Looterland, USA
Back in April 2003, the World Wide Rant used the word "Looterland" to describe Iraq at the time. Of course, we now have our very own Looterland here in the USA.
Looters rampaged through flooded streets and survivors scrambled to get out on Thursday as shell-shocked officials tried to regain control of the historic jazz city reduced to ruin by Hurricane Katrina.
An operation to bus more than 20,000 refugees to the Houston Astrodome was suspended temporarily when shots were fired in New Orleans at helicopters being used in the evacuation, a local government spokeswoman in Houston said.
The incident was part of the chaos that prompted New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin to order police to drop rescue operations to fight the crime that gripped the besieged city.
An angry Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco told reporters: "We will do what it takes to bring law and order to our area."
"I'm just furious. It's intolerable," she said of the growing crime wave....
[I]n New Orleans, gunshots repeatedly rang out and fires flared as looters broke into stores, houses, hospitals and office buildings -- some in search of food, others looking for anything of value.
They broke windows, tore down security gates and knocked down doors, then hauled away what they could carry or cart.
Similar scenes were playing out in Mississippi where looters freely ransacked stores in Biloxi and Gulfport....
[President] Bush warned against price-gouging of gasoline in the aftermath of Katrina and condemned the looting.
"I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this, whether it be looting, or price-gouging at the gasoline pump or taking advantage of charitable giving, or insurance fraud," Bush said in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America."
But it continues:
Looting became a problem in both Biloxi and in New Orleans, in some cases in full view of police and National Guardsmen. One police officer was shot in the head by a looter in New Orleans, but was expected to recover, Sgt. Paul Accardo, a police spokesman.
On New Orleans' Canal Street, which actually resembled a canal, dozens of looters ripped open the steel gates on clothing and jewelry stores, some packing plastic garbage cans with loot to float down the street. One man, who had about 10 pairs of jeans draped over his left arm, was asked if he was salvaging things from his store.
"No," the man shouted, "that's EVERYBODY'S store!"
Looters at a Wal-Mart brazenly loaded up shopping carts with items including microwaves, coolers and knife sets. Others walked out of a sporting goods store on Canal Street with armfuls of shoes and football jerseys.
Outside the broken shells of Biloxi's casinos, people picked through slot machines to see if they still contained coins and ransacked other businesses.
"People are just casually walking in and filling up garbage bags and walking off like they're Santa Claus," said Marty Desei, owner of a Super 8 motel....
And, of course, it's Bush's fault:
Breakdown
What bothers me this evening, in watching the goings-on on TV and in reading a series of stories, is how quickly the social order has broken down in my beloved city.
I'm a pretty lassiez-faire kinda guy. I know the police, fire, National Guard and other official agencies are more than overwhelmed by this once-a-century type of event.
But damn, y'all....
I am well aware the logistics of providing help in this situation in this city are unprecedented. And the levee breach is potentially catastrophic, even more than the hurricane itself. But it also seems to me that we've been overly eager, as a nation, to rapidly deploy needed manpower to just about anyplace in the world to face a perceived threat. From what's I've seen and read so far today, now would be a good time to employ this same kind of quick action to at least provide a little protection to folks who just want to get through the next difficult day.
I know -- it's only been 48 hours or so. And conditions are uniquely staggering. But authorities have to get a handle on, well, their authority.
Please.
Posted by Craig Giesecke at August 30, 2005 08:18 PM
This particular disaster to our own homeland is exactly why we do not need to be expending our precious resources in other countries when our own people need the help right now. There is no reason why the military should not be deployed to help with the looting. Mighty nice of our president to cut his vacation short because of this disaster. I bet if it would have been a terroist attack, he would have called in the special forces.
My prayers go out to everyone in NO tonight and Austin Texas is sending as much help as we can.
IMPEACH BUSH!!!
Posted by: Jackie at August 30, 2005 09:36 PM
Preface note: I am not condoning behavior by the following comment.
I wanted to make a comment about the havoc being wreaked by looters. If one takes a step back and looks objectively at the situation, you will be saddened by the situation and not because they are embarassing NOLA on national television. Consider this-the people you see looting are the people left behind. The people who couldn't get out or didn't think it would be that bad. The people who've grown up in the poorer wards of NOLA and lack the social and coping skills necessary to handle the situation. Where they are from looting, shooting, etc, are the street skills necessary to survive and are prided by some. Put them in un-observed streets when they feel panicked or in the Superdome with 20,000 other people and what more do you expect? They're coping the only ways they know how.
(Remember the recent report published--500 blank rounds were fired in the more dangerous areas and during those times not one phone call was made to authorities to report any shots fired.)
Posted by: Cara Dufrene at August 31, 2005 04:13 AM
I can't believe people are using the word "looting" to describe people taking food and drink out of grocery stores! What are they supposed to do if they're trapped there? Starve? Hope to find a store that is actually operating? Those stores have insurance. Letting what is in a grocery store be destroyed by flooding rather than having trapped people use it is stupid.
Also, see Daily Kos on looting vs. getting food (you can guess which skin color gets which photo caption):
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2005/8/30/192236/013/241#241
Posted by: barry at August 31, 2005 09:46 AM
Has anybody considered that Bush's pet project(created only to distract the public)THE IRAQ WAR is WASTING billions of dollars and the energies of thousands of Military personnel who otherwise could be deployed to the Gulf region?
Maybe The Katrina disaster is the equivilent of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which forced the fanatical Japanese government to give up it's silly war.
