that because of this possibility we should all make sure we not only had weapons but knew how to use them we would probably, even if we agree with the 2nd amendment, declare that a pitiful way to make the argument for owning and being trained to use firearms.

...

Obviously the argument that may be advanced by those trying to take our weapons away will be well no other city will be hit with such a deadly hurricane. Which completely forgets the small fact that we are at war with a group of people who think it would be peachy dandy to reduce several other cities to levels below that of New Orleans. Police protection in those instances would also be nonexistent since obviously they would be dealing with the disaster itself. For a short time at least you will be on your own and standing in front of your house with your finger pointed at a looter/thug is not going to be nearly as effective in convincing him to not steal your generator, food and water as my Stainless Steel Springfield GI-45 with a 5" barrel loaded with Winchester FMJ 230 gr and High Standard 20 gauge with the 18.5 inch barrel and #4 shot. Welcome to the brave new world of self reliance...something our grandfathers knew a bit about.

IQ & Good Governance

Vie Steve Sailer, the Right Economy blog has a very interesting post about the correlation between IQ and the quality of government. While this is quite predictable, it is just one more reason why it is irrational to continue to pretend that we can design or manage social systems without inquiring what types of people they will contain.

Why would I think that higher national average IQ will lead to better governance? Well, mostly because of Linda Gottfredson. She's a sociologist who has looked at how higher intelligence helps people throughout their everyday lives. According to her, IQ tests measure a lot more than just "your skill at taking standardized tests." They measure key skills that are extremely helpful in just getting through the day (and in producing output).

Not All Cultures are Equal

From the Guardian, vie EconoPundit:

A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe, an investigation by the Guardian has discovered.

Agents for the firm have told would-be customers it is developing collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments from skin taken from prisoners after they have been shot. The agents say some of the company's products have been exported to the UK, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts is "traditional" and nothing to "make such a big fuss about".

...

He suggested that the use of skin and other tissues harvested from executed prisoners was not uncommon. "In China it is considered very normal and I was very shocked that western countries can make such a big fuss about this," he said. Speaking from his office in northern China, he added: "The government has put some pressure on all the medical facilities to keep this type of work in low profile."

The agent said his company exported to the west via Hong Kong."We are still in the early days of selling these products, and clients from abroad are quite surprised that China can manufacture the same human collagen for less than 5% of what it costs in the west." Skin from prisoners used to be even less expensive, he said. "Nowadays there is a certain fee that has to be paid to the court."

Learning from Sun Tzu

I have been doing my periodic re-reading of Sun Tzu's The Art of War, and one part really stuck out:

If the war is long delayed, the men's weapons will be blunted and their ardor will be dampened. If the army attacks cities, their strength will be exhausted. Again, if the army engages in protracted campaigns, the resources of the state will not suffice. Now, when your weapons are blunted, your ardor dampened, your strength exhausted, and your treasure spent, neighboring rulers will take advantage of your distress to act. In this case, no man, however wise, is able to avert disastrous consequences that ensue.

Thus, while we have heard of stupid haste in war, we have not yet seen a clever operation that was prolonged. There has never been a case in which a prolonged war has benefited a country. Therefore, only those who understand the dangers inherent in employing troops know how to conduct war in the most profitable way.

There are a lot of things which can be drawn from the above. Certainly China is laughing at us as we try to conduct a "humane" war against barbarians.

I have increasingly come to the realization that the war against Islam has not actually started. When history looks back at 9/11, I fear that it will view what we have been doing as merely pacifying the masses, government PR, if you will. This is a shame, and perhaps I will be wrong, but increasingly, I don't think that I will.

Remembering 9/11

On today, the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, we have paused to remember the horrors of that day, most typified by the images of individuals jumping from the burning towers. Power Line Blog draws attention to one of the heroes of that day, Rick Rescorla:

Rescorla was a British native who moved to the United States to join the Army and fight in Vietnam. Rescorla was inspired to move to the United States in part by his friendship with Dan Hill, and their friendship is the one constant theme of the book. Hill and Rescorla had become friends in Rhodesia and self-consciously modeled themselves on the characters of Peachy and Dravot in Kipling's story "The Man Who Would Be King." They both served as officers in Vietnam, where in 1965 Rescorla saw harrowing combat in the Ia Drang Valley.

...

Rescorla died a hero's death saving his charges at Morgan Stanley in the south tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11. Rescorla was head of security for the company and directed the evacuation in which he had long drilled them. Using a bullhorn he shephered his charges into the tower's one usable fire escape and exhorted them that it was "a day to be proud to be an American."

UPDATE: Steve Sailer reminds us in the comments section that Rick Rescorla was depicted in the book and movie, "We Were Soldiers Once... and Young".

UPDATE 2: I think one of the truly sad, and really degenerate, aspects of our current state of affairs is our inability to really make men like Rescorla into popular heroes that we can rally around the way we could and would have in previous times such as WWII. Today people would call it "propaganda" if we took serious efforts to make Rescorla and Todd Beamer icons in a broader sense in our fight against Islam. But I think that these hero figures play a critical part in rallying and sustaining unity (and even more importantly, a sense of "us"), just as the Norse and Greek legends and sagas played in past times and cultures. Of course, I suppose that this is precisely what liberalism is so afraid of, that we might develop a taste for the blood of our murderous enemies and a sense of "us" and "them", and ultimately forsake our universalism.

Rejecting the Embrace

Lawrence Auster neatly sums up the problem of both the "Crescent of Embrace" outrage, and more broadly, our modern society:

..seen from the point of view of our present society, it’s not an outrage, it’s simply the only way modern liberal people (and all modern people are basically liberals) can articulate any issue, which is global, open, inclusive. To assert “us” versus “them” is closed and intolerant, the very thing that must be overcome.

That’s why I say that only a principled renunciation of modern liberalism can really change things. As long as liberalism remains our dominant belief system, atrocities like this will be the norm.

A Note on Charity

I have always believed that one of the proudest qualities of Americans is our commitment to charity outside of coerced government resource reallocation programs (talk about turning the other cheek...). That said, I thought I might make a few points on charity for Katrina victims, which some people may or may not agree with.

