Refugee Camps a la George?

[Observer]

Let's hope this isn't true, but read for yourself.


http://www.livejournal.com/users/timiathan/180717.html
http://www.unknownnews.org/0509090906CampWilliams.html

[Kinetic IV]

Unofficially I've been hearing of this a couple of days ago. It's pretty disturbing.

[unjonharley]

One woman stated on camera in the news: She had taken in 14 people to two rooms of a hotel. It was working out ok. These people were safe for then. FEMA come in, told then to leave. Just get out. They were taking the rooms for there offices. I say " Goe Bush Black shirts" and "Here come the jack boots".

[AntiM]

Uh, IMHO the Camp Williams story is biased, the writer obviously has no clue how the military operates. Camp Williams was not built for refugees, it is a working military base. Of course it has fences and barbed wire and armed guards; it has 'em before Katrina and will have them after the crisis has passed. And yes, parts of Utah are pretty darn barren, that's why the bases are there and not in downtown Salt Lake. And no, there's no public transportation, Utah is notoriously bad at that. I'm willing to bet the guards' silence is run of the mill, bet they're low level reservists called up for Iraq and filling in for the regular military, they couldn't answer questions because they don't know squat and/or they don't want to catch shit from above. And no, even a media pass won't get you on a secure military installation. And unless the camp provides passes, they won't let the new residents on and off base either.

People were sent where there were facilities, I bet the thinking was "Get these folks to safe shelter and food and medical facilities, and then we can sort out where the families are."

Why use military bases? They're small contained cities, easy to administer to needs, and ready for an influx of people.

Ask anyone who is ex-military, civilians rarely "get it" when it comes to a working military facility and standard security practices.

[Observer]

I make no assumption as to the truth of anything I read online, but your defense does not seem on-point, given the content of the articles linked to.

1. The first article linked to refers to a camp in Oklahoma, not Utah, and as the author writes

Two car loads of us headed over to Falls Creek, a youth camp for Southern Baptist churches in Oklahoma that agreed to have its facilities used to house Louisiana refugees. I'm afraid the camp is not going to be used as the kind people of the churches who own the cabins believe it was going to be used.

(snip)

Falls Creek is like a small town that is closed down about 9 months out of the year. It is made up of cabins that range from small and humble to large and grandiose, according to how much money the church who owns the cabin has. Each cabin has full kitchen facilities, bathrooms and usually have two large bunkrooms - one for women and one for men. The occupancy of the cabins varies according to the church. This past week the Southern Baptist association of Oklahoma offered the facility as a place to house refugees from the Katrina disaster. Each church owning a cabin was then called to find out if they would make their cabin available. Churches across the state agreed.

(snip)

My mother then asked if the churches would be allowed to come to their cabin and conduct services if the occupants wanted to attend. The response was "No ma'am. You don't understand. Your church no longer owns this building. This building is now owned by FEMA and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. They have it for the next 5 months." This scares my mother who asks "Do you mean they have leased it?" The man replies, "Yes, ma'am...lock, stock and barrel. They have taken over everything that pertains to this facility for the next 5 months."

So, in the case of the case of the first article, while the facility may have been militarized, it was clearly in no sense a military facility before somebody at FEMA decided to try to make it into one. Noticing this, one then finds onself confronted with a curious and more than slightly repressive limitation on the personal freedom of the refugees, who are guilty of nothing more than having been on the losing side of some inept work by the Army Corps of engineers.

He then precedes to tell us that some churches had already enquired into whether they could send a van or bus on Sundays to pick up any occupants of their cabins who might be interested in attending church. FEMA will not allow this. The occupants of the camp cannot leave the camp for any reason. If they leave the camp they may never return. They will be issued FEMA identification cards and "a sum of money" and they will remain within the camp for the next 5 months.

My son looks at me and mumbles "Welcome to Krakow."

The government, which failed to provide these people with the basic needs of life (like food and water) during the days they were stranded in New Orleans, allegedly won't allow anybody else to contribute, either. At least, not without what is being given going through their central distribution station first, and as we all know, centralizing everything is the key to efficient management. Look at just how well it worked for the former Soviet Union.

We then started lugging in our food products. The foods I had purchased were mainly snacks, but my mother - God bless her soul - had gone all out with fresh vegetables, fruits, canned goods, breakfast cereals, rice, and pancake fixings. That's when we got the next message: They will not be able to use the kitchen.

Excuse me? I asked incredulously.

FEMA will not allow any of the kitchen facilities in any of the cabins to be used by the occupants due to fire hazards. FEMA will deliver meals to the cabins. The refugees will be given two meals per day by FEMA. They will not be able to cook. In fact, the "host" goes on to explain, some churches had already enquired about whether they could come in on weekends and fix meals for the people staying in their cabin. FEMA won't allow it because there could be a situation where one cabin gets steaks and another gets hot dogs - and...

it could cause a riot.

