The Human Race Hasn't really changed much,

[MichaelHarris]

looking back into our history I can't help seeing comparisons between the Titanic and hurricane Katrina. Now before you fly off the handle and yell, "there goes that crazy Harris guy again!" hear me out.

Just as the Titanic had classes of people so did New Orleans, the lower you went in the ship the lower class the people became. The same is true of New Orleans, in the lowest levels of New Orleans lived the lowest income families. The lower class ot the Titanic, the immigrants were locked behind gates while the upper crust of society with wealth and influence were able to use the available lifeboats, while the lower classes were left on a sinking ship not unlike the Superdome. To make it simpler for the trolling freeper, those that could afford the lifeboat, car, or airplane ticket were able to leave. Those that could not died.

Of the 610 first and second class passengers aboard 320 survived while among the 706 third class passengers only 178 survived. It's easy to see the comparison with New Orleans, the higher the class, the higher the chance for survival.

Fingers are pointing left and right after the Katrina disaster, FEDS blame state and local officials while local and state officials blame the FEDS. The American people should be pointing fingers at the people who allowed another disaster like the Titanic to happen, a government that allows suffering and poverty by passing laws prohibiting higher minimum wages, a government that squashes affordable health care for it's people, a government that allows corporations to move facilities offshore, basically a government that didn't provide enough "lifeboats" for it's people.

A government locking people behind gates on a sinking ship is the same as locking people in a flooding city, the Superdome became their Titanic.

Michael Harris

[Vektor]

1. Your comparison makes perfect sense.

The poor and disadvantaged are always the ones left to die. It's an age old tale.

[Tace]

2. Good Analogy -- You're Right

It's very much the same.

[mestup]

3. Excellent post!

:...basically a government that didn't provide enough "lifeboats" for it's people."

Great statement.

[MichaelHarris]

5. thanks all

It took us hundreds of years to become outraged by stories like Columbus's men testing the sharpness of their swords on native Americans, or the government sending smallpox laden blankets to the reservations. Here we have a government directly responsible for the poverty in and around New Orleans through it's passing of bills only aiding big buisiness, bills denying a livable wage, and bills protecting drug companies. Before Katrina we could turn our heads like the people did during Columbus's time, we did not see dying native Americans on the other side of a young nation, with Katrina, America has been forced to see it's short-comings, will we wait 100's of years to speak of it?

[alittlelark]

4. Suomeone needs to nake a juxtapositioned VID of your analogy !!

Because it is SPOT-ON.

[MichaelHarris]

7. thank you

I thought about a graphic of New Orleans with the low-lying areas showing median income next to a graphic of the Titanic and it's death by class but if the average freeper saw it it may confuse them. Too many numbers and graphs tend to really mess them up.

[alittlelark]

9. A simple cut and dry vid. showing the movie and the reality

would be very effective. 'Titanic' was BIG among the fundies (my mom is one of them).

[MichaelHarris]

10. it's weird

those fundies who watch Titanic and say, "those poor people" will never see the governmet and corporate greed that put them there. They will never see that passing unfavorable laws to the American worker lead to another Titanic.

[alittlelark]

11. And they don't even know they are ON the Titanic.

shameful and sad for them.

[MichaelHarris]

13. LOL

you're right, we're all on the Titanic. I wonder if the lower income freeper really believes he or she will get a "lifeboat"?

[alittlelark]

16. I'm sure the lower class freepers are SURE they will get a lifeboat!!!

LOL!!! Yeah....right.


PS - you got 5 nominations!:bounce:

[MichaelHarris]

18. woohooo

um what happens at 5? Do I self destruct? I want my lifeboat dammit.

[alittlelark]

6. I'm NOMINATING this because I want one of our industrious DUers

to make a side-by-side vid re-creating your post.

[Liberal In Texas]

8. The story of the Titanic is a very good story that I was telling my RW

acquaintances before "that movie" came out.

It is a story of over 1500 men, women, and children who died in freezing north Atlantic waters because of corporate incompetence, greed, arrogance, and lack of governmental oversight.

It's a cautionary tale I've followed since I was old enough to pick up "A Night To Remember" when I was a small child.

