{"id":454,"date":"2005-09-01T08:23:45","date_gmt":"2005-09-01T12:23:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scaredpoet.com\/wordpress\/?p=454"},"modified":"2005-09-01T10:29:23","modified_gmt":"2005-09-01T14:29:23","slug":"my-optimism-for-the-human-condition-is-all-but-gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/?p=454","title":{"rendered":"My optimism for the human condition is all but gone."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/news?tmpl=story&#038;u=\/050901\/photos_wl_afp\/050901063635_9jlouys9_photo5\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/us.news3.yimg.com\/us.i2.yimg.com\/p\/afp\/20050901\/capt.sge.dpk74.010905071354.photo05.photo.default-384x269.jpg?x=380&#038;y=266&#038;sig=eoIzZ5WveHw7yfkLUzaEdg--\" alt=\"looting\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Okay.<\/p>\n<p>I understand that <a href=\"http:\/\/news.google.com\/news?hl=en&#038;ie=UTF-8&#038;q=new+orleans+hurricane+looting&#038;btnG=Search+News\">these people are desperate<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I understand that these people are frustrated, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2005\/WEATHER\/08\/31\/katrina.people\/\">stuck in horrid, squallid conditions<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I understand the survival instinct is kicking in.  I can even condone looting IF it&#8217;s for the absolute necessities, like drinkable water, food and medicine.<\/p>\n<p>I know for a fact that if I were in those conditions, I would get pretty hysterical, myself.<\/p>\n<p>But <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/article.cgi?f=\/n\/a\/2005\/09\/01\/national\/a053358D82.DTL\">shooting at the people who are trying to get you the hell out<\/a><\/em>?!  <\/p>\n<p>Threatening rescuers&#8217; lives, when they&#8217;re trying to save yours?!<\/p>\n<p>Do they understand that even though they&#8217;re angry that evacuations aren&#8217;t going fast enough, <a href=\"http:\/\/today.reuters.co.uk\/news\/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&#038;storyID=2005-09-01T132919Z_01_ROB586049_RTRUKOC_0_UK-WEATHER-KATRINA.xml\">this type of behavior<\/a> is only to delay things further?<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"http:\/\/breakingnews.iol.ie\/news\/story.asp?j=126886600&#038;p=yz6887y8x\">man shooting <strong><em>his own sister<\/em><\/strong> fatally in the head, over a bag of ice<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>People, <abbr title=\"What the Fuck?!\">WTF<\/abbr>?!?!<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve gone beyond understandable panic to incomprehensible madness.  It&#8217;s like people WANT to die, even when faced with the prospect of eventual rescue.  It&#8217;s the only way I can explain why anyone would want to threaten the very people trying to save them, kill their own family members, and have no care at all for the eventual consequences they may face, <strong>IF<\/strong> they haven&#8217;t ruined their own chances of getting out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Orleans shows that the apocalypse-style movies where people go totally nuts isn&#8217;t far from reality at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sociopolitical-rants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}