First, it seems to me at least, that the best and most responsible charity is to either give to those you know or those who have relatives who were effected, or to volunteer in your community to work with those refugees who are arriving. It seems that there is a real danger that many of these charities have high latencies on their supply chains, so this disaster may be little more than an opportunity to "recharge" their funds. On the flip side, charities which are very good at either being early on the scene or filling key voids that the government does not, should (and ideally in a rational economic market, would) be rewarded. Sadly, many of these disasters tend to end up in a form of mass "emotional masturbation" fueled by polished ad campaigns and celebrity charity drives, so it is not clear to me that much of "big-charity" is any more efficient than government is (perhaps far worse).

That said, charity takes many forms. Responsible charity may include for example ensuring that refugees who are arriving in your neighborhood are not registered sex offenders or dangerous criminals. It is interesting to note that the Minuteman Project requires people to pay $50 to cover a background check; is it really so irrational to want to know a little bit about the people moving into your own town?

Let's be clear: the people leaving NO are largely victims of circumstances beyond their control. However, there is a sizable minority, perhaps even several hundred thousand, which absolutely no respectable, tax paying American should ever have to live by. Let there be no mistake: bad habits corrupt good, absolutely. For many cities, towns, and neighborhoods, the tragedies of New Orleans will be perpetuated again and again, as the criminal elements ripple their way across America.

Another form of responsible charity may be ensuring that you, your family and your neighbors will be safe and have some plan for disaster and/or anarchy should a similar event happen where you live. If you have a family, and you don't have a gun in your home (safely kept, of course), you really need to think long and hard about buying one before you give one cent to charity. I really mean that. Buying some basic survival kits might also be in order: water filtration, MRE's, first aid, etc. Depending on where you live and what type of element you might be evading, you might also be interested and surprised to learn how affordable bullet proof vests are.

Be sure to talk to your neighbors about such things too. You don't want them to think you are paranoid, but educating them and developing some kind of minimal plan for evacuation could make a tremendous difference in a disaster situation.

So Much for "We are all Americans"

There is a buzz in the blogsphere (see here, here, here) about the Gretna police holding people back from crossing the bridge out of NO into Gretna.

We will probably learn more about why the officers did what they did, be it just more incompetence, a sincere (and possibly correct) belief that they were containing the anarchy, racism, etc. What is interesting however is to look at this in light of NO being the anti-9/11, when everyone united and even the French wrote "We are all Americans". Instead, what we see here is almost a reversion to tribalism; if it had a motto, it might be "Even Americans are not Americans".

In other words, this is but a small glimpse of what a balkanized, chaotic, "post-American" America might look like.

Another point which is hard to miss is the irony of enforcing a city "border" from American crossers while we are allowing millions of people to cross the national border illegally each year.

More Belated Blogging

I have been a bit busy these last few days, and somewhat under the weather to boot, so blogging has been slow. I just wanted to note this interesting article on VDare for anyone who might have missed it though. It relates the story of a student at a Catholic university, and the bizarre political correctness training that was involved in becoming a student counselor.

I was told to place myself on something called the Riddle Homophobia Scale. I chose the "acceptance" level. As it turned out, "tolerance" and "acceptance" are still considered "homophobic" ("implies there is something to accept"). Ultimately, I was told, I should aim to find myself nurturing GLBTQA, wherein I will realize that "gay/lesbian people are indispensable to our society", and will view GLBTQAs with "genuine affection and delight," manifested by an eagerness to be an ally and advocate for their community.

...

The encouraging thing about Kevin Carter’s report was the backlash he observed post-brainwashing. No such phenomena took place after my experience. The few of us RAs that have banded together—all female, the men say nothing, perhaps because many are themselves gay—quietly whisper "hypocrisy" in back corners of basement apartments. But any more than that threatens our employment.

And, for a broke college student, free room and board plus a stipend makes it impractical not to sell out our values.

Someone should really tell these college professors and administrator that repression breeds anger and resentment. One of these days things are going to go ka-boom.

"It's like Baghdad on a bad day"

ParaPundit calls attention to an article in the Washington Post which gives an on the ground look at what the National Guard in New Orleans are doing and saying. I recommend reading the whole article; other than that I really don't know what to say. It might seem cute to joke about the need to "bring democracy to America", or some such thing, but it is no longer funny at this point. Mostly, it is just profoundly disturbing to look at where our leaders have brought us.

Indeed, today we might remind ourselves once more that "we are the world", and realize that the world is a very messed up place.

"It's just so much like Iraq, it's not funny," said Atkinson, of Woodlawn, Ark., "except for all the water, and they speak English."

For a year ending this spring, Atkinson's infantry company of the Arkansas National Guard patrolled Baghdad's deadly Haifa Street, and scores of its members were awarded Purple Heart medals after fighting insurgents. Those war-zone images and instincts came flooding back Friday when Atkinson and 300 other Arkansas guardsmen, wearing helmets and full body armor, rolled into the chaos of central New Orleans.

"It's like Baghdad on a bad day," said Spec. Brian McKay, 19, of Mount Ida, Ark.

...

Much work remains for U.S. soldiers in this gutted no man's land, where looting, drive-by shootings and other crime are rampant. Much as in Iraqi cities, the troops are moving by the hundreds into makeshift bases in schools and other public buildings, setting up checkpoints and 24-hour patrols. The guardsmen have been authorized to seize weapons and detain people.

"We're having some pretty intense gun battles breaking out around the city," said Capt. Jeff Winn of the New Orleans police SWAT team. "Armed gangs of from eight to 15 young men are riding around in pickup trucks, looting and raping," he said. Residents fearful of looters often shout to passing Humvees to alert the soldiers to crimes in progress.

...

About an hour later, as dusk fell, Atkinson and Neugebauer were driving down Jefferson Street when the owner of a mini-storage business yelled at them from behind his fence. "Hey, get back here! Those guys just broke into that store!" Across the street, the guardsmen saw two men in their twenties outside a car stereo store with the front window broken in.

Atkinson again swung the Humvee around, and within minutes, the guardsmen had two of the four suspects facedown on the Jefferson Street median. The guardsmen then waved down a passing sheriff's vehicle.

"When I charged a round in the chamber, he got down real fast," Atkinson said later of a suspect.

The guardsmen voiced little hesitation at using deadly force -- a skill honed in Iraq -- on the streets of New Orleans. "If we're out on the streets, we'll fight back and shoot until we kill them. That's too bad but that's what has got to happen," said Spec. Jake Perry, 20, of Camden, Ark. "I didn't spend a year in Iraq to come to Louisiana and get killed."

