Things even out in New Orleans

Is anyone else struck by the alarming symmetry of the events in New Orleans with respect to the flooding and the looting?

As the water contained in Lake Ponchartrain flows into the city, the wealth that is locked in the stores also finds its way into the streets. The looting seems so instinctive, so without purpose (except for the survival necessities of course – what is the immediate survival value of a flat screen TV and a mink coat? What value does such a thing have in a flood? Why waste time and energy acquiring something so useless when food and water is in short supply?). One wonders just how close under the surface the possibility for this lies in places where there is a great disparity of wealth.

Were there similar levels of looting in the tsunami regions of South Asia? Certainly we saw it in Baghdad when the Hussein government toppled and suddenly people who had lived without so much for so long took advantage of everything they could. The comparison between New Orleans and Baghdad has been made often. Don’t people wonder why the situations are so similar? The poorest residents of New Orleans are those that stayed and suddenly there is no law, no wealth, no restraints on them.

I am just struck, with both the water and the social reaction, at how fast something that is pent up can burst from its restraints. It reminds me of Jose Saramago’s Blindness

UPDATE: On WDSU I just heard a report that a New Orleans hospital has been taken over by people with guns. I don’t get it. The tendency towards civil war seems to lie so close to the surface.