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Carried Away

This WaPo coverage of looting in the wake of Hurricane Katrina has more than a little sympathy, rationalization, and justification for much of the looting going on.

...as we are also learning from the post-Katrina chaos, what we think of as looting may be more complicated than it seems.

No, it's NOT complicated, moonbat. Stealing stuff, is stealing stuff. And most of the stuff being taken is NOT survival supplies!

Benigno E. Aguirre of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware has been watching and reading about looters in Louisiana. "It may look from the outside as if they are stealing or breaking the law," says Aguirre, "when in fact some of them are trying to survive."

Yep - it DOES look that way, maybe because what's happening IS bad. If some ARE trying to survive, this isn't the prevailing behavior. For instance when a Wal-Mart was invaded by the latter-day barbarians, the guns, and electronics were the FIRST targets of opportunity, followed by other consumer items. The food, and (non-alcoholic) beverages were largely ignored. Yep, survival is insured by a new plasma HD TV!

On the other hand, he says, some of the thieves are garden-variety crooks. "There is always a very small number of people that are predisposed to crime, and they see a disaster as an opportunity to act." There are the disenfranchised who jump at the chance to get even with those who have more stuff than they do. "Disasters can become opportunity for class warfare, and that kind of appropriation of other people's property should be prosecuted," he says.

"Class warfare"? Sounds like our academician has been imbibing wisdom from the fountain of Marx. At least he concedes that they should be prosecuted, thanks be for small favors.

Many may be people taking drastic measures required by drastic times. And some, he says, are the in-an-emergency equivalent of hunters/gatherers, foraging for food, fresh water, medicine, matches, batteries, everyday essentials that are just not available. Not at home, not at shelters.

Again, the Wal-Mart case (as well as others) would be a counter-indication of the validity of this statement.

The images are played on TV over and over: Windows are smashed. Huge dudes muscle into an abandoned store and hustle out with stolen TVs and boomboxes. Women hoist unwieldy packs of diapers and cartons of baby formula. Run-amok hooligans snatch up jewelry and electronic gizmos. Other things are stolen: shopping carts of soda pops and snack foods, clothing, bicycles. There are survivors, scavengers and criminal looters, and it's hard to tell the difference.

No, the distinction is too fine. If someone breaks in to get some bottled water, or food to survive, the Chief would say OK. ANYTHING else - including "scavengers" are thieves. That's it. Comprende?

Today, at 2:00 MT. (That's right during puma skinnin' time.) Replays can always be found at the Rightalk homepage. Update: He called Deepak Chopra a "New Age charlatan." That's good stuff right there....

Our Democratic colleagues in the regional blogsophere are being rather more generous in sharing the credit for today's good news than they were when Ellsworth was put on the BRAC list, which is probably what we at SDPolitics would have...

LA Times:Thune lobbied panel to save S.D. air base Commission's changes would cut billions from Pentagon's savings figures By John Hendren Los Angeles Times Originally published August 27, 2005 ARLINGTON, Va. - The military base closing commission continued to defy...

WorldNetDaily is reporting that Air America is also spreading the far-left propaganda (surprised?):Do President Bush and so-called global warming have anything to do with the catastrophic damage caused by Hurricane Katrina? Yes, according to some politicians and public figures, who...

Life in the Super Dome in N.O. -- where many of the fleeing people went who had nowhere else to go -- may get ugly. This is all worst case scenario type stuff, and I really hate to indulge in...

[This post has been bumped to appear on the top of the page, all day today. Scroll down for new posts.] Time for a Hurricane Katrina blogburst. Instapundit wants a post recommending relief efforts to donate to, and here are...

The left sinks to new depths. The reaction of the left on the hurricane on the Gulf coast is to bash George Bush. Chad Schuldt does it twice, here and here. The first link compares Bush to Nero, which reveals...

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