The "looter problem" is a subtrafuge to divert attention from the

[mom cat]

"miserable failure" of dim son and his handlers. It is the Willie Horton defence.
In a pinch, you can always appeal to fear and or racism to prop up the elites.

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. Bush wants everyone to be at each other's throats

destabilizing the country is what he is after. Just like he destabilized Iraq.

[mom cat]

19. Convienient distraction from the Bush Crime Family Looters.

[wtmusic]

2. on CNN they were rolling a loop

of looters coming out of a store over...and over...and over again, under commentary. If you weren't paying attention you would think there were 200-300 people involved. Actual number of different people? About 10.

[mom cat]

17. Summer reruns you know. Saves having to go out and get footage of people

who are suffering. The looters are an easy target for all of the rage over the fear, loss, frustration and powerlessness that many are feeling. But the media focus on the looters (talking points already) and the rage that Gov Blanco directed at the looters is frightening. When do the police get whipped up into such a state of fear that they start shooting the wanderers?
We must keep the focus on the BIG LOOTERS...dim son and the puppeteers.

[bpilgrim]

3. NO WDSU: Looting is LOW in NO - Not a PRIORITY ------- -------- > MP3

http://news.globalfreepress.com/mp3/katrina/NO-8-31-05-2427-onscene_report-wdsu-katrina.mp3

on scene report from downtown NO tonight

peace

[mom cat]

14. Great tape...Send it to Randi!..

[Mr_Spock]

4. It is kinda - and it's easy for the media to get sucked into also

It's also an expected occurance - not guarding the hen house - what the FUCK do people think is going to happen. The poorest of the poor stayed in the city central - they see $ and they want it - right or wrong, it's a human instinct.

[madeline_con]

5. There really are looters. Some really are very dangerous guys.

The diversion is the fact that scum like these have to be dealt with by people who could be used to rescue the stranded.

They will have to be stopped nonetheless.

[applegrove]

10. Stop the dangerous criminals. Not the ones who break in to steal

a floating air mattress or a plastic bin so they can get some of their family or possessions out. Some people cannot afford insurance and the like.

I think there are laws that in an emergency you can break the law to save someone. So what if they nabbed a pile of T-shirts?

Go after the real scary ones and leave the rest alone until you can actually offer them some rescue assistance or protection for "all they own in the world".

I'd rather desperate people stick to looting stores than attacking rescue workers.

[madeline_con]

11. There are enough "really scary ones" to keep the NG busy.

Carjacking and stealing boats at gunpoint trumps a pile of t-shirts.

I couldn't care less if someone's "hood rich" for a few days with a pile of clothes.

[mom cat]

15. The biggest "looters" are in DC.

[mom cat]

23. There are some real criminals who need to be stopped. It is however

quite frightening how much attention a few bad apples are getting given the scope of the catastrophe. The sound of the venom is appalling. I just heard 3 white male commentators on one of the stations seething about the looters with so much venom that it was frightening. Earlier, two of the younger reporters on WWLTV were ragging on about the looters, then very inappropriately laughing it up while some tragic film was being shown...Sounded very entitled and very juvenile. They were positively gushing about Bush.

[applegrove]

25. That's not good. But we need venom for the ones who are scaring

rescue workers and have weapons. We are talking about different types of people here. I wish the RW were capable of ...what do they call it ... nuance?

[mom cat]

27. Which specific instances do you have in mind? I am not sure. I know that

some people are snapping from the tension..suicides, yelling at officials, etc. I had not been aware of instances of threats to rescue workers. If there have been, they are despicable. So are the crimes that diverted money to the rich instead of fixing New Orleans levee system. Who has caused more human misery? Who has put the first responders in more peril? I just see the looters as becoming the fall guys while the big guys get away.

[applegrove]

30. I do agree the 'big guys' are getting away with much death & destruction.

Your health care system to start with. Lying to get into war (and doing it in such a way as to create "new precedents for war") instead of the UN marching into Iraq with 700,000 and deposing Saddam some day. And Rummy - enforcing his "new assumptions" on the generals cutting down the invasion force to 250,000 from 500,000. And on and on.

That doesn't mean Afghanistan shouldn't have been invaded. Or that we never need an army. Or that Saddam wasn't bad. Or that we can get out of Iraq by October (hopefully 6 months). That just means the people "doing the thinking" at the top are cruel and mean and many people will die & live deminished lives because. Yes - ignoring the levy is bad. Evil. Not a priority for them. I have hope that that story will not be silenced.

