wow - read the rest...
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Do they find strength in human dignity and sanctity of life? Do the strong come to the aid of the weak? Do they summon patience and resolve in the knowledge that help is on the way, if only they can find the courage to help themselves a little longer?
What is their response to this consequence that has befallen them, a consequence largely of their own making?
"You owe us" .
They take what others have failed to provide, those things required to sustain life - jewelry and television sets. And when taking isn't enough (it never is), they devolve into predation and anarchy, abandon the weak, turn upon the innocent and each other - and all in a matter of days.
In former times entire nations found the strength to rise to the occasion, ordinary people understood that survival depended on their shared common decency and respect for their fellow citizen. That, by co-operating and persevering, they might create coping mechanisms through pooling skills and resources, and to be sure, the majority of those trapped in New Orleans will have done just that.
But, in former times, whole nations were not living in a time of entitlement, where all and any are provided for by an all-encompassing "social safety net", funded by those faceless others with more, who have life easier, whom we have been trained to envy.
Those human failings, irresponsible and anti-social behaviors that once brought consequences in the community - shame, ostracization, and deserved personal deprivation - are today excused, assigned new and neutral nomenclature (all the better for medical diagnosis), prescribed "tolerance", and if possible, assigned the politics of race or class, so that collective guilt may be mined to ensure that self-destructive behavior gains not only acceptance, but state funding.
The predatory violence and anarchy befalling New Orleans is not the result of a freak convergence of forces brought on by unnatural disaster.
It's a warning.
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/002593.html