(snip)

We then lug all food products requiring cooking back to the car. We start unloading our snacks. Mom appeared to have cornered the market in five counties on pop-tarts and apparently that was an acceptable snack so the guy started shoving them under the counter. He said these would be good to tied people over in between their two meals a day. But he tells my mother she must take all the breakfast cereal back. My mother protests that cereal requires no cooking. "There will be no milk, ma'am." My mother points to the huge industrial double-wide refrigerator the church had just purchased in the past year. "Ma'am, you don't understand...

It could cause a riot."

He then points to the vegetables and fruit. "You'll have to take that back as well. It looks like you've got about 10 apples there. I'm about to bring in 40 men. What would we do then?"

My mother, in her sweet, soft voice says, "Quarter them?"

"No ma'am. FEMA said no...

It could cause a riot. You don't understand the type of people that are about to come here...."

I turn and walk out of the room...lugging all the healthy stuff back to the car. My son later tells me the man went on to say "We've already been told of teenage girls delivering fetuses on buses." My son steps toward him and says "That's because they've almost been starved to death, haven't had a decent place to get a good night's sleep, and their bodies can't keep a baby alive. I'm not sure that's any evidence some one should be using to show these are 'bad people'."

In fact, they aren't even allowed to visit

We then went to the second dorm room and made up beds. When we got through and were headed outside the host says to me and my daughter, "How did you get in here?" I told him we came in through the back gate. He replies, "No, HOW did you get in here? No one who doesn't have credentials showing is supposed to be in here." (I had noticed all the "hosts" had two or three badges hanging around their necks.) I told him it might have had something to do with the fact my daughter was snapping pictures of the OHP presence at the gate. He then tells us, "Well, starting in the morning NO ONE comes in. So if you have further goods you want to donate you will have to take them to your local church. They will collect them until they have a full load and then bring them to the front gate."

(snip)

Uhh... you can't just leave donated goods in the cabins. FEMA has stated they want all supplies to go to their central warehouse. They said they have had far too many supplies come in and they need to handle them.

This is not merely unnecessary, this is unheard of. If one is looking for something the genuinely is un-American, "let's arbitrarily take away freedom of movement and association in a pre-emptive fashion, because doing so might make the task of administration easier" foots the bill. In the past, Mr.Bush has used the need to screen for terrorists hiding among our ranks as an excuse for curtailing basic civil liberties. In this case, there were no terrorists, just a lot of shocked victims, and civil liberties are still being curtailed, reportedly.




2. As for moving people to Utah, Utah is certainly no closer to New Orleans than is the Midwest, and we've been enjoying a bright, mild sunny summer, weather than no relocatee should have any trouble coping with at all. Given the fact that our cities dwarf yours, we would certainly be better set up to handle mass lodging and God knows we have more drinking water. I'm a few blocks away from a 500 foot deep supply of the stuff that covers an area much larger than that of Switzerland.

Guess how many refugees we've been offered? Judging from the fact that nobody I've run into has even heard of one, much less encountered one, apparently the answer is "none" and yes, we do have shelters, none of which offer anything resembling the prison camp experience described. Oh, and we're in the middle of America's grain belt, where most food tends to be cheaper, dropping the cost of feeding people, in a location where many have family ties to Lousiana and Mississippi, meaning that many who came would be much less likely to feel isolated, and I haven't met anybody here who has said anything other than "what can we do to help" or "we'd love to have them".

Yet the recently dehydrated get shipped off into the middle of a desert, instead, where they are not free to move and others are not free to visit. How very interesting. No, sorry, but the moment these folks were moved out of the disaster area, they became just another group of fellow citizens down on their luck. There is no reason for their housing to become a military matter, or for them to lose their civil liberties in the process.

[AntiM]

I commented only on Utah because I only know about Utah and the military. I did not comment on Fall Creek because I have no information or expertise whatsoever about church camps and FEMA. You're the expert there apparently, so I will not bicker with you over those points.

There is no reason for their housing to become a military matter, or for them to lose their civil liberties in the process.

Yes there is a reason. Military facilities are in place and paid for already. Utah has plenty of drinking water and food, we aren't the backwards asshole of the world. Golly, we have wells and trucking companies and Wal-Marts and everything! Check your cost of living index, Utah is a pretty darn cheap place to live.

Sheltering folks in private homeless shelters and homes and churches would raise an entire different set of howls, separation of church and state, a waste of money because there are perfectly good military bases full of barrcks and food and doctors ... any way it went would have drawn criticisms. As for civil liberties, yes the government is heavy-handed during an emergency. Yes, they could do better, I'm not defending them on that point, they're simply doing things the way the system is set up. During a crisis is not the time to stop and fix a broken system, you use what you have and what works.