Indeed, just the smell and feel of a war zone in the city put the soldiers on edge.

"The worst feeling was putting that body armor on," said Spec. Richard Dunlop, 36, also of Camden, who with his comrades has vivid memories of the dozens of Arkansas soldiers who perished in Iraq. "I find myself checking the rooftops. I worry about stepping on something in case it is an IED," he said, referring to an improvised explosive device or roadside bomb.

"I was waiting on a gunfight," he said. "It's weird."

Many of the guardsmen were shocked and angered by the violence and looting. One described 70-year-old women in new Nike high-tops, and stores along the riverfront that looked bombed out.

"The fear in the eyes of the people, the uncertainty . . . people shooting and killing over little bitty things . . . it surprised me. I didn't think it would be that bad in my own country," said McKay, a history student at the University of Arkansas.

...

"When I came down here, it was just like I was in Iraq. It was unreal," said Spec. Keithean Heath, 20, of Crossett, Ark., shirtless in the heat. "This doesn't happen in your own back yard."

The Deafening Sound of Silence

Jared over at the Scoopster News blog has been blogging away about the horrible experiences of the British, Irish and Australian tourists and whites who were stuck in the Superdome and convention center (see here and here, and here and here for related). There has been wide reporting on this in the UK and Australia, but apparently the US media does not want to touch the issue.

What is worse however is that even many "conservative" blogs which love to congratulate themselves about scooping the MSN are missing in action on this story.

Let's be perfectly frank: if this had happened to any (other) minority group, there would have been wide condemnation all around, and rightly so. So what are people so afraid of? When did merely reporting the news become such a dangerous thing?

In times like these, it is difficult to not help but wonder if we are living in a one ideology state.

Illegal Alien News

The Lone Wacko blog has a great roundup of news regarding illegal aliens which I recommend reading. You will learn about Hispanic gangs in mid-western farm towns, a DMV worker in Oregon who was fired for trying to prevent ID fraud, the Mexican-"American" alternative to Al Sharpton, and much more.

Does NO Portend More Redistribution?

There has been some concern that one of the political consequences of the hurricane will be new government anti-poverty programs to redistribute wealth between people. Sadly, this seems to be both likely and about the only kind of response we can expect from our morally timid leaders. At a time with massive third world immigration (illegal or otherwise), how can we expect productive members of society to pay for this? The answer is of course that we probably can't, at least not while remaining America as we know it today.

There was an excellent article in the Guardian from some time ago which I can't seem to find, but it spoke of the "progressive's paradox", which is that diversity and the welfare state are in diametric contradiction.

Essentially, people consent to pay high taxes for welfare services as long as they believe that most people receiving them will be similar to them, have similar values, and not do things they wouldn't. In other words, the type of people who they could see themselves becoming if they were down on their luck.

On the other hand, very diverse societies have low social cohesion, and thus very low tolerance for redistribution between groups. This has been shown empirically by the strong correlation between how redistributive different US states are, and how diverse they are.

It will be interesting to see how the political system responds. For example, the illegal alien hungry business interests don't have any moral objections to tax payers subsidizing their labor costs, but they are likely to realize that a larger welfare state will result in lower tolerance for importing likely welfare recipients.

USA Beat Mexico at Soccer

I don't really follow soccer, but I am going to have to make an exception for this match, reported on the VDare blog:

You may have missed the sweet soccer victory on Saturday where the United States thumped the arrogant Mexican team 2-0, in a game played in Columbus, Ohio, a site deep in the heartland chosen to provide a majority-American crowd. The win qualifies America for the World Cup next year, a fine thing in itself.

The match was a welcome payback for a 2-1 loss in March which took place in Mexico City. Mexicans followed that game with a session of American-flag trampling in front of the US embassy, with chants of “Osama!”

So kicker Landon Donovan of Redlands, California, has had a few words of his own to share before and after Saturday’s game. (In 2002, he smacked home a decisive goal against Mexico to reach a 2002 World Cup quarterfinal, and is therefore not much liked in sombrero-land.) He laid down a take-no-prisoners line in the sand:

“I want (today) to be a miserable day for them,” Donovan said of the Mexican players. “The best way to make them miserable is to beat their national team.” […]

“They are jealous of us, the Mexican players, because we’ve got a life and they have nothing,” Donovan said. “Because of that they despise us.”

Donovan apparently doesn’t care much for Mexicans. Maybe he thought the death threat trash talk by a Mexican player against his mother was over the line. He didn’t let up in victory either:

“They suck,” he said. “I’m so happy. After we got that first goal they were never in the game. Hopefully that will shut them up for the next three or four years.”

Nicholas Stix on New Orleans

Nicholas Stix over at Mens Daily News has a long and very good article which is worth everyone reading. A lot of what he is saying is beyond obvious, but hopefully more people will be willing to look past the facade of political correctness and accept it this time.

It doesn’t look like America; it looks like a third world country.’ That was the refrain from CNN reporters such as Sanjay Gupta in New Orleans on Friday.

The problem is, New Orleans looks all too much like America – as in urban, “multicultural” America.

Meanwhile, black politicians were saying that the issue is “racial.”

...


I was raised a secular humanist, and secular humanism has no room for compassion. Excepting for libertarians, who don’t even claim to have compassion, secular humanists claim to feel compassion for blacks and Hispanics, and illegal immigrants, oops, undocumented immigrants, and homosexuals, but what they really have is political loyalty to those groups and a corresponding political enmity towards (non-socialist) heterosexual white Americans. If they really had compassion, they’d feel it for white Evangelicals and Orthodox Jews, as well as for all those groups whom they politically protect … and live off of.


...


But some will argue that what I am saying is irrelevant. After all, the black “anger” on display in New Orleans is a response to the federal delays. Nonsense. First of all, black “anger” is a euphemism for hatred. The mainstream press has resolved never to speak of blacks as haters. And yet, is there a group in America that hates more? Who hates homosexuals more? Who is more xenophobic? More misogynistic? No, no, no and no. Instead, the media portray white, heterosexual Christians – probably the most tolerant group in the world, as haters of the above-cited groups.


...

The fact of the matter is that an ever-growing proportion of urban blacks – females and males alike – is in a perpetual state of rage. Rage, when whites are around, and rage, when whites are absent. For forty years, urban blacks have used hatred of whites as an excuse for not leading responsible lives.