What we have now, is lessons forgotten. The large corporations don't care one whit about us. They are in it for the profit.

New Orleans is much like that. People don't matter, just profit.

Do you know why the Titanic didn't have a full double bottom? A technology understood in 1912 for about 20 years? It was cheaper not to have it. It was not mandated. Same with the life boats. It's wasn't required, so they didn't do it.

The Titanic sailed with a fire in the coal bunkers. But it would have been too costly to dock the ship and piss off the passengers. Yes, the Titanic sailed with a fire that weakened the bulkheads that might have saved it when the unthinkable happened.

This is exactly what corporate America or corporate England or anyplace else thinks. Unless they're forced to comply with regulations, in many cases, they will not do it.

I'm all for capitalism, but with regulation. We, the people, deserve nothing less.

[MichaelHarris]

12. we could almost

go as far as to compare Titanic's bulkheads, designed to keep the ship from flooding to New Orlean's levees. The people aboard the Titanic trusted the bulkheads just as the people of New Orleans trusted the levees.

The only difference is that the ship's owners believed in the design while the funds for the levee were cut off by a federal government needing to fund an illegal war. What kind of protection could we provide America with what it cost to run this war?

[nashbridges]

36. Double hull bottom is not used

Even today, with current liners. Double hulls are, but the expense and limited benefits of hollow bottom boats limits their use. The articles about such technology when the Titanic sank puts it firmly in the realm of the possible, not the pratical.

Titanic didn't have a double hull fully because they couldn't do it for a ship that size. They didn't have the steel, they didn't have the money, and they didn't have the motivation. Anyone who tells you different is wrong.

Titanic's main failure, and its biggest failure, was the lack of lifeboats. Government regulations at the time capped the total number of lifeboats based on the tonnage of the ship, and Titanic exceeded that tonnage by almost 50%. The lifeboats they had were enough for a ship half the size, and they met the rules.

Titanic failed not because of a lack of the bulkheads, hollow hulls, or even pure incompetence. Titanic failed because no one thought an iceberg would skip along a 170 foot section of underwater steel and poke holes in it all the way. The walls of the ship failed when rivets were broken along a long stretch of the starboard side. Water came up through the crack (verifiable through testimony from survivors), and the ship sunk.

A double bottom would not have saved the ship, it would have only prolonged the sinking by a half hour at best, if that. The damage was not to the bottom of the boat.

And your "fire in the coal bunkers" argument? What do you think powered the ship? It was, start to finish, designed to burn coal. That's an idiot argument.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

14. A very valid and poignant analogy. nt.

[Liberal In Texas]

15. Thank you both. I could go on and on about the absurd reasons for

the tragedy that was the sinking of the Titanic. Complete incompetence and the rush to win the "Blue Ribbond" but I might bore most readers of this post.

The point is, corporations do not self-regulate. They do not have our best interests at heart. When they do self-regulate, it's becasue they don't want to be sued. I work with trial lawyers now days, and see the vast injustice these corps are engaged in. And now, the * crime family wants to take that away. It's called "Tort Reform." Bullshit. It should be called, "Screw The Public Legislation."

[wildhorses]

17. excellent analogy

sort of a parable for the fundies :shrug:

[MichaelHarris]

19. thanks

if I wasn't so lazy and so wrapped up in The History channel's Roman Vice I would make a chart showing the flooded areas of New Orleans overlayed with the income of those areas compared with a layout of the Titanic showing death by class. It's just when a show starts out with a warning saying, "Warning, this show portrays graphic depictions of ancient sex..." I have to watch. Not from a sexual interest mind you but purely from a historical interest.

[wildhorses]

21. weird..I was watching that too

it is a treat being here at my friend's house where I can get more than just the ONE channel I am currently receiving in my own home.

[MichaelHarris]

24. LOL

for historical purposes right?

[wildhorses]

25. well it has been SO long

that it is HISTORY :rofl:

[MichaelHarris]

27. LOL

I though gladiators had it bad but according to this show they got to wine and dine pretty well.

[Liberal In Texas]

20. Yes, and I've used it with fundies before. They pretty much don't have

much to say after I lay out the facts.