As for the reporter, calling Utah a Prison State negates the information he is trying to convey. I gotta look this Don Nash guy up. My opinion of his agenda is not something I'd post on a public forum.

That's it, I'm done, I'll read your replies, but I won't engage in picking apart propoganda and private blogs anymore. Believe what you want to believe, the military is too inept for grand conspiracies.

[AntiM]

Hmmm, read more of The Unknown News. Mr. Nash thinks the Mormons and the state of Utah are out to kill him. Well. And then there's articles such as this:

http://www.unknownnews.org/050909a-up.html

I think I've had enough, thank you.

[Observer]

You're the expert there apparently, so I will not bicker with you over those points.

No, the author of the article was the expert there. The only knowledge I've claimed for myself on this point is the knowledge of how to read, a knowledge that some seem hesitant to make use of. My only agenda, as I have no use for either political extreme, is to insist on honesty and call people on it when the absence of the same becomes glaring, an agenda I make no effort to hide.

There is no reason for their housing to become a military matter, or for them to lose their civil liberties in the process.

Yes there is a reason. Military facilities are in place and paid for already.

One might say the same about shelters, AntiM, and to defend the squashing of basic civil liberties on the basis that one can save a little money by doing so is equivalent to saying that those civil liberties aren't worth anything. Does one not, when one finds oneself forced to choose between giving up one thing or another, choose that which is of lesser value? If there is nothing that one is prepared to give up in defense of those basic civil liberties, then as much as one may try to posture to the contrary, through one's choices one has shown that one has placed no value on the preservation of those liberties.

I'm not condemning Conservativism as I write this, because such a stance is so alien to the American tradition that it can't even be said to be reactionary; there is no past, fictive or real, that this novel ideology of the Bush camp would be returning us to. There is, however, an excellent word for what we're seeing: fascism. Fascism for its own sake, because as much as you may try to bluster your past this point, the moment the refugees left Lousiana behind, they were no longer in a disaster area, and they were no longer in a place where civil order had broken down.

A national guardsman or a police officer who goes walking down the streets of some place that has become a warzone, wondering when a shot out of the shadows is going to bury itself between his shoulder blades, gets my sympathy, and if he and his chain of command get a little draconian, I can understand that. They're trying to create order, and there's no real liberty in the area to be lost until that returns. But these people are out of that area, in places where the civil order has been solidly in place for generations at the very least. At this point, whatever unpleasantness is happening in New Orleans is taking place over a thousand miles away, in the case of Utah, and a few hundred even in the case of Oklahoma.

At that distance, if you are still feeling threatened, you have issues better taken up with a psychiatrist than with a lawmaker. What is being offered is not a reason, it is emotionalistic rhetoric being used in support of a weak rationalization, an opportunistic attempt to play on the anxiety of your audience to get them to not notice that they are agreeing to something at odds with their own most basic values, something that they know better than to agree to.

Utah has plenty of drinking water and food, we aren't the backwards asshole of the world. Golly, we have wells and trucking companies and Wal-Marts and everything!

Your defensiveness on this point is inappropriate, and your childish attempt to play the hysteria card is not appreciated. No remark was made in my post to the effect that Utah was the "backwards asshole" of anywhere, explicitly or implicitly, and no sane person could feel otherwise.

If, living as you do in a desert state in which the largest body of water is only a few tens of feet deep and so salty as to be nearly lifeless, you really do find yourself feeling personally offended at the suggestion that fresh drinking water is in more abundant supply in the Great Lakes area, then you need to get back on whatever medication you just went off of, because that's insane. If, as I suspect is likelier, you're trying to whip people up into an emotionalistic frenzy in which they are so busy coming to the defense of somebody who is claiming to have been wronged, that they're no longer really listening to what others are saying, then shame on you for stooping to that.

Check your cost of living index, Utah is a pretty darn cheap place to live.

Check your meds, Anti. We're a food exporter on a mass scale; Utah is heartstoppingly beautiful, but one would need a vivid imagination to see it as being either lush or fertile. We, on the other hand, having so much food here that we have to dump a lot of it, because saving it all wouldn't be cost effective. Even during the infamous drought of 1988, the year without a corn harvest, our silos came nowhere near being emptied.

Largest city in Illinois: Chicago, 2.7 million people, about 8 million
people in metro area.

Largest city in Michigan: Detroit 1 million people, 4.82 million metro

Largest city in Utah: Salt Lake City, 181,743 people, 800,000 metro


If Salt Lake City were to be picked up and moved into the Chicago area, not only would it come nowhere close to being the largest city in its area, it wouldn't even be the largest suburb for very long. The numbers speak for themselves, dear. Either Chicago or Detroit would be far more able to handle a large influx of refugees than Salt Lake City. Your sense of victimization on this issue is either feigned or seriously misplaced.