But yes I have heard some people got shot at. Some people have been robbed at gunpoint. I don't know if this is more than happens in the average night. Those stats would be interesting.

I hope the army is there by dawn. Or I will scream.

[mom cat]

32. I hope that they are there too, and that they don't believe that most of

dazed, crazed people they see are evil monsters of their worst fears. The main mission must be to help get people out instead of turning them into target practice.

[applegrove]

33. Oh those poor people. Who have no protection. And no rescue tonight.

[mom cat]

37. God, I feel so powerless. All I can do is give some money and type

till the wee hours of the morning.

[applegrove]

38. Let's start a thread to demand the army goes in to rescue women,

children & other innocents.

[mom cat]

41. Go for it... That would amount to 99.9999% of the people they encounter.

[mom cat]

35. I hope thea they will start fixing the breech by morning or I will be

screaming too.

[havocmom]

6. Yep, more of the 'demonize the victims' shit so people will not stay

pissed at the powers that are supposed to be taking care of the nation.
Try to divert anger away from where it legitimately belongs. Play the race card again. The junta is in trouble so they gotta shoot the messangers

[mom cat]

20. Blame the victims....That is usually good for a couple of rounds.

[RSchewe]

7. A classic Red Herring n/t

[Lone_Star_Dem]

8. The looter problem is part of the failure, IMO

Racism doesn't apply, I saw white and black people looting on CNN.

This is breakdown of all our safety nets that are supposed to keep these things from happening in the event of a disaster.

We need to ask the pResident this queston; what if this had been a terrorist attack? Could the US have handled it any better? This could be anytown USA that this is happening to.

[madeline_con]

12. "... white and black people looting ..."

Thank you. And I'm sure those shooting and robbing include all colors, too. :hi:

[mom cat]

36. Most of the biggest looters and killers are rich white males...

and they cause far more death and destruction that all of the looters everywhere.

[canichelouis]

9. Property has always been a top priority

[mom cat]

28. Rich people's property, to be exact.

[AgadorSparticus]

13. exactly! we were just discussing this same thing. his media whores

can't spin this one so they are going to have to distract. just ONCE, I'd like to see them put their political agenda aside and be a fucking human being.

[mom cat]

29. True sociopaths are not capable of being human.

[Old and In the Way]

16. In the scheme of things, looting is a drop in the bucket.

We're talking billions in losses....what value is the inventory a few thousand people are managing to lift? It's all distressed and worth pennies on the dollar to the merchants now, anyways. I'll bet they'll do better if they are cleaned out then if they had to negotiate a store full of flood damaged merchandise.

Really, how many plasma TV's and stereo's are being stolen? There's no friggen electricity to watch it and there's no place to put them! 90%+ of the looting is for primary needs...food, water, clothing, medicine.

I think the reporters on the scene are wising up to this situation. They are able to put this foraging in the context of the emergency that these people are faced with.

[mom cat]

18. We need to call the media on it and direct them to the real crooks.

[progressivebydesign]

21. Okay. Once again...

Looting IS a problem. A BIG problem. It's not about the property, it's about the lawlessness. It's about mass groups of people roving around committing crimes. Looting is always a priority because it snowballs into bigger crimes and eventually violent crimes. You have numerous acts of violence now, not just some guy stealing baby food as was claimed here last night. Every victim who is trying to get help is being compromised because the looting is taking priority. It is not safe for rescue personnel right now.. and there is concern for hospitals and other essential services being looted.

I think people here on DU bend over backwards too often in trying to live up the liberal label that they forget basic common sense. It's not racist to stop looters. It is not racist to point out that people are looting. Looting is wrong. It's stealing. It's one thing to steal food if you have no way of getting assistance, it's quite another to steal stacks of jeans, guns, and jewelry. If you think that somehow poor people deserve the things they are stealing, then it's blatantly obvious why the Democrats are losing more and more people to the Republicans.

Yes, the relief efforts suck, no one is questioning that assertion. But to act like roving bands of looters and criminals is somehow excused because the people are poor, is ridiculous and is an insult to poor people. I grew up with basically nothing, but that's no excuse to commit crimes. It's the mass mentality of looting and the escalation of violence that is fueling the attention to the looting.

[mom cat]

24. Yes looters are a problem. It is the venom in the media discussion

that bothers me. Yes, law and order need to be restored. I think that we could start with the 8 billion that took a walk in Baghdad..etc. As for interfering with the rescue, I think that one chimp has caused more grief for the city than all of the looters combined.

