January 29, 2010

ESPN fires writer for going there

Paul Shirley, a 6'10" white basketball journeyman and sportswriter, got fired from ESPN for blogging on FlipCollective that he wouldn't be donating to Haiti "for the same reason that I don't give money to homeless men on the street. Based on past experiences, I don’t think the guy with the sign that reads 'Need You’re Help' is going to do anything constructive with the dollar I might give him."

That reminds me of the Two Minutes Hate directed at William Bennett about the same period of time after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans for referring to Steve Levitt's Abortion-Cuts-Crime theory on the radio. I wrote:
Ever since New Orleans, the hysteria among the political and media elite has been building: Who among us bigshots will crack first and allude to the elephant in the living room?

Also, I'm reminded of the 2003 incident when Michael Eisner fired ESPN columnist Greg Easterbrook for mentioning "Jewish [movie] executives" in denouncing a slasher film in his blog on the The New Republic:
Easterbrook was widely excoriated both for terminal unhipness and for supposedly resurrecting the myth that Jews control the media. Disney supremo Michael Eisner, however, did control Easterbrook's other employer, ESPN, which immediately fired him. Most commentators opined that Easterbrook had it coming.

All I can say is that if Walt Disney were alive today, he'd be spinning in his cryogenic preservation chamber.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

60 comments:

Anonymous said...

Terrific little TAC article. Yes, Kill Bill was odious trash and, yes, Gregg Easterbrook got screwed.

OhioStater said...

Well liberalism has unintended consequences. It seems if you help a struggling population survive it will reproduce and grow.

By the way, there are white basketball players?

Anonymous said...

Cris Collinsworth on Adam Carolla's podcast...

“I always tell my wife, I’m like, how many broadcasters have you ever seen that they utter one phrase, usually they’re joking about something, and they’re, they’re fired. You know…Jimmy The Greek…Rush Limbaugh went through the thing on ESPN and we’re all fully capable of being that guy and given day…I could do anything tomorrow and be out of this business.”

Anonymous said...

This sentence really needs some work:

"That reminds me of the Two Minutes Hate directed at William Bennett about the same period of time after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans for referring to Steve Levitt's Abortion-Cuts-Crime theory on the radio."

Joseph said...

Have we transformed into a totalitarian society (if not in law, then in culture), where there is no tolerance for dissent and where one's whole life is a matter of interest to everyone?

Whatever happened to a separation of realms? If someone says something not related to his job on his own time, why should his employer care? Has instutional PR beeen a Trojan Horse for Big Brother attitudes?

America is becoming a horrifying place in many ways. A manlier nation would tell such PC nonsense pushers to screw themselves. Alas, we're a society of comfortable cowards. At least we have material blessings, right? Enjoy them while they remain.

Anonymous said...

PC intolerance in action.

About the issue at hand though, people have to learn to differentiate between:

a) Disaster aid (Blankets, pulling people out of the rubble, food, water, etc.) - which is as a rule very cost-effective.

and

b) Development aid. Which is virtually useless, as it is generally intercepted and consumed instead of being invested as intended.

In short: Don´t be afraid to donate to Haiti disaster relief, it will probably do some good.

Anonymous said...

According to Shirley, it was foolish of the Haitians to live the way they did above a tectonic fault line.

When Los Angeles is eventually hit by another serious earthquake, will the same reasoning be applied?

Anonymous said...

The MSM is something of an arm of the government propaganda apparatus rather than being just a left wing culture cub. Phil Donahue had his show cancelled when he took an anti-war stance in spite of having good ratings. The media has sanitized the various wars we've been in, glossing over things like "collateral damage" body counts and acting as cheerleaders for all these recent wars. Sometimes the MSM seems left, other times right. It's confusing until you start seeing it as just representative of the top 1% elite of the USA. Open borders? A chance for the elite to access a cheaper work force, lower wages across the board and thwart any attempt by Americans to organize. So bring in the the lefty loudmouths to front for them, "no one is illegal", and so forth, make it seem like the lefties are to blame. War profiteering? Bring in the dime a dozen retired generals to assure everyone that "freedom isn't free". Chickenhawk talking heads assure us that it's all necessary in order to fight terrorism. If we don't fight the Afghans over there we'll be fighting the Taliban on the streets of Peoria. And so on it goes. Remember, the top 1% make their living off the rest of us, much like a farmer lives off his cattle herd. The MSM is just their instrument.

