People, especially men, do not like to be rendered helpless and I don’t think it is so shocking that when a situation arises where there is no law and order and people are put in a desperate life and death situation that some will strike out at society, or what’s left of it. This helplessness is at the root of most violent crime. These are people who had nothing in a land of excess.
One thing that does strike me in this political climate is how easy it is for people to give when a crisis such as this strikes. But they seem incapable of comprehending that many people experience devastating personal crises: catastrophic illness, job loss, the breakup of a family, even a loss of transportation can be enough to incapacitate them, and somehow they are expected to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Many were born into poverty and many have no family and nowhere to turn.
There was a quote from a tourist who said she mistakenly thought New Orleans was a “sophisticated city.” With a poverty rate around 30 percent (40 percent for children), New Orleans must do a fine job concealing their “ugly underbelly” from the tourists. Who can say why so little of those tourist dollars and that of the “ostentatious wealth” of the city’s elite apparently never trickled on down?
9-05-05
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