[goodboy]

22. Doesn't want people to see the truth: Bush is responsible for making

the tragedy of Katrina bigger and more costly in lives and dollars and damage.

[mom cat]

26. Bush has done more damage to NO than all of the looters

combined!

[Cleita]

31. Yes, you are right, I'm afraid and many DUers have been

appealed to it appears.

[mom cat]

34. Still. DUers have had a hell of a lot more insight than "the media".

[Wizard777]

39. For God sakes we can't let them act like Halliburton!

That all I hear on much of the looting complaints. What you see in NOLA is basically what Halliburton did in Iraq. Instead of Tv's and stereo's. They ran off with big screen Tv sized bricks of our money. These people have real needs. NOLA Actually had the Weather of Mass Destruction. Now we need to restore the order of democracy and rebuild.

[nolabels]

42. People who have similar ideas on how to get ahead with the least..........

...amount of effort often see people having similar ideas as a threat to their lively hood

[mom cat]

51. There is a reason for this diversion. Keep the attention off Bushco's

failures and active culpability in this disaster.

[leftofthedial]

40. "looters" = handwaving of the first magnitude

anyone who believes looting is an issue in any way comparable to the belated, disorganized, ineffective and poorly-led response and the issue of trying to save people's lives is an idiot or a demagogue.

[Catrina]

44. Agreed

Don't forget the looting in Iraq which Rummy said was just people 'experiencing freedom' and the media was relooping the same shots over and over, he said, to make it look like that was all that was happening.

There are several things the media is not reporting regarding the 'crime' which is what it is.

First of all, there is probably less crime right now than on the average day in NO.

Second, they ought to be decrying the fact that there was virtually no response to this disaster by this administration.

Third, that the Bush administration cut funding to keep the levees and pumps functioning properly, and asking why Congress has not gone into an emergency session to deal with this, and to find out why thee was NO leadership until two days after the hurricane struck, most likely causing the deaths of, as yet, unknown numbers of people.

Looting would not be a problem if there had been any plan at all to deal with what was on a list of the four biggest threats to the USA.

This hurricane hit Florida eight days ago, killing seven people when it was a Category 1. So there was plenty of time to prepare for this. This government knew such a hurricane had the potential to be the biggest threat to this country, yet did NOTHING at all to diminish the harm it would cause.

If we had a free press, the looting would be reported only in the sense that it is demonstrative of the failure of this administration. There was no plan for this, just as there was no plan for Iraq. We have been reduced to the status of a third world country since this administration put into effect its plans to cut all programs and divert money to its various wars for profit.

[jbnow]

46. I know the media dwelt on it

way too much. Even some of the media got tired of it and were asking who they talked to or commenting that some people wouldn't have a choice. Where else will they get food or water or supplies they need to float through or walk through the toxic water. They even shrugged off the TV's, not that it was a necessity but that who cared right now. The police and officials generally felt that way too. Property crimes weren't the point.

But concern increased when it was guns that were stolen and used and when there were some armed groups and carjackings, when worker stepped out for some air and were robbed, but I think mostly when they started a couple fires. Fires are so hard to deal with now. One fire was a store with bullets inside that were going off as the fire was being dealt with.

Of course people make too much of too much of it. I might not know how much because I have not turned on fox or read the freeper site, I'm sure they go wild on it. Sometimes other stations got off on it too, but on those channels there were other reporters putting it in perspective, even if they were the minority.

And of course there is always crime but shooting or robbing police or medical people or rescuers or scared survivors can't go unchecked now.

Not sure how it will work. There is the lack of communication-one reason they do nothing is because they can never call for back up. They have been working non-stop and they don't have more places or food or water then others there and no central command.

Of course they show mostly black people since mostly black people are left there, the class problem has been clear from the start with no plan to get those without cars or money out of town.

And I know in the helplessness and frustration people might commit more crimes...but it is not time to be robbing people (as opposed to houses) or shooting or terrorizing or setting fire. I don't care what rummybut said in Iraq, it was wrong to let it go there too.

There is not one side to issues. Most press, not all, were stupid. Most looters, not all, are harmless. Many crimes, not all, can be ignored.

