Controlled Chaos

TIA Daily -- September 2, 2005 By Robert Tracinski It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster. If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild. Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists--myself included--did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting. But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster. The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong. The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over the past four days. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view. The man-made disaster is the welfare state. For the past few days, I have found the news from New Orleans to be confusing. People were not behaving as you would expect them to behave in an emergency--indeed; they were not behaving as they have behaved in other emergencies. That is what has shocked so many people: they have been saying that this is not what we expect from America. In fact, it is not even what we expect from a Third World country. When confronted with a disaster, people usually rise to the occasion. They work together to rescue people in danger, and they spontaneously organize to keep order and solve problems. This is especially true in America. We are an enterprising people, used to relying on our own initiative rather than waiting around for the government to take care of us. I have seen this a hundred times, in small examples (a small town whose main traffic light had gone out, causing ordinary citizens to get out of their cars and serve as impromptu traffic cops, directing cars through the intersection) and large ones (the spontaneous response of New Yorkers to September 11). So what explains the chaos in New Orleans? To give you an idea of the magnitude of what is going on, here is a description from a Washington Times story: "Storm victims are raped and beaten; fights erupt with flying fists, knives and guns; fires are breaking out; corpses litter the streets; and police and rescue helicopters are repeatedly fired on. "The plea from Mayor C. Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen poured in to restore order and stop the looting, carjackings and gunfire.... "Last night, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said 300 Iraq-hardened Arkansas National Guard members were inside New Orleans with shoot-to-kill orders. "'These troops are...under my orders to restore order in the streets," she said. "They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will." The reference to Iraq is eerie. The photo that accompanies this article shows National Guard troops, with rifles and armored vests, riding on an armored vehicle through trash-strewn streets lined by a rabble of squalid, listless people, one of whom appears to be yelling at them. It looks exactly like a scene from Sadr City in Baghdad. What explains bands of thugs using a natural disaster as an excuse for an orgy of looting, armed robbery, and rape? What causes unruly mobs to storm the very buses that have arrived to evacuate them, causing the drivers to drive away, frightened for their lives? What causes people to attack the doctors trying to treat patients at the Super Dome? Why are people responding to natural destruction by causing further destruction? Why are they attacking the people who are trying to help them? My wife, Sherri, figured it out first, and she figured it out on a sense-of-life level. While watching the coverage last night on Fox News Channel, she told me that she was getting a familiar feeling. She studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Chicago, which is located in the South Side of Chicago just blocks away from the Robert Taylor Homes, one of the largest high-rise public housing projects in America . "The projects," as they were known, were infamous for uncontrollable crime and irremediable squalor. (They have since, mercifully, been demolished.) What Sherri was getting from last night's television coverage was a whiff of the sense of life of "the projects." Then the "crawl"--the informational phrases flashed at the bottom of the screen on most news channels--gave some vital statistics to confirm this sense: 75% of the residents of New Orleans had already evacuated before the hurricane, and of the 300,000 or so who remained, a large number were from the city's public housing projects. Jack Wakeland then gave me an additional, crucial fact: early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city's jails--so they just let many of them loose. There is no doubt a significant overlap between these two populations--that is, a large number of people in the jails used to live in the housing projects, and vice versa. There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit--but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals--and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep--on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves. All of this is related, incidentally, to the apparent incompetence of the city government, which failed to plan for a total evacuation of the city, despite the knowledge that this might be necessary. But in a city corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to political supporters--not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency. No one has really reported this story, as far as I can tell. In fact, some are already actively distorting it, blaming President Bush, for example, for failing to personally ensure that the Mayor of New Orleans had drafted an adequate evacuation plan. The worst example is an execrable piece from the Toronto Globe and Mail, by a supercilious Canadian who blames the chaos on American "individualism." But the truth is precisely the opposite: the chaos was caused by a system that was the exact opposite of individualism. What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. They don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men. But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about saving their houses and property? They don't, because they don't own anything. Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before. Do they worry about crime and looting? But living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them. The welfare state--and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages--is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans . And that is the story that no one is reporting. Source: TIA Daily -- September 2, 2005

QUOTE(bighurt4444 @ Sep 1, 2005 -> 11:26 AM) So you go into every game preparing for the Sox to lose? That sounds pretty boring and negative to me. Here's how I see Milkman, fathom and whoever else preaches this attitude when they go to a game. Hand over ticket to get in park. Walk to the seat. Look at the field. Watch the first pitch and then say....This one's over!! They ain't won in 87 years so why should I think they're going to win this. Let's get outta here.

