Can't believe what's happening in America!!!!!

[Forgetmenot]

Have just watched the news and I'm so upset seeing all those people who just seemed to have been abandoned by the authorities, their government and the rest of their country!!!
They have no food or water and the police are only concerned with looters!!
Why isn't the whole country rallying round to help for gods sake!!!

I think that some of the looters are truly looking for food and water. Others are opportunists and others are just criminals anyway. I read that now there are a bunch of youths randomly firing at people from tall buildings. Opportunistic immature and criminal, i suppose.

I read that many people came back to NO too early, when they thought the hurricane was over.

quote: The only thing the Feds have done wrong is in being slow to realise how incompetent the state officials were.'

Quote: Alux, stop being so melodramatic. There's enough of that in the media.'

answer: FFS Ameriscot, stop being so dismissive. Look where it got the people of LA, MS, & AL.'

I made a comment on another thread about poverty being a major factor in the brutalisation of people and societies. The US has the biggest margin of inequality between rich and poor in the western world.

The Republican Party, like the Tories here, are primarily about preserving an old rich business elite. Bush doesn't care about these people because they are historically cannon fodder. The poor of any race. They all go down in service one way or another. The conceit is revealed in this instance by the lack of structured rhetoric surrounding it. I can't help but see in my minds eye Bush tearing his hair out in genuine confusion saying, like in some bad film, "this isn't supposed to be happening..!"

He's pulling out all the rhetorical stops now, but it's all sounding hollower than ever.

this young fellow is lucky he didn't get shot for being a looter.

looter or samaritan

The world is mad. What did they expect people to do, lie down and die??

Well,let's not pretend the looting is a uniquely American situation please.

I was living in Brighton (England) when the Big Storm hit in 1987 and one of the most shocking things (to me at the time) was the huge amount of looting that happened as plate glass shop windows were blown in.

The news reported the looters as risking their lives "in the eye of the hurricane" to steal tv's and other electrical goods, etc.

'I made a comment on another thread about poverty being a major factor in the brutalisation of people and societies. The US has the biggest margin of inequality between rich and poor in the western world.'

That's is SWEEPING generalistion, monkeytrousers. IME, I've found the a much greater margin of inequality and classicsm here in the UK than in the US, or anywhere I've lived in the world - 8 countries. I've been low-income in both places. I'd have also never dreamed about making such a generalisation about another nation until I'd lived there myself for at least a year.

Havent gone through all the thread but I was reading a newspaper in Tesco today and just couldn't stop crying

ahem, inequalities in wealth is greater in the US than in Western Europe including the UK

interesting reading from
multinationalmonitor.org/mm2003/03may/may03interviewswolff.html

MM: How do economists measure levels of equality and inequality?
Wolff: ... the top 1 percent. In the United States, in the last survey year, 1998, the richest 1 percent of households owned 38 percent of all wealth.

The top 5 percent own more than half of all wealth.

In 1998, they owned 59 percent of all wealth. Or to put it another way, the top 5 percent had more wealth than the remaining 95 percent of the population, collectively.

The top 20 percent owns over 80 percent of all wealth. In 1998, it owned 83 percent of all wealth.

MM: How does the U.S. wealth profile compare to other countries?
Wolff: We are much more unequal than any other advanced industrial country.

Perhaps our closest rival in terms of inequality is Great Britain. But where the top percent in this country own 38 percent of all wealth, in Great Britain it is more like 22 or 23 percent.

or measured by the Gini coefficient:

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient

Ahem, statistics aside, I LIVED in both places. Was working poor in both places. The divide between rich and poor is qualified in very, very different ways in each place that statistics can't quantify. In the States, for example, a person can go bankrupt not having medical insurance. In the UK, a poor person can face legalised discrimination in employment b/c of his accent, can face economic discrimination b/c of his post code.

Both are entirely different sets of variables facing.

Let's talk about equality in housing, for example . . . Better yet, let's not. B/c for many people in the States, the concept of ostracising the poor onto vast council estates is a different concept indeed. It certainly came as immense shock to me.

You never lived in Cincinnati, EIS. It was worse than anything I witnessed in Embra.

ahem, statistics aside, I have lived, worked, and been educated in both places.

In My experience of the US and the UK:
In the US, a poor person can face legalised discrimination in employment b/c of his accent, can face economic discrimination b/c of his post code...

and can be made to go to work for less than they would be given in state benefits because the state says so. It has been a boon for unscrupulous businesses. It is just one step above the Dickensian workhouse. Wisconsin I believe was the first to try it?

No, I got to live in Chicago. That was pretty bad.

Still not as bad as spending time in Shettleston. Thought it would be harmless to visit someone - until someone got shot on her doorstep at 4AM.

Oh my!

