Next you're going to say that Bush's oil buddies are encouraging the looters, robbers, murderers.

Why do people have such a problem taking responsibility for their actions? Why must you blame other people (Bush's oil buddies) for the violence and mayhem going on in NO right now?

There is a lot of evil in that city - it is rearing it's ugly head now. While I truly have sorrow for those people who have been displaced and have lost everything, it is a shame that there are so many who are resorting to violence to make sense of their situation.

Of note: when the September 11th attacks occured and lower Manhattan was devastated, I don't recall hearing of such wide spread violence and looting.

-Z-man.

Yep, so true.

Unfortunately, the dim-witted few are giving the rest of New Orleans a very bad name.

In Manhattan after 9/11, there was widespread fraud, with people claiming losses and trying to get relief and compensation money. But little or no violence.

But nobody was left for three days in a deteriorating situation without food or water after 9/11. 90+% of Manhattan was undamaged. You really cannot draw a parallel.

What BS. That's no excuse. BESIDES, that's not what's happening in NO. The violence started immediately. Not after days of suffering. The looting started after the storm, before the flood. The looting quickly (same day?) progressed to rape, murder, shooting at rescuers, etc.

I haven't actually been watching much of this on the news, but last night I saw a bit.

One family was on and was happy to have been moved from NOLA to Houston, they said that since they came to Houston they had food, cloths, a roof, and a shower. This family repeatedly said "thank you Houston". 2 min later they had some other woman on who had been moved to houston. She said she hadn't gotten food, a bath, cloths, and was standing in line. She was pissed because she hadn't been helped.

Too many people are unrealistic in their thoughts of how this sort of thing can/does proceed. Too many people prefer to ***** and be pessimistic.

Crap, 30,000 people being moved from NOLA to Houston needing food, clothing, showers, etc... That's not something that is generally planned for and is a huge ugly logistics nightmare. Not to mention that the priority is not the people who are walking and talking and *****ing, but are the people in need of medical care.

This sucks, people are working as hard as they can. Sheesh.

On a brighter note, the morning show from one of our stations here in Houston has been on the air (same 3 people) for about 48 hours straight. They've been doing "pay for play". You donate and they'll pay any song you want (Don Ho "Tiny Bubbles" was played). In the last 48 hours they've made over $300,000 and they are still going strong. Most of that money is from donations <$1000. All of the money is going to the Red Cross.

it is insane. if that happened here, i would kill to protect my love ones. the "mob mentality" has gotten out of hand. i watched an interview of some shrink. he said that the desparation, and the uncertian future is what sparked the violence. once started it simply snowballs. law abiding, god fearing folks are easily swayed to join the mob. i am truly scared for those people down there. i wished everyone left before the storm. i also wish our military wasnt busy, and could simply roll in there with all their might and expertise, and set up some effen system to get folks medicine, food, water. give some goddamn hope!

i have decided to be better prepared in case the big earthquake smashes us. sadly that includes buying more ammo. oh , and water.

I think your emotions are getting the better of you. Look in the other thread that touches on this to read what people who were in New York are saying about the days following 9/11... an d why it's no parallel. Same thing I said.

Wait. It seemed to me you were saying that the violence in NO is caused by "three days in a deteriorating situation without food or water" - which is BS for the reasons I gave above. That's what I was commenting on... Not a parallel with 9/11. If I misunderstood your meaning, apologies. But, I don't think I did.

I think my emotions are fine. Thank you for your concern. :rolleyes:

- Skip

Boy, what have I started here?

My point bringing up the 9/11 attack is this: it seems that there was a different attitude. People were scared, saddened, worried: looting wasn't on their list of things to do.

Granted, the two disasters are vastly apart in magnitude, cause, and effects. But where we heard stories of helping hands on 9-11 and no violence, we are hearing more and more stories of looting hands and violence coming out of NO.

-Z.

Guys if you think NO is the slightest bit different from any other large city, you are infiniely wrong. Remove the threat of law enforcement form LA, NY, Philly, Detroit, Boston, Chicago or any other major city & you'll see the same, maybe worse. The ghetto culture on display here and embraced by MTV & others is just a tick away from Mogadishu style warlord feudalim. Think I'm wrong, turn on your tv.

Tell you what. Imagine if you can that we had days of warning before 9/11; that the area affected was completely cut off from the unaffected areas, and for three days, area residents who were left behind (homeless and others who didn't 'get the word') had no indication of rescue or reliable source of food/water.

It's not just magnitude, cause and effect, it's also location, nature of population, etc.

I find it interesting some of the same people who decry the negative stories coming out of Iraq as unbalanced are readily embracing and embellishing stories of looting & shooting. I wonder what we'll find when the official report is done. How many shots were fired at authorities, etc.

You keep making the excuse that 3 days of suffering caused the violence. The violence started before the suffering.

I'm not excusing violence, but what violence was happening Monday? Tuesday? Are you considering property crimes to be violence?

The voilence started when law enforcement disappeared! What's hard to understand about that. Those kind folks in the Bronx would be singing cum by ya.

I don't think that it is worth arguing over exactly when "it" started/got worse/etc..., the bottom line is that the people in power should have seen this chaos coming in light of the types of people who did not leave N.O. (lots of criminals and lowlifes).

I also agree that there is absolutely no comparison w/ 9/11/01, really none. NYC was never abandoned by law enforcement, not for one minute. Life was strangely normal, (people going about their business at least), less than one mile from ground zero the next day.

N.O is a lot more like the '92 L.A. riots, if the city was underwater as well as burning. I was there for that one, when authority infrastructure collapses there is a class of people who will turn into animals regardless of the cause of said collapse. Simple as that, but someone should have seen this coming. It's not like N.O. is populated w/ Harvard professors.

Someone where? The NOPD kind of had their hands full. This required federal help and federal help was non-existant.

"It's not like N.O. is populated w/ Harvard professors."

What kind of arrogant ***** is that? So this is like it is because the city's residents are not smart, like you left coasters? Why didn't you all prepare for the riots? All that was over a verdict, no flood, no 130 mph winds. You mean with all that superior intellect you couldn't avert all that death & destruction? I guess LA isn't populated with Harvard professors either huh?

Everyone is concentration on Houston as being "relief central", when in fact Baton Rouge has more than twice what Houston has, scattered in different areas. Our large arena is housing a huge number of those thugs that came up form N.O. They have began to rob, loot, and as of this morning set fire to a historical building. We are have real problems as well with just the shear number of folks that have settled here that are not thugs. Our population more than doubled in 3 days. there is absolutely no rental property. The large newspaper in NO is moving to Baton Rouge, Times_Picayune. Along with their move that are one of many corporations that are buying up houses 30 to 40 at a time. House that have been on the market for months are selling site un seen. Our stores cannont keep up with deamnd for goods and services. Now we are having a tremendous rise in car jackings and robberies. Numerous reports of residents saying that the evacuees are knocking on their door demanding that they allow them to stay in their house and use their facilities. One of the Walmarts has mentioned closing due to the large number of blacks, over 500, wandering their store, harassing their customers in the parking lots. They said it would be cheaper to do that than to have to address the crime and law suit issues. This situation is only getting worse. The national guard has now been called into Baton Rouge to help the local police. Not being racist, but all of the evacuees we have are black.

One other thing...could someone PLEASE get jesse Jackson out of here!!! He's now creating more problems

C'mon guys...Mule is right. The most self-righteous thing I can muster is that I hope my town would not degenerate so quickly into chaos under those circumstances. But let's just say I wouldn't bet on it.

The Mayor speaks:

http://www.atypical.net/mm/nagin.mp3