Pray for the citizens of New Orleans

[Miulang]

Re: Pray for the citizens of New Orleans

If most is not malicious looting ,then why does the mainsteam media only show the malicious looting? I guess it makes a better story and adds to the drama..

You got that right. And notice that they only show black people walking off with stuff? It's still that ol "plantation mentality" going on. I read somewhere that even though people of other ethnicities are taking things which don't belong to them, when the culprits are black, it's called "looting". When the culprits are white, it's called "found", as in "Residents found electronic equipment in the demolished and abandoned buildings."

Miulang

[Glen Miyashiro]

Re: Pray for the citizens of New Orleans

And even when the world offers aid, the USA won't take it.

United Nations Undersecretary-General Jan Egeland, who oversaw relief efforts after the Indian Ocean tsunami in December 2004, offered Washington U.N. assistance in a formal letter to new U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton.

"The United Nations stands ready to help with any kind of disaster expertise that might be required ... in full recognition that the United States is the country in the world that possesses the greatest civilian and military search and rescue and recovery assets themselves,'' Egeland told Reuters in an interview.

He said U.S. officials had thanked the U.N. for its offer, but had not requested any assistance so far.

(New York Times)

[MadAzza]

Re: Pray for the citizens of New Orleans

given how poor most of the people who live in the areas devastated by the hurricane are and how politically and socially oppressed they have been for so many years, is it really wrong for them to want to take advantage of the situation by looting abandoned shops?

Yes, it is wrong.

"Oppressed"? I don't think so. People do make choices. Anyone who feels "oppressed" is welcome to get out there and work hard for his own success instead of blaming others for his problems. You know, the way people used to, before it became convenient to seize the nanny-state mentality. "You have to excuse all my bad behavior! I'm oppressed!" (Or, as the kid in West Side Story put it, "I'm depraved on account I'm deprived!") That only makes sense if you buy into the idea that people of certain races or income levels are somehow not as smart or willing to work as others are. I don't.

[MadAzza]

Re: Pray for the citizens of New Orleans

If most is not malicious looting ,then why does the mainsteam media only show the malicious looting? I guess it makes a better story and adds to the drama.

They show it beccause that is what's happening in front of their cameras. Do you really believe they go out in search of material to make black people look bad?? Like they have all freakin' day to do that, even if they wanted to, which they don't?

They are showing us malicious looting because looting is malicious! Oh, sure, two or three people out of a hundred are just trying to get food and water. But what about the guy who dragged away 15 cases of beer in the trunk of his car? Alcohol dehydrates, so it's not a good water replacement. What about the guy carrying the TV set out of the electronics store? I hope it falls on him and he drowns under all that water. Oh, that's right, all those poor people are *oppressed* ... they're not thieves, they're victims!

[Miulang]

Re: Geography of New Orleans

So the State of LA should send the repair bill directly to the White House, along with the cost to import all the National Guardsmen from other states because 3,000 of the local Guardsmen were on duty in Iraq instead of being on call to deal with local emergencies?

The fingerpointing has begun:
"...A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. After a flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, in which the Corps of Engineers strengthened and renovated levees and pumping stations. In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans' levees, but it was too late. ...

"...The Bush administration's policy of turning over wetlands to developers almost certainly also contributed to the heightened level of the storm surge. In 1990, a federal task force began restoring lost wetlands surrounding New Orleans. Every two miles of wetland between the Crescent City and the Gulf reduces a surge by half a foot. Bush had promised "no net loss" of wetlands, a policy launched by his father's administration and bolstered by President Clinton. But he reversed his approach in 2003, unleashing the developers. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency then announced they could no longer protect wetlands unless they were somehow related to interstate commerce. ..."

Miulang

[MadAzza]

Re: Pray for the citizens of New Orleans

And from CNN.com:

"The evacuation of patients from Charity Hospital was halted after the facility came under sniper fire, while groups of armed men wandered the streets, buildings smoldered and people picked through stores for what they could find."

Those poor, oppressed snipers!

Sickening.

[Miulang]

Fats Domino missing in NOLA

Legendary rock 'n roller Fats Domino is listed among the missing in the wake of the devastating flooding in New Orleans. He reportedly chose to stay in his house which was located in the 9th Ward where flooding was most severe.

Miulang

[Palolo Joe]

Re: Pray for the citizens of New Orleans

They found Fats.

And stop it already with the racial crap in regards to looting. I'm sure I wasn't the only one watching haoles and blacks side by side, looting television sets and other non-essential stuff from local stores.

I also heard that a truck headed for an area hospital, filled with medical supplies, that was held up at gunpoint and looted by others waiting nearby.

How can something like that ever be justified?

[Miulang]

Re: Pray for the citizens of New Orleans

I was curious to find out if any social psychologists or sociologists had any theories about the anarchy that seemed so prevalent on the TV screens over the last 4 days. I found this:

"images repeated in video loops on 24-hour cable-news networks raise stereotypes. That struck Robert Smith, political-science professor at San Francisco State University. "All the people that appear to be in distress ... have been African American, people coming from the [housing] projects," he said. "All the looters that have been shown are black."

Smith said he's not surprised. He said the neglected people in those communities — those stranded without resources — often are black. But he added that the pictures and footage of the looting "will reinforce the image of black people as criminals."

The population of New Orleans is about 67 percent African American, the fifth-largest percentage among American cities with more than 100,000 population.

Ronald Walters sees "a global issue."

"Black people are no different than any other group of people in the world," said Walters, political-science professor and director of the African American Leadership Institute at the University of Maryland at College Park. "Explaining [the looting], you have to go far, far beyond skin color."

