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Curzon
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Curzon

Date

September 1st, 2005

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Law and Order in New Orleans: News Snippets

People who are ordinarily honest and peaceful sometimes behave badly when there is little or no fear of retribution by the authorities and “other people are doing it.”Â? Unfortunately, these situations too often bring out the worst in people instead of the best.—Chief Wiggum

If only. Grabbed from today’s new stories:

Looters around New Orleans spent another day on Wednesday threatening survivors and ransacking stores. Some were desperate for food – others just wanted beer and TVs…

The nursing home lost its bus after the driver surrendered it to carjackers…

“The looters were equally as terrifying as the hurricane,”

“The gangs are stealing anything they can get their hands on,” said one resident… Carjackings, armed robberies and even shots fired at helicopters evacuating patients from local hospitals…

As night fell, police chased looters across the darkened streets amid the increasing pillaging of stores, carjackings and armed robberies…

Media reports said one gang had commandeered a telephone company van to carry out robberies while Fox News television said two men with AK47 semi-automatic rifles had opened fire on a police station…

Inmates at a prison in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans have rioted, attempted to escape and are now holding a deputy, his wife and their four children hostage inside the jail building…

Comments to this entry

Chief Wiggum
September 2, 2005
3:42 am
I heard reports that some jails in New Orleans were emptied, the prisoners freed, because of the danger of flooding. Saddam Hussein emptied some of his prisons into the general population during the American invasion, although his deliberate intention was probably to add to the chaos.

There was a report on CNN describing the situation in a shelter. It was described as "mob rule," with murders and gang rapes. This is a shameful event. I can hardly believe this is my country. The pictures I see on TV remind me of Mogadishu or Sierra Leone.
Dan
September 2, 2005
1:09 pm
How quickly did order break down? I remember the general surprise that order survived the last East Coast power outage

Also, I've been ignoring news for a week, and we lose a major city. wtf?
futuremongolian
September 2, 2005
4:44 pm
when soldiers are being ordered to execute citizens in the streets without any slight form of trial, your empire is crumbling.
Curzon
September 2, 2005
4:50 pm
Future Mongol -- that's a remarkably kneejerk view that is ignorant of both history (of the US and the world) and the scale of the damage suffered in New Orleans.
Gollios
September 2, 2005
5:04 pm
One thing I'd like to see on the MSM is some comparisons between the emergency response (both of guard units, FEMA, and especially the local citizenries) of N.O. vs. coastal Mississippi and Alabama. It probably won't happen for a while, as it would require analysis, not 'if-it-bleeds-it-leads' reporting. In there would be some answers on how to keep a coming anarchy at bay.
San Francisco lawyer
September 2, 2005
10:37 pm
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Please visit and check them out if you have the time
J.Kende
September 3, 2005
6:38 am
Improve search engine standings and avoid internet scams in the same sentence... Yep... Looks legit.
snow
September 3, 2005
4:39 pm
'your empire is crumbling'?!? What the hell are you smoking futuremongolian? I hope you're just kidding, or maybe it's just that such big events bring out the wingnuts in society. I don't know which empire you belong to, but I'm willing to bet that it's less secure than the American one (if it's Mongolia, please don't make me laugh, or if it's Canada, please don't make me laugh as we are heavily reliant on the US).

I prefer to take Harry Connick Jr's view of what will happen with New Orleans. He basically said that the residents 'will rebuild cause they're freakishly strong'. I like to think that American ingenuity will make the place even better than before.
lane
September 4, 2005
1:10 pm
atlanticus
September 5, 2005
12:51 am
I wonder what Robert Kaplan thinks about the anarchy in New Orleans... Gangs, looting, rapes, shooting.

Has any newspaper interviewed him these days?

A Brig General said about New Orleans: "This place is going to look like Little Somalia." Troops prepare for combat and "insurgency".
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1077495.php
Ophelia
September 5, 2005
7:21 pm
Looting. Hey, This isn't a Victor Hugo story. To feed and clothe your children I can understand.

Electronics, stuffed animals, beer and more. How does thirst, hunger, and loss of property cause people to rape children? Why does a race destroy instead of create?

A few good men in that 'dome could have banned to gether and set up order. This is a race who has everything handed to them for generations. Did one of them loot a tool? A raft? No.

The recorded rape numbers is astounding, and I would love to know where people were when a seven year old was raped. There was no privacy there so that meant turn your head or watch?

Coming soon to a city near you. Meet your new neighbors. The very savages that commited horrific acts in their natural behavior.

I live in Philly, and I am prepared, and ready to protect my family.
J.Kende
September 6, 2005
3:26 am
A race? More like a "tribe":http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000129.html .
Tiu Fu Fong
September 6, 2005
4:56 am
See http://www.guardian.co.uk/katrina/story/0,16441,1563532,00.html in today's Guardian - perhaps many of the stories of anarchy were overstated. Rumour runs rife in the absence of information, aided by a media that may have latent prejudices as to what poor and/or black Americans are likely to do in this sort of situation (such prejudices arising from numerous political or cultural positions). Still, I'm sure that quite a few horrors have occurred, but perhaps not as many as initially feared.
Kushibo
September 6, 2005
6:42 am
For those of you in Seoul, the Korean National Red Cross has set up a special fund for donations to those affected by Hurricane Katrina. They most want cash, but they're also making requests for other items (though I haven't had time to translate the list yet). The information is on the Korean-language site, but not yet on the English side.

