Lawlessness: Is our approach that it doesn't exist in New Orleans,

[Guaranteed]

or is it that it is a PRODUCT of the lack of response from our federal government?

DU seems split on this issue, and it was actually really surprising to me to see people coming out to question whether the acts of lawlessness (shootings/lootings, etc.) were even happening. In my mind, everything in New Orleans that wasn't an actual piece of weather was a direct product of the lack of response by the Bush administration- the only piece of local or federal government that had the means to respond in a situation like this. I can see how many would think that we need to downplay the behavior of those stranded in New Orleans, but I felt as if even seemingly counter-productive behavior like shooting at rescuers was pretty easily explained by the panic that was evident. And, yes, there's always a bad element, too. We've even seen people saying "Don't call them 'refugees.'" That, to me, simply does not make sense. Callng *Americans* "refugees" seems AWFULLY poignant and heartbreaking. Not sure I understand where that's coming from.

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone would explain the approach that wanted to deny lawlessness (whether it was there or not- the factualness isn't the question). Was there something I'm missing? I'm assuming that it's the blame-shifting. My response to that, though, is that without the lawlessness the situation seems much less desperate.

[Old and In the Way]

1. I think we'd be naive to think there are not hardcore criminal elements

taking advantage of the situation in NO. If there are 20,000 people in there and if 2% are violent criminals, that's 400 people. I have no idea of the exact numbers, but we can't close our eyes to this reality. I don't envy the police trying to walk the fine line between keeping order and respecting civil rights, especially given this extremely stressful environment.

[Guaranteed]

2. Right, that too.

I think Joe Schmoe understands that, as well.

[Old and In the Way]

4. Actually, I'm amazed at how well the people of New Orleans have

persevered and maintained control. I wonder how well other cities might do under similar circumstances?

[Beam Me Up]

18. I think the Bushies underestimated this as well. I think they WANT civil

unrest, violent civil unrest, that they can SUPPRESS.

This has been my position from the outset.

They underestimated the STRENGTH of people who are poor but have around them family and community. These people are surviving under the most extremely adverse conditions. For the most part they are COOPERATING with one another. This is the story and this is the story that isn't being told enough. Instead the media focuses on 'lawlessness' as if that is the big story. It isn't. It really isn't.

[jpgray]

3. It exists, and a lack of response exacerbates the problem (nt)

[LoZoccolo]

5. It's this romanticized view of the common citizen...

...in which they never do anything wrong, and any accusation of them is an excuse for the police to come in and brutalize and oppress the citizens. It's basically simplified inflammatory rhetoric designed to incite people against the police and/or National Guard.

[NightOwwl]

6. I'm not convinced the violence was/is factual.

How many actual incidents of violence were reported by the reporters on the scene? Not just hearsay or rumors, actual facts. Sure, there have been lots of vague reports, but where are the facts to back them up? I've been watching the news 24/7 since August 30 and I can't recall any confirmed reports of murder, rape, or shooting.

There was a very interesting comment on "This Week" today. A guest said Bush was trying to make this into a "Law and Order" scenario, but it didn't fly. Zero-tolerance and all that bullshit. I for one think the emphasis on violence is a Rove tactic to shift blame from the administration to the people of New Orleans. Despicable, but predictable.

[Igel]

7. To say that looting beyond need for survival is a product of the

lack of response by our government is a risky proposition. It presupposes that the natural state of citizens in a democracy is lawlessness; the underlying premise for a democracy is that the overwhelming majority of citizens are virtuous and law abiding.

The only way out is to say that preferentially "bad citizens" were left behind in NOLA.

I personally think a lot of it comes down to race.

I suspect that the 'refugee' issue is a canard. Most people apply it to everybody that's fled. I suspect that some think it's been preferentially applied to the predominately black population of the Convention Center and Superdome with some covert derogatory meaning. Or maybe they're just used to only brown, 3rd world people being called refugees, so that's what they've (mis)concluded the meaning of the world properly is. We're better than them. We like to think. So some people are insulted that blacks are being called refugees; others, that whites are called refugees. But other relatively normal English words such as 'evacuee', 'survivor', and other suggestions, all fail to include all and only people in the relevant class, making them inadequate terms.

Or perhaps people are concerned that the idea of people fleeing a disaster, and having basically what they can carry with them, is demeaning: deny the word 'refugee', and you deny the reality that about all a refugee has left is his dignity, and is dependent on others. Americans like to think they're above being dependent on charity and help from others.

As for the lawlessness, and the denial thereof, I vaguely think that it's also a racial issue. MSM tends to overplay black violence, esp. against whites, and underplay black victims. So there's the overreaction that all reports of violence ascribed to blacks has to be considered racist exaggerations. Even in a city that's black-majority, with the poor being predominately black, and with most of the people left behind being poor.