Psychologically and morally speaking, I see no difference between the genocidal hatred of Arabs toward Jews, and the majority of urban American blacks toward … everyone.

What we have seen in New Orleans is not merely a reaction to Katrina; it is simply a dramatic version of life in many black-dominated American cities – Detroit, Washington, DC, Baltimore, St. Louis, Gary IN, East St. Louis IL, Oakland CA, etc. And at the rate at which illegal immigrants are importing similar pathologies and lawlessness from Mexico and elsewhere, in twenty years all of America’s cities with populations of over 100,000 will be just like New Orleans.

New Orleans is not an aberration; we have been seeing its like for over 40 years. Expect to see more of the same.

Totalitarianism: Knowing it When You See It

Watching the left and many on the multicultural/PC right, I think I have hit upon a simple rule for detecting totalitarian belief systems.

Totalitarianism is any belief system where truth is not a defense.

Someone else has probably already said or written this, though I can't remember where, but for anyone who has struggled against the tide of political correctness and multiculturalism, this test really makes sense.

A Reply to Bill Whittle

Bill Whittle over at Eject Eject Eject has an essay up, titled Tribes which is interesting to read. His thesis is that there is a "Pink" and "Gray" tribe that represents people who do what they feel like, and those that are bound by duty, respectively. It is of course in a sense a good essay, but it is also an attempt to rationalize the view that what we saw in NO didn't really happen, and that (apparently) anyone who recognizes differences between whites and blacks (or whatever other group) is evil. He seems to suggest that humans are infinitely malleable at birth, and thus falls into the 100% nurture category of explaining away differences.

Anyway, I tried to post the following reply in the comments but was blocked. I don't think that I have ever commented on Bill's blog before, and I have certainly never gone there as a troll. However I found myself blocked for some reason. I don't know if I just happened to have an unlucky IP block or what, so I will leave it to the reader to guess as I have no idea and don't want to yet accuse Bill of anything. Maybe the site is just having problems right now.

I really felt like the comments on the site were unhealthily one-sided when I read them, and that they could use an fair and responsible, yet alternative view. I realize it is unorthodox, but if one of my readers would like to go to his blog and summarize some of the points I have made, I believe that you would be doing your country a tremendous service.

-+-

Its all very good and well to rationalize away the barbarity we have seen in NO as a manifestation of a Pink and Gray tribe, and there is certainly a great deal of truth in it. But believing in a Pink and Gray tribe is just an abstraction, just as believing in certain behavioral differences between whites or blacks, in the mean, is an abstraction.

There are certainly people who fit squarely in each Pink and Gray category, but there are also a whole mass of people who fall somewhere in between, and many who might fit into one or the other group depending on what day you polled them. Likewise, there are plenty of whites who are criminal barbarians, child rapists, etc, and plenty of blacks who are very smart, well educated and ethical citizens. However, simply because we see overlap is no reason to act like someone running a shell game who mixes the shells up until we are too confused to make any sound judgment at all.

It is entirely possible to believe in the abstraction of individual behavior and responsibility and at the same time, that of race, just as it is possible for micro and macro economics to co-exist. As an engineering grad student, I work among probably one of the most "multicultural" groups of people that most people ever will. I have been to plenty of international cultural events with friends who were different from me in practically every way. I have worked in groups with people from every continent and major religion.

But to me this experience has only reinforced the view that while we can and must judge the people we meet, know, and work with as individuals, there is tremendous differences between groups which only some form of genetic/racial abstraction can begin to explain.

While we all pat ourselves on the back for belonging to the "Gray tribe", it is precisely this environment of ambiguity as we avoid the elephant in the living room that people like Jesse Jackson thrive on. If we had leaders who had any moral bravery, they could have shut Jackson and all the other "victimoligists" up by merely pointing out that, rather than failures in the response to the hurricane being a sign of white racism, NO had a black majority, an overwhelmingly black police force and a black mayor, and that instead of a utopia emerging with the removal of the oppressive hand of the white man, what we saw instead were whites and foreign tourists being beaten and killed by blacks. What would Jesse have to say about that?

The abstraction of race is hardly a fixed one that leaves no room for improvement or dooms men to failure by outside forces. If a decade from now, blacks commit murder at a rate of only 3 times that of whites instead of the 8 today, we can certainly amend our abstractions to reflect reality. But instead what we see are attempts to amend reality to fit abstractions which fail to provide us with useful models to understand the empirical world at the macro level.

UPDATE: It seems that Bill's site does not like my yahoo email address, so he does not seem to be explicitly blocking this blog. Of course, his post also includes his vaguely worded desire to shoot anyone who dares to speak of the "Black and White tribes", so I will simply note that for what it is worth.

The Continuum

In the dictionary, continuum is defined as:

A continuous extent, succession, or whole, no part of which can be distinguished from neighboring parts except by arbitrary division.

One of the interesting mental devices that the left and multicultural right are using right now to explain what we have seen in NO is to claim that the barbarity was perpetrated merely by a small criminal subset of the population which stayed behind. Obviously, this does carry some truth, but sadly, half-truths are often the vilest of all lies.

The problem with this view is that it is a very ethno-centric one, which believes that there exists a discrete and definable "law-abiding" subset, and an equality definable "criminal" subset. Among the American middle-class, this is often true, where many individuals are "irrationally" law abiding, and criminals clearly have made a conscious decision to defy social order.

But what we see among the underclass, and particularly these inner-city underclass blacks, is that there is no way to neatly separate a "law-abiding" subset from the criminal subset. Instead, with little respect for law and order, and an almost complete lack of self-restraint in the absence of externally imposed order, what we see is a spectrum of lawlessness. On one end, we see the worst of the worst, the child rapists, for example. But even on the "good" end of the spectrum, what do we see?

If it had not been for the complete breakdown of the city police, we could probably all believe the "it's just the criminal element misbehaving" lie without too much cognitive dissonance. But instead what we saw when we looked at the situation was the police joining in with the looters, even taking the best items first, all while they should have been helping to rescue people.

So what we see is a spectrum with child rapists, murders, and people essentially fermenting insurrection on one end, and loot-king police on the other end. Given this, what can we interpolate about what lies in the vast middle of the spectrum?

Indeed, what we see is a continuum, with no distinguishing division except for the arbitrary one of "law-abiding" and "criminal" that some would have us believe in.