Sheltering folks in private homeless shelters and homes and churches would raise an entire different set of howls, separation of church and state,

Really? Because people have been housed here by the thousands in such facilities, and I have yet to hear the howls.

a waste of money because there are perfectly good military bases full of barrcks and food and doctors ...

Again, implying that the civil liberties of the refugees aren't worth anything, because by your own admission, putting them into those camps means wiping out those civil liberties, on an extended basis.

any way it went would have drawn criticisms.

Some criticisms have more merit than others.

As for civil liberties, yes the government is heavy-handed during an emergency.

Again, this point has been answered already, and you've sidestepped the answer. There is no rapidly developing situation in Utah, Oklahoma, or any of the other places where these people are being shipped, and so whatever "emergency" exists is not relevant outside of the disaster area. One does have the time to do things right.

Keeping people who are guilty of nothing other than being unlucky under lock and key is not right, and if your thinking on this point is typical of what one should expect out of your neighbors, while I have never referred to Utah as being, as you put, "a backwards asshole of the world", I'd really have to seriously rethink my failure to do so.

Yes, they could do better, I'm not defending them on that point, they're simply doing things the way the system is set up. During a crisis is not the time to stop and fix a broken system, you use what you have and what works.

Horse crap. That's not how refugees are usually treated, in fact it's almost unheard of, and no matter how many times you try to play the broken record game on this point, those running refugee camps are not facing emergency conditions, for reasons already cited. Concerns applicable in one theatre of operation are not transferrable to another.

That's it, I'm done, I'll read your replies, but I won't engage in picking apart propoganda and private blogs anymore.

You didn't "pick anything apart". You've distorted what others have had to say, set up straw man arguments and generally refused to listen when rational arguments have been presented to you, on this thread and on others. You've acted like a loon.

Believe what you want to believe, the military is too inept for grand conspiracies.

And I never alleged one, but thank you for trying to change the subject. Neither those articles nor my comments focused on motivations, merely on observable actions.

I will not be reading anything else you have to write. Your performance has been disgraceful, not merely in that you have been so casual about encouraging the acceptance of the casual mistreatement of others, but that you've been so eager to resort to flamebaiting and character assassination in order to do so. You're not worth my time, and you're certainly not worth the large bite that responding to you has taken out of a beautiful, sonny afternoon.

Goodbye, and welcome to my ignore file. Be sure to say "hi" to Rex and Diana O'Thirst while you're in there.

[AntiM]

I know I'm being ignored, and after the last post (which I no longer can see unless I dig for it) I've done some plonking myself, but the "breadbasket" comments are driving me nuts. So, for my own entertainment, I simply have to address that issue with my scraps of first-hand knowledge. Ignore me those who must, but for me, RANT ON!

There is no where in the US that fresh food cannot be shipped in five to seven days. The points where it is grown rarely are near the manufacturing plants, and those are often well away from the distribution centers. Often there are no facilities to get the food out to consumers outside the interstate system. Of course there are exceptions, there are always exceptions, but food in a field no longer equates to food on the neighboring table. Unless you're a cow (humor, that was humor, sheesh). Dense population centers are actually unattractive to mass food producters these days, too many complaints from the residents.

The reality of food on the table in America has little to do with where the soil the food is grown in lies. I've done thousands of miles with larry in the refrigerated truck. His first run after Bman was taking frozen Stauffer's lasagna FROM UTAH where it was manufactured, to the Wal-Mart distribution center in Robert LA. Kraft and Nestle have huge plants all over rural America where land is still cheap and there are nearby workforces. Power Bars? Boise Idaho. The Kraft plant in Wisconsin imports cheese curds from Idaho on a weekly basis. Fresh stone fruits and organic lettuce from Salinas and Fresno CA to upstate New York, and a return trip of VeryFine juices from MA to the Kraft distribution center in Fresno. The Smith's supermarkets in Reno and Sparks NV are supplies by distribution centers in Cleafeild UT, right in my backyard. Ever eat Pictsweet veggies or Lofthouse cookies? Manufactured/packaged right here in Ogden. Like Reese's Pieces? Manufactured in Stuart's Draft VA, distributed through Ontario CA. The plant sits in the middle of corn fields, but none of that grain is made into corn syrup locally, the raw materials are brought in by truck and rail from Georgia, and yes, the mid-West.

Think big government is scary? Wal-Mart distribution centers, those places are scary. Chainlink fences and barbed wire, guards, ID badges for visitors, no in and out access, and there's one tiny drivers' lounge, the only place you're allowed to be outside your own truck cab.

I feel better now, thanks. And then there's the gross misinformation about the Great Salt Lake, but you're all smart enough to crack an atlas on that matter.