[bpilgrim]

8. you got it wrong

folks were simply pointing out how this 'story' was being HYPED by the RW to distract from the real story, is all.

fyi

peace

[Spazito]

9. I keep thinking if one were to compare the crime commited every day

in any big city in the United States: murders, muggings, rapes, etc to the incidents that have been reported when the media is right there, on the ground, I suspect the every day crimes in the big cities would far outnumber what was happening in NO.

[bpilgrim]

11. exactly - from what i heard it sounded like a slow tue night in philly

the M$MWs have 0 sense of PROPORTIONALITY - unless their was a hidden agenda behind these 'stories'

peace

[blondeatlast]

24. Mr, Blonde mentioned this earlier on Sunday and I completely

agree with both of you.

Another example of exploitation of the situation for their own ends.

[Matariki]

10. personally i think it is very counter productive to focus on it

and that is not to say that it didn't happen at all. But i'm afraid that it taps into deep seated racist fears in this country. Fanning the fire of these rumors, whether true or not, only takes effort away from the important issue of rescue and WHY it has taken govt. so long to respond. These discussions about lawlessness should be saved for later, after people are safe.

[bpilgrim]

12. exactly the RW wackos are ALL over it - we got way more important issues

to DEAL with s you noted.

"the important issue of rescue and WHY it has taken govt. so long to respond"

:hi:

peace

[Guaranteed]

20. Instead of playing into racism, I think that the

stories of extreme violence illustrate the desperation that the people in New Orleans were feeling.

I can see a racism connection between the actual response and the people that we were supposed to be helping, but racism with regard to the actual EFFECTS of the lack of response- that's farfetched, and probably not even already embedded within the social subconscious.

[Zynx]

13. New Orleans had a very violent criminal element before Katrina.

It's going to still be there, only less inhibited, and with people who had chemical dependency issues flipping out due to the drug trade being cut off.

[Warren DeMontague]

14. The National Guard should have been there RIGHT AWAY

that's a no-brainer, as far as I'm concerned. It's my opinion that some of the "But people are shootin' at the helicopters!" stuff may have been done as an excuse for a lack of rescue and food drops, but I have no doubt that conditions down there got real fucked up.

That's what the Nat'l Guard is FOR- and it's pretty fucking obvious to me that the reason they weren't immediately in there with all the requisite equipment is because of all the manpower and resources currently in Iraq.

[eleny]

15. How about talking about how they evacuated the jail?

Go to crooksandliars.com and watch the video of Sen. Landrieu and Stephanopolous. She related the heroism of the police who swam to the jail with handcuffs held in their teeth. They got all the inmates out and to a place where they could be held. Held so they couldn't riot, get out of the jail and cause trouble in the city.

Telling that story illustrates an issue related to lawlessness but is positive and TRUE.

One more thing. What is lawlessness? Certainly not taking food, necessities for elderly and babies and water. Taking sustenance is not a bad thing. It's survival. Shootings are bad, looting are not. Most of the looting was for things people needed or to sell for gasoline (as I heard it).

That pretty much neutralizes an argument and takes it in positive directions.

Okay, that's my 2¢.

[CityDem]

16. It was chaos

People do strange things in a chaotic environment. Since I do not live in NO and was not present, I will not judge people for fighting for their lives.

[bring_em_home_bush]

17. It was entirely due to the lack of preparation and failure to respond

in a timely fashion. If most of the estimated 100,000 people who were left behind had been evacuated to safe, well-lit, well-supplied shelters before the storm hit, they wouldn't have been in the city fighting for their lives with junkies and the real criminals.

I know one thing now for sure--if the government tries to evacuate me to my nearest sport stadium or convention center, I ain't going except at gunpoint.

[applegrove]

19. Whatever the truth is.

[Guaranteed]

21. My personal belief is that the truth is that

people can do messed-up things.

However, in this particular situation they were pushed into doing those things by the quite clear lack of a response by the U.S. government.

That's MHO.

[newswolf56]

22. I think there are actually four issues here. Given there was...

undeniably some behavior the media labeled as "looting," the questions are:

(1)-How much of the "looting" was was motivated by survival (the need to obtain food, water and medicine)? How much was genuine theft motivated by greed (desire for televisions, other appliances, fancy clothing etc.)?

(2)-To what extent did mass media exaggerate the magnitude of the "looting" or misrepresent the intent of the "looters"? (This is something we now know happened, though we do not know to what extent.)

(3)-What motivated the misrepresentation? (Was it race-hatred -- specifically the usually unspoken but often wildly fanciful white fear of Afro-Americans as a "dangerous" minority? Was it class-hatred -- specifically the morbid fear of the poor by the oligarchy and the bourgeoisie? Was it some combination of both? Was the reporting spontaneous, or were anchors instructed to emphasize "looting" and disorder in general? And if anchors were so instructed, by whom?

(4)-Whether the misrepresentation was spontaneous or methodical, what political and socioeconomic purposes did it serve? In other words, who did it empower? Who did it disempower?