Beyond Words

Wizbang notes a Washington Post article about the bureaucratic fighting which doubtlessly cost thousands of lives:

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.
The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

A senior administration official said that Bush has clear legal authority to federalize National Guard units to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and will continue to try to unify the chains of command that are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor.

Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.

It will be interesting to see what charges could be brought against Blanco. I realize that probably nothing can, but it should. There is the legal concept of "piercing the corporate veil" when officers of a legal corporation behave in such a way so as to forfeit the legal protection of the corporation, and become personally liable for their actions. In the power industry, there is the "designated felon" who is the person who is charged if the plant breaks the law.

So why could there not be such a concept when it comes to executing emergency plans? It seems that the biggest problem that prevented people from working together was the selfish fear of who would get the blame. Perhaps they just need more motivation to think about the greater good.

Additions to the Blogroll

I have made several additions to the blogroll at right.

Cutler's Yankee Station is a solid Jacksonian blog which I recommend reading.

iSteve, which I am sure most are already familiar with, is one of my daily reads.

Scoopster News is another great blog which is dealing especially well right now with keeping track of the hate crimes and brutality against whites in NO.

Border Insecurity

The Minuteman Project points out something that we should be sure we are paying attention to, despite what else is going on right now:

Midwestern farmlands seem an unlikely hideout for Osama bin Laden's hired hands, but an ongoing federal crackdown reveals the increased presence here of a notoriously violent gang with suspected links to al-Qaida.

Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, a gang founded in El Salvador and known for smuggling drugs and immigrants across the U.S.-Mexico border, could be bringing terrorists with them.

"The al-Qaida, from what we understand, has been meeting with them in Central America," said Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Texas, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, which oversees national security.

Ortiz testified in March that al-Qaida has offered MS-13 about $250,000 to smuggle "high value al-Qaida operatives across the border."

"Only God knows who or what they've been able to bring in" to the United States, Ortiz told The Associated Press.

The FBI estimates up to 30,000 MS-13s are in the United States.

The Scaffolding on Which Corruption Grows

Steve Sailer notes one of the more distasteful habits of the Bush administration which is famous for insider loyalty:

Bush's Mickey Mouse Mafia Unveiled:As I noted in my new VDARE.com article on the "New Orleans Nightmare," Bush never fires anybody for incompetence, just disloyalty, and his nominees have included men as awful as Bernie Kerik for Secretary of Homeland Security.

Obviously being loyal to your friends is a good thing, up to a point. But the USA is a country, not anyone's private four-year yacht, and the responsibility of any President or government official is first and foremost serving the citizens, not impressing or entertaining friends.

This "loyalty to the family" type of leadership reflects a rejection of the Anglo-Saxon view of good governance and instead an internalization of the south of the border form where a set of leading extended families basically hold power by their wide web of mutual loyalties.

Washington is still far from the kind of corruption we see south of the border, but the problem with this this "clannish" form of government is that it provides the scaffolding that institutionalized corruption of the latin variety grows on. The WASPish Bushes may be able to avoid the worst urges (or maybe not), but future administrations probably won't.

Stuck on an Bus

Thinking about what has been going on in NO and especially the "Terrordome" has reminded me of an incident a few years ago. Some friend and myself were going to an engineering related conference in a northern city. After we got our bags collected at the airport, we made the rather naive decision to take the city bus to the downtown Hilton where we were staying.

When we stepped on, the bus was empty, so naturally we thought nothing of who would be getting on at the next stop. We soon left the airport, and begin to traverse some not so welcome looking neighborhoods. As our luck would have it, we seem to have gotten the bus that comes right before the inter-city rush hour, when the people return from work, standing in welfare lines, seeing their parole officer, or whatever such people spend their days doing.

Needless to say, each successive bus stop brought the next wave of angry looking underclass blacks. Soon we were packed so tightly that people could no longer get on the bus at the last few stops. We clutched our luggage to our chest and looked at the floor as the black people cast dark glares at us.

They were quite happy to have us there though, I really do believe that. While this was going on, they were spewing their resentment at The Man, society, etc, all very much for our ears. One man standing next to my ear was speaking loudly to a woman about his parole officer and how he was out to get him. The woman seemed to be complaining about having to get a job and welfare benefits or something. All this passive aggressive behavior was for our benefit, but we were just thankful it was staying passive.

When we reached our stop, we all got off and heaved a huge sigh of relive that we had not been stabbed or who knows what. And all this was only maybe fifteen minutes of "immersive diversity" and with a functioning external authority; imagine what it must have been like for those trapped in the dome for days, with essentially no law and order. When I say that those white people faced a virtual concentration camp, you have got to know I really believe it.

Another Account from the Terrordome

Here is just another account, get the whole post at Useful Fools.

Two friends of mine went to New Orleans last weekend, and refused to listen when told to evacuate. They decided to stick it out in their French Quarter hotel. During the actual storm, their window blew out, but the hotel stayed solid. Monday, the two decided to leave and seek shelter. They walked to I-10, where hundreds were already standing and waiting. Between them and the Superdome was rising water, but the situation on the road looked bad, so they trekked out through the water to the Dome.

...

Hoping to find safety, they set out to find a place to hide. A trash can held the corpse of a 4 and a half year old girl. The mourners nearby said she had been raped and killed. A storage unit looked promising, and the duo hid out for several hours listening to the chaos beyond. Deciding that they would get mauled if found hiding, they left the unit and went down to the field, where they saw Army and National Guard troops. The Army told them they couldn’t hang around for safety, so they went to where the National Guard was forming a ring. The Guardsmen told them they could hang around the perimeter if they wanted, so they sat about 10 feet away from where two Guards were posting entrance to their circle. At some point after, a man came out of the flooded areas of the Dome with a pipe. He hit one of the Guards, a woman, on the head. He then shot the other guard in the leg (origin of gun unknown). The female Guard ran screaming away. The perpetrator ran back to the water. He was found with just his nose above the surface, and locked up.

...

A woman behind the pair had two German Shepards that were getting violent, and had nipped at my friends. One friend finally turned around and asked her to keep her dogs away from them. She screamed, “It’s just because you hate black people!” “Uh-oh”, they thought, “we’re dead now!” Luckily, the crowd didn’t turn on them, and they were safe. After 14 hours they made it to the front of the line. The pair got separated, and one got on a bus 4 hours before the other. The last one to get a bus told me of how the bus driver gave every seat a trash bag, asking the people to use them. After arriving in Dallas Saturday morning, however, the bus was strewn with litter.

