Looting in New Orleans
The people of the US and the folks in Iraq really aren’t so different. I get annoyed when cheeky american politicians who seem to think they occupy some kind of moral high ground dismiss their contempararies.
Well it’s already been two years since the looting of Baghdad but I can’t help but be reminded of it by the recent looting of New Orleans. I can remember at the time George Bush smirking and dismissing the looting of Iraq’s national museums and landmarks as unfortunate but a sign of just how long gone the people were after years of amoral rule under Saddam: a view shared by many on ‘the right’ including this guy. Well how bitterly ironic it is today when we witness the looting of Louisiana, a state that supported Bush in the last presidential elections. What kind of crazies would do such a thing, and when the community is most vulnerable! Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.
Alright, alright, alright. As one blogger puts it, the good people of ‘Katrina ground zero’ may be “merely searching out basic supplies after being stranded for 36+ hours.” I’m sure we can’t expect them all to starve while they wait for aid from governments that didn’t bother to evacuate them in the first place. Maybe we should be less jugdmental when they decide to grab a TV or stereo on the way out. Fair enough, they aren’t exactly looting the museums (that we know of), but arguably, they are taking many a ‘sacred’ of american materialist consumer society. When people start taking things without paying for them in America, “chaos and anarchy” ensue – as many a nerwsheadline will tell you.
Alas, I suppose my point is that the people of the US and the folks in Iraq really aren’t so different. In a capitalist society, one in which property is necessarily protected by the law, if you knock out the man, whether it be by miliatry brute or natural forces, you can’t help but expect folks to start taking what they feel they need (Often what they feel they need, and what they actually need are two very different things.). Many of the iraqi people had been a lot longer than 36+ hours without rescources; I’m sure when they stoll ancient manuscripts that they had some pecuniary use for them in mind. I get annoyed when cheeky american politicians who seem to think they occupy some kind of moral high ground dismiss their contempararies.
Alright, alright, alright. As one blogger puts it, the good people of ‘Katrina ground zero’ may be “merely searching out basic supplies after being stranded for 36+ hours.” I’m sure we can’t expect them all to starve while they wait for aid from governments that didn’t bother to evacuate them in the first place. Maybe we should be less jugdmental when they decide to grab a TV or stereo on the way out. Fair enough, they aren’t exactly looting the museums (that we know of), but arguably, they are taking many a ‘sacred’ of american materialist consumer society. When people start taking things without paying for them in America, “chaos and anarchy” ensue – as many a nerwsheadline will tell you.
Alas, I suppose my point is that the people of the US and the folks in Iraq really aren’t so different. In a capitalist society, one in which property is necessarily protected by the law, if you knock out the man, whether it be by miliatry brute or natural forces, you can’t help but expect folks to start taking what they feel they need (Often what they feel they need, and what they actually need are two very different things.). Many of the iraqi people had been a lot longer than 36+ hours without rescources; I’m sure when they stoll ancient manuscripts that they had some pecuniary use for them in mind. I get annoyed when cheeky american politicians who seem to think they occupy some kind of moral high ground dismiss their contempararies.
posted by Nicholas @ 31.8.05
4 Comments:
Well written. Nice use of language, clear and concise.
Yes, I agree that there is no difference between what happened in Bagdad and New Orleans. Do you see the need therfore for law and order in a society? I remember at one time you didn't think it was necessary. When you were about 15!
Has your perspective changed? If so, how?
I am interested to know.
Love Mom
nope. still fundamentaly an anarchist though a more pragmatic one.
in order for laws to be broken they need to exist in the first place. there is this commonly held foulacy that if there were no laws people would just keep stealing things and murdering indefinately. without laws there can be no property. i think that a lot of the looting goings on, have had more to do with there once having been laws and then there being none all of a sudden. with no concept of property, there seems to be no reason to go stealing.
yes we might still steal bread, but that falls under another kind of thing not property. we inately need certain things for survival. thus the age old dilema, do we hate on someone for stealing bread to feed his dying family? with no property, this would not even be the problem, there would be no motivation to accumulate capital in order to make more etc etc. someone with more bread would have more reason to share.
the problem with anarchy is not stopping people from chaos, there are always certain innate structures (mama papa; the problem is getting people to work in the first place. i think it would require a reversal in the way they think. motivation by care for the other rather than themselves. ( not i'm not saying the collective, i'm saying the other. this is where communism goes wrong)
ps. what i just wrote is brilliant (the last part) but very unclear. at least at this very moment i think i might have just figured some very important things out. i'll need to not forget this comment. i need to keep hashing it for a year or two. it seriously just came to me now.
back to that bread thing, the imorality clause would be reversed. it should be immoral not to give bread to the starving man. the instance of him having to steal should not even arise.
jireca!!!!!! i think i'm going to cry. this is all gold : )
Exactly! This is what Christ said, "If a man asks you for your coat, give him your cloak also." The idea is to love your neighbour as yourself. In other words, treat others the way you would want to be treated in like circumstances. Thus, according to Christ it is immoral not to give bread to a starving man. The thing Charles is that at this time this is a higher law. That is to say, it is one attributed to God, but not one that man has adopted into civil or crimainal law (earthy secular law). Thus our police cannot enforce it.
Your idea that care for another, on an individual basis, is needed to govern our actions, in order to create a just society, would be a better way to run this world we live in, rather then the use of punitive laws to stop abuses, is a good one. There is much literature that argues against this idea, as well as some for it (even the scriptures) so have fun developing and honing it over the next few years.
Love Mom
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