Okay, let's say there were actual miscreant low life plasma teevee looters

[Stinky The Clown]

Let's say there were.

New Orleans proper is a city of half a million people. Many left through their own resources. Many others cowered in abject fear as the storm blew through. After the storm, many were trapped in the convention center and the superdome. Many more were still in the nighborhoods. Those who survived the levee breaks were forced to go out foraging for food and water.

Out of all of these there were ..... what? ...... 50 looters? A hundred?

Hell! Double it. Two hundred.

You know what the math is on that?

0.04%

That's right. Four one hundredths of one percent. That means, if true, that for every 10,000 New Orleans residents, 4 were criminal looters.

Now, let's consider this. The Fortune 500. How many CEOs and other top officers are currently in jail or under indictment or out after having served a criminal sentence? Do the math on that bunch. How many are there? Couple of thousand? How many in the criminal or pre-criminal category? 50, maybe? Hell, even 20. Let's use 20 (counting the railroaded Ms. Stewart). 20 out of .... is 2000 okay?

1%

Wow. That's nearly sixty times the percentage.

I'm shocked. Whodda thunk it?

Damn. Those New Orleans citizens are sure evil. :sarcasm:

[niyad]

1. not to mention, as one of my friends pointed out, that there is SUCH a big

market for electronics that have been under water for days, in a town with no electricity.

celine dion made a comment on the larry king show about the possibility that some of these people had not ever been able to have things like that before, perhaps were so poor they could only dream about owning such things.

[Union Thug]

2. Agreed. But I would add, WHO THE F**K CARES?

It's property. It can be replaced. Human lives cannot.

I wish people would get the hell over their commodity fetishes...

[Zenlitened]

3. Excellent point. It would also be interesting to see the cash value...

... of what the two categories of looters made off with.

But then, that would kind of lay things a little too bare for the kleptocrats, wouldn't it?

As the Immortal Bard* noted: "Steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you a king."


*Bob Dylan. Who'd ya think I meant? :D

[NMDemDist2]

4. I'd like to change the language, looting BAD, scavenging for necessities

in a disaster area, OK Fine!

call them scavengers not looters

looters are lawbreakers, scavengers are just trying to survive by finding usable items that will be/have been discarded

it's a better way to describe the type of activities in NOLA when the Government completely abandoned thousands of citizens to self-rescue

[Stinky The Clown]

5. I called what you refer to 'foraging' ... in the first paragraph ......

Later, I refer to the ones with the teevee sets as 'looters' ... which, if they exist, they would rightly be called.

[NMDemDist2]

6. foraging is good too! either works for me

and HIYA!!! :hi:

[Stinky The Clown]

7. Hiya AZDD

Damn, I answered that post of yours and didn't read the author!

HIYA HIYA :hi:

[NMDemDist2]

9. me too!! LOL I had just finished watching Maher and the "scavenging"

thing was on my mind, your post was the first one I saw on the topic and to be honest, i didn't even read it all the way through :blush:

it's been a long couple weeks ya know?

[Face_in_the_Crowd]

8. This shouldn't be an issue

Some people tried to leave, some people collected needs for themselves, and yes, some people looted. Yesterday I saw three people run red lights. What does this have to do with anything?

There are real things being discussed because of Katrina, important issues that need to be addressed. This is tabloid nonsense that we should not be discussing...thier melting our brains with this filth. Lets all move to another board....Ready?

[NMDemDist2]

10. why move to another board? we talk a lot about framing and language

around here. the Freeps have it down to an art form, we're catching up is all

and welcome to DU! :hi:

[magellan]

11. Disagree

Let me start by saying I really don't mean to antagonize anyone or start a war. These are just my thoughts and questions on the subject, which reflect the personal distinction I make between those who loot for food, water, baby items -- things to survive -- and those who loot simply to possess or to sell on for their own profit.

You compare looting to corporate corruption. Without argument these things occur on completely different scales, with the latter hurting far more people...but are you advocating that two wrongs make a right? The big wigs do it so why not the little guys?

Another DUer above proposes that the desires of the underprivileged for things they've never had justifies this behavior. (It's an assumption that all the hardcore looters are impoverished, but let it stand for the sake of argument.) If, by your math, only .04% of the population looted, why didn't the remaining 26-29% living at or below poverty level (figures vary) give in to the same desire? They're just as underprivileged as we're assuming the hardcore looters are. Surely they have the same desires for expensive TVs and so forth. What stopped them from invading shops and robbing evacuated homes?

And finally, what do you make of the two FEMA officers who were arrested for looting shopping carts full of non-essential items in Plaquemines Parish? What is the difference between them and the sort of looter who takes TVs, jewelry, etc?

[Skittles]

12. I do not think that was what the poster advocated at ALL

the fact is, the first order of business for the media was to cover looting for dramatic TV coverage. The poster points out those looters were very few compared to the total population of New Orleans and points out that criminal behavior is not isolated to poor blacks, as is evidenced by ramant "white collar" crime (puke) and the FEMA officials. No where is it said this behavior is RIGHT.

