[Leanan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')f you're referring to that picture that's been posted here a few times, it looks to me like merchandise they've just seized from looters.

[strider3700]

I stand corrected. The Canadian disaster responce team DART which has lots of equipment and training to handle events just like this are back in Canada and are ready to go. They are not being allowed into the states for some reason: link

[Petro]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('strider3700', 'I') stand corrected. The Canadian disaster responce team DART which has lots of equipment and training to handle events just like this are back in Canada and are ready to go. They are not being allowed into the states for some reason: link

[Metronome]

Namaste, Though I understand how the post-peak times will be different then this scenario we are living in New-Orleans, it is truly a perfect example of how fragile our society is.
Without "law and order" a considerable amount of people in our western civilisation act like animals in human bodies. Mobs and riots form. With apparently nothing to stop them, they set out fulfill their desires; whatever they might be.
What exactly is Law and Order? What strength does morality truly have in our present age? Does the police officer work for the sake of upholding good and peace? ...Or does he work for that sum of money at the end of the week?
Are the people stranded at the Superdome (thirsty and hungry) really capable to endure these intensive moments of physical, mental and psychological strain?

[Raxozanne]

Anyone who believes that humanity will skip lightly into the future holding hands when the SHTF will be sourly disappointed. The thin veneer of civility is so easily shread when survival is threatened.

[I_Like_Plants]

A whole lotta people did skip into the future, or at least out of NO, holding hands figuratively and at times literally. There were ways to get outta there, if nothing else walk it. 20 miles a day x 4 days = 80 miles, find water (puddles, pipes, etc) and food (in abandoned houses, crawfish ponds, etc.) on the way. Bicycle amplifies this travel ability quite a lot.

On Sunday night I was talking with a neighbor, it was looking like the eye was headed for NO and I said I'd have begged, bought, or stolen a motorcycle and gotten the heck out of there.

It's only today that the contrast has really hit home for me, the difference between people who are more culturally prepared, did Boy/Girl Scouts, maybe have gone camping regularly through their lives, and are culturally prepared for the idea that they may have to take off and start anew elsewhere, may have to walk all the way too. This comes from a culture where you have boy scouts, girl scouts, Geo. Washington and his little axe and the cherry tree, Mom knowing how to bandage up - with an old but washed and clean bedsheet for cloth - a son's cut hand instead of hollering for the medics, etc a sort of weird Anglo-Saxon culture of "rugged individualism" that I've seen in people of all colors, but goes back mainly to the types that spread out across this country and settled it a wagon, an axe, a rifle, you know, Daniel Boone and Davey Crockett etc all those guys (and gals) in all those books we grew up on, Little House On The Prairie and all that.

But, as I've mentioned elsewhere, in the last 150 years due to the free ride given by cheap oil, we've been able to afford to pay people to be out of work, warehouse excess people in the cities, pay 'em to just be there, who cares if they have any sense of purpose or not. I'm not mentioning race here, in NO it's mainly black people but some whites, I've seen champion welfare-wanglers of all colors. If you're being paid and fed well and taken care of in your urban people-pen, and you never have to grow a veggie garden or do much except sit around, walk to the convenience store for your beer and ciggies and junque food, and are in a system where the powers that be would rather warehouse poor people than help them really get on their feet and self-sufficient, you end up with a huge culture of dependency.

And that's what we're seeing - that most dependent 20% or so of the population, acting their finest. I know many are ill, old, disabled, but most seem to be able-bodied, and I dunno about their families, but in MY family it would be a great, a huge, shame to be able-bodied and not working. It just isn't done. To go around robbing and looting instead of building garbage-bag water stills, taking that gun and some buddies and rounding up some of the livestock that's wandering around and putting on a barbecue for the hungry people, doing some kind of WORK such as work is when you're under feet of water, well, the way I was raised, it's inconcieveably shameful.

[Petro]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', 'A') whole lotta people did skip into the future, or at least out of NO, holding hands figuratively and at times literally. There were ways to get outta there, if nothing else walk it. 20 miles a day x 4 days = 80 miles, find water (puddles, pipes, etc) and food (in abandoned houses, crawfish ponds, etc.) on the way. Bicycle amplifies this travel ability quite a lot. ... And that's what we're seeing - that most dependent 20% or so of the population, acting their finest. I know many are ill, old, disabled, but most seem to be able-bodied, and I dunno about their families, but in MY family it would be a great, a huge, shame to be able-bodied and not working. It just isn't done. To go around robbing and looting instead of building garbage-bag water stills, taking that gun and some buddies and rounding up some of the livestock that's wandering around and putting on a barbecue for the hungry people, doing some kind of WORK such as work is when you're under feet of water, well, the way I was raised, it's inconcieveably shameful.