Anonymous said...

Come on, what Shirley said was pretty cold! I would probably have fired him too, even though I remain convinced that if Haiti had been populated with Chinese or Swedes it would be the economic powerhouse of the Caribbean today. To say what Shirley said about Haiti at this particular point in time is not like saying you believe giving handouts to homeless guys is pointless, it's like saying you'd step over the writhing body of a homeless guy who'd just been hit by a car and continue on your way because you don't think calling 911 would be worth your effort. Definitely a firing offense for someone in any sort of media spotlight!

Anonymous said...

"In short: Don´t be afraid to donate to Haiti disaster relief"

Watch which orgs you send to, though. Int'l Red Cross has a reputation for staggering corruption.

Adam James said...

When I read the title, I thought it was going to be about ESPN football analyst Craig James. James repeatedly used ESPN and their reports over several weeks to spread lies and fabrications to get Texas Tech's football coach Mike Leach fired. This case is now being litigated, may involve ESPN and certainly has damaged their brand.

Why is Shirley's one-off snarky comment on a non-ESPN blog so much more of a grevious offense?

Anonymous said...

See, this is why I refuse to call them liberals: shitcanning a guy for saying what Shirley said is hardly liberal, neither is hiking spending (and, eventually, taxes) to unprecedented levels.

Is anyone in China losing their jobs over saying the things that Shirley is saying? India? Bolivia? Burkina Faso?

Please, can we stop calling them liberals? The word socialist, for the time being, still does damage, so does Marxist, although that is beginning to change.

Anonymous said...

Well, the elites in our society have made a decision and laid out the rules. The rules are simple. Any statement that makes black folks look bad is taboo.

If you are not black, just don't say anything that makes black folks look bad. Don't write anything that makes blacks look bad.

Simple.

The good news for those of us that believe in HBD is that we really don't have to fight the rules on this one. We don't have to ever say anything or write anything that makes black folks feel bad about themselves.

The real issue for our country to decide in the next few years is how many Latin Americans will be allowed to move to the USA. We all understand taht Latin Americans compete with blacks for jobs.

If we all work towards an end to all immigration from Latin America, and we carefully avoid insulting black folks, we can enlist plenty of common black folks as allies.

At the end of the day, the 85IQ white person who needs a job as a janitor and the 85IQ black person who also needs a janitor job can make common cause to not allow millions of 85iq immigrants from Latin America to come here.

People on this blog tend to forget that Barbara Jordan pounded the table against the immigration of Latin Americans to the USA.

Kylie said...

Joseph said: "Have we transformed into a totalitarian society (if not in law, then in culture), where there is no tolerance for dissent and where one's whole life is a matter of interest to everyone?"

"We" haven't but yes, I think it has been transformed.

"Whatever happened to a separation of realms?"

Gone with the wind as an implied and widely applied right, largely due to the feminization of our culture. Men tend to comparmentalize, women to view things as belonging to a whole, the most notable example being the difference in how the two sexes tend to differ in their views of sex and love. Now every aspect of life is viewed as part of the whole, which of course, it is in one sense. But nowadays, we're only allowed to view it that way. To separate it into its discrete parts for the purpose of maintaining privacy and freedom of expression is now verboten--unless you're is a member of one of the favored demographics. Thus, a woman can accuse men of rape and remain anonymous while the men are "named and shamed", if not vilified and demonized. Career criminals, if of the right color and background, can have their prior bad acts excluded from consideration in court whereas, say, those same alleged rapists have every aspect of their privilege, in both terms of color and background, exposed to the public via the merciless, malicious and mendacious scrutiny of the media.

So separation of the realms still exists in usable form but now is applied only to those on whom the left wishes to confer its favor.

"If someone says something not related to his job on his own time, why should his employer care?"

Because one of the ways in which America has become a horrifying place is the phenomenal increase in litigiousness.

"Has instutional[sic] PR beeen a Trojan Horse for Big Brother attitudes?" Yes, a Trojan Horse, but certainly not the only one.

