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| Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned | |
The whole world has been shocked to see the wealthiest, and most powerful
country in the world plunged into an unprecedented domestic crisis after a mere
storm. There are estimates of up to one million people homeless, and many still
trying desperately to escape the devastated city of New Orleans, while their
government wrings it's hands protests about how hard it is trying. The comparatively wealthy citizens left the area days ago - packing their
families and their home insurance papers into their SUVs and driving off into
the sunset. Middle-class Orleaneans have lost their homes, and possibly their
livelihoods, but they are now in comfortable hotels chatting to relatives and
former neighbors on their cell phones about how terrible it all is. Meanwhile, back at home, law and order has broken down as armed thugs have
taken over the city, carrying out rapes, beatings and mass looting. Not only have law enforcers failed to stop this, they have lost sight of
what law enforcement really is. In a crisis, the concept of law and order
changes. There is no point trying to prevent drug taking in a situation like
this. There is no point threatening someone who has entered a wrecked
convenience store which will never reopen and taking water, food or nappies
which can never be sold. But they have been trained to wage a war against drugs
and petty theft - not to handle real crises, so thats what they have fallen
back to. One TV report showed a policeman stopping a mail truck full of people
(presumably not post office employees) escaping the city. Thankfully he didn't
shoot them - he ordered them out of the truck and made them walk. But why? The
truck would be recovered eventually, and ten people would have escaped the
strife torn city. Having people break into gun-shops and help themselves to America's finest
sporting firearms is a serious concern - but many law abiding citizens would be
pretty anxious to arm themselves in that environment too - even if there was no
cashier to take their money. The difference is that the law abiding citizen
would return when the shop was reopened, and return their 'borrowed'
peacekeeper, or offer to buy it after their extended trial period. And at the same time, US senators proclaim that the profiteers are 'the
real looters' - particularly the oil companies who are perceived as profiting
from suddenly astronomical gas prices. Never mind that they face countless
millions of dollars repairing and rebuilding broken and lost oil rigs in the
gulf. And never mind that with a serious reduction in supply, they have choice
between shortages or price-rises. Shortages will do far more damage than price
rises. With an administration which has lost sight of the real issues, is it any
wonder that many police have just handed in their badges and given up?
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