Our shifting take on looting: Baghdad vs. New Orleans

[Auggie27]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 5:13pm

For two days I've watched the media's talking heads tsk-tsk over the looting of Walgreens in New Orleans, often taking particular note of how the cops aren't stopping them. (Never mind that they are far more worried about people who can't get their dialysis treatments...) CNN's Keira was particularly prone to head-shaking and editorial scolding as she watched people carrying bags of diaper -- and the occasional TV in a flooded city that may not have power for 4 months.

One can't help but think back to Rumsfeld's "stuff happens" comments, after rare antiquities were taken from the museum in Bagdad. "Freedom is untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes!"

48 hours in, I'm weary of hearing how "tragedy brings out the best and the worst in people." Best vs. worst may be in the eye of the beholder. Interesting how we write off thieves taking millenia old artificats, and fret publically about poor, stranded, desperately disenfranchised people ripping off sundries and electronics. I'm in no way condoning stealing, but it's fascinating how we minimize one situation and exploit another in the name of law and order.

Updated On: 8/31/05 at 05:13 PM

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 5:18pm

i've been going back and forth on the looting but saw an interesting little piece in wonkette re: looting.
finding vs. looting

[justme2]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 5:19pm

I was thinking about this last night as I watched the news footage of people looting in New Orleans.

Looting for food, diapers, medicines, and water. I have no problem with that..I would be doing it as well if I knew there would be no help for days to come.

Looting televisions, toys, jewelry, cameras, etc...WHY??? And where the hell do you think you are going to keep a television set in a city submerged in water?? That's just plain greed and lawlessness.

[Type_A_Tiff]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 5:20pm

You just beat me to it, justme2.

And interesting take, papa.

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 5:22pm

Ironically the news showed a policewoman looting and she said she was just doing her job!!

[lildogs]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 5:23pm

The answer is easy papalovesmambo: the white people were salvaging but the dark-skinned boy was stealing...

[lildogs]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 5:23pm

The answer is easy papalovesmambo: the white people were salvaging but the dark-skinned boy was stealing...

[justme2]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 5:44pm

yeah... I noticed this kind of coverage on the news last night as well...amazing difference in describing the same act, isn't it?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 7:30pm

The justaxposition I kept seeing was, "Times like this bring out the best in people, here you see a man sliding his niece across a piece of plywood to get her to the rescue helicopter basket, but it also brings out the worst, here a looter wades through water with a bucket of beer."

I dunno, I'm starting to think the tsk tskers are getting a bit Javertian (that was for you Joey). I also think I personally would be going a bit bonkers if it seemed as if the world was coming to an end and there is no indication help would be reaching anytime soon. I think I might grab an electronic item in such a scenario, for absolutely no logical reason whatsoever.

Updated On: 8/31/05 at 07:30 PM

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 8:12pm

Actually, I just watched the ooposite attitude on Cooper Anderson's 360 and yesterday's Paula Zahn. They seem to be rather sympathetic to the fact that the looting is a matter of survival for these people who have no idea where or how they will live. The shaking of heads attitude has been more towards the shootings, especially of the police, who have been working tirelessly, and they are victims of the tragedy as well.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 8:23pm

Additionally, I just heard that many people are stealing items they can use to barter, now that most of the essentials have already disappeared from stores. I'm sure there are those saying, "Woo hoo! I got a plasma TV!" without thinking that they have no place to put it, no way to transport it and no source of power to use it. But there are those stealing items they can find of value to trade for people who grabbed a case of diapers who don't even have a baby.

The clean, made-up and coiffed governor is certainly condemning the looters from the air conditioned studio, however. I would like to see how she would fare dumped in the French Quarter right now.

Updated On: 8/31/05 at 08:23 PM

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 9:41pm

I fail to see how stealing Rolex watches helps one get thru a catastrophe like this

[Auggie27]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 9:54pm

I noticed the 'tude Mister Matt commented on tonight as well. Interesting. Then, at the gym, I saw Bill O'Reilly, who is ready to put the looters away for life.

[iflitifloat]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 10:06pm

I wouldn't want to be casting the first stone in this situation. When faced with such overwhelming catastrophic loss, I would imagine that it is oddly empowering...if only for a fleeting moment...to snag something "of value" just because it's there. I'm not excusing it, I'm just saying that I've never been in a situation that hopeless (...have any of us?), so who's to say we'd not do something similar. I'd like to *think* I wouldn't ... but who really knows...

