I just posted this comment to Making Light

[redbird]

To reiterate: The germane fact is not that [the president of Jefferson Parish] breaks down crying on Meet The Press, but that he breaks down crying after describing how FEMA refused his stranded community water and fuel, and then, in an astonishingly chilling flourish, cut their emergency communication lines. [The italics were quoting pnh quoting China Miéville (thanks for the correction, Patrick).]

I don't know details of Louisiana law, but in New York, that's not just vandalism, it's depraved indifference to human life, and murder charges against the people who did it, and whoever gave the orders to do so, if anyone died of hunger or thirst in that parish after that point.

I believe the New Orleans district attorney should be preparing indictments against the heads of FEMA and Homeland Security on charges of at least criminally negligent homicide--the image of them trying to bargain it down to manslaughter is darkly amusing--and possibly depraved indifference. They withheld food and water from hungry, thirsty refugees. They knew, or should have known, the effects of that.

There are witnesses--many of them relatives and neighbors--who can testify to those deaths, to the identities of those who died, and to when they died.

No wonder Bush doesn't want us seeing the bodies: they're evidence of crimes by his cronies.

Comments

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Yes. "Genocide" has such tremendous value for designating particular categories of mass murder. There has to be racist intent. There has to be intent to destroy a people, whether by murdering all of them, or by murdering enough that the rest cannot sustain the culture. The whole point of the word is to have everyone know that genocide that kills 100,000 is *worse* than 100,000 homicides. It's worth something not to weaken the term by using it in such a nonspecific circumstance.

This situation clearly involves criminally negligent homicide, on an enormous scale. The intent appears to be much more class-based than race-based, insofar as there was any intent at all.

I don't see any particular value in using the word "genocide," to weigh against the value of saving it for times when it will be needed with full literal impact. Some people are horrified by the actions of FEMA and the US federal government. We're not going to become more horrified by an exaggerated accusation of "genocide." Some people get their news elsewhere, and regard the government as sincerely doing their best to help "those people" who "chose to stay." I have profound doubts that their minds would be changed by a word like "genocide," either.