“Nothing to lose” – Katrina’s lessons

If Sept. 11 showed us how terrifying it is to deal with alien ideologues who are prepared to lose everything for what
they believe, the debacle in New Orleans offered what should be an equally unsettling portrait of alienated
Americans who believe that they have nothing to lose. For years, both liberals and conservatives have been loath to
entertain the notion that our great land of opportunity has produced a permanent underclass whose members can
move neither up or — as New Orleans demonstrates so vividly — out, and have little reason to think that tomorrow,
if it comes at all, will be any better than today.

Fear not: You have not been sucked into a 1960s flashback. I am not about to defend the thugs who shot at medics
and rescue workers in New Orleans or to suggest that wading through waist-deep water lugging TVs or microwaves
is a form of legitimate social protest. Many of these folks might well have done the very same thing even before
Katrina showed up if they had thought they could get away with it. And that, in fact, is precisely my point.

-From James C. Cobb’s blog. Read the entire post here:LINK

Cobb is the author of Away Down South: A History of Southern Identity.