I believe it's pretty obvious that with the US industrial economy weakening, millions more Americans descending into poverty and global climate change spawning more and more extreme natural disasters, THE U.S.A. can(and will) NO LONGER be able to afford it's IMPERIAL AMBITIONS and Shortsighted, Materialistic life style
(HAVE IT YOUR WAY,GET-IT-NOW, JUST THROW IT AWAY!, DEMAND MORE-YOU DESERVE IT!!).
It's NOW time to GET OUT OF IRAQ and depose the anti-federal-gov't, Country-Club Administration!!!
Posted by: DeMich at September 1, 2005 11:26 AM
And also blame the DOD. The Daily Kos highlighted this e-mail:
From: Announcements to all U.S. DHHS Employees
[mailto:HHS-STAFF@LIST.NIH.GOV] On Behalf Of News, HHS (HHS/OS)
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 4:57 PM
To: HHS-STAFF@LIST.NIH.GOV
Subject: Commemoration of Patriot Day
In twelve days, we will commemorate Patriot Day, a day to remember the tragic events of September 11, 2001, a day to honor members of the Armed Forces currently serving at home and abroad, and a day to reiterate our commitment to the freedoms we enjoy. I will honor Patriot Day by participating in the Freedom Walk, a memorial event sponsored by the Department of Defense. I invite you as employees of the Department of Health and Human Services to join me.
The Freedom Walk begins at 10 a.m. in the Pentagon's south parking lot, winds two miles through Arlington National Cemetery and over the Potomac River, and ends at the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall where country music star Clint Black will perform. The walk is free, but people must register by visiting www.AmercaSupportsYou.mil
September 11 marked a change in the way we view our world, our nation and ourselves. The betterment of ourselves and our country is our response. In whatever way you choose to commemorate the horrendous acts of early September four years ago, let us once again renew our gratitude for the freedoms we enjoy and reaffirm our commitment to tolerance, peace and liberty throughout the world.
To which the Daily Kos had this response:
Let's remember that at the moment, we are in the middle of the nation's worst disaster in at least a century. We have hundreds of thousands of homeless and displaced, we have a major city under water, we have entire towns wiped off the face of the earth, we have likely thousands dead, disease may break out at any point, a massive cleanup and reconstruction project must be planned and executed.
And one of the key departments involved in the process is urging its employees to go on a march and catch a country music concert? Another key department, the Department of Defense, is sponsoring this event.
It's time for the federal government to focus entirely on helping the people of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, not plan and attend a party.
Also see AMERICAblog, which also blames Bush:
The majority of people living in New Orleans are African-Americans and considering this administrations lackluster acceptance of diversity (beyond millionaires) one has to question if race has played a roll in this tremendous failure. This is a team who doesn't seem to care very much for what happens to people with dark skin, whether we are talking about the war in Iraq, extremist religious policies for the war on AIDS in Africa, foot dragging on Sudan, no response to the Mugabe regime, slowness to respond to the tsunami and of course the steady increase in poverty in the US.
If you are a millionaire and African-American or Hispanic, it's a open door policy but otherwise I am struggling to find a case where Bush and his cronies give a damn about African-Americans. Of course, New Orleans is also not a rich city in terms of financial wealth compared to other cities and Bush has yet to show compassion or understanding for anyone with a financial balance sheet less than his own.
However, in all of this there may be a point in the whole black people loot, white people find discussion.
Flickr user dustin3000 uploads two similar news photos that show flood victims in New Orleans wading in chest-deep water. In each, a person appears to be dragging a bag or box or two of food or beverages.
The images were shot by different photographers, and captioned by different photo wire services. The Associated Press caption accompanying the image with a black person says he's just finished "looting" a grocery store. The AFP/Getty Images caption describes lighter skinned people "finding" bread and soda from a grocery store. No stores are open to sell these goods.
Perhaps there's more factual substantiation behind each copywriter's choice of words than we know. But to some, the difference in tone suggests racial bias, implicit or otherwise.
Reader comment: oboreruhito says, "1.) AP has consistently named all people stealing items as looters....
Reader comment: Amid says,
I'd like to refute the reader comment that AP has consistently named everybody stealing items "looters." This is an AP photo of a white guy "looking through his shopping bag." ...coming out of a store with a broken window.
Reader comment: Tiffany B. Brown
Something else to remember about the Associated Press: A lot of what comes out of the AP is from its member news organizations. Bill Feig (who took this photo), is a photographer for the Baton Rouge Advocate. Dave Martin (who took this AP photo) is an actual AP employee. I don't know how much editing the AP does of cutlines (captions) before they're sent over the wire, but that could explain any inconsistencies in language about looters.
However, I still maintain that anyone who argues that we should be "at home" and not in foreign countries is just isolationist racist Arab-hating scum. Of course, that criticism applies to both the left and the right. Turn back to the late 1990s, when the President wanted to deploy the military in foreign countries, and the opposition urged the President to stay home. Remember?
In early May 1999, Washington Post reporter Guy Gugliotta asked conservative think-tanker Robert Kagan why the supposedly hawkish congressional GOP was so hostile to Bill Clinton's war in Kosovo. "The Republicans have two choices today," replied Kagan. "They can say they are peaceniks and isolationists, or they can say they don't trust Clinton to conduct this war. I think hatred of Clinton is huge." He was right. While at the time many commentators (myself included) denounced the Gingrich Republicans as isolationists, we were taking them too seriously. In fact, their motivation was almost entirely partisan. They did not trust Clinton to wield military power and therefore preferred that it be wielded as little as possible until a better man occupied the Oval Office. ...
Cuts both ways...
Comments