Another canned thread?..

I would do what I had to including looting, which I consider necessary in the circumstances but only in terms of necessity, like I said above if your starving and thirsty and see a shop with food your going to take it (its probably all going to get dumped anyway) steeling other things like TV's then thats unnaceptable.

Im a very caring person (despite how I may come accross), if I was involved in this situation or anything where people needed help id do all I could, I think thats just a natural instinct.

I can't argue with any comments on the handling of the rescue efforts, nor would I waste any time defending the waste of space that is George Bush.

But I won't judge the need of the people affected by the ineptitude of their government, anymore than I would withhold support from those affected in a country run by a corrupt dictator.

There is a Red Cross fund, as there was following 9/11, and as there is in London following 1/17. It is a fund to which many Americans (and non-Americans like me) have donated. Whether this is the most worthy cause at this particular moment in time is an argument I won't get into, as I think that very subjective judgement is one that can always be questioned.

Jane, if your talking pure survival I know it seems harsh but in a life and death situation I think most people however much they would like to think they wouldnt would revert to a intinctive means of self preservation, and if that means kill or be killed I think the former would prevail.

There was an interesting parrellel of this at the Manchester air disaster when the plane caught fire on the runway, sadly about 50 people died but witness accounts are of very fierce fighting towards the back of the plane but I guess when your clothes are on fire youll do anthing to escape. Human panic and fight/flight instincts are natural, all be it that if there hadnt been panic and fighting on the plane maybe more people would have survived but that doesnt stop indicidual acting with whatever means they consider necessary to save their own lives.

I may give some money to the Red Cross then.

(I have no idea what the heck 1/17 is - I was trying to type 7/7.....think I'll have to give up hopes of being a court stenographer...)

I hope i wouldnt take form another person
but if it was for my children i might



(have no kids)

Oh and im not drawing any parellels to the criminal/gang mentality of a minority of people in New Orleans who see the disaster as an excuse to go on an orgy of crime (taking food/water/clothing excepted), these people deserve to be shot by the police.

Personally I think the media does it's best to cloud the reality, not deliberately but by default in that it can not show the whole picture and the visual image of 100 people looting is much more powerful than a million people not looting.

It's a minority looting, it may well be a minority of police preotecting stores while other police rescue victims, we don't know the facts.

I was watching the BBC's drama documentary about Dunkirk the other day. Comparing the two events shows just how the world has changed in just over half a century. People risked their own lives to save the lives of others. Now, it seems that an 'everyone for himself' mentality has taken over with no consideration for the weak and vulnerable.

I'm not naive enough to think that it would be any different in the UK if the same catastrophe were to happen here. Some people would be prepared to steal,attack others, and murder in these exceptional circumstances, even accepting the fact that we don't have the widespread gun ownership of the US.

I don't agree with the shoot to kill policy for looters. What good does that do? Are we really saying a human life is worth less than a TV or a microwave ?

I think there is a completely different culture in Britian to that of the USA, if you just take the example of New Orleans you have the remaining 20,000 or so predomenantly Black an Hispanics that live below the poverty line, as quite rightly reported on the news these people are often overlooked.

A by product of this is the crime and gang culture that proliferates in such area's the widespread availability of guns and numbers of drug users and gang members further compounds this hence the capacity to commit crime and create disorder and potentially discourage act of humanity are so so much higher.

The situation of such large pockets of people that live in the USA in this way is not reflected anywhere else in Western Democracies, even given the poverty in the UK this is thankfully (though unsatisfactorily) represented by fewer numbers and less willingness to commit crime even if you look at some of the worst ares's of UK eg East London, Glasgow, Liverpool etc.

Its the scale of the numbers and the embeded feeling of hopelessness in which these people live that magnifies the problem in New Orleans etc.

I saw a programme about LA a short while ago which said the equivilent of a 911 happens every year in terms of gun deaths (3000 in LA alone) yet the government have done little to even police the poverty and crime ridden area's and seem unable or willing to combat the problem. In all approx 20,000-25,000 people are killed by guns in the USA each year, most of them black on black murders. In the UK although our population is about 15% of USA approc 30 people are murdered by gun crime each year.

Yet the US Government still spend over $370 billion of defence and over $100 billion on space exloration each year...

I think its time for them to get back to basics which is really what the original canned thread was about. Regrettably I chose to use less appropriate and poorly worded comparisions and dwelled to much on the USA interferring overseas by pursuing matters of self interest.