Cultural Wars in the Windy City
If you go west on I-55 you’ll see a bill board for a talk radio station that proclaims, “Liberal’s Hate It!” On a number of city buses-primarily the ones that go on route 145 and 146, you see an ad for a “progressive” radio station. “Our kind of talk for our kind of town.”
We’ve even got a culture war flare up in Nikkos‘ post.
Fact is, this culture war crap will not help the people of NOLA. Nor is it going to do anything but make blood boil. As I type this, however, I have to fight every urge I have to jump into the comments and support my co-blogger, and fellow liberal, Nikkos.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I agree with just about everything he has written so far… but what the hell is that going to do? Just adding fuel to the fire will not help clean up the Gulf Coast. Fighting over who pointed which finger will not get anyone victim of this their homes back any faster…
Chicago MetBlog has been covering Katrina and it’s aftermath so it is inevitable that the political fall-out will be covered here too. We should keep in mind, however, that regardless of beliefs, dealing with Katrina’s victims is much more important than tipping hats or snarky one liners.
Technorati Tags: Chicago, Government, Hurricane, Katrina, Opinion, Rants
Even after writing, and thinking about what I’ve been writing for far too long, I can’t help but write this: While W has accepted “responsibility” for the tragedy in NOLA, what does that mean exactly? Will he sell his ranch to help pay for reconstruction? Will he help rebuild houses in the 9th Ward with his own hands (to take a page from former President Carter)? will he resign?
Bush has yet to say what he means by “taking responsibility.” When one “takes responsibility,” they suffer the consequences and make amends. Thus far, Bush has suffered zero consequences (a huge drop in the polls is not a consequence by any stretch of the imagination) and he has yet to truly do anything to make amends.
On a final note, I’d just like to leave everyone with this quote: A liberal is a conservative who’s been arrested. A conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged.
Marty-
Thanks for the support.
I agree wholeheartedly with your position that the victims are more important than assessing blm at this point.
However, nature abhors a vacuum- meaning, if Americans (not just liberals) are not vocal in their criticism, then the defenders of the Bush administration have the floor to spin, dissemble and revise history as it unfolds to their heart’s content.
I believe that raising my voice, however small and insignificant it may be, is my essential duty as a citizen of this country.
Thanks again for the shout-out!
nikkos
Nikkos
Once again, I whole heartedly agree.
Are you guys done patting each other on the back? Maybe you should take it back to your apartment and talk about it over drinks?
you know, that’s a great idea. Nikkos, how about it? I’ll buy a nice bottle of red wine and we can watch Outfoxed, Bowling for Columbine and … Goonies.
I’ve been sucked into this same argument in the last week and am still trying to understand it. In exactly the same fashion I have found myself backed into asserting that “helping the victims is more important than assessing blame” by means of finding common ground with people who don’t agree with me. It’s a worthy sentiment but a false dichotomy, I think. I haven’t seen ANYONE argue that assessing blame is more important above anything else. But it’s interesting that so many people think you can’t provide aid to the victims and try to assign accountability at the same time. I’m not sure why those two are incompatible.
I don’t think that assessing blame and helping the victims are incompatible; however I think that since most of us are rather powerless to help, we try to figure out what went wrong. Finding out what was wrong is our way of helping, and we do it so freverntly that we just get caught up in it. Since this is “our way” we become unwilling to find any real common ground.
Does that make any sense?