[Ranger Genius]

Apaprently Observer has a pretty dented idea of what constitutes a "civil liberty," idiotically implying over and over again that the refugees at these relief sites were not allowed to leave, which from the accounts posted here, doesn't appear to be true. They're just not allowed to come back if they do. Beggars can't be choosers. You take the aid, you take it on their terms. Besides, it would take up even more resources to have people coming and going at their leisure trying to verify who is and who is not supposed to be receiving aid. Or trying to make sure they weren't going from location to location getting aid from several organizations.

[unjonharley]

These people are not refugees or are they beggers. Get the playa dust out of you eyes. Geo. Bush and his Dick friend have awarded (spelling?) Halaberton a contract to feed a outfit this problem. These "people" are being denied first response aid. Simply so the contractor can charge for the service when they get around to it. Red Cross and Salvtion Army are let in to keep them shut up. Bush would be able to spin his way out from them. The graft go's on.

[Observer]

Apaprently Observer has a pretty dented idea of what constitutes a "civil liberty," idiotically implying over and over again that the refugees at these relief sites were not allowed to leave, which from the accounts posted here, doesn't appear to be true. They're just not allowed to come back if they do.

Leaving them stranded hundreds of miles from home, in the middle of nowhere with no transportation and no financial resources; in the middle of a desert, in the case of those shipped off to Utah, reportedly over their own objections, in a number of cases. This is a Hobson's choice, one you know full well that they can't exercise. It's like saying that a mugger doesn't force one to give him one's wallet, because one could choose to get shot instead.

Beggars can't be choosers. You take the aid, you take it on their terms.

Really? You think that the federal government is a charity? Why don't you try withholding your donations to them, and see what happens.

We pay for federal services with our taxes, seeing a very poor rate of return on our dollar. There is nothing charitable about them.

If, however, the government were a private concern, then it would most likely be left wide open to a massive lawsuit for willful and wanton negligence and professional malpractice in its construction of a levee system on a river delta, which, through its prevention of silt deposition caused the land to subside in a manner which it had been warned of decades in advance, dropping New Orleans lower than it would naturally be and bringing the sea closer than it once was, insuring the hurricanes would hit with greater force. God didn't make this disaster, Man did, mainly through governmental action.

They broke it, they bought it. There is nothing charitable about what is going on at all. I might also say something about the ethics of those who exploit the vulnerable positions others will find themselves in, to push their own personal demands, but somehow I doubt you'd get it.

Besides, it would take up even more resources to have people coming and going at their leisure

My, personal freedom is so inconvenient, isn't it? Especially when it's being enjoyed by the hoi polloi?

trying to verify who is and who is not supposed to be receiving aid. Or trying to make sure they weren't going from location to location getting aid from several organizations.

Yes, because don't you wish that database technology was off the drawing board ... oops ... apparently, it's been available since the early 1980s, making that last comment a 20 year (or more) anachronism. ID cards, "Genius"? (And I wave a fond farewell to another plonker).

[AntiM]

Hey RG, welcome to the "I disagreed with Observer" plonk club.

Just a guess, but I bet I'm right, eh?

[Ranger Genius]

Yup. Apparently it cannot handle anyone questioning it.

[AntiM]

If it keeps this up, it will have the thread to itself.

Too bad. I wanted him to know the folks at Camp Williams are already moving on, there are only 273 of 600 left on base; 300 have chosen travel vouchers so they can rejoin family across the U.S., and those that want to stay in Utah are already finding employment; every evacuee to Utah should be in their own place by mid-October. The kids are already in school.

Inhospitable desert in the middle of nowhere my ass.

When national ID cards and federal medical records are mentioned, which I see as a potential next step in disaster preparedness, I wonder how loud the anti-big brother screaming will become.

[Observer]

By the way, I have to say that I'm thoroughly enjoying this novel concept of how government is supposed to work, that "Ranger Genius" has presented us with. I wonder how far he'd be willing to take this idea, that it's OK for the government to provide services with strings attached.

Let's look a few years into a future, to a brave new world in which we've elected Ranger Genius president, and his ground breaking philosophy is now guiding the law of the land.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------


(Phone rings. Women, looking frantic, picks it up) "Mrs.Schwatrz, this is the police" "Oh, thank God! I thought you'd never call back after I left that message on your answering machine. My neighbor is trying to kick my door down, and yelling 'I bet you'll put out now, bitch', and I'm getting a little scared ..."

"Not so fast, Mrs.Schwartz. We've been looking over your library records, and we have some concerns about the books you've been taking out. I'm seeing a lot of conservative books on your list, and your husband seems to belong to the John Birch society. We took a vote down at the station and decided that socialism was the key to a better future, so we can't have that. Before we can come over, we'll need to have you and your husband reach down to those little black pads by the phone. Got your pens? Now sign the form where you give up your right to check out or purchase books without the 67th precinct seal of approval, and grant us the right to enter without notice and remove any objectionable reading matertial. We've got your husband's office on the other line, and we're ready to run.