Funny, I thought Dickens set his novels in England . . .

no but they are ostracised in trailer parks and the 'Projects'. Have you driven to and thru Peach Tree Alabama? what about the Chicago 'Projects'? Been thru both and found both scary. One white and hilly billy one black and ghetto.

what about South Central LA . I have friends and family there. (My BIL worked as a night manager at a supermarket in Watts in the 90's.) The corner of Florence and Normandy was still burnt out when we drove thru in '97 about 6 yrs after it burnt out.

speaking of shot on the doorstep, it was Thanksgiving night - yes we went to Thanksgiving dinner down in South Central. There was a body lying in the road (2 lanes each way) with a person waving to prevent oncoming cars from hitting him/her.

did we stop? hell no!

yes, fully aware where dickens set his novels. that was part of the irony. (oops, forgot what they say about americans and irony)

PS no where have I said that the system over here is better than over there. they don't call the UK the 51st state for nothing.

I've had the priviledge of being in all those places, in fact. I'm Hispanic, and my dad grew up in a slum in San Antonio, the child of penniless immigrants. One of his sisters lives in East LA. So don't go telling me I don't know how bad things are in my own country or that Americans are a bunch of careless, heartless, Bush-supporting, warmongering gits who don't care about what happened to those people in LA or assume that aid and help would have been any quicker to materialise if the disaster happened anywhere else.

B/c I'm getting pretty disgusted with the amount of blame and finger-pointing and generalisations going on here. Excuse me for finding it offensive. I try hard not to make generalisations about other peoples' countries, b/c I know from living in them that you can't generalise people anywhere. But it seems to be that wherever America is concerned, it's perfectly permissible to be hateful, condescending, and patronising.

Well, one thing I learned from living here is how much America is her father's daughter.

Oh, and btw, we 'get' irony, even when it's a weak attempt.

But since you're going to get personal, we also get melodrama. And yours would suit a Trisha episode perfectly.

Well, one thing I learned from living here is how much America is her father's daughter.

yes, you got that right. unfortunately america is also making all the same mistakes of empire that her father did instead of learning from them. It is too much to go into detail here and will only be accused of more generalisations - including raping the world while the poor at home were destitute. Of course, I know as well that your generalisations are largely true - like mine. that is why they are generalisations.

I am sorry that you are hurt by all this. It is hard for anyone to hear about the wrongs of their own country from outsiders. much like it is hard to hear that your child has been naughty or for a child to hear that his mom was a prostitute to put food on the table. The truth hurts because we care.

Please note that I did not start to get personal until you and ameriscott did. but then again, i expect you will disagree on that too.

expatininscotland i'm so sorry you're so distressed by all the comments here. i don't think anyone is doing any america hating , at least that's not how i see it. I feel tho it is legitimate to be frustrated and shocked at the way this whole situation has been handled - i am watching the news right now and those in command cannot answer why help has been delayed for five days. I think some looters are genuinely trying to get food and water from what i've heard from people in the convention centre. I would be just as angry if it were happening here in the uk, maybe even more so, and i know mismanagement here is likely too.

'I am sorry that you are hurt by all this. It is hard for anyone to hear about the wrongs of their own country from outsiders. much like it is hard to hear that your child has been naughty or for a child to hear that his mom was a prostitute to put food on the table. The truth hurts because we care.'

That has to be the most catergorically condescending and patronising thing I've ever read on here.

And it suprises me not a jot. In fact, I've grown to find it amusing.

It's no bad thing I'm a born cynic.

I don't know the full story of what's going on there b/c I am not there. I'm fed what the media feeds me and what I hear from my immediate family in Houston. But that's like issuing on opinion on a jury's decision w/o having sat in the courtroom.

I'll close with a quote from one of my sister's fav Country Western singers, George Strait and virtual giggle. Thanks for the laugh!

'That's what I get. I've come to expect it from you.'

Well, I don't find all of the comparisons with this and that helpful nor all the blame shoving around.

At the end of the day surely it is suffice to say that what has happened is truely awful and the way it has been handled has been shambolic.

Whose fault it is or whether the UK would have done any differently is irrelevant - it is not good enough, absolutely!!!!

It's hard for us to sit here as 'armchair generals/quarterbacks' - the situation is way too complex!

I am shocked at the level of violence (the looting is imaginable, but not the shootings), but so are most people in the US! Who is to say the same thing wouldn't happen anywhere?

The other thing that surprises me is the level of helplessness of the victims. Some people are not fit enough to help themselves, but you'd think for the others that somehow a leader would emerge and they'd find ways to make their little community more comfortable (little things, such as clearing up their own garbage, or organising children's activities). It must be so frustrating for them to wait for outsiders to help, and that help never arrives.

EIS: then if you find it condescending and patronising, tough. grow a thicker skin. it obviously ain't thick enough yet.

I told you how i felt because I have walked in them shoes too. don't talk like Americans are the only ones who have been there. Woe is me. We've heard the whinge before. it may be best for you to avoid these threads if they are going to end in tears.