Go here for details.
Anonymous Coward
September 6, 2005
12:15 pm
There is not as much looting as you might think in an emergency like this. Even if there is somebody who is taking not food or water, but a DVD recoder what is not going to feed him - who is there to say that he doesn't want to exchange the recorder for water or food? Diapers are not to eat but still what sane person would shoot someone that takes diapers? I think that laws that ask for police to shoot anybody they see taking something out of a store is totally crazy. Attacking other refugees, raping or even killing is a totally different animal.

I read that the police confiscates every gasoline they can get their hands on - sounds criminal to me (even considering that they need mobility for patrols, but stockpiling when people are desperate to get out is in my eyes a crime, too.

Bush was on vacation, even pretend to play a guitar when hundreds of people were dieing. Everybody loves Condi and her new shoes, Rumsfeld was sent into the area and just walked by a number of victims - looks like they are not good enough for a photo shooting? Barbara Bush claims for the people in NOLA, the victims in the stadium, it is just going "very well" and chuckled in the same sentence. Outragous! Another high representative of the Bush government is still in Greece with other minions of the pack having a great wedding and not thinking about coming back. One gaffe after another, the population is slowly understanding that four more years is going to cost them a lot more than just a few colored soldiers in Iraq.

What does not surprise me at all, that in spite of so many criticizm there is not one critique here about the feds messing up horribly. Not one. That says a lot about you, too.
atlanticus
September 7, 2005
7:37 am
Ophelia, you're comments are quite racist, utterly unfair, and totally inappropriate in this crisis. You don't kick people when they are down. The problem is poverty and unequal opportunities and corruption, but not race. You should read Kaplan.

As of my questions on interviews with Kaplan on NO. I looked myself, but have not found any. Only found a story in the Washington Times mentioning Kaplan:

"In the Atlantic Monthly a few years ago, Robert D. Kaplan went to Liberia, Sierra Leone and other failed jurisdictions of west Africa and concluded many "citizens" of these "states," roaming the streets raping and killing, belonged to a phenomenon called "reprimitivized man." Anyone watching TV in recent days will have seen plenty of "reprimitivized man," not in Liberia or Somalia but in Louisiana. Cops smashing the Wal-Mart DVD cabinet so they can get their share of the booty along with the rest of the looters, gangs firing on a children's hospital and on rescue helicopters, hurricane victims raped in the New Orleans Convention Center...." http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20050906-093816-6143r.htm

Many papers were writing about Hobbes and Leviathan in recent days as well.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want to exaggerate the reports of anarchy. I am just shocked that the social fabric broke so fast in parts of New Orleans. It would be great if the students of the Coming Anarchy and Kaplan's other books would contribute their analysis.
snow
September 7, 2005
1:33 pm
Anonymous Coward, we don't need to critique the feds as there's already more than enough in the mainstream media. And why focus on the feds anyway (and yes, they certainly did screw up) when most of the responsibility lies with the state for disaster prevention. It is the state governor who is supposed to call in the Reservists, which the state has more than enough (despite the lies that they are all in Iraq). Why did the city not have a realistic and workable plan? The feds deserve some criticism (certainly FEMA does), but what does it say about you that you want to place all of it on Bush et al and not where it squarely lies, with state and local authorities (many of whom just happen to be Democrats)?
maskull
September 7, 2005
7:35 pm
The Demos are attacking Bush head on for the Katrina rescue fiasco for the same reasons Kerry attacked SwiftBoatVets ... best defense is a good offense. If you're going to tell a lie: make it a good one and stick to it.

Kerry was a proven coward and opportunist ... so run him as a war hero.

With 4 hurricanes hitting the Gulf coast last year, New Orleans had plenty of time to get up to speed. There were evacuations last year. There were problems. And then, there were policy changes. But all along everyone knew, there would never be 100% evacuation.

Also, it was known that a levee break would create its own disaster. The levee inadequacy has been an open topic of discussion for the last year in New Orleans media. It was stated that it would take the Army Corps of Engineers more than 5 years to strengthen the levee to a bare adequacy standard. Raising the levee's height was a non-starter. Not even under consideration.

The entire problem of flooding has been accentuated by I-10 acting as a dam. Along with coastal erosion. I-10 should never have been placed where it was. US Hwy. 190 (known as Old Spanish Trail, as it follows DeSoto's path) is the first high land in Louisiana. I-10's placement was a gimme to local politicos - federal paid-for, inter-city mass transit.

Jesse Jackson is already spending the coming federal windfall. Demos hope to parlay Katrina into more power. Nancy Pelosi is leading the charge. More race-baiting and class hate.