In light of the looting taking place in Chile, isn't it about time that the media acknowledge

[Skidmore]

that, following a large scale disaster and in the absence of adequate supplies of food and water, people may be forced to fill their basic needs for survival where they can? We've seen this happen time and time again and it is time to recognize that sometimes survival needs will win out when the normal structures of society are no longer able to serve that purpose.

[styersc]

1. Yeah, something about a hurricane, or earthquake or major fire

that makes people realize they desperately need a television, or refirgerator or cases of beer.

[PVnRT]

4. Most people are taking food and basic supplies

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35615455/ns/world_news-chile_earthquake/

Most markets in Concepcion were ransacked by looters and people desperate for food, water, toilet paper, gasoline and other essentials Sunday, prompting authorities to send troops and impose an overnight curfew in the city.

I understand, you've just been conditioned by the media to assume that all those poor people are just lazy opportunists waiting to steal televisions and iPods, but it's not the case.

[lunatica]

6. Now there's a crappy thing to say

Have you seen video of Chileans carrying televisions back to their destroyed homes? I wonder what you would do in their shoes. Starve your children so no one would call you a looter?

[styersc]

11. So people breaking into appliance and electronics stores are

expecting to find food and water? ATMs that have been ripped from their foundations were mistaken for food vending machines? Banks were mistaken for food banks? Who's foolin' who?

[PVnRT]

14. How about backing up your nonsense?

Or is it just easier to assume that "those people" just want an "excuse to go looting"?

[redqueen]

8. Since you have somehow managed to still not get it...

See those words in the caption down there? It says "after looting a grocery store".

How many grocery stores do you know of that sell refrigerators and TVs? :eyes:

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. Yes.

Their own TV destroyed, they need to find out what the fuck is going on.

Their refrigerator destroyed, they need a place to keep what little food they have.

And DAMN RIGHT beer. You do know that beer was invented 8000 years ago, and the brewing process purifies it so that it is safe for drinking - all around the world, where drinking water is uncertain beer is used as a substitute. With the earthquake breaking water mains, cutting hundreds of thousands off from potable water, beer is the BEST substitute you can find.

Try thinking before you condemn.

[tekisui]

2. The media needs to read Hobbes.

Absent a central power, humans will inevitably turn to self-protection. Any human population will. It isn't just the brown people, and it really shouldn't be a surprise.

[styersc]

3. The day Calvin and Hobbes gave up the ghost was a bad

day for civilization.

[EFerrari]

16. Even I don't hate them that much!

lol

[humpty dumpty]

5. Yeah, like they looted

Yeah, like they looted in Galveston after Hurricane Ike. Or did they? Maybe I missed it.

[MineralMan]

7. They couldn't put Humpty together again.

Pity, that...

[MineralMan]

9. They sure looted in Houston, though.

What is it that you're trying to say, exactly?

[redqueen]

10. Yeah, they did.

Got anything else to say?

[spanone]

12. well, we all know that white folks don't loot, they just borrow

[Cleita]

15. There are the opportunists stealing other than food, but what the media

doesn't bring up except in really small sound bytes that quickly disappear is that the government had authorized for basic food stuffs to be distributed from the supermarkets and that they had to send the military in first to secure the area to start distributing food and water. It's just that panicky people got there first. I haven't heard of any reports of people being killed by the military but I'm sure the reports will come out eventually.