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Sep 1, 2005 -> 11:12 AM) The Patton quote doesn't really fit. If we're Americans and we love winners, then why the hell would any of us love the White Sox? They haven't won anything in any of our lifetimes. We're fans because we love this team, not that they're winners. In fact, saying we love winners is like switching your allegiance every year to whoever wins. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best. That's my take. I'm hoping they'll do something miraculous, but I'm preparing myself for the more likely scenario that they'll fall flat on their faces like they've done so many times before. The part of the Patton quote that fits is "I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed" You've prepared yourself for them losing by saying it all year...so when it happens..no big deal. You have no heart invested in it. I think they're winners. They won 80 games and have the best record in the American league....I'm not talking about what they did my whole lifetime...I'm talking about now. This team has nothing to do with the team 5 years ago, 10 years ago or 80 years ago. They share the same name...that's it!! Preparing for the worst and hoping for the best is a pretty s***ty way to root for a favorite team. It doesn't even sound fun.

QUOTE(Yossarian @ Sep 1, 2005 -> 10:59 AM) Look with our record and history it's not a monkey on our back, it's a giant gorilla. That's just the way it is. Unless and until the Sox actually win a World Series that's the way it's going to stay. This year has the potential to be especially tormenting because we were 24-7, 53-24, 62-29 once upon a time. The turnabout has been not pretty to look at. It does not inject the spirit with any sense of confidence but rather a sickening sense of de ja vu. Even the "hitless wonders" of a century ago were charging to the finish line, with a 19 game winning streak in August. So why predict losing. and who's to say we don't finish with a winning streak..last I looked we play till October.

QUOTE(TheDybber @ Sep 1, 2005 -> 10:39 AM) It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Cliche or not...that's exactly the point I was trying to make. What does predicting losses do for a fan? I don't give a s*** what the've done in the last 87 years...THIS YEAR.....RIGHT NOW...If you are a fan and want the sox to win a world series...what benefit is there in saying they're done and won't get through the first round. What's the reason for it....

So what is it? What makes a fan do it? How can someone be a die hard fan, but constantly preach and predict negativity. Why do some fans always predict the worst outcome. I've thought about this a lot. I'd say probably half the board members have this attitude, as well as a number, of my family and friends. "Seasons Over" "Sox Are Done" "First Round and Out" are just some of the things I've heard and read. It's a lot easier to deal with losing if you put it in your head that we've already lost. If you say 'we're gonna lose' and then we do lose.... you don't feel as bad cause you were mentally prepared for the loss. Hell, you might even feel good because you predicted it. Why else do fans of a team go around saying: "I told you so...I knew we were going to lose that one." Well wuppty f***in do....you predicted your favorite team to lose and they did...how is that in any way good?? Now what happens if you're one of these pessimistic souls and the team wins. Well you feel good then too, cause deep down you truely are a fan. Who really cares if you said they sucked 20 minutes ago. They won!! Everyone is happy, but deep down you know you are happy about something you couldn't even let yourself believe in. This attitude reeks of weakness. You can't go through life preparing youself for the worst. I say you jump in with both feet. I've always been an all or nothing guy. Yeah, it hurts more when things don't go your way, but you take solace in the fact that you never wavered and you took the bad with the good. A guarded fan is a passionless fan. I'm not saying you can't be critical or that you can't be concerned. In fact, as a fellow die hard fan, I demand it. However, predicting losses or predicting that we won't make the playoffs or predicting we won't make it out of the first round is a mentally weak thing to do. Predicting the game is over in the top of the first when the sox are down 1-0 nothing is a weak thing to do. The simple fact is, this team is capable of winning every single game they play. At the start of every game, they have just as much a chance of winning as anyone. So why sell your self short of sharing that belief with them. Why try to soften the blow? Victory tastes so much sweeter if you don't. Believing you can win is part of the joy in winning. In the words of George S. Patton: "Americans love a winner, and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost, and will never lose a war: Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.” Let's see the American attitude in the white sox fan. Don't prepare yourself for losing...prepare yourself for winning. Prepare yourself for the greatest end to a Sox baseball season in over 80 years. LETS GO SOX!

QUOTE(CYGarland @ Aug 31, 2005 -> 01:54 PM) What's more frustrating? Swinging at ball 4, or Swinging at the 1st pitch? how about a bunch of posts b****ing about the sox scoring a run...

