"I saw so many kids get killed, … and I didn’t want that to happen to my child,” Sistrunk says. Four of her 13 children were shot at Taylor. She calmly details the arm and leg wounds they suffered and the exact spot each was injured – the playground, the elevator, the streets. The lesson was clear: No place was safe.
Probably George Bush's fault.
8 comments:
I assume you probably haven't seen the projects (in real life). The article makes them seem far nicer than they ever were.
It's kind of too bad they're tearing them down. The projects on the south side were the supreme statement that the FDR/LBJ progressivism was a massive failure, a testimony to the evil socialism creates.
They were a failure because there was never any accountability tied to living there. I know the projects in Dallas were torn down in favor of satillite complexes, strangely placed in upscale suburban neighborhoods with little access to public transportation or services. What happened instead was the culture that fostered crime and criminals spread to the suburbs where school and police officials were not prepared for what came next. Once again, it was due to a lack of reponsibility for the individuals who received housing that messed up the program. You can't simply give people money to live a subsistence lifestyle and then hope they will get a clue and move on. Too many of them are too uneducated, too stoned or simply too unwilling to work. It's easier to stay on the dole. Heck, I have kids now from affluent homes who think that if they get pregnant all they have to do is turn to Uncle Sam for a check every month. That is why the projects failed dismally and why such programs will only support generational dependency on welfare and public handouts.
Maybe I'm a bad liberal, or maybe I'm really more of a moderate, but I disagree with your statement that it was "probably George Bush's fault", which I'm assuming you're using as sarcasm toward liberals.
The only reason I'm a registered Democrat is because California unfortunately does not have an open primary system, and I lean more toward the views of the Democratic candidates than the Republican ones. However, I believe the Dems have made a number of huge mistakes in recent (since WWII) political history, and LBJ's "War on Poverty" was a mistake (although the other prongs of his Great Society movement, were overwhelmingly positive for this nation.)
I'm not sure when "progressive" became a bad word--it implies moving forward at a moderate and methodical pace, rather than rushing ahead with radical actions or ideas. I see LBJ's Great Society as a radical movement rather than a progressive one, but it came a at time when the nation was ready for radical actions.
I wish I had an answer to the welfare reform issue--right now I'm not agreeing with either the Republicans or the Democrats on this issue, but I'm not quite sure if the answer lies somewhere inbetween the two or completely outside of the scope of both. I only wish it were more of a national focus at the moment, rather than a Middle Eastern conflict that, in my opinion, we shouldn't be involved with any more than we should have allowed LBJ to lead us into Vietnam.
Yes, La Maestra, it was sarcasm. I'm glad you got it =)
I chose to use the term "progressive" as a perjorative because I don't think that what so-called progressives want is a move in the positive direction at all. Commenter MikeAT spoke for me in his comment in the previous post, Excellent Commentary on Recent Events at Columbia University:
"I use the term regressive for our left wing friends. What they advocate (collectivism, control of the economy by the government, control of speech, etc) has been tried before. It hasn’t worked in Russia, China, Europe, where ever it’s tried. It won’t work here.
"Remember what Einstein said. Insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
Unlike today's Republicans, I still believe that "that government governs best which governs least." Trusting people to do for themselves, making government smaller instead of larger--*that* would truly be progress, as it hasn't really happened yet in world history.
Another great example of liberal compassion was shown in New Orleans last year.
Hurricane Katrina was not the first time New Orleans has been hit by a major storm. Call it what it is, a hazard of the location (e.g. like Los Angles with earthquakes, Washington state with volcanos). But in past hurricanes, people would get up and rebuild themselves.
One picture I saw last year says it all. A woman (looked 50-60) was sitting outside of the Superdome the day after Katrina holding up a sign saying “We need to be evacuated now”. Let’s see lady, you knew a Cat 4/5 storm was heading to New Orleans and didn’t evacuate. You went to a shelter of last resort without bringing food or water. Yep, it’s Bush’s fault!
Thanks to years of “progressive”, i.e. regressive education, we’ve raised generations of people who expect someone else will take care of themselves. And this has to change. A lot of the evacuee’s are getting a culture shock. Houston has made it very clear they will not support people indefinitely who will not get a job. And a lot of New Orleans evacuees are not used to having someone expect them to employ themselves.
And if you’re wondering how I would know that, I was born in South Louisiana and with the exception of five years on active duty (where Darren and I met in 1989...damned, it's been a while), I lived most of my life in the New Orleans area until 1998. I’ve lived in Houston since then.
The aftermath to that Katrina story is that thousands of "evacuees" (they nearly had collective coronaries when the local papers called them refugess)are still waiting it out with free rent and support from Uncle Sam. These people, who haven't found jobs yet, and whose children are clogging our schools and overloading our classes, have been warned MONTHLY since JULY that they must file paperwork to show cause why they should continue to get support. Less than 20% of them have filed the paperwork. Yet the first day one of them gets kicked out of the subsidized life there will be media up and down the sidewalk with closeups of every little tear.
P.S. This also doesn't account for the numerous parolees from Louisiana who have yet to check in with anyone. Any wonder why Houston and Dallas have crime problems both in and out of our schools? NOLA had problems BEFORE Katrina was ever spawned. That they reelected Nagin shows that they don't have a clue down there of who is on the take and who isn't. I like NOLA, but it's throwing good money after bad to fix it unless they allow the feds to go in a revamp every sector of government graft. Talk to anyone who has tried to sell anything in the state. It's a third world country.
"I like NOLA, but it's throwing good money after bad to fix it unless they allow the feds to go in a revamp every sector of government graft. Talk to anyone who has tried to sell anything in the state. It's a third world country."
Ellenk, please, don't insult Lower Slovia by ranking them with NOLA! ;)
Sorry, but how is it that Mississippi, which took a pretty good lick from Katrina as well, is up and moving-slowly but deliberately-while NOLA is still lying around in bed hollering for more gumbo? I have friends in outlying areas on both sides of NOLA-Lake Charles, Slidell, Natchez and they say things are back to normal. I would argue that things haven't been normal in NOLA for decades. It's like when there's a death in a dysfunctional family and only during the funeral does everyone start realizing something is terribly wrong. In the meantime our school are full of kids whose parents don't pay taxes, and our state is carrying the load economically, socially and morally. It's time for the visitors to GO HOME. That goes for the ones south of the border too.
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