Looting in Gulfport?

[bribri16]

Is it really looting when desperate people who know the stores won't be able to open for days, food in the stores will spoil because of no power, and family members may go hungry, go into the chain store (that can certainly write it all off as business loss) and walk out with a shopping cart full of food? I just don't know. In my gut I feel it is looting. I would think that the managers of the stores would have gladly given away the food during this disaster rather than have it spoil or be damaged by floods or invaded by swamp critters. The media is really playing up the "looting" angle to me. But then, I am just a bleeding-heart-liberal. What do I know?

[BrainRants]

1. Rumsfeld: "People are free to do what they want in a free society"

:sarcasm:

[ohio_liberal]

11. We'll see those two huge vases soon

In a boat instead of a car trunk ;)

[SammyWinstonJack]

2. If they want to talk about looting I could give them a few suggestions.

But they don't want to go there.

[tjdee]

3. So they should let the food spoil then?

Or force the grocery store employees to stand there with shotguns?

Those questions aren't really directed at you personally, but all these looting threads and the people coming down on these people...

I don't think it is right to steal. I just reaaaaallly find it hard to say we should let the food spoil, and hungry people should go hungry just so people can be happy that nobody took it without paying for it.

Maybe grocery stores should have better preparation procedures in place. I think that'd make me happy.

[TahitiNut]

4. I can only say that I'm glad I'm not in their position ...

... and only if I were could I even venture an opinion, let alone a judgment. :shrug:

[Tace]

5. Just Protecting Against The Breakdown Of Civil Society

Hugo and Dickens did a good job of pointing out the unfairness and irony.

[tjdee]

6. LOL, I've been avoiding calling all these people Jean Valjeans.

:hi:

[redqueen]

7. .

:cry:

[LSK]

8. i have never been in a disaster area

So I cannot comment on what is needed to do to survive the next week or month.

[bribri16]

9. Aren't "gougers" "looters" too? Aren't Bush and his oil buds looters? n/t

[SammyWinstonJack]

10. Yes they are and the worst kind of looters but the Corporate owned

media doesn't want to go there, for obvious reasons.

[Igel]

13. Yes. And we have laws against that (at least in most states),

as well.

Usually you see the looter stories, and then a few days later gouger stories. Give it them a chance.

Seldom do we see luter stories, alas.

[dbonds]

12. Wasn't there a quote from Donald Rumsfield...

"Its a free society, and these things happen" or something similar?

On edit: In reference to looting in Iraq.

[DFWdem]

14. Better hope they don't get caught!

Barbour and other officials had a harsh warning for those thinking of looting. "I've urged the highway patrol and national guard to treat looters ruthlessly," Barbour said, "The rules of engagement will be as ruthless as the law allows."

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/special_packages/hurricane_katrina/12507279.htm

[eridani]

15. During one of the California earthquakes--

--a Safeway manager stuck without power for an extended time period gave away all the perishables in the store on the grounds that they were a total loss anyway. He was fired for that. Prolly cost much less than they paid the ad writers for th "We're what a neighbor should bea' campaign. I heard that there was a big community protest about it, but not whether he got reinstated.

[peacetalksforall]

16. Perhaps CNN and the others should show the restaurants the other

people are eating at in Houston and Galveston and the nearby resorts.

They have an opportunity to make a point by contrast. Of course, they can't bash the little people who probably had no cash to pay their way out of NO if they provide a contrast.

America - the country of a perfect press. For a few.

[bribri16]

17. One restaurant took food to the people staying the HOTEL!

He said it was just going to spoil by morning so why not bring it to the people in the hotel? That's the spirit. Too bad most don't feel that way about the poor stranded in their own homes and neighborhoods. "Looters" could very well be people desperate to feed their families during this crisis.