There are many examples of people who come from poverty taking advantage of a social breakdown and using it to inflict great harm on other humans, so he can feel power over them finally.

Again, don’t think it’s a George Bush thing, I think it’s a human-beings-are-capable-of-evil thing. Just my opinion though.

Apart from the blame discussion, which I would close with a “ALL officials messed up” label, the frightening aspect to me is that what keeps people at bay over there is… the power supply?! The social situation must be unbearable if a natural desaster does not make people stand together in order to get over it, but step over each other in order to take advantage of it.

I don’t want to turn this thread into another political debate, but my sister and bro in law live in New Orleans (St. Charles Parrish).
Anyway their take on it is that it’s mostly the fact that people broke down into sheer barbarism right after the power went out (BEFORE the flooding), as that caused the police to start quitting, then nobody was in charge. Secondly the local government was so disorganized that it took them forever to contact the Feds to ask for Federal Assistance. In the U.S., States still actually have to ask to have Federal Troops invade their cities, Bush could not just immediately send in the military. That is a good thing for those who care about civil liberties and states rights. Maybe in other countries there would have immediately been troops parachuting into the city with machine guns and rifles, but not the U.S. Anyway the Federal Assistance took a several days because the local government waited too long to notify the Feds. Beyond that, there are two damning pieces of evidence that blame the local government: thousands of school and municipal buses sat parked in giant parking lots, which according to plan were suppoed to have been used to evacuate people without their own transportation. These buses flooded on Tues but Sunday after the hurricane blew through, they could have taken these to the Superdome and loaded them up. The other thing is that the local government actually paid a video company to produce a DVD last summer saying “If a hurricane hits, poor people are on their own to fend for themselves”. This DVD was supposed to be shown at civic centers and community groups. It’s pretty damning.

Believe it or not, President Bush is not like a dictator, he does not personally control every single activity in the United States.

What you have to remember is New Orleans is a notoriously corrupt city in the first place. Of course finger pointing towards Bush was inevitable, but I mistrust the knee jerk reaction to blame him before looking anywhere else..

Blame can eventually be spread around but my take on it at this point is that it’s about 50 percent the fault of the looters and gang members who took advantage of the situation and started to shoot at Rescue Workers and local police. Then it’s about 20 percent the fault of the local police for adandoning their posts and trying to escape the city, when the poor people had no protection from these bad guys. Then it’s 20 percent he fault of the Mayor, the local government, and local businesses, zoning laws, etc. And it’s 8 percent the fault of capitalism for building a vast city inside of a bowl surrounded by water—I think it was a bad idea from the beginning. And it’s 2 percent the fault of the Feds.

Time to reassess a culture that lets that happen.