Anonymous said...

I prize the dazed and confused look on the coffeeshop employee's face when, after asking if I'd like to donate to aid Haiti, he was told that I donate to help people who try to help themselves, such as in China and the Indian Ocean tsunami, but not to those who respond to disaster by chasing each other around with machetes!

No more wussy apologies!!! said...

I hope this guy who got fired does NOT apologize. White male apology does absolutely no good. The wimpy weakness is only exploited to bash the saphead ever more.

It did Trent Lott no good to apologize. Same with Don Imus. Same with every white guy who hoped to curry favor by bending down to kiss Al Sharpton or Alan Abe Foxman's ass.

Apologizing will not get a white guy who's been fired to be reinstated.
He should NOT apologize. That way, he may lose his job but he still has his dignity. If he apologizes and grovels, he will not only have lost his job but also lose his dignity.

Apologies should be reserved only for people who appreciate them and only for people who are indeed worthy of receiving the apology. Why should whites apologize to a community led by the likes of Sharpton, Obama, Wright, Cornel West, and Henry Louis Gates? Do you ever see them apologize for anything?

God bless that white cop in MASS who refused to apologize to that piece of shit Gates. And, notice Obama didn't apologize to the white cop for having called him 'stupid'. Fight fire with fire. Don't apologize to people who never feel sorry themselves.

Apology can be a good thing but only under the right conditions. While it's true that Germany was given a raw deal after WWI, an apologetic approach to Germany under the Nazis proved to be disastrous. Hitler and his henchmen could never appreciate conscience, guilt, or remorse expressed by other peoples. Thus, good will on the part of democratic UK to make amends in the 30s were seen merely as weakness and cowardice.

Also, apology should be made out of conviction, not out of cowardice. When Lott and Imus apologized, they looked so wimpy and wussy. They were like the weaker dog cowering before the bigger tougher dog in a pit bull ring.

C. Van Carter said...

I've been declining Haiti donation requests with the response "If you give them money they will just squander it on zombies."

ExtraMedium said...

"Why is Shirley's one-off snarky comment on a non-ESPN blog so much more of a grevious offense?"

Because he thinks it's OK to watch people die for reasons that aren't their fault.

Easterbrook was rehired. He writes Tuesday Morning Quarterback for ESPN during the football season, then again around draft time. It's good.

Anonymous said...

So much for free speech. Sad to see all those guys who died in the wars died for nothing.

Unknown said...

I'm shocked happened there just happened to be a Jewish network executive in position to fire Easterbrook for his allusion of the predominance of Jewish media executives and decision makers, completely invalidating the accuracy of his comment.

jody said...

he went there, and he got fired.

sabril said...

"a) Disaster aid (Blankets, pulling people out of the rubble, food, water, etc.) - which is as a rule very cost-effective."

It depends how you measure the costs and benefits. Personally, I'm not thrilled with the idea of saving people who would cause a lot of harm if they had the chance.

"When Los Angeles is eventually hit by another serious earthquake, will the same reasoning be applied?"

Presumably Los Angeles is similar to San Francisco, which was hit by a similar earthquake roughly 20 years ago. The death toll was less than one one thousandth that of Haiti. There was no looting or rioting. Other countries didn't have to step in to help.

I guess it depends on how seismically active the area around Port-au-Prince is. If it's similar to California, then there's not much excuse for the (apparently) poor construction.

JMHO

David Davenport said...

ExtraMedium said...
"Why is Shirley's one-off snarky comment on a non-ESPN blog so much more of a grevious offense?"

Because he thinks it's OK to watch people die for reasons that aren't their fault.


So, ExtraMediocre, are you also opposed to abortion?

l said...

When did being selective about how you spend your money become a hate crime?

Anonymous said...

The Jews don't control Hollywood or the media - and anyone who disagrees will be fired by his Jewish Boss.

l said...

Here's something I'm going to do this weekend: Go up to random people and ask them if they gave anything to Haitian relief.

If they say "No," I'll say "Oh. OK."

If they say "Yes," I'll ask them "How much?" Whatever the amount is will get a "Is that all?"

Anonymous said...

If you still feel like you have to give something to help in Haiti, 'Operation Blessing' (Pat Robertson's relief op is there. They get a top rating from Charity Navigator.

