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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (77677)	8/13/2011 9:28:02 AM
From: Ilaine	4 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217860

US has had many natural disasters, usually not accompanied by widespread looting, see, e.g., 1994 Los Angeles earthquake. Widespread looting occurs sometimes, generally in the context of certain members of society getting pissed off about something, e.g., 1992 Rodney King riot. Widespread looting after the 1977 New York blackout. Most looters in New Orleans after Katrina were looking for food and water, for some "Christmas came early." I don't think that was what we were talking about, though. We were talking about why the American way of helping others in need did not happen after Katrina. Actually, it did, but it took a while to get started. That delay baffles me to this day. I have a lot of family in Louisiana and also Mississippi. In Mississippi, it started immediately. Outside New Orleans, it started immediately. Strange delay in New Orleans. One thing about New Orleans -- although race relations continue to improve, many, perhaps most, white elites are very prejudiced against black people, especially certain classes of poor black people who lived in the housing projects. I grew up in Louisiana before integration. I remember when black people were strictly prohibited from mingling, in any way, with white people. I remember when blacks had to ride in the back of the bus, there was a line that they had to go behind, and if there was no room to sit, they had to stand, even when there were seats in the white section. Blacks had to watch movies from a balcony, not sit in the main section. There were two water fountains in public buildings, one for whites, one for blacks. Black people were not treated at white hospitals. Black people could not sleep in white hotels. Black children did not go to white schools. Black children did not get new schoolbooks, they got the ones that were worn out by the white children. I saw all of this with my own eyes. I saw torn up, battered, marked up textbooks being put into boxes to take to black schools. I knew adults who were in the Ku Klux Klan. It was a terrible thing. I saw it with my own eyes, did not just read about it in a history book or see it on TV. Although there have been many changes, some people remain in that mindset. A Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard, David Duke, ran a very strong campaign for Governor of Louisiana in 1991. Also, many people outside New Orleans hate the culture, especially the French Quarter, which has strippers, prostitutes, gay strippers, gay prostitutes, allows people to consume alcohol to the point of public drunkenness. North Louisiana is Bible Belt, Southern Baptists. Many of those people saw Katrina as God's wrath and well-deserved, God washing out sin. Some public figures said so publicly, many said so privately. So, I think the delayed response to Katrina was in part due to incompetence, in part due to prejudice. Not the ordinary thing at all.

To: TobagoJack who wrote (77677)	8/13/2011 1:36:22 PM
From: ggersh	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 217860

I'll grant you that no society is perfect. rawstory.com BEIJING — Thousands of rioters took to the streets in southwestern China, with some smashing and burning vehicles, after a city official injured a female cyclist, state news agency Xinhua reported on Friday. The riots broke out late Thursday in Guizhou province and carried on all night, with 10 police officers wounded in the violence, the report said. Rioters also blocked the city's main roads using trucks, the state-run China National Radio reported on its website. Xinhua said the riots were set off when "chengguan" officials, responsible for low-level policing on China's streets, injured a female cyclist while trying to confiscate her bicycle for illegal parking. Chengguan officials, widely disliked in China and often accused of using excessive force against civilians, have been behind an increasing number of riots in recent years. Last month, hundreds of people in another southern Chinese city rioted after a chengguan was reported to have beaten up a one-legged fruit seller. The seller, who had apparently protested against the confiscation of his cart for illegal parking, later died of his injuries. ADGRPID:\|SERVTYPE: Comments on the Guizhou riots were blocked on popular Chinese microblogging website Weibo on Friday.