He told me of how wonderful the people of Texas were. Every time the bus stopped, volunteers gave them food and water, and a soldier even hugged him. The volunteers at the convention center were very welcoming, and my friend has now vowed that Texas is the greatest state in the nation. He was very angry at the mayor and governor of Louisiana, for their lack of preparedness for a storm that they knew was coming. Neither friend ever wants to step foot in New Orleans again.

Retaking an American City

Here is an interesting article on the military operation to take back the city. It shouldn't have to be like this, but it is.

Combat operations are underway on the streets “to take this city back” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

“This place is going to look like Little Somalia,” Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force told Army Times Friday as hundreds of armed troops under his charge prepared to launch a massive citywide security mission from a staging area outside the Louisiana Superdome. “We’re going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control.”

...

Numerous soldiers also told Army Times that they have been shot at by armed civilians in New Orleans. Spokesmen for the Joint Task Force Headquarters at the Superdome were unaware of any servicemen being wounded in the streets, although one soldier is recovering from a gunshot wound sustained during a struggle with a civilian in the dome Wednesday night.

“I never thought that at a National Guardsman I would be shot at by other Americans,” said Spc. Philip Baccus of the 527th Engineer Battalion. “And I never thought I’d have to carry a rifle when on a hurricane relief mission. This is a disgrace.”

Spc. Cliff Ferguson of the 527th Engineer Battalion pointed out that he knows there are plenty of decent people in New Orleans, but he said it is hard to stay motivated considering the circumstances.

“This is making a lot of us think about not reenlisting.” Ferguson said. “You have to think about whether it is worth risking your neck for someone who will turn around and shoot at you. We didn’t come here to fight a war. We came here to help.”

That last quite is interesting, and I may come back around to it tomorrow.

We are all Cowards

One of the things about ideological change is that it is not linear. Instead, it goes in spurts, often triggered by events which are far beyond anyone's control. I think that Katrina may be one such event with effects that reach much farther than anyone expected.

There are some of the things that have been going on which the media is not especially interested in reporting very widely.

First, I would strongly suggest that everyone go to the Scoopster News blog and read what has been going on there. Please go read it.

After you finish, there is another good post on ParaPundit here I recommend reading.

One of the things that I had such a bad feeling about when I read that they were cramming masses into the now so-called "Terrordome" was knowing full and well that many of the white people, and especially white women were facing a virtual holocaust situation.

That is hardly fair. The concentration camps gave people water, they killed people orderly, and they did not ritualistically rape women and children. If you had only been there for four days, you could have easily survived in most cases.

What am I talking about?



This...

Valenti and her husband, two of very few white people in the almost exclusively black refugee camp, said she and other whites were threatened with murder on Thursday.

"They hated us. Four young black men told us the buses were going to come last night and pick up the elderly so they were going to kill us," she said, sobbing. "They were plotting to murder us and then they sent the buses away because we would all be killed if the buses came -- that's what the people in charge told us this morning."

Other survivors recounted horrific cases of sexual assault and murder.

Sitting with her daughter and other relatives, Trolkyn Joseph, 37, said men had wandered the cavernous convention center in recent nights raping and murdering children.

She said she found a dead 14-year old girl at 5 a.m. on Friday morning, four hours after the young girl went missing from her parents inside the convention center.

"She was raped for four hours until she was dead," Joseph said through tears. "Another child, a seven-year old boy was found raped and murdered in the kitchen freezer last night."

and this...

A young Briton trapped in New Orleans with his American girlfriend has issued an impassioned plea for help.

...

"He told me he was very concerned about his life and his girlfriend's," said John Graydon, 56. "He said, 'Dad you have to get us out of here.'

"That is the first time he has said that. He has been pretty brave until now. He is desperate. They are being abused and threatened. His girlfriend [Gretchen Heiserman] has been threatened with rape.

and this...

Unconfirmed transcripts of NBC's "Today" show state that New Orleans' native Harry Connick Jr. gave an emotive tour of the city streets. Following Connick's conversation with Katie Couric, NBC's Kerry Sanders reported on "Airport Triage" from New Orleans International Airport. He briefly showed two white men who were recovering from attacks sustained at the Superdome, "their friend was beaten to death," by a black mob. It is noted that the two men were edited out of the evening broadcast of "Airport Triage" on "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams".

and this...

Up to 30 British students huddled among the thousands in the Superdome were forced to set up a makeshift security cordon to fend off abusive locals.

Jamie Trout, 22, an economics student from Sunderland, kept a record of his terrifying ordeal. He wrote: "It was like something out of Lord of the Flies - one minute everything is calm and civil, the next it descends into chaos. A man has been arrested for raping a seven-year-old in the toilet, this place is hell. The smell is horrendous, there are toilets overflowing and people everywhere."

Jamie, who had been coaching football to disabled children as part of the Camp America scheme, said people were shouting racial abuse at the Britons because they were white.

Zoe Smith, 21, from Hull, told how students set up a security cordon when the power briefly went down in the Superdome amid fears they were going to be attacked. "All us girls sat in the middle while the boys sat on the outside, with chairs as protection," she said.


News of the students' ordeal came as New Orleans descended into anarchy.

and more...

AUSTRALIANS trapped in flood-ravaged New Orleans are in fear of their lives as the city descends into lawlessness.

Tourists stranded in the US Gulf Coast city and sheltering in its huge Superdome sports stadium in the wake of Hurricane Katrina have told of shootings, rapes and looting, and are growing increasingly concerned for their safety.

More than 50 Australians are believed to be trapped in New Orleans and surrounding areas.

Brisbane man Peter McNeil said his 22-year-old son John was stranded in New Orleans but had now moved with other foreigners out of the Superdome for their own protection.

Violence and racist behaviour had forced the group, including about 10 Australians, to take refuge in a hotel lobby after seeing people raped and murdered, he said.

Again, go read Scoopster News for their great coverage.

One final point.

The people who died and were beaten, and the women and children who were raped, it's not because of the underclass. The underclass blacks were just doing what they do naturally, and have always done, be it in Africa, the during the Reconstruction era in the South, or where ever.

No, these people suffered because whitey, you and me, were cowards for so many years. God damn cowards.