"Whaaaat? What gives you the right to ..."

"Ma'am, nobody's forcing you to agree to this. It's just that we won't come if you don't, though I bet your neighbor will be coming plenty, won't he, that old devil!" (cracking sound is heard) "As the preamble to the new constitution reads, Ma'am, beggars can't be choosers"

"OK, OK, I'll cancel the subscription to National Review" (Frantically scribbles her signiature on the contract which has come into focus on the screen in front of her). "Now will you please come over? I think the door is starting to give way".

"I'd love to, ma'am, but we have some more business to work out. Seems our motor pool found out that you and your husband are Jewish, and raising your children Orthodox and they're pretty passionate about being Southern Baptists, and feel that it is time for America to return to its Christian roots. Before they'll tell us where they've put the keys to our cars, they'll need to have you consent to being baptized and relinquish custody of your children to a nice Memnonite couple, who've volunteered to help them forget that they were ever in anybody's care but Christ's.

"You can't do this!"

"No, honestly, ma'am we can! A few squirts of those corn drippings those guys distill, and I can hardly remember my own name, and I'm a full grown man. Just imagine what drinking this stuff daily will do to your children's memories! They'll be blank slates in no time. While the couple was hesistant to come around, it seems that the husband was having a heart attack, and you'd be amazed at what wives will agree to when the doctors over there at George Orwell Memorial aren't sure that they'll agree to crack a chest open. I guess that's what they get for eating all of that lard, huh?"

"What kind of people are you?'

"People who know the value of a strong negotiating position and won't take any guff, ma'am. It's 5:06 pm, so we know your kids are home, and that neighbor of yours called us to say that he was going to kill the little brats, so what's worse? Would you rather see them as tipsy little Memnonites, or as little Hassidic corpses? It's your call, but pine doesn't stand up to that kind of pounding for long, so I'd suggest you make your decision quickly".

"OK, officer, I get the point" (New contract comes up, she scribbles) "Will you please come, now?"

"Not so fast, ma'am, we still have at least nine more amendments worth of rights for you to waive, if you want our services, because as we're the ones offering the services, we get to set the conditions. Now, there's that pesky right of yours to trail by jury. I can't tell you how many man-hours we've lost dealing with that crap, so we're trying to get people to be a little more reasonable on that one and .."

(Sound of door crashing open). Child's voice: "Mommy?" (sound of gun fire, children screaming, then silence) "Officer, can we talk about this another time, I hear footsteps coming up the stairway ..."

"Ma'am, we'll get to you when we have all of this worled out, and not one moment ..."


----------------------------------------------------------------------------


Scene shifts to police station. Neighbor can he heard on the phone going "oh, you like that bitch, don't you", with woman's muffled screaming in the background.

"Geez, Ralph, you tried to run another one through the whole constitution? You got to take it in nibbles, man, there's just no time."

"Sorry, Lieutenant, but at least I did get her to sign her summer home over to us and it'll stand up in court even if the next of kin don't like it under the 35th amendment, which begins with the words"

(Everybody at the table, in unison) "Beggars can't be choosers".

Lieutenant: "Good work, Ralph. I underestimated you. So who wants to go over and do the postmortem on Mrs.Schwartz? I see that we got her to fill out a form 9347, necrophilia waiver, during a gas leak emergency, and dead or not, the boys at People's Gas says she has nice big ones. Any takers?" (Room full of hands does up. Fade to black).


------------------------------------------------------------------------------


It's a promising future, one that we will perhaps find all too much excitement in. Or maybe people will cling to this archaic notion that there's such a thing as doing one's duty for one's fellow man, and that one's acceptance of one's duty must come without strings attached, if individual rights are to have any meaning at all. You never know.

Crazier things have happened.

[Kinetic IV]

That is over the top, sick, and fucking disgusting.

[Observer]

That is over the top, sick, and fucking disgusting.

Sick and fucking disgusting? Yes, and deliberately so. Satire is not supposed to be nice. It's supposed to make a point, and if no sensibilities get bruised along the way, that's a good sign that the point wasn't one serious enough to be worth making.

As for it being "over the top", I'd suggest that you read a little history, especially the part about how feudalism came into existence. Better still, about how Czarist Russia came into existence. What Ranger Genius is advocating, this belief that the authorities have the right to put any conditions on the help they give that they want? This is where the Czarist system came from - supposedly free negotiation between parties who were hardly in an equal bargaining position, in which everything was negotiable. What resulted was hardly a Conservative or a Libertarian paradise. It was a totalitarian state, complete with secret police (the Preobrazhenshy Prikaz), in which the party who navigated his way to the top was considered to practically own those who didn't fare as well in the negotiations, almost as if they were property. No rights whatsover, not even in theory.

