The Evil Petting Zoo

There's something strange going on. We can't bring ourselves to refer to the people from New Orleans as "evacuees." Instead, we're referring to them as "refugees", as if they're people from another country who have come to the US to find shelter from strife. It's as if we're trying to distance ourselves from the fact that these are our people, and we are responsible for them.

While others leave it at "refugees", however, the Army Times is going one step further (ganked from Pete):

While some fight the insurgency in the city, other carry on with rescue and evacuation operations. Helicopters are still pulling hundreds of stranded people from rooftops of flooded homes.

Emphasis mine. Now, see, an insurgency is an organized revolt with a political or religious purpose. There is very little purpose to the looting in New Orleans aside from posturing and greed, and absolutely no organization. And yet, the Army Times feels fit to use a term usually associates with jihadists in Iraq to describe Americans who are grabbing televisions and food.

We're trying to subconsciously tell ourselves that what we're seeing isn't happening here, despite all evidence to the contrary. We call these people, these Americans, by names usually named for people who have fled from political prosecution in other lands, or terrorists who are trying to grab hold of a weak nation. But we need to remember, at heart: these are our fellow citizens. And nothing we ever say will make them anything other than that.