[magellan]

14. If it's not right, then why excuse it? (nt)

[Skittles]

15. they're not EXCUSING it

they're making a POINT - the perception the media gave was LOOK AT ALL THE BLACK PEOPLE LOOTING. It DOMINATED the initial coverage of the hurricane. PEOPLE WERE DYING WHILE THEY FOCUSED ON THAT. That IS inexcusable.

[Stinky The Clown]

18. Skittles, thanks for understanding my point

And thanks for taking up for me. :hi:

Sadly, some pots boil over when there's no heat under the pot.

But we persevere .....

[Skittles]

19. aw you're welcome

I get your point and I absolutely agree :hi:

[magellan]

22. You're absolutely right, I'm sorry.

I misread the bottom part of Husb2Sparkly's post and came to the wrong conclusion because of it. Completely my fault and I apologize. I see what he's saying now and agree that the media coverage was very misleading.

[Mz Pip]

27. Fox is still focusing

on the looters and the violence. THey must be spending a good portion of their coverage focusing on that 0.04% Makes the whole problem seem a whole lot bigger than it really is and reinforces the negative stereotypes I suspect many of their listeners have.

It also is a terrific diversionary tactic. BushCO screws up big time but "Look over there! It's a black guy looting! See what happens in a welfare state?" Brit Hume, Neil Cavuto, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly will stoop as low as they can to protect their little prince. Smearing an entire city with a 'guilt by association' attack is perfectly acceptable.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[truth2power]

24. "cover looting for dramatic TV coverage"

Absolutely! I was at my daughter's last week, listening to MSNBC/CNN (can't remember which)
while doing some other work, and I heard a reporter talking to some official. Reporter was trying to promote the looting issue by bringing it up over and over. Kept saying "looting...looting" but the official wouldn't bite. It was so obvious that I mentioned it to my daughter at the time.

[RosaP]

13. Agreed

I'm of the opinion that food, water, diapers, and some dry cloths are fine to 'salvage' in that situation, TVs and jewelry are not.

The FEMA and NOPD looters (I saw that on video) should be fired.

[Skittles]

16. you, too, miss the point

completely

[Wordie]

17. I agree....but then I also just wondered if some of the looters might be

stealing things to sell to have the money to get out of NO. That also may be a possibility. We just can't really know, I think. I can't find any reason, however, for shooting at rescuers, which we also heard about. I think the salient point is that those things were not what by far the majority of people were doing.

[bluedawg12]

20. Taking food and water and baby formula

in a crisis with any support, and with out any communication as to when it will arrive is foraging.

Taking TV's and Nike's and consumer crap is looting.

Some people for foraging for life sustaining materials.

Others,a few, were just thieves.

Words do matter:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4705587

[Wordie]

21. Isn't that more or less what I just said? I've bookmarked that link and

will read it tomorrow - looks interesting.

[OneTwentyoNine]

26. Yeah,taking a TV is looting but again,what does it CHANGE??

Because someone was hauling off a TV Bush should have sat on his ass for DAYS?? Thats bullshit,because he did sit on his ass is why it got so GD out of control in such a short time.

[ComerPerro]

23. Here's my take on people looting Plasma TVs

Who the fuck cares? What the hell are they going to do with them? There wasn't any power! And, did anyone think that these people, after going with minimal food and water, will still be carrying these things around after several days?

Somehow, I just doubt it.

EDIT: BTW, I like your argument. Good point.

[OneTwentyoNine]

25. The number stealing non-essentials was extremely low...

But shit,we don't want to stop Bush and his asswipes when their STILL trying to use this "looter" BULLSHIT talking point.

Looters or no looters--what the HELL does it change about Bush sitting on his ASS for DAYS while this disaster unfolded?!?!?

Gawd......

[OnionPatch]

28. I firmly believe the looting would have happened anywhere

in similar circumstances. Of course there were likely some people taking advantage of opportunity and helping themselves to things other than necessities. There will be a certain amount of criminal element present in every city in America. But the many people who were "looting" from necessity added to the total number of "looters" and gave the illusion that the looting was ALL malicious and criminal. The efforts to spin this into some sort of demonization of the people of New Orleans is shameful and dispicable. That it's mostly coming from the so-called "Christians" in this country is a tragedy.

[patdem]

29. Come on people..recommend..this is the looting of america not just a store

give it a vote!

[McCamy Taylor]

30. How do we know he wasnt scheduled to receive a plasma TV that day?

One that he already paid for, but no one was in the store to deliver it. Did the reporter ask him? Did they just assume he was a thief? Maybe he had a receipt. Maybe that was his TV in the shop for repairs and he wasnt about to leave it there for someone else to steal.

Maybe it was his store? Or his dad's store and they were getting the merchandise out and into a more secure location.

Too many assumptions going on here.

The people at FOX should spend more time focusing on the dead bodies. When he doesnt move, breathe or have a pulse you can pretty well assume that he is dead.

[liberalitch]

31. In any population the size of NO's, your gonna have SOME shitheads.

No matter what their race or social class.....

[Stinky The Clown]

32. And THAT .... is the point of the OP ......

That and the fact that the percentage of the people in New Orleans is far smaller than among our vaunted coporate CEOs.

[POAS]

33. They were overcome with the

capitalist entrepreneurial spirit