Two Poles: The Duality of 9/11 and New Orleans Post-Katrina

One question that many people have been asking is how could the rescue efforts be going so poorly after Katrina, after the commendable way the nation behaved after 9/11. Obviously, there are differences in the type of the disaster; for example, roads and transportation was never severely effected by the attacks on 9/11, nor was the disaster spread out over so many square miles.

At the same time though, there is a duality of what we see between both these extreme instances of tragedy in modern America. For anyone who is familiar with magnetic fields, you will know that there always has to be two poles. Likewise, in our multicultural society, Manhattan and New Orleans represent two poles in our society, in terms of culture, race, economic condition, etc.

When we look at the WTC or Manhattan generally, what we see are some of the more productive individuals in our country and the world. Looking at New Orleans however, particularly at the ghetto class, what we see is an underclass with anti-social behavior patterns and little or no marketable skills.

If one were to make a list of attributes that would generally be associated with both groups, it might look like the following:

Manhattan	New Orleans Underclass
Hard working Transparency "Small consistent efforts pay off" Responsible Self starter Altruistic High value on education High average intelligence Planning ahead Law abiding	Sloth and lasiness Corruption Opportunistic Unresponsible "Why isn't anyone doing ___ for me!" "Take what you can get" Low value on education Low average intelligence "Tomorrow will take care of itself" Low respect for law

Many people have compared what we have been seeing in New Orleans with a third world country. But why should we find that the least bit odd? Are third world countries defined simply as some areas within certain borders on maps? Does the land in third world counties make people poor? No, of course not. So why, pray tell, would we find it strange that the underclass behaved like they might in a third world country?

What we discovered as we looked at New Orleans was a mass of individuals, almost exclusively of third world origin, complete with a set of third world attributes, behaving just as they might have in their original lands. It is almost like there is a deterministic relationship that allows us to predict the behavior of groups of people based on certain attributes.

This brings up some questions that Americans need to ask themselves, but which have been ignored for a long time. Part of the shock of looking at this third world behavior was the false belief that "Americanized" people did not behave that way. To some, American soil is so profound and holy that by simply touching it those that enter are in some way transformed or "Europeanized". But these blacks have been in the US for centuries, certainly far longer that many of our more recent third world immigrants.

So what about assimilation and culture? Everyone likes to talk about assimilation, but were those underclass blacks assimilated? Another favorite cop-out for conservatives is blaming everything bad on culture. This would certainly seem to be a strong argument, but it leaves at least two major questions unanswered. First, how can we suppose that culture is really any more easily changed among a group (as opposed to an individual) that genetics might be? If two or three centuries are not enough to change a culture, just how long is required? Millenniums? Secondly, blaming culture as though it were a static object fails to account for how even small genetic predispositions can interact in shaping culture when the group dynamic of thousands or millions of people with the same predispositions are summed together.

Some people might be inclined to argue that overwhelmingly, poor people of third world origin do far better in America than they might in their country of origin, thus disproving that they have not advanced or changed in America. For high functioning individuals of third world origin, there is little doubt that they are much better situated to improve their life in America. But what many people fail to take into account when making these broad comparisons is the effects of subsidization.

When say, illegal aliens, come to America, they are getting much more than an "opportunity to work", as people such as Bush might like you to believe. In practice, they are also getting tremendous subsidies: welfare, free healthcare, schooling, etc; these are some of the basic subsidies, but they are only the tip of the iceberg. Other ways that many people of third world origin are subsidized in America include affirmative action, special programs, and even scholarships. Still other subsidies are even more sublime, but quite real: an infrastructure that is working (such as roads and clean water), law enforcement which is not corrupt (generally), a civil society, a market economy, and the list goes on. It is worth noting that many of these people don't even contribute to these forms of infrastructure, either by paying little or no taxes, being lawbreakers, creating civil disorder, or by voting against the very free market economy which directly or indirectly provides for them.

Lets put it another way so it is clear: imagine taking a random third world person (let's call him Tony), and though foreign aid providing all the subsidies that are available state-side. How well off would he be?

First, imagine affirmative action. It has been estimated that affirmative action transfers about $10,000 to each black, or $4,000 to each Hispanic, per year. So lets give Tony $7,000 for starters. Then let us add in a free education through at least high school. Maybe he will even get a state payed college scholarship because they need diversity, who knows. Now let's pave the mud roads in his country--no better yet, invade the country, kill the leaders, and replace them with civil administers that are not corrupt. We will bring in some trans-national corporations and create jobs and a market economy. We will also of course provide clean water and sewage disposable, free health care and police. What's left?

So how poor off is our third world friend Tony now? He is pretty well off quite frankly. And why is this? Because he came to America and assimilated, learned new skills, and worked hard? Or is it because we simply subsidized him up to a standard of living that rich white people could feel less guilty about?

I hope that if nothing else, this does make some sense in explaining why when these underclass groups complain about American racism, white people, etc, they never would actually consider leaving this oppressive country and returning to their (one supposes) utopianistic homelands.

The American

The Junk Yard Blog has an good post about some of the instances, rare as they seem, where people are actually standing up for themselves against the lawless:

These are the darkest times. Lawlessness has engulfed stricken and flooded New Orleans. Blameshifting has become the political order of the day as criminal gangs and snipers roam the streets, making rescue and relief dangerous and next to impossible. Formerly tolerant, but now outgunned, city police are overwhelmed and many are now quitting while the innocent suffer and die. State and U.S. Military forces have not yet filled the gap to backup the men in blue who remain. We desperately need a hero. And one steps forward from the shadows. Who is he?

In the Carrollton neighborhood, two armed men - self-appointed sheriffs in a white pickup - confronted them. Spotting thieves who had commandeered a forklift and smashed into a Rite Aid store, the two men fired above the looters' heads and ran them off.

A man emerged pulling a little wagon stacked with Pampers, food, water and soda. He screamed at the men with the guns.

"Who are y'all? Who are you to stop us?"

"I'm an American citizen," was the reply. "Take your food and go."

Who is that man separating good from evil and dealing out both justice and mercy? He's not a subject, he's not a prole, he's not a mercenary. He's an American citizen.

When the man said "I'm an American citizen", I doubt that he meant it in the expansive, "we are the world" sort of way. Maybe the man was white, maybe he was black, it does not matter; what does matter is that in Jacksonian fashion he was drawing a line, recognizing those that are inside the circle, and those that are outside the circle. There are those that obey the code, and there are those that don't, and those that don't shouldn't expect much.