The same approach -- by the way, a fairly classic example of what is called "objective analysis" -- should also be applied to the alleged "insurrection" in general. This is likely to be particularly revealing given (A), the increasing post-evacuation reports there was no "insurrection" at all -- the growing likelihood that the reported "insurrection" was in fact the defamation of an entire community -- and (B), the fear of "insurrections" or "armed looters" that led the New Orleans police to shoot eight armed civilians who were in fact employees of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

While I have no doubt there was substantial "looting," I also believe most of it was motivated by survival -- that it would not have occurred at all had there been a proper response by the federal government. My own belief is also that what we witnessed in how the looting was reported was an unusually extreme (and therefore openly expressed) combination of runaway racism and runaway classism -- fear of Afro-Americans and fear of the poor in general -- based on (A) the predictable struggle of the population to survive and (B) a "normal" number of (also predictable) outbreaks of criminal behavior that were wildly exaggerated -- most such crimes perpetrated by junkies desperately searching for drugs. My conclusion is of course absolutely tentative and could change as more information becomes available in the form of eyewitness accounts.

Moreover here is where DU could perform a huge public service. The oligarchy is likely to very specifically forbid any critical examination of the reports of looting and disorder; therefore as the picture unfolds, we should be filing not just the links but the text itself away for future recall. (I don't have the requisite memory on my home computer to store any great quantity of such material, but I hereby volunteer to help with the analysis if such a thing ever takes place.) What such an effort could tell us about institutionalized racial and class hostilities would be profoundly revealing (and probably infinitely damning) -- precisely the reason the oligarchy is unlikely to allow it.

The fact that Bush, the Republicans, the Christofascists and the Right Wing in general are already using reports of looting to slander the minority community and the poor of New Orleans and discredit and further disempower the city's displaced persons is all the more reason we should undertake such a data-collection project. The defense of these oppressed people demands it.


Edit: clarity and completion.

[Old and In the Way]

27. Words have meaning.

One thing that bothers me is why the media frames the actions these people were doing as "looting". "Foraging" is a far better term to use to explain the actions of people who needed water, food, diapers, and medicine to maintain their lives. We all know that whatever pre-preparation they may have made was moot after the effects of Katrina and the unnatural flooding occured.

The broadcast media bears a lot of blame by continually using the word "looting" to describe the legitimate actions of 90%+ of what was being reported.

[newswolf56]

29. Exellent point! Had the media called it "foraging" rather than ...

"looting," the impression would have been entirely different -- far more accurate too. But "foraging" also implies there is someone else responsible for the disaster, thereby already pointing a finger at the capitalist oligarchy that elected Bush to further the concentration of wealth and destroy the social safety net, also at the Bush Administration itself and its policy of negligent genocide. Ultimately the use of "foraging" would have opened the door to acknowledgement of the class warfare the disaster so vividly illustrates -- an acknowledgement the oligarchy fears almost as much as Marxism itself.

By comparison, "looting" reinforces the capitalist paradigm of blame: that the victim is always responsible for his/her victimization (unless of course the victim is part of the oligarchy). Given corporate control of mass media, the reasons behind the choice of "looting" now become obvious; anyone who had dare called it "foraging" would have been censored forthwith.

Once again, the historical truth of class-struggle provides the only analysis adequate to explain what happened.


Edit: inexplicable format problem. (Heavy site traffic?)

[bklyncowgirl]

23. It exists. Had a strong security force been sent...

Had a strong security force been sent in in time it would have been minimal. We are talking about crackheads and street gangs, not highly organized armies of desperados.

A depleted NOPD with a few hundred National Guard were left alone to deal with rescues and law enforcement.

[blondeatlast]

25. I'm willing to bet there's a lot of LA NG who would have given

anything to be there in order to do what the NG's REAL purpose is. I agree 100%--had the NG been ready to deploy after Katrina left the city we might actually (cough, cough) be praising the handling of the situation even on DU.

I don't know if it is race/class or what, but the looting aspect has been exploited completely out of context at this point. The overwhelming majority of people were not looting--even diapers and food. They were looking for shelter to provide them but shelter was hard to find, a fact that has been submerged in focuusing on the looting aspect.

Nothing at all good has come of the intense focus on it, either.

[zwielicht]

26. While i think it was exaggerrated, one really disturbing thing

were these comments by Nagin Sept. 2nd:

"And one of the things people -- nobody's talked about this. Drugs flowed in and out of New Orleans and the surrounding metropolitan area so freely it was scary to me, and that's why we were having the escalation in murders. People don't want to talk about this, but I'm going to talk about it."

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/nagin.transcript/

How the hell is it possible that illegal drugs were freely flowing in and out, while even the Red Cross was denied bringing live-saving drugs in there?????

[zwielicht]

28. French Quarter holdouts create 'tribes' (in absence of law enforcement)

http://www.wwltv.com/sharedcontent/nationworld/katrina/stories/090405cckatrinajrfrenchquarter.26851646.html