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 10:10pm

If you're homeless, and everything is underwater, where the f are you putting your loot? A plasma TV? Doubtful.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 10:30pm

Rath, your utter lack of empathy is one of the major indicators of your typical right wing attitude that you claim I think I'm so smart for being able to see.

It isn't ABOUT the loot. It's about feeling as if you have complete and utter lack of control over what is happening to you in your life (and poor people feel that generally, let alone when an extreme natural disaster destroys what teeny semblance of normalcy they're able to cobble together in their life) and the increasingly escalating levels of bad news that keep coming your way and no way for you to even know if relief is in sight since communications are down.

There is NOT logic that connects taking something of value that you MAY be able to barter for something you need, such as, oh, I don't know, FOOD OR FRICKING MEDICINE OR BABY DIAPERS. But it's way too much to ask that you try to understand that extreme duress makes people crack, and it becomes a matter of survival. People do what they think they have to do to survive. But you just cluck your tongue at them like you would. You know, Bill O'Reilly apparently thinks like you, maybe you should join HIS site and be with like-minded individuals? Oh, sure it costs, but you can afford it, right?

I imagine if it was you in a rainstorm you'd bob up drowned in the first puddle like Shelley Winters in The Poseidon Adventure as your beloved music superstar Mo McGovern warbles The Morning After in the background.

Updated On: 8/31/05 at 10:30 PM

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 10:36pm

Wow, Namo. Nice misread. I was, in fact, commenting on Mister Matt's statement.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 10:37pm

Glub glub glub.

[justme2]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 10:57pm

Aren't most of us in this thread basically agreeing on the main point here?

Looting for essentials is understandable and expected.
Looting for a plasma tv is ridiculous and wrong.

I don't buy the "they are under so much stress" argument.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 10:59pm

Then I vote that you go sit and bake on a roof for 72 hours without any way to find out if your friends or neighbors or relatives are alive, and with just a teeny bit of food and water. We'll see how you do.

[justme2]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 11:02pm

Well, we didn't have 90 degree heat in October of 1989, but I stood in line for bottled water in SF for 10 hours. I know something about suffering in times of tragedy.

We watched looters on Market street stealing stupid crap like cameras, huge amounts of shoes and the like. We had no electricity for 3 days, no gas, and no transportation either.

Didn't make me "lose my mind" and decide I should steal a plasma tv. I thought about breaking in for some damn aspirin, but then....that's an actual NEED.

[Yawper]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 11:11pm

not really surprised at the looting in N.O. - the city has/had crime stats that most tourists somehow manage to overlook ~

this article ran just two weeks ago in the Houston Chronicle:
THE BIG UNEASY

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 11:16pm

Oh, it's not just 90 degrees. I have a friend who has gone to Southern Decadence several times and he says he has to stay in his (air conditioned) hotel all day, because to step out in New Orleans during day light is to feel as if you are trying to breathe under water.

I'm sorry, I don't think you can compare "We had no electricity for 3 days, no gas, and no transportation either..." to what the people in New Orleans are facing, besides sweltering heat that IS enough to make people go mad, certainly if they have to wade through disease-infested poison that vaguely looks like water and watch human bodies bob along.

I just heard that it will take 48 hours to move just the refugees who are in need of medical assistance from the Superdome to the Houston Astrodome, which has cleared its schedule until DECEMBER to accommodate the 30,000 people who will LIVE there at least until then.

TELL me that that isn't enough to make a person go mad! Please, tell me that. Tell me that hunger and thirst aren't enough to make people do crazy things. Tell me that.

I think it's time to step back and ask what it is we are expecting of people in extreme duress. You could at the very least walk around San Francisco, you didn't have to wade.

Posted: 8/31/05 at 11:23pm

Apparently, the Mayor of New Orleans thinks the looting situation (and the attendant violence) is so out of control that 1500 cops have been removed from search and rescue operations and ordered to 'stop the looting'.

[beacon1]

Posted: 8/31/05 at 11:24pm

I'm concerned that so many looters are getting firearms and ammunitions. Once the mass evacuation is done...who will be left...those willing to shoot each other to death?

And fishing equipment. Some looters were taking fishing poles,etc....please tell me they are not thinking of trying to feed anyone with the fish they pull out of that polluted, contaminated water...

Updated On: 8/31/05 at 11:24 PM