Anonymous said...

Seems like I recall a lot of 'progressives' arguing that people shouldn't have given to private relief agencies when Katrina hit -- because the gov't should have paid for everything (Giving to private relief agencies just lets the gov't off the hook.)
Isn't that Naomi Klein's argument?
Who's more cold-blooded?

ATBOTL said...

"Did Christianity Cause the Housing Bubble/Crash?"

That one was pretty outrageous. Talk about chutzpah.

Whiskey said...

Bertha -- Jews are not the only ones concerned with Muslims. I've never seen any Muslims condemn say, a Somali traveling half the globe just to kill obscure Danish cartoonists. Or protest against their co-religionists for getting Mozart operas banned in Germany.

What we have is a Civil War, with the fault lines basically being drawn with women, gays, non-Whites, and elites (Kotkin's Gentry Liberals) and everyone else on the other side.

The firings were all about the powerful PC liberals asserting their control.

Haiti is a mess because Haitians are incapable (currently) of ruling themselves. We either rule them as a colony, or we get them up on their feet and tell them there will be a cut-off of aid, and be upfront (communicate broadly) to the entire Haitian people about their own responsibility for their own failures: Big Man syndrome, voodoo worship, promiscuity, lack of devotion to education, lack of deferred gratification, etc. Tell them explicitly they are poor because they have bad habits, and the world will not help them anymore.

Haiti can not in the next hundred years turn into Taiwan or Singapore, but it can be better governed, better run, with less absolute poverty and misery. But that is up to Haitians not anyone else. We don't do them favors by proposing to "rescue" them.

Anonymous said...

If you give them money they will just squander it on zombies.

LOL - literally.

[The other people in the room just looked over at me like I was a weirdo...]

Anonymous said...

"When Los Angeles is eventually hit by another serious earthquake, will the same reasoning be applied?"


Si, Senor.

Joseph said...

Kylie,

Sorry about the typos. Thanks for your insight . . . though I find the "feminization" thing disturbing. I hope that you're wrong -- I do not need another thing for which to blame women!

I also value the whole, but I think that only certain people have the right to evaluate us as a whole (God, our friends or potential friends, our mates, our families) -- people who are interested in us as people (Joseph qua man as opposed to Joseph qua tax payer or Joseph qua employee at a certain business). Wouldn't women (in general) recognize that we wear different hats, and that not all of our hats are relevant to every sphere of our life? Is this the fault of feminization or the shocking inability to make distinctions?

A physician may be a murderer and remain a good physician -- as long as he doesn't harm (or kill) with his knowledge of medicine. If he's an axe killer, he may be an awful man, a bad citizen, and a terrible son-in-law (pause for cheap humor), but he may remain a good doctor.

An appreciation of the whole doesn't seem to the problem, but rather the inability to compartmentalize (or distinguish) different facets of life. I just wonder how someone would justify breaking down those considerations.

My sister and I did argue about Mike Vick with this sort of thing in mind, and I find my sister to have good sense generally. Maybe this is a female tendency.

Starker said...

Paul Shirley should have been fired -- for stupidity. As someone who drew paychecks from ESPN he should have known their history wrt other employees "going there" and their Negrophilia. Comments such as "Shouldn’t much of the responsibility for the disaster lie with the victims of that disaster?" and "ultimately, the people in a country have control over their government" are not very well thought out, to put it as gently as I can.

The original disaster was an earthquake, how much control do the locals have over that? Controlling their government --please. Shirley mentions their flimsy buildings being prone to earthquake damage. We're talking about Haiti here, not Germany or Japan.

Commenters allude to the taboos about criticizing blacks or Jews in the mainstream media. This is like complaining about the cold as one crosses the Arctic Circle heading north. That said, is it impossible to say anything negative about blacks on the MSM? I recall TV types criticizing the 70%-plus out-of-wedlock rate, the "acting white" smear applied to those who study and the "don't snitch" insanity that hands control of their neighborhoods to gangs. Pat Buchanan "goes there" occasionally. These incidents are rare, however.

