SubscribeYou know what I would have done? I would have gathered a bunch of people together and stormed the checkpoint. I would have said "no, I will not allow my daughter, sister, mother, (whatever) to be raped and murdered. I will not revert to a two year old. I and my friends will carry the sick on out backs, and push them in their wheel chairs.<snark>Damn, Livewire, too bad you weren't there then.</snark>
As for you jacobm: maybe you would have been in there so you could do some on the spot counselling or the rapists. You could have brought your sister, girlfriend or mother along. That shoe can very easily fit on the other foot.Wha? I feel like this is some sort of barb, but I have no idea what it's supposed to mean. All I was trying to suggest was that we know from copious experience that people are very bad at estimating how they would react when placed under extreme stress — see Stanley Milgram's book "Obedience to Authority" for instance, or just observe over time the extreme disparity between all statements in any Metafilter thread ever of the form "If it had been me, I'd've ..." versus what the people in the situation actually did.
"Forty-four soldiers pressed together in their truck, swaying as one at every bump and turn like reeds in a river.
...The soldiers, members of an elite Special Response Team from the Louisiana Army National Guard, were the first convoy out of what is rapidly becoming a massive military staging ground. Their mission, simply, is to turn New Orleans into a police state--to 'regain the city,' said 1st Sgt. John Jewell.... the order came at the intersection of Poydras and Carondelet Streets: 'Lock and load!'
...But when they arrived, they did not find marauding mobs. They did not come under fire. They found people who had lost everything in the storm and, since then, their dignity. The soldiers were part of the Superdome team that came to town before the hurricane. For days, they had been cut off from media reports, sleeping and working among the refugees and the vicious rumor mill at the stadium.
Their Superdome duties left them with a terrible image of the city. They knew that out on the streets, a police officer had been shot in the head, that looting was widespread, that snipers were taking potshots even at boaters trying to rescue victims from rooftops and attics.
Now assigned to patrol the streets, they headed for the convention center in the city's central business district.
Their mission was to establish a command post at the site, which officials have increasingly turned their attention to, particularly as the evacuation of the Superdome neared its end. They would then build a staging area to bring in food and water. Finally, they would send in teams of soldiers to seize control of a massive and lawless facility.
The soldiers braced for the worst.
Two trucks pulled beside them, one carrying water and one a massive pile of ready-to-eat military meals in boxes.
They pulled into a parking lot next to the convention center in full battle mode. They spilled out of the truck, formed a tight circle and began walking outward, stepping over the detritus of the refugees. Dirty underwear. A compact disc.
A troop carrier rolled over an empty bottle of water, popping it like a balloon. The soldiers yanked their weapons to a firing position before realizing what it was.
No one came at them but a nurse. She was wearing a T-shirt that read: 'I love New Orleans.' She ran down a broken escalator, then held her hands in the air when she saw the guns.
'We have sick kids up here!' she shouted. 'We have dehydrated kids! One kid with sickle cell!'
'You've got to do something,' said the nurse.
Children slept on laps and on the ground. There was an elderly emphysema patient as well as a diabetic.
'We'll get you some help as soon as some people get here,' said Lt. James Magee.
Frankie Estes, 80, said she was glad to see the troops. It was a glimmer of hope. Friday marked her fifth night sleeping on the sidewalk in front of the convention center.
'I haven't had food or water for three days,' she said. "' didn't know if I was going to make it.'
By Friday night, dinner had been served to an endless line of refugees. Helicopters had begun airlifting the most critically ill. The soldiers had found their mission. It just wasn't what they thought it was going to be."
For days, they [the NG troups at the superdome] had been cut off from media reports, sleeping and working among the refugees and the vicious rumor mill at the stadium.That probably explains the main reason they didn't leave. The people inside the superdome thought the rest of the city, the outside of the superdome was worse then the inside. Even the few troups stationed there.
Their Superdome duties left them with a terrible image of the city. They knew that out on the streets, a police officer had been shot in the head, that looting was widespread, that snipers were taking potshots even at boaters trying to rescue victims from rooftops and attics.
many people begin to indicate their desire to stop the experiment and check on the subject. Many test subjects stop at 135 volts and begin to question the purpose of the experiment. Some continue after being assured that they will not be held responsible. Some participants even begin to laugh nervously once they hear the screams of pain coming from the learner.
If, at any time, the subject indicates his desire to halt the experiment he is given a succession of verbal prods by the experimenter, such as: "The experiment requires that you continue. Please go on." If the subject still wishes to stop after four successive verbal prods, the experiment is halted.
In the original experiment, though some went to the end of the shocks (450 volts), everyone stopped at some point and questioned the experiment. Others even said they would return the check for the money they were paid. Later results and multiple test set-ups showed that the closer the teacher was to the learner the sooner he stopped.
Before the experiment was conducted Milgram polled fellow psychologists as to what the results would be. They unanimously believed that only a few sadists would be prepared to give the maximum voltage.
In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65 percent (27 out of 40) of experimental participants administered the experiment's final 450-volt shock, though many were quite uncomfortable in doing so. No participant stopped before the 300-volt level. Variants of the experiment were later performed by Milgram himself and other psychologists around the world with similar results. Apart from confirming the original results the variations have tested variables in the experimental setup.
Thomas Blass of the University of Maryland (who is also the author of a biography of Milgram, called The Man who shocked the World) performed a meta-analysis on the results of repeated performances of the experiment (done at various times since, in the US and elsewhere). He found that the percentage of participants who are prepared to inflict fatal voltages remains remarkably constant, between 61% and 66%, regardless of time or location.
”Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It's accessible. The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.
How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks.
Despite the city's multiple points of entry, our nation's bureaucrats spent days after last week's hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city's stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.
Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.
Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a ‘Today’ show story Friday morning.
Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach.
….No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn't be reached.”
”In the absence of information and outside assistance, groups of rich and poor banded together in the French Quarter, forming ‘tribes’ and dividing up the labor….While mold and contagion grew in the muck that engulfed most of the city, something else sprouted in this most decadent of American neighborhoods — humanity. Read more.
http// that snuck in there... Try this...« Older A just released report [pdf]... | As reported by New Orleans ABC... Newer »
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posted by odinsdream at 11:14 AM on September 4, 2005