Peggy Noonan on Why Looters Matter

Nobody writes more evocatively about the spiritual qualities that bind us together as a nation and as a civilization than Peggy Noonan. She knows the importance of the non-material aspects of life. And she understands what the looters are doing to us and to our nation. She writes:

As for the tragic piggism that is taking place on the streets of New Orleans, it is not unbelievable but it is unforgivable, and I hope the looters are shot. A hurricane cannot rob a great city of its spirit, but a vicious citizenry can. A bad time with Mother Nature can leave you digging out for a long time, but a bad turn in human behavior frays and tears all the ties that truly bind human being--trust, confidence, mutual regard, belief in the essential goodness of one's fellow citizens.

Lest you think that she wants to kill victims, she continues:

There seems to be some confusion in terms of terminology on TV. People with no food and water who are walking into supermarkets and taking food and water off the shelves are not criminal, they are sane. They are not looters, they are people who are attempting to survive; they are taking the basics of survival off shelves in stores where there isn't even anyone at the cash register.

Looters are not looking to survive; they're looking to take advantage of the weakness of others. They are predators. They're taking not what they need but what they want. They are breaking into stores in New Orleans and elsewhere and stealing flat screen TVs and jewelry, guns and CD players. They are breaking into homes and taking what those who have fled trustingly left behind....

If this part of the story grows--if cities on the gulf come to seem like some combination of Dodge and the Barbarian invasion--it's going to be bad for our country. One of the things that keeps us together, and that lets this great lumbering nation move forward each day, is the sense that we will be decent and brave in times of crisis, that the fabric holds, that under duress it is American heroism and altruism that take hold and not base instincts born of irresponsibility, immaturity and greed.

That's not always the case, as Noonan notes:

We had a bad time in the 1960s, and in the New York blackout in the '70s, and in the Los Angeles riots in the '90s.

But 9/11 was different.

[T]he whole story of our last national crisis, 9/11, was courage--among the passersby, among the firemen, among those who walked down there stairs slowly to help a less able colleague, among those who fought their way past the flames in the Pentagon to get people out. And it gave us quite a sense of who we are as a people. It gave us a lot of renewed pride.

What is taking place in New Orleans threatens to undo that all that 9/11 accomplished. Noonan writes:

If New Orleans damages that sense, it's going to be painful to face. It's going to be damaging to the national spirit. More damaging even than a hurricane, even than the worst in decades.

I wonder if the cruel and stupid young people who are doing the looting know the power they have to damage their country. I wonder, if they knew, if they'd stop it.

Read it here.

Now MSNBC is reporting, and FOXNews confirms, that evacuation efforts have been suspended because someone is shooting at the helicopters delivering relief goods. This is like Mogadishu.

The contrasting responses of the two cities to overwhelming catastrophe is a subject worthy of consideration because it represents two very different aspects of our national culture. A few points come immediately to mind.

1) 9/11 was caused by human agency, not by an Act of God. There was an enemy upon which we could focus our anger and against which we could unite with common purpose. And, it fostered a determination to show the enemy that we were not paralyzed by their actions.

2) During the 9/11 crisis Rudy Giuliani provided superb public leadership and in his person presented a focus and direction for common action. Nobody in the Gulf region matched his performance, although as Noonan notes, Hailey Barbour in Mississippi came close.

3) New York has a unique civic culture. Aware of its position as the worlds greatest city, New York's leadership and its public servants feel a special responsibility and pride that was manifest on 9/11. New Orleans, by contrast, is a fun city that markets itself as the "Big Easy".

4) The 9/11 disaster hit New York's elite classes and institutions -- people who had the resources, both psychological and material, to rally in response. They immediately got down to the business of restoration. By contrast most of the New Orleans disaster hit hardest on the city's poorest populations -- people who lacked both the psychological and the material resources with which to craft an effective response. They have to look elsewhere for food and water, for health services, for the restoration of order, for everything and are conditioned by a lifetime's experience and an ideology of victimhood to do so.

5) The 9/11 catastrophe, as devastating as it appeared, was restricted to a small geographic area -- a few blocks on Manhattan Island. The Katrina disaster devastated an entire region. The technical problems of dealing with disaster on such a scale are vastly more complex and problematic than what New York faced on 9/11.

These are just a first riff on the distinction -- ideas that spring to mind. This is something that is going to occupy my mind for at least the next few days.

UPDATE:

There is another distinction that just emerged. CNN is reporting that FEMA is suspending boat rescue operations because of danger to personnel. Earlier evacuation at the Super Dome was ended because some idiot fired on a helicopter. I don't remember earing much abouy NY's fire and police officials suspending efforts because of danger.