"[P}eople have to learn to differentiate between:
a) Disaster aid...and
b) Development aid, which is generally useless..."
That's about it, I think. In other words, let them get a taste of first-world medicine and rebuild their shacks, but don't launch a trillion dollar program to transform Haiti into St. Tropez.

CALL FOR A WHITE BOYCOTT OF ESPN!!! said...

CALL FOR BOYCOTT OF ESPN!!!!

If ESPN had fired a black guy for saying he won't donate to whites hit by a natural disaster, black leaders, black athletes, and black people would have united and called for a boycott of ESPN.

Or, suppose a natural disaster hit a part of the Muslim world, and some Jewish sports journalist said he won't make a donation because Muslims are useless. Do you think he would have been fired? Of course not.
Shirley got targeted because he's white and because the object of his compassion-deficiency were blacks. It's pure political correctness.

Things have gotten so bad that whites will likely be fired or held from promotion if they were to make disparaging or critical remarks at the workplace about Martin Luther King.

Though the Left insists that atheists who demean religion should be protected from persecution--as well they should--, it has declared OPEN SEASON on anyone who refuses to join in the chorus of leftist or liberal piety. People are being forced to worship people like MLK. One doesn't have a choice. I'll bet any teacher who gives a lecture on the REAL MLK will get fired for heresy.

But, where is the outcry or unity among whites when people like Shirley get fired over freedom of speech?

Call for a boycott of ESPN!! Spread the word through twitter, facebook, myspace, email, or whatever. If we do NOTHING, stuff like this will continue. We must stand up!! Eventually, we'll all lose jobs for 'insensitivity' to PC sentiments.

We are indeed living in funny times. Music industry--which is part of entertainment conglomerates--releases tons of songs about mayhem, murder, thugs, and whores. Movie industry wallows in bloodbath and gore. Liberal tycoons rake in gazillions from these things.
Yet, these same people fire a person from his job for saying something refreshingly honest about Haiti.

CJ said...

I actually read the Shirley article. He does make a distinction between emergency disaster aid and longer-term rebuilding efforts. He's against the latter.

Anonymous said...

Empathy, like many traits, is normally distributed. Guys like Shirley (and the majority of the commenters here) clearly are on the low side. That's probably why you can't get girls.

Anonymous said...

The latest tempest in a teapot:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/29/haiti.puerto.rico.doctors/index.html?hpt=T2

Anonymous said...

"Empathy, like many traits, is normally distributed."

Not more HBD crackpottery!

Anonymous said...

I do feel sympathy for the Haitians. However, I am amazed by the coverage of this disaster and the level of support for the Haitians among White Americans.

On my local news, I have seen several stories of Whites adopting Haitian kids. There are daily updates concerning the recovery effort and level of donations.

I wonder if anyone is gathering statistics on who is giving the aid? I know people have statistics showing that religious, red-staters donate more to charities than atheist, blue-staters.

But what about donations between Whites and Blacks? Are Blacks spearheading the effort to save Haiti? Are they trying to adopt children? Are they donating in proportion to their share of the population? Or is this primarily a White or Christian thing?

Also, the reaction to the events in Haiti seem eerily reminiscent of the 2008 election where Whites got glassy-eyed and seemed to believe voting for Obama would somehow alleviate their guilt. Is this same dynamic in play with Haiti?

l said...

"Also, the reaction to the events in Haiti seem eerily reminiscent of the 2008 election where Whites got glassy-eyed and seemed to believe voting for Obama would somehow alleviate their guilt. Is this same dynamic in play with Haiti?"

Yes. Libs like to show how compassionate they are by supporting hopeless causes.
Earthquakes and floods have killed tens of thousands of people in China in the last few years. But for some reason the Chinese don't rate a telethon. Could it be the recognition that the Chinese, poor as they are, will pick themselves up?

Anonymous said...

"Empathy, like many traits, is normally distributed. Guys like Shirley (and the majority of the commenters here) clearly are on the low side. That's probably why you can't get girls."

The most compassionate thing that can be done for the people of Haiti is to donate money to educate the people on the relationship between poverty and high birth rates. I remember the uproar 30 years ago when China started enforcing its one-child policy. Yes, it was a totalitarian move; it was also incredibly necessary.

Anonymous said...