[MD]

Very well said ILP. Our cities are indeed full of unprepared consumer masses, ready to revolt as soon as they are removed from their drug induced comfort zone. Embarrassing and sad. The world is veiwing the an ugly result of the American system

[Petro]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MD', 'V')ery well said ILP. Our cities are indeed full of unprepared consumer masses, ready to revolt as soon as they are removed from their drug induced comfort zone. Embarrassing and sad. The world is veiwing the an ugly result of the American system

[I_Like_Plants]

Petro yes, I will remember your words if I'm ever dumb enough not to get out of there, dumb enough to move there in the first place, or dumb enough to flock *into* the city with all the gangbangers.
Even if dumb enough to stay there, I wonder how many people who at least have an atom of self-respect are sitting pretty in an attic etc with some gallons of water and cans of SPAM? I bet we'll find there were at least a few. Wait things out, plan getting out of there, and do so. Travel at dawn/dusk when the sun isn't so hot, eat lightly, drink plenty, and get out into open country ASAP where there are relatively clean sources of water, and get outta there!

I've grown up experiencing hunger from time to time extreme, and that against a background of I guess what would be considered now, chronic hunger. We certainly didn't resemble today's chubby American kids. I learned some fishing, some foraging, and the most valuable lesson: That The Man is not there to help us, certainly not people of our color, so you'd better be prepared to take care of yourself and fly under The Man's radar.
It's not that bad on the mainland here, and there's still time to get the racial laws overturned......

But yeah, I'll gloat, when I see a screen full of people who by law have more civil rights than I do, and who, if I were near them, would want to kill me, yeah, I'll gloat a little

[Petro]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MD', 'I') am a typical wealthy american capitalist.
A simple announcement of sympathies from foreign governments would be more than sufficient, in my view. We don't need financial supprt, at least not this year.
Those that wish to stand back and claim we have received or just desserts can kiss my ass.
In search of a world devoid of fallacy and flame.

[dunewalker]

"A police officer working in downtown New Orleans said police were siphoning gas from abandoned vehicles in an effort to keep their squad cars running, CNN's Lawrence reported.
The officer said police are "on their own" for food and water, scrounging up what they can from anybody who is generous enough to give them some -- and that they have no communication whatsoever..."
link
Try the canned dogfood at Walmart...

[Petro]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', 'I') learned some fishing, some foraging, and the most valuable lesson: That The Man is not there to help us, certainly not people of our color, so you'd better be prepared to take care of yourself and fly under The Man's radar.

[Yavicleus]

That was the first thing I saw when I read that article too. Society to Mad Max in 5 days. Wow.

[MD]

It's a simple recipe that could be duplicated in any American megacity. Turn the power off for three days, cut the transportation networks, and flood the streets. Fortunately it is a recipe that is very difficult to duplicate.

[I_Like_Plants]

Shanny yes I sure did! You see, the public schools where I grew up were horrible, still are. Designed to prevent education. We had lots of books at home and learned to read at home. In public school you just learn more ways to cuss than you'd ever learn on your own, how to fight, etc. Horrible places. I loved to read because reading was so suppressed in public school, and would go to the library - they didn't like seeing whites in there but could not exactly keep them out, just frown at you etc.- and would read all kinds of neat books, about science, technology, whatever my latest interest was.

College was about the same, tailored for the same dumbasses who'd gotten a nice education-free life in public schools, the "college" chemistry, physics, and math courses I took were probably about what was taught in a good high school in say the 1950s or early 1960s. And I had to fight like hell to be able to take them, working fulltime was just enough to support myself, pay rooming house rent, and eat, as long as I did things like make one package of breakfast sausages do the duty of 2 dinners. Since I'm white they did not want to give me financial aid and said so, repeatedly, in so many words. It was a horrible, long, fight to get what financial aid I did get, and that was not enough to get a full degree - I realized only too late it was not intended to be. This while nonwhite pals were buying new cars, no riding to school on the bus for them!

I'd like to thank you guys for these little talks here, you're helping me appreciate the misery I'm seeling on wwltv etc., on a more conscious, full, level

[I_Like_Plants]

I don't want to bash ILP...honestly...I'm not in troll mode toady...but this post really does deserve reflection, and, an answer. You used the word 'dumb', in your post at least 5 times. As if it were some sort of welcomed, or avoidable affliction. The bottom line is some of your fellow humans are in fact dumb. By your assertions, they should suffer, die, or otherwise be subjected to unfortunate conditions; without compassion.
Reply: Sure, why not? None of them will look out for me, except to hunt me and kil me, if I'm in a disaster, so it's kind of nice seeing Mother Nature take out so many of my enemies. At the gut level, that's where it is. It's 99% bangers and gangers in NO now, shooting at nice people in helicopters who are wrong-headedly trying to help them, because they've been taught that you help out, you be nice, all that excess Anglo-Saxon baggage.

[I_Like_Plants]

Doesn't New Orleans actually predate the USA? In other words, wasn't NO a fully functioning city before the USA was founded, and before that area was part of the USA?

[Petro]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', 'I') don't want to bash ILP...honestly...I'm not in troll mode toady...but this post really does deserve reflection, and, an answer. ... At the gut level, that's where it is. It's 99% bangers and gangers in NO now, shooting at nice people in helicopters who are wrong-headedly trying to help them, because they've been taught that you help out, you be nice, all that excess Anglo-Saxon baggage.