Somewhat relevant Stephanopoulos Urged Foreign Assassination Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson prompted a firestorm of media outrage on Tuesday after he suggested that the Bush administration should assassinate a foreign leader who posed a threat to the U.S. - in this case, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. But when senior Clinton advisor George Stephanopoulos publicly argued for the same kind of assassination policy in 1997, the press voiced no objection at all. Fresh from his influential White House post, Stephanopoulos devoted an entire column in Newsweek to the topic of whether the U.S. should take out Saddam Hussein. His headlined? "Why We Should Kill Saddam." "Assassination may be Clinton's best option," the future "This Week" host urged. "If we can kill Saddam, we should." Though Iraq war critics now argue that by 1997, the Iraqi dictator was "in a box" and posed no threat whatsoever to the U.S., Stephanopoulos contended that Saddam deserved swift and lethal justice. "We've exhausted other efforts to stop him, and killing him certainly seems more proportionate to his crimes and discriminate in its effect than massive bombing raids that will inevitably kill innocent civilians," the diminutive former aide contended. Stephanopoulos even offered a way to get around the presidential ban on foreign assassinations: "If Clinton decides we can and should assassinate Saddam, he could call in national-security adviser Sandy Berger and sign a secret National Security Decision Directive authorizing it." The Stephanopoulos plan: "First, we could offer to provide money and materiel to Iraqi exiles willing to lead an effort to overthrow Saddam. . . . The second option is a targeted airstrike against the homes or bunkers where Saddam is most likely to be hiding." The one-time top Clinton aide said that, far from violating international principles, assassinating Saddam would be the moral thing to do, arguing, "What's unlawful - and unpopular with the allies - is not necessarily immoral." Stephanopoulos also noted that killing Saddam could pay big political dividends at home, saying the mission would make Clinton "a huge winner if it succeeded."

Not sure if they cheated or not, but Rooney and Farmer were talking about that yesterday at the start of the game as well. Farmer said... "Last time we were here, I said I thought they steal signs and I still think they do" Take it for what its worth...just saying someone else pointed out the same thing and this was before MB started gettin hit hard.

"We no longer care about people who doubt us," Konerko said. "We haven't all year. You're either with us or you're not. There's people jumping on and off the bandwagon, but from now on when you're off, there's no getting back on." Where is this quote from? I'd like to hear the whole conversation or interview or whatever. Cause it seems cut short here. Paulie doesn't seem the type of player to say fans don't have the right to boo. He gets down harder on himself then anyone...I can't see him knocking fans that get down on him when he is struggling. I think this was just a team quote...kinda like 'hey we believe in ourselves and we don't care who doesn't' What should he say "Yeah when people question us...it kinda gets in our heads and we start doubting ourselves too" Then people can b**** about that quote. GMAFB people!! I mean he's just saying in that clubhouse...they believe in themselves....regardless of what is going on outside of it. I don't think he was singling out badwagon fans anyway. He was more than likely talking about the media and they're flip-flopping. 'this team is playing over their heads' - 'this team is not this good' - 'the sox are for real' - 'sox might win division' 'sox need a player to win it' - 'sox are coming down to earth' - 'sox are dropping fast' - 'sox will win divsion again' I mean there was so much BS the beginning of the year when the sox were winning about how they're not that good. Then they finally got some ackowledgement. Then they lost 7 in a row and the media was back on with an 'I told ya so' attitude.

sounds about right

I don't know about play of the game...but it was pretty huge that Ozuna was able to lay the bunt down even with 2 strikes on him. Play of the game for me was the Blum slide.

QUOTE(BigSqwert @ Aug 25, 2005 -> 03:24 PM) Sox starters have given up 1 run in the last 4 games. I think Mark and Freddy each gave up a solo dong. But yeah....the pitching has been steller....

QUOTE(whitesox247 @ Aug 25, 2005 -> 02:56 PM) hell yeeees. too bad garland didnt get the win. Cant get #17....man he deserved it today.

eat it twinks!

he gone!!!!!!!!!!!

dam he's battling

whoa he fouled off ball four there....whew

QUOTE(Colorado Sox Fan @ Aug 25, 2005 -> 02:44 PM) WHY IN THE WORLD DOES HE HAVE THAT IDIOT URIBE BUNT??????!!!!!!!!!!! Cause its the right play...jesus dude...get a grip

great f***ing slide!!!!!!!! NICE!!!!!!!!

need to get this run in get jenks out there and win this f***in thing

Remember all those 1 run wins.....this should be a piece of cake for us... I ain't worried edit: anyone else have trouble saying 1 run wins

wallball killin us

QUOTE(The Ginger Kid @ Aug 25, 2005 -> 01:58 PM) My email to Hawk: "Hawk, I'm a big Sean Penn fan. He's in Iran right now and I was wondering if you could give him a shout out. Thanks, and Go Sox!" :puke :puke :puke Hopefully Hawk tears that s*** up.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Aug 25, 2005 -> 12:58 PM) Uribe, because he doesnt get as many hits as Iguchi. Gooch is also usually one strike down, from taking a couple pitches so pods can steal...