"Also, the reaction to the events in Haiti seem eerily reminiscent of the 2008 election where Whites got glassy-eyed and seemed to believe voting for Obama would somehow alleviate their guilt. Is this same dynamic in play with Haiti?"

Un-effing-believable…I’m sitting in a Starbucks in Scottsdale, AZ and two SWPL late 30’s females are discussing Haiti. One is gushing about some local organization that is facilitating adoptions…

Kylie said...

Joseph said: "Thanks for your insight . . . though I find the "feminization" thing disturbing. I hope that you're wrong -- I do not need another thing for which to blame women!"

I use the phrase, "the feminization of society" to describe not only the political influence of feminists but also the personal influence of women who are not hard-line feminists but want society to be typically feminine.

Examples: is not much of the bending over backwards we supposed to do for minorities (and yes, women) just a grown-up version of what our mothers told us we must always do: play nice? Playing nice often meant ignoring the fact that the dumb kid was also really malicious or that the black kid really did look like Buckwheat or letting the newcomer win the game so s/he felt included. Sound familiar?

The shift from reason to emotion as a legitimate basis for social interaction. Certainly men think and act irrationally, often as much or even more than women do. But the difference is men don't congratulate themselves for doing so. Being "in touch with their feelings" or "expressing themselves" is not the end-all and be-all for most men. Would AA would have gone to such absurd extremes without the feminine touch? Equality of opportunity is a masculine concept, equality of outcome is feminine. The latter is, again, just a grown-up version of letting the younger/dumber/newer kid win the game so s/he feels better.

Language. This one is closely allied to the preceding. "Kinder, gentler nation"? Nations are formed to protect large numbers of people. They should not be either kind or gentle, though their citizen should be, circumstances permitting. "Accident forgiveness"? That implies there was an element of intent, the opposite of accidental. The replacement of "I think" with "I feel", words like "vibrant", "compassionate", "sharing", "embracing", "including", "self-esteem", etc. all reinforce the notion of society not as a framework in which people can live and work but as a group of caring, sharing people devoted to making everyone (really the newer/dumber/younger kid) feel good about himself or herself.

There is nothing wrong with personal feelings in the public sphere. It's the primacy of them that is the most salient result of society becoming more feminized.

"Wouldn't women (in general) recognize that we wear different hats, and that not all of our hats are relevant to every sphere of our life? Is this the fault of feminization or the shocking inability to make distinctions?"

Women? You mean the "the personal is political" crowd? They recognize it--when it's to their advantage. if women perceive a person as strong, as not needing their protection, they will either pick him apart, looking for faults they can condemn or condemn him out of hand. Alternately, if women perceive a person as weak, they tend to forgive that person's trangressions to the point of refusing to acknowledge any fault or find one speck of decency and claim it as a mitigating factor. What is that but the maternal instinct run amuck?

Due to time and space constraints, I've painted with an overly broad (!) brush. And I'll freely admit I have at least my fair share of the same winning ways as most women.

Anonymous said...

Collinsworth piled on Limbaugh every chance he had back in 2003 - it was disgusting. Cris (nice spelling) is a phony who will say anything to get ahead. Reminds me of John Edwards in looks and character.

Paul Shirley should have known that you can't think hate thoughts and work at ESPN- why the network is a joke and their sports radio is bland and unfunny.


Dan in DC

Victoria said...

I hope this guy who got fired does NOT apologize. White male apology does absolutely no good. ... It did Trent Lott no good to apologize. Same with Don Imus.

By now, it's an understatement to claim that apology "does no good." It does worse than that, by sending the clear message that terrified white men can easily be intimidated and made to fall to their knees. The apology seems to infuriate whites as well, who then set about bashing the "insensitive" culprit, in a desire to distance themselves. This message is very clear now, thanks to a number of incidents. The Imus business really clinched it for good. He, singlehandedly, resuscitated Al Sharpton's dormant career.
(See here, and the follow-up on the nature of Imus's chickenhearted return to radio.)

So, whose fault is this?

Anonymous said...

Dan in DC wrote:

"Paul Shirley should have known that you can't think hate thoughts and work at ESPN."

Unless it's Charles Barkley saying literally, in a room full of white journalists, that he hates white people.

Of course, everyone knows he didn't mean it.