Of course, the big Kool-Aid drinkers just ignore me and bring up Clinton. ! :)

It's not only a parable, it's true and a cautionary story from our history.

We seem doomed to repeat the past. Harding brought the country down in the 20's and now the Bushites are doing the exact same thing.

Why don't more people see this?

[wildhorses]

22. I think most people are so busy

just trying to keep their own heads above water (excuse the pun) that it is all they can do to just make it from one day to the next much less think about any long term goals...everyone I know, here lately, seems to have that attitude

[Liberal In Texas]

26. Yes, wildhorses, that's why we pay our taxes and hope that the people

we hire will take care of the life boats or the bus that has the damaged wheel, that sort of thing.

I'm not doing better than keeping my head above water as well. But I expect that for the taxes I pay, the streets should be in reasonable shape and they will collect my garbage. If I'm assaulted I can call a cop, or if I take my doggie for a walk, I won't be charged an admission to the park.

AND, if I take a pill it won't kill me. These are the things we pay for. Corporations don't pay for them, we do.

The "long term goal" is not to have to think about these things. That's what a well run country is like. But we have the fascists trying to take over, and I'm sorry, you have to think about it.

Attitude? Yep.

[wildhorses]

28. I am sorry if I offended you

in any way...but did you not just ask why "people" could not see this in your previous post? I was just trying to figure out why "they" could not see it....gee whiz

[Liberal In Texas]

30. You did not offend me, and I am sorry if I offended you.

I'm just kind of direct and dogmatic these days.

Friends?

[wildhorses]

31. oh yes

friends :hug:

[Liberal In Texas]

32. Thanks...I'm not always very nice, and again, I apologize.

I think I'm too passionate sometimes with my DU friends and tend to go a bit overboard.

Again, I meant no ill will.

[wildhorses]

35. None taken

I just wanted to make sure I understood what was going on...sometimes I feel like I am lost what with the jargon and me being a newbie and all...but yes, I am proud to be your friend and passion is a good thing..

[Liberal In Texas]

38. Got ya...

I think that board postings can be taken the wrong way a lot of the time.

It's like when my wife and I send email back and forth while we're working, the nuances and irony are lost.

It's good to count you as my friend "wildhorses". I hope to see more from you on DU.

If you consider yourself as a newbie, a BIG WELCOME from me.

[MichaelHarris]

23. they don't even realize

they belong to the "stowage" class of Americans. Administrations like the bush administration only use these people for their votes using the tried and true tools such as fear and patriotism. This administration has used it so well that they have been able to combine patriotism and religion. You will soon hear stories like you have to have faith to be an American. God and America will be one in the same to the fundamentalist. They are just missing one important thing, they are just a vote to a republican, nothing more.

[Liberal In Texas]

29. Stowage was not a term used on the Titanic. The third class passengers had

it so much better than previous liners, they thought it was heaven. Until the water started to wash over thier shoes.

Like the US now. The third class thinks this is just heaven. Just wait until they start drowning. And the people they voted in, just said they cannot declare bankruptcy.

I truly think that unless it goes to hell, the Joe-Six-Packs of the country won't realize what's going on. The $3+ gas prices kind of got them aware, but it'll have to really go to shit first.

[MichaelHarris]

33. while researching the numbers

for this article I noticed they used "3rd class" instead of "stowage", I think though I'll still use "stowage" when refering to fundie republicans.

[Liberal In Texas]

34. You are correct, sir. The "Third Class" term was kind of meant as

a marketing tool, even back in 1912.

And I think referring to stowage to Freepes and their ilk is a good idea!

[MichaelHarris]

37. :)

I found different numbers on various sites but the ratios were always the same. I didn't include the crew numbers although a comparison of Titanic crew lives lost and New Orleans city workers may be interesting.

[Liberal In Texas]

39. Now that might be a very interesting stat.! I cannot do much more

tonight about it, but I might start looking around tomorrow and look at the figures. Never considered that aspect before.

Interesting.

[wildhorses]

40. you guys keep up the good work

I think are you are onto something...communication is KEY

[cassiepriam]

41. The Titanic metaphor has been in my head for a long time...

really captures the whole sense of where we are as a county.