This post from James KA Smith on the distorrted priorities of “police” protection.
Fors Clavigera: Above All, Save the Merchandise
In the face of al-Quaeda’s attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, the White House’s admonition was clear: “Shop.” The one thing the enemy won’t destroy is our freedom to go the mall.
And now, in the wake of a national tragedy, we find a similarly ridiculous focus on the market and merchandise.
Walmart, stolen cars. “Precious” property placed over the danger to human lives as people are killed and remain in danger in the streets of New Orleans
Eric,
I answered you r comment here before I saw your post on the same subject, and you caught the same “consumer” angle as I did. Hope you have a good weekend wherever in Ohio that happens to be (I posted a question about that— like which part of Ohio? , since just about every year OTHER than this year, we’re in Cincinnati that weekend — my wife and I met and “blind dated” on that weekend in 1982, and so we USUALLY plan to be up there.
Dale
Yeah, that’s pretty bad. Not only is it business at bottom, but the “people like you and me” are really consumers.
I received an e-mail from the president of our company here that said this:
**********
Please consider this as it impacted people like you and me. Double your donation (even if its only $10). Its painless.
Here’s a prospect of ours in New Orleans that has shut down their website (a key revenue source for them) so New Orleans not only hit the consumers but business as well
*********** (emphasis mine)
Man that makes me so angry. This tragedy renders me speechless, but the business people I’m closest to sure have no qualms about reminding us that despite the fact that these are people and therefore a gift from God, that:
this affects our bottom line
Sickening. Maybe I should start looking for a new job. I hate this shit.