Joseph said...

Kylie,

Thanks, again. That "the personal is political" bit is quite a propos. You're insightful.

Sailer should do a new series of threads on this feminization factor in our culture. I've long thought that the move toward "social democracy" rested upon women's political empowerment (the nannies behind the nanny state). Perhaps, the increased political power of women in our culture might be responsible for other changes, as well. Could men alone have given us multiculturalism? Was the fairer sex the perfect useful idiot for Gramcian cultural revolution? Interesting to ponder . . .

Anonymous said...

Earthquakes and floods have killed tens of thousands of people in China in the last few years. But for some reason the Chinese don't rate a telethon. Could it be the recognition that the Chinese, poor as they are, will pick themselves up?

Quite true. The 2008 Sichuan earthquake had a magnitude of 7.9 and killed almost 70,000, but there was no "Hope for China" telethon.

What stands in my mind most relating to that earthquake is the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony. A nine-year old boy who had survived the earthquake and saved two of his classmates out of the rubble walked at the front of the Chinese delegation alongside Yao Ming, who was the flag bearer for China. By contrast, a refugee from Sudan who had become a naturalized US citizen in 2007 was the flag bearer for the United States. That ceremony was a perfect example of why China is on the rise and the United States is on the decline.

Truth said...

"Could it be the recognition that the Chinese, poor as they are, will pick themselves up."

Yeah, or it could just be that one out of every 20 people alive in Haiti before the earthquake is now either dead or an amputee; Using the same math, the Sichuan quake would have rendered 60 MILLION Chinese permanently useless.

I'm no genius, but I think there just might have been a little more world concern.

l said...

"Yeah, or it could just be that one out of every 20 people alive in Haiti before the earthquake is now either dead or an amputee"

That's according to the Haitian government and the NGOs involved. NGOs routinely exaggerate the scope of disasters -- it's called fund-raising.

Anonymous said...

Well, China didn't need help nearly as much as Haiti. The People's Liberation Army was on the scene almost immediately, compare this to Haiti where no organized help at all was available until foreign countries started arriving.

Also, I suspect that sinophobia in general played a role. Sharon Stone even called the earthquake "karma" for oppressing Tibet. Tibet is hugely popular among SWPL, and that is often accompanied by anti-Chinese sentiment.

Malcolm said...

Subject: You be the judge

If this is only a little true it’s too sad. Poloitics should never get in the way of saving lives.

Nick is a personal friend of mine.....whatever he says can be taken to the bank.......

Dick Freeman

I served in the SOG (Special Operations Group) in Viet Nam with
Brockhausen and Hebler, they have both been involved with various disaster relief programs for
the last several years to include Hurricane Katrina. They have both always been straight
shooters and known to call a spade a spade, as well as sometimes using very “colorful” language.
So I have no doubts as to the truthfulness of what he’s saying.

News back from Nick Brockhausen. He and Dennis Hebler made it back somewhat safe and sound.

To All,

I just returned from Haiti with Hebler. We flew in at 3 AM Sunday to
the scene of such incredible destruction on one side, and enormous
ineptitude and criminal neglect on the other.

Port o Prince is in ruins. The rest of the country is fairly
intact. Our team was a rescue team and we carried special equipment
that locates people buried under the rubble. There are easily 200,000
dead, the city smells like a charnal house. The bloody UN was there
for 5 years doing apparently nothing but wasting US Taxpayers money.
The ones I ran into were either incompetents or outright anti
American. Most are French or french speakers, worthless every damn one
of them. While 1800 rescuers were ready willing and able to leave the
airport and go do our jobs, the UN and USAID ( another organization
full of little OBamites and communisrts that openly speak against
Americana) These two organizations exemplared their parochialism by:

USAID, when in control of all inbound flights, had food and water
flights stacked up all the way to Miami, yet allowed Geraldo Rivera,
Anderson Cooper and a host of other left wing news puppies to land.

Pulled all the security off the rescue teams so that Bill Clinton
and his wife could have the grand tour, whilst we sat unable to get to
people trapped in the rubble.

Stacked enough food and water for the relief over at the side of the
airfield then put a guard on it while we dehydrated and wouldn’t
release a drop of it to the rescuers.