[mom cat]

53. Very good summation.

[mom cat]

52. This is a powerful statement and is so true!

[Nothing Without Hope]

43. True - read this thread and you will see how the NYT has done EXACTLY

what you say - there is terrible blame, now and stretching back years - and the Mayor of New Orleans blames the Administration for allowing New Orleans to drown. Mayor Nagin couldn't even CONTACT the President when he was begging for help to patch the breached levees.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4523783
Thread title: CNN/New Orleans:"Mayor blasts failure to patch levee breeches" and that's {only the beginning}:

The NYT (excerpted and discussed later in the thread) gets the facts all wrong and also totally omits any hint that Bush or his administration are in any way responsible for anything. And they quote the LA head of Homeland Security at length about all those looters, as if they're the most serious problem. This article is a shocking travesty and a tissue of deceit.

Read this whole thread and you will see just how bad this is.

And now the Adminstration have REFUSED RESCUE PERSONNEL AND RESOURCES FROM CANADA. Oh, no - they want to hold on to "power" and not admit that they're clueless about what to do while people are continuing to die.

[Pacifist Patriot]

47. They have turned down help from Canada?!?!?!

[mom cat]

49. What is it that they do not want the Canadians to see?

[Nothing Without Hope]

57. I think it's that, plus:

They don't want to admit to the world that the situation is as bad as it is - after all, they are responsible for the flooding in New Orleans and for failing to help people throughout the hurricane-ravaged region.

The don't want the Canadians to see and tell the rest of the world how very little the US government is doing. If there are rescue teams, they will see horrors and atrocities.

They want to pretend that "they are in charge." Pride and vanity.

There is a long-term neocon plan to set up a domestic military police force to "manage" US citizens, both during disasters and at all other times. (Read this thread and the links in it and you will see what I mean - it's obvious when you put the pieces together. Sending OUR National Guard out of the country and abusing it - using it up - is part of this plan. The administration doesn't want to have to admit that this plan has failed and that the absence of the National Guard have been needed desperately. "Homeland Security" is a failure except as a fascist tool. Indeed, grant and project money that was needed to reinforce the levees and do other major preparation for hurricanes and floods WAS DIVERTED BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION TO THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND TO THE IRAQ WAR.

And I seriously wonder if perhaps the neocons WANT the deaths and dispossessions of all those poor people, many of them minorities, in LA, MS and AL. When you look over everything that has been done and NOT been done - you're FORCED to consider this as a real possibility.

[mom cat]

50. Would you format this info for media blasting...Bush's culpability

in this disaster needs to be flooding news desks!

[Nothing Without Hope]

58. We need to get Mayor Nagin's EXACT WORDS on how he could not reach

Bush to beg for help. I think this was on the 30th -he was frustrated when he could not reach Bush when he was desperately trying to find out what happened to the missing military helicopters that were supposed to be dropping huge sandbags into the newly breached levees. He could not reach Bush, the helicopters did not come, and New Orleans drowned.

This is one more incident in a long story of how protection of these southern areas was blatantly neglected by the Bush Admnistration in favor of their favorite projects - like Homeland Security (part of their fascist dream of a domestic military police force) and the Iraq War. The money - as little as 20 million - would have saved New Orleans but went to these other neocon projects instead. This in spite of the fact that in early 2001 FEMA warned that two of the three most likely major potential US catastrophes were A HURRICANE IN NEW ORLEANS or an earthquake in San Francisco. The third was a terrorist attack in New York. Hey, 2 out of 3 and the Administration didn't allow preparation for any of them.

[Usrename]

45. When will they come out and say the Emperor has no clothes?

[Junkdrawer]

48. FAUX News covers nothing but the looting - that should tell you something

The message is clear: "They're all lousy looters who had no business being there in the first place."

[mom cat]

54. Divert, deflect and then blame the victim.

[FredStembottom]

55. Correct me if I am wrong...

But what I have seen in the TV pix is people with armloads of diapers, baby formula, food and especially clothing. Survival materials. I am convinced that the "looter problem" is being pushed and manipulated.

[Bluerthanblue]

56. YOU PEGGED IT- let's scream this truth- and demand REAL accountability-

'one shot' was fired at a helicopter so all evac. stops at the dome?

Who says that shot didn't come from the 'good guys'- and if that is gonna stop the help, then how can we EVER justify (we can't) Iraq????-

Lets grow some ovaries people-

Rescue work is DANGEROUS. You don't quit because of one shot- i'm sorry- The gangs are a RESULT of the slow, and ineffective 'relief'
like the homeland security body searches on entrance to the dome, and the 'bring your own food' ??? WTF?????