I don't know if that joke is common in Spain, but at least in Mexico the Spanish immigrants that came to the country between the 30's and 60's were regarded as community people that helped eachother. Actually, most Spaniards, or descendants of Spaniards, I know were poor when they arrived in Mexico and now most of them are wealthy. How they did it? With help from other Spanish immigrants already settled in Mexico. So I don't really believe that to be a good "joke" or story. It only helps to continue stereotype people.

BillfromNYC: To add insult to injury on the police assualt, they were using clubs on that man, the pictures planly showed blood all over the sidewalk, and they were only charged with misdemeanor assualt as opposed to felony. It seems obvious that N.O. has not intention of cleaning up their act. A very corrupt city, a corrupt state.

Madridman should rename this thread, "The thread that never dies"

Mecky, it is funny, but I was told that joke years ago. Of course I was told that joke in Spain, and the american bucket was the one in which the crabs were killing each other. Usually for us the americans are too competitive among them, while for us the spaniards help each other.

Re; the poor retired school teacher that got the jujubee's kicked out him by the NO and FBI police. Hey DD I respect your outrage and I respect you for your honest assesment of that incident, even though I am a left winger I can remember a time when many Republican and Democrat's could discuss issues with one thing in common, a mutual concern and desire to keep the US progressing, all without vitriol and hate.
E Pluribus Unim

Fulano,

It was quite good of you to acknowledge that DD could post something reasonable on this board. But the only vitriol and hate I've seen on this entire thread is when you compare the current administration to Nazis. What other vitriol and hate could you possibly be referring too?

That poor man! Bill, I too could not believe my eyes when I saw a televised clip of the beating.
What a savage lot; imagine three big guys beating up an elderly man. Then they went after the tv crew too! The report also mentioned that there were FBI folks looking on!

I realize that we cannot generalize, and that the police there are under a great deal of stress, and now without a leader, but it seems to me that there are deeply-held problems in that police department, if they have to savagely beat an old man to get their point across. These guys need a change in profession if they can't keep their cool.

I thought it odd that the police chief would step down so suddenly, and during an emergency, but, if this display of savagery by his staff is typical of his administration and leadership, then it was a good thing that he left.

Hey gazpacho, thanks for the reminder! Yea maybe Nazis is a little harsh, and old fashioned,Hmmm I'm thinking, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld,Carl Rove, ,Tom Delay,Trent Lott,Tom Ridge,etc;, etc; etc; how about "Fascists"? Hmmm dictionary states "a system of government characterized by rigid one-party dictatorship,suppression of opposition,private economic enterprise under centralized governmental control,belligerent nationalism, racism, and militarism,I'll add "cronyism", What do you think Gazpacho? I'm hoping we'll wake up and it will have been a bad dream! Hey gazpacho what about E Pluribus Unim? does it still have a chance or I guess you don't believe in that old corny stuff anymore huh? Yea now it's all about the individual and choice right ?
Al Rato

TJGuy wrote: That´s for sure!

While I don´t mind the discussion of condemnation of political parties or their leaders, as you all know, we don't allow name-calling here. If calling a right-wing political party a "Fascist Party" is name-calling then so is calling a left-wing party a "Communist Party". But if a fascist party IS a fascist party and if a communist party IS a communist party then how can this be name-calling if it´s true? Now, calling a current-day party a Nazi Regime, well, that's probably a bit extreme.

Let´s all try to stay more-or-less on the topic of the USA Gulf Coast Hurricane(s).

Wearing his nucular power pants, MadridMan

Lets see.... New Orleans cops start at $15k a year, and we expect better?

Then there's the fact that there's nearly 300 million people in the US, and a lot of cameras out there shooting everything that can be shot for the news...

As wrong as the situation was in NO, the fact is that was one incident over a nation as large as ours, and we're going to tag everyone as racists and cops out of control?

Something's wrong with that picture. I think there's a lot of things that go on everywhere, and my guess is that somewhere in Spain, on the same day, a cop, or few cops, manhandled someone that shouldn't have been manhandled as well, but I'm not going to point aspersions on "all cops," and "whitey is a racist crab" because of it.

I think we have a tendency to get a bit carried away when we tend to "lump everyone" into a neat little package to show our disgust.