Walters said any group — black, white, Hispanic, Asian, whatever — would do anything necessary to survive when faced with tragic circumstances, including raiding stores for supplies....

"But what about the looting of luxury items? Some media images showed people hauling off television sets and DVD players, in an area with no electricity. "That's something we as researchers are going to take a closer look at," he said.

He offered a hypothesis — not an excuse, he stressed: "You'd probably find the people doing this to be very poor. Pretty much they have nothing in their lives. They didn't have the resources to escape, didn't have a car or money to leave.

"Now, on this one occasion, suddenly they think, 'Wow, I can have these things,' for once."

Much of what's being taken are essentials: anything edible, disposable diapers, water and clothes.

"That is the behavior people take under the pressure of survival," said Benigno Aguirre, professor in the department of sociology and criminal justice and the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware in Newark. "This is misconstrued as looting, as thievery."

In disaster, social norms shift, sociologists say. What may be considered criminal or unacceptable under ordinary circumstances becomes reasonable...."

And this, a very interesting forum on the psychology of looting.

Miulang

[Palolo Joe]

Re: Pray for the citizens of New Orleans

From the same link:

"Ronald Walters sees 'a global issue.'
'Black people are no different than any other group of people in the world,' said Walters, political-science professor and director of the African American Leadership Institute at the University of Maryland at College Park.
'Explaining [the looting], you have to go far, far beyond skin color.'"

[U'ilani]

Re: Pray for the citizens of New Orleans

I think any discussion of the reasons for the looting have to include the fact that New Orleans had a weak civil and social infrastructure before the disaster, with the murder rate 10xs the national average, a poverty rate twice the national average and a corrupt local government.

[DaveNSoKona]

Re: Geography of New Orleans

Mr. Fournier in his AP column points out that just last year, the Army Corps of Engineers sought $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans. The White House slashed the request to about $40 million. Congress finally passed 42.2 million of the $105 million requested by the Army Corps of Engineers. While appropriating $231 million on a bridge to a small, uninhabited Alaskan island. Has "Democracy" ceased to be an effective form of government as practiced in the US?


Our Government at work

[Ailina]

Re: Pray for the citizens of New Orleans

I think any discussion of the reasons for the looting have to include the fact that New Orleans had a weak civil and social infrastructure before the disaster, with the murder rate 10xs the national average, a poverty rate twice the national average and a corrupt local government.

Notoriously. "New Orleans"--as far as we're concerned here--is synonymous with "chaos." Not always/necessarily chaos of a violent or malicious nature, but in Nawlins, all sorts of lines have always been blurred.

[Palolo Joe]

Re: Pray for the citizens of New Orleans

Watching the coverage on Dateline NBC tonight was just heartbreaking... can't believe that some of the displaced are being told that they simply can't come back. For months - if not longer.

Living in Hawaii means there's not a lot of money saved up by most residents, but please try to find a little something to donate. I can't afford it, but I'll be punching my credit card number in online sometime soon to try and do my part.

[Miulang]

Pres. Bush will get an earful...

The last couple of nights on the cable news shows have been really really interesting. Whenever CNN has interviewed Michael Brown, the FEMA Director about why aid has been so slow in getting to the people of NO, he has always dodged the question by saying, "We're getting help there as fast as we can."

Yesterday, Paula Zahn asked him why there weren't more efforts to help the 10,000+ people stranded at the Convention Center in downtown NO (I've been to conferences in that place and it's huuuuge) and his response was, "We only learned about the Convention Center this morning (4 days after the storm)". You should have seen Paula's face go red on that comment. Another anchor asked him the same question later, and he gave the same answer. DUH. Where was he when the Mayor of NO was begging and pleading on television and the radio for help for the people at the Convention Center 3 days ago?

The Pres will be touring the destruction of the Gulf States today. This morning, he held an informal press conference where the Gov. of MS and AL were present, along with Michael Brown (FEMA), Michael Chertoff (Homeland Security), and some representatives of the Coast Guard. The governors both were effusive with praise over the assistance that FEMA and the Coast Guard had given their states in their recovery efforts. They praised the Pres for his assistance in getting them the aid.

I think the story will be completely different in LA. He's supposed to meet with the Governor of LA and Ray Nagin, the Mayor of NO, later today after taking a tour of NO. I doubt the press will be privvy to that conversation because I'm sure the Mayor especially will read the Pres the riot act for his lack of leadership, for the failure of FEMA to adequately address the health and safety issues of his constituents, for not providing enough National Guard troops to protect the people and businesses, for cutting back funding to the Army Corps of Engineering to upgrade the levee system...all that's ironic because Nagin himself is safe in Baton Rouge. The people left in NO are upset because he's not down among them, but I think his safety would be jeopardized right now.

The Houston Astrodome is now not accepting anymore victims of the hurricane. The officials there admit that they are having logistical problems with dealing with the 12,000 people who are there. So where are the people still left in NO supposed to go? There's a convoy of some 100 buses in the city right now, but once people get on those buses, where will they end up? Apparently San Antonio and Dallas will also be accepting some of those people, which will put a burden on those cities' infrastructures, too. Will people also have to be bussed to TN, NC, SC, and KY? Can those states absorb so many new residents at one time who need all kinds of assistance? Someone likened this hurricane to an "American tsunami". The shameful part is the victims of the Indonesian earthquake and tsunami had food and water dropped to them the day after the disaster. In this country, it's taking 6 days for some of our own citizens to get help. This is not acceptable.

Miulang