If you think this was sick, try reading up on some of the history that followed, and you'll come across moments that make this little bit of satire seem like an idyllic moment by comparison. So, if anybody was offended by this story - GOOD! And no apologies offered. There's no such thing as the right to not be offended, and watching what many will be willing to creep toward, should be enough to show one why that is.

[Ranger Genius]

Ooh, I guess I haven't been plonked yet. This isn't about refusing service, it's about refusal to accept it. Essentially, it's a one-time offer. You refuse to accept it, you're on your own. For having accused others of straw man fallacies, you certainly seem good at them yourself. Not to mention slippery slopes and false dilemmas. There's no discrimination going on here, as your simplistic little parable seems to indicate you believe.

Just to clarify your position: exactly which civil liberties are being infringed upon, according to your interpretation?

[Observer]

I see that Ranger Genius responded, but how? I can't see what he wrote, and really couldn't care less. He's on my ignore list, and belongs there.

But if somebody was reading what I wrote and really was offended, I'd like to pose a few questions to him (or, more likely, to her).

If somebody walks out the gate from the Utah camp, and circumstances are as they are alleged to be in those reports - and kindly note that I more than faintly hinted at some skepticism regarding this in my opening post - what happens to this person when he (or she) finds himself on arid land, thousands of miles from home, without food, water, money or transportation, and is not being allowed back into the camp?

Just how long would one last hiking through the desert without supplies or transportation, during late summer no less? You've all seen the dehydration cases at the med tent, I'm sure. Is death by dehydration really all that less horrible a fate than what the fictitious Mrs.Schwartz was being subjected to at the end of the story? Yet notice that "Ranger Genius" and "AntiM" have spoken up in support of an alleged policy - not necessarily even a real policy, just an alleged one - that would have exactly that impact, in response to a "crime" no worse than taking a brief hike through the hills. In effect, they're defending the alleged practice of condemning this person to a slow, lingering horrible death, for nothing more than that.

My question to anybody who took offense is this: Why are you so much more offended by what I'm willing to do to a fictional character, than by what AntiM and Ranger Genius would be willing to do to a real life, flesh and blood human being? Because I haven't seen any outrage expressed over what they wrote, and unlike the case with that post of mine, they weren't writing fiction.

[Kinetic IV]

I'm very much aware of the history of Czarist Russia and how feudalism came into being. I lost some memory in my car wreck a few years back but this was one area that remained untouched. (WWII history is my area of emphasis though).

And yes, I understand that your post was satire...however the necrophelia stuff and other comments certainly took it over the top and I simply called it as I saw it. Over the top, sick, and fucking disgusting. Did it get your point across? Yes. But was it necessarily the most effective way to do so? I don't think you needed to be so graphic with it. If you expose people to too much shocking material it can become routine fare and it loses it's punch. You seem to have a good way of getting your points across, I'm just surprised you took this thread and that post as far as you did.

Anyway I've registered my disgust with it, that's all I can do. But at least I spoke up and said something.

[Observer]

Yes, and at the risk of repeating myself, how interesting that you are more disgusted by fictional horrors than you are by real ones.

It's not a moral stance, that you have taken.

[Kinetic IV]

Now I'm being psychologically analyzed and my morals called into question by someone who only knows me through a few online posts? Puhleeze.

I said I was disgusted by your post but I never intended to give it any ranking compared to other things that disgust me. Like people harming children....I support CASA among other things and have for years. I found one thing that totally disgusted me and I chose to act on it, to do my part to help address the problem. But that's just one area...there are other things I am active with. But you wouldn't know that...all I am to you is another faceless ghost in the machine that you can slam without consequence or so you think.

In any event I made my feelings known...and I'm not sorry if that bothers you either. Good day Observer....go find someone else to play games with.

[AntiM]

RG, you can ignore OR disallow contact, one seems to negate the other. I had to go into contact management to get it done, my smilety faces didn't work. Still can read all O's posts in the thread if I choose, it is like picking at a scab.

Oh-oh, more Utahn mainstream media!

from the Desert Morning News:

For the most part, evacuees appear comfortable, although some are displeased that an 11 p.m. curfew has been imposed. Others wondered if they were allowed to leave the base but were later assured they could do so at will.
Most interviewed by the Deseret Morning News said they were grateful for the hospitality they've received in Utah.
"We've had no problems whatsoever," said 67-year-old Madge Urbina. "It's great here. Yes, it is."
Shuttles run to the grocery store every afternoon at half-hour increments, and the Utah Transit Authority has planned hourly shuttles from Camp Williams to several locations, including local shopping centers, the airport and a TRAX stop to allow access into downtown, spokesman Justin Jones said. The buses will likely run for several hours in the morning and afternoon, plus a few in the evening.