No shower facilities to decontaminate after digging or moving corpses
all day, except for the FEMA teams who brought their own shower and
decon equipment, as well as air conditioned tents.

No latrine facilities, less digging a hole if you set up a shitter
everyone was trying to use it.

I watched a 25 year old Obamite with the USAID shrieking hysterically,
berate a full bird colonel in the air force, because he countermanded
her orders, whilst trying to unscrew the air pattern.

” You don’t know what your president wants!

The military isn’t in charge here we are!”

If any of you are thinking of giving money to the Haitian relief, or
to the UN don’t waste your money. It will only go to further the goals
of the French and the Liberal left.

If we are a fair and even society, why is it that only white couples
are adopting Haitian orphans. Where the hell is that vocal minority
that is always screaming about the injustice of American society.

Bad place, bad situation, but a perfect look at the new world order in
action. New Orleans magnified a thousand times. Haiti doesn’t need
democracy, what Haiti needs is Papa Doc. That’s not just my opinion ,
that is what virtually every Haitian we talked with said. the French
run the UN treat us the same as when we were a colony, at least Papa
Doc ran the country.

Oh, and as a last slap in the face the last four of us had to take US
AIRWAY’s home from Phoenix. They slapped me with a 590 dollar baggage
charge for the four of us. The girl at the counter was almost in tears
because she couldn’t give us a discount or she would lose her job.
Pass that on to the flying public.

Nick

God Bless America and the U.S. Marine Corps

Anonymous said...

>he thinks it's OK to watch people die for reasons that aren't their fault.<

Just like you think it's murder on his part to decline to give money to the causes you favor.

On a related note, we have all heard the old wheeze, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you have fed him for life." But what if he can't learn how to fish, metaphorically speaking?

Victoria said...

... competitive altruism among whites ... To adopt an overseas (foreign-mysterious-magical) child of suitably dark hue is perforce to attain to the status of a white aristocrat ... Becky the hussy who had a kid with that black guy. He was only an American ...

Wow, you hit a home run with this post. You had me rolling with laughter. Funny, yet, oh, so true! This is, indeed, today's white -- whether they call themselves "liberals" or "conservatives."

Truth said...

"Well, China didn't need help nearly as much as Haiti. The People's Liberation Army was on the scene almost immediately, compare this to Haiti where no organized help at all was available until foreign countries started arriving."

Think my friend, please, think.
That is your problem, you are so stuck in this Neocon, HBD thing that you have lost the ability to think.

The claimed deaths in the Chinese quuake were 60,000 in a country of 1.2 billion, that is a rate of 0.05%. Applying the same rate of death to Haiti, the quake would have killed a whopping 500 deaths which would have received exactly one mention on your late local news. The police responded in China because THERE WERE POLICE WHO WEREN'T DEAD, INJURED, HOMELESS, NEEDING AMPUTATIONS, OR CARING FOR FAMILY MEMBERS IN THE ABOVE SITUATIONS. It's pretty simple really.

Mr. Anon said...

"Truth said...

"Could it be the recognition that the Chinese, poor as they are, will pick themselves up."

Yeah, or it could just be that one out of every 20 people alive in Haiti before the earthquake is now either dead or an amputee; Using the same math, the Sichuan quake would have rendered 60 MILLION Chinese permanently useless.

I'm no genius, but I think there just might have been a little more world concern."

That you are "no genius" is testified to by every single word you write.......sport.

There was more concern expressed in this country after the earthquake in Haiti because Haiti is black, and the assumption was that they would be incapable of helping themselves and would descend into barbarism - even further than they already are. And there is little in what has happened to disabuse anyone of these assumptions. Haiti's biggest problem was that it was overpopulated. It is now less overpopulated. That's cruel to say. It also happens to be true.

Are you holding Haiti up as some kind of model of black governance, "Truth"? Well, you may be more right than you know.

Anonymous said...

And then there's this. I confess to a feeling of satisfaction at seeing these Baptist clay-eaters behind bars where they belong.

Anonymous said...

Truth, I don't understand why you lashed out at me all of a sudden ... I agree with you! I said that Haiti needed help more than China!

Truth said...

Sorry Bro, your post was a little nebulous.