There are some individuals today that believe in the commoditization of Americans; if you believe that liberal democracy and capitalism will eventually cover the earth like dew, despite human nature, or if you can't look at an illiterate third world peasant or anti-American foreign elite and not see an "American" waiting to happen, then there is no reason to believe that there is anything special about Americans. Instead, we are just a commodity; if we won't work cheap enough, or vote the way you want, we can be replaced with somebody else, no problem.

But the American is the great indispensable element; an American is an unrecreatable consequence of a certain people, with a certain culture, a certain nature, in a certain time, over centuries becoming what the American is today.

Don't try to replace us buddy.

Beyond Words

This is an absolutely damming photo. We have all heard (true or not) that those who remained behind could not get out because they did not have transportation. Why did the mayor not use the buses?! This is incompetence and stupidity of the first order, period.

You Loot, We Shoot, and Other Orwellian Bedtime Stories

A lot of people have been frustrated that the law is not taking a firmer stance against the looters. There have been a number of government officials claiming that we would shoot looters, but yet there has been no instances of this that I am aware of (shooting at people who are already shooting at the police does not count).

Let's be perfectly candid for those who are inclined to take what the government is saying about shooting looters at face value: nobody is going to shoot anybody, and if anyone does, it will probably be despite orders. That's crazy you might say, why would the authorities order the police to NOT shoot looters after they said they would to the media?

Everyone who has heard of the Rodney King riots, please raise your hand. Thank you, very good class.

The fact is that NO is basically a lost city; nobody really cares if it gets looted at this point. However, nobody wants to risk civil disorder spreading to other cities like Detroit, Atlanta, Huston, or LA, just because some white cop shot some black looter on prime time TV.

If anybody gets shot for looting, they will be white or asian. Just remember you heard it here first.

UPDATE: From Drudge Report:

KANYE WEST ON NBC FUNDRAISER: 'GEORGE BUSH DOESN'T CARE ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE... They're saying black families are looting and white families are just looking for food...they're giving the (Army) permission to shoot us'... Actor Mike Myers asked people to donate... then Kanye West went on a tirade about Iraq... MORE...

How can you say people who are looting 48" TV's are just looking for food? Maybe this is just a black thing, but how do you eat a widescreen TV? No really, enlighten me, I would like to know.

Situation Desperate for Doctors at Hyatt in NO

As some may be aware of by now, Pierre Legrand of The Pink Flaming Bar & Grill's mother-in-law is a doctor who stayed behind in New Orleans to help children at the Superdome. They were moved to a makeshift hospital at the Hyatt, but thinks seem to be getting worse. Pierre's message in a bottle is below, and the situation does sound bad:

UPDATED #2 TERRIBLE NEW!

Thank you for linking to me and helping the situation. I am again depending on your help. I don't know if you have any contacts with FOX but I believe out of all the organizations down there they may be the only ones competent enough to help. The confusion about who is responsible for what is criminal.

My mother in law Dr. Darken who I contacted you earlier about called last night at 8:00PM pleading for us to find someway to get them out of the Hyatt where they were removed for their safety because of the situation in the Superdome. The Hyatt is becoming dangerous as well. Then at 4:00am she contacted us again to beg for food and water. She would not be begging if it were not dire. She is a brilliant woman but not the strongest physically. I am in terrible fear of her life.

Can contact someone in FOX NEWS to highlight this story? They won't let anyone down there to help, they wont let anyone leave, they won't feed them and they won't give them water. The outrageousness of this is beyond my ability to express. These are doctors and nurses who worked for the city in the Shelter of Last resort. They did not stay there because of studity or negiligence but because it was their duty. The City and State governments are allowing these people to die. Some of the most highly trained staff in New Orleans are being allowed to die because of the gross incompetence. I cannot express the frustration I have to be sitting a mere 60 miles away while one of the kindest and best pediatricians is suffering and heaven forbid dying. Please help.

If you would like to talk to me please call

PLEASE EMAIL ME IF YOU CAN HELP AT fleetdefender@cox.net

Gas Price Gouging

Drudge is reporting that thousands of people are reporting "gas gouging" to the feds. My biggest fear was the opposite actually, specifically that they would not rise prices enough, and instead we would be having gas shortages at the pump. The prices at the pump are depressing right now, but it sure beats running out of gas on the side of the road.

Also, I noticed that Bush has said that people should not buy gas unless they need it. ("What? And to think I filled up today simply because I enjoy paying $3 per gallon!") Isn't this the wrong approach to take? Telling people to ration in a market economy actually tends to cause panic and hording. Did we learn nothing from the Carter years?

The Race Taboo

Parapundit has a good post about the intersection of the taboo of race and the New Orleans situation. He quotes from this article on Slate:

I can't say I saw everything that the TV newscasters pumped out about Katrina, but I viewed enough repeated segments to say with 90 percent confidence that broadcasters covering the New Orleans end of the disaster demurred from mentioning two topics that must have occurred to every sentient viewer: race and class.

Nearly every rescued person, temporary resident of the Superdome, looter, or loiterer on the high ground of the freeway I saw on TV was African-American. And from the look of it, they weren't wealthy residents of the Garden District. This storm appears to have hurt blacks more directly than whites, but the broadcasters scarcely mentioned that fact.

I think that it is worth point out that one of the characteristics of the underclass is a strong tendency to not plan ahead, and to believe (often irrationally) in the best case outcome of a situation. So in a situation where advance warning was given, one could generally predict that the poor would be more likely to stay behind, regardless of opportunity to leave. Obviously there were people who could not leave, but then again, obviously the armed young men who are running around looting are not bedridden.

Another point where the race taboo really hurts is housing the refugees. There are efforts to connect refugees with individuals who will share their house with them, but to my knowledge, none of them let people mark a racial preference. Of course, many may find that idea abhorrent, but it's not that crazy; a lot of middle-class white people who might otherwise be willing to share their house are probably scared about getting the same black people they see on TV looting the city. Likewise, many blacks may be embarrassed to share their humble abode with what they might expect to be affluent white people. Perhaps even more importantly, if you are going to share your house for any extended period of time (more than a few days in other words), it is simply common sense that matching people who are most similar in race, cultural, economic, and even family status as a key to making it the least unpleasant experience possible.