Alright, I promise I'll quit and let it heal.

[tigerlillie]

Okay, besides the fact that, I have just given birth to triplets, and have a 13 year old daughter and a 4 year old son, AND BECAME A WIDOW WITHithn a span of a month's time, O the points about the children is very
offensive but yet you are trying to make a point. The points are, are rights are slowly and surely being taken away by the asshole bush that my husband died serving his country for and it has and is already been done. Are we doing anything to stop our rights and the constitution from
being raped pillaged and plundered? Our freedom, our childrens, our lives?

Will my 3 daughters, Shyanne, Jana, and Jada and 2 sons, Alexis and Jared all grow up to know the peace and freedom that I knew growing up in the 80s? the price of gas at 98c a gallon is never going to be again that is for sure but will they even have a future to have a future to enjoy?

[Ranger Genius]

Well, it's clear that the crackpot behind "unkknown news" is simply insane, so I think we can discount is account altogether. And if the DNews is correct in what they printed, all we have is completely false inflammatory bullshit augmented with smoke, mirrors, and pathologically flawed logic.

Few people are as staunch critics of our current administration, or as vehement advocates of our civil liberties, as I, or indeed AntiM. But certain people out there are chasing spectres, inventing atrocities and threats where none exists. The response of FEMA and the rest of the federal, state, and local governments was completely incompetent, it is plain to see. But the subsequent treatment of evacuees is neither heinous nor indefensible.

And for the record, I am one of those people who would have been creating a fuss if religious services were allowed to be performed on property that had been leased by the Feds for the relief effort. THAT is the threat to our civil liberties, and Observer is too stupid to even realize it.


Right now, I'm resisting the urge to create a thread about badly named children. You know, a place to ping off the rest of the group ideas you might have about what to name your child, and make sure you're not making a horrific mistake that will scar the child for life. *ahem*

[AntiM]

Hey RG, here's an insider howler courtesy of mylarry:

Camp Williams is on freakin' Redwood Road.

[Observer]

Everybody, say "hello" to the Artful Dodger. I have to say that he's looking a lot like Kinetic right now.

Now I'm being psychologically analyzed and my morals called into question by someone who only knows me through a few online posts? Puhleeze.

No, that's not what I was doing, and there's no reasonable way that you could have interpreted what I had written in that manner. I did not appreciate the preachy tone of your post, in particular where you talked about how you needed to "speak out" about my heinous act of satire. I'm wondering when exactly it was that Burning Man became a meeting of the PTA. I recall seeing such wonders as "NAMBLA the Clown", "Camp Jiffylube" and on the old board, calls to have a member murdered and cannibalized because he didn't want to show a scatological film called "Pink Flamingoes" to a group of prospective burners. The would-be entree even wrote a page about the experience.

Remember that little episode, Kinetic, and the flammage that followed? My hard drive sure does. And after passing all of that either without comment, or in many cases being supportive of people who wrote things so raw that I couldn't believe what I was reading, you now want to turn hypersensitive about something that pales by comparison to at least a few items that are standard fare in High School English classes, eg. "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathon Swift, in which Swift extolls the virtues of raising babies for meat.

I think that's remarkable. Remarkable that you can be so thoroughly, hypocritically full of shit, and still convince yourself that you're claiming the moral high ground.

said I was disgusted by your post but I never intended to give it any ranking compared to other things that disgust me.

The selective nature of your indignation did the talking for you.

go find someone else to play games with.

Right back at you, big guy. I think I've seen as much of this lunacy as I care to. Maybe Dr.Cliff has a point.

[Kinetic IV]

My teflon shield works well...however if you would peruse those extensive archives of yours you would see I've already answered these charges of yours going as far back as 2002. There is a very logical reason for my flipflops. Perhaps you need to look closer.

Also remember that people change over time. What I may have supported even a year ago can change as I get exposed to new ideas and generally grow and evolve as a person. Some change is good you know.

In any event I read through your links and you need to go back and classify yourself on that flame warriors link you posted. You certainly qualify for one or two of them but I'll be nice and not name names here.

And one last thing, you're still hanging on to a lot of hostility over the past...which is not a good thing. You need to let go of it but if you can't well let me tell you I am not part of the Cabal that is the subject of your ire. You can find many of them over on the 3Playa. The eplaya is almost a completely different crowd now...you need to get the right target and study things a lot closer before launching attacks. And BM is not dead...your last link is nothing but repackaged b.s.

[diane o'thirst]

Hi Kinetic — Hi RG — Hi Anti-M

Well, now we're a merry bunch in here, aren't we? Seems Observer's plonk list is the latest hotspot on the E-Playa. We should make up t-shirts or badges and wear them to the desert next year.

[Raises a glass of red wine] A toast to the august residents of Observer's Ignore List!