It's not SOP, no, and it was a bit cavalier of me to imply looters are routinely shot during American riots; once martial law is declared (and sometimes even before) it's definitely on the table though. The sad and simple fact is that in a community wide riot, just as in places like Iraq, neither police nor military have the manpower ratios or calm overall environment that make it possible to preserve Bill of Rights guarantees without inviting mobs to slaughter peace officers (or peace keepers, as the case may be) en masse. That doesn't mean all due consideration shouldn't be given to the rights of those in custody, but if they belligerently resist arrest individually talking down 25,000 armed violent rioters is just not an option. I think the article is representative of general law enforcement and military reluctance to just open fire on people with armloads of electronics--but I also think that a seemingly uncontrollable week of unrestrained violence in L.A. disipating almost instantly once the National Guard arrived is testament to the positive effect of allowing looters to be shot on sight during martial law, and having that policy widely known.

As to urban blight... if there were easy answers someone would've found one by now. It's that alienation thing again; when disenfranchisement becomes an institutionalized norm for whole communities you get a lot of desperate resentful people prone to irrational and sometimes dangerous reactions. That's not confined to the inner city; the Tea Party won sixty House seats by tapping into that same disempowered belligerence in rural America and even suburbia. It's why kids in Compton deal drugs and kids from Egypt to Pakistan strap bombs to their chests. It's driven some hopeless people to fly planes into buildings, and while some of them were brainwashed religious fanatics, one of them was a previously normal American who just had too much and snapped one day.

I don't know the solution when the promise of a better life through education is belied by statistics that say it's the exception rather than the rule and most people born into that environment will die there at a young age. I think it starts by rebuilding a sense of cohesive community so people don't feel isolated and overmatched, at war with the whole world conspiring against them and eager to embrace even the most violent groups offering the solidarity, support and inclusion they desperately want but find nowhere else. Government has a constructive, a vital, role there, but it remains to be seen whether anyone IN government is willing or able to fulfill it; in this crisis government isn't the problem, but diconnected and apathetic elected officials neglecting the public service for which they were elected definitely are.

The only thing I can say for certain is that alienation continues apace and something's gotta give, probably sooner rather than later. The biggest reason to find a solution for our millions of unempowered citizens isn't some benevolent feel good sense of charity, but the stark reality that if we don't find a way to address their problems peacefully they will inevitably force a less peaceful confrontation no one wants. That's why a millionaire insider trader like Joe Kennedy said he'd gladly give up half of all he had to keep the other half in security: If you try to hold onto everything you lose everything. I think that's a lot of what's happening here and, as in L.A., the answer to why they aren't looting upper class homes and businesses instead of their equally impoverished neighbors is that if they did that they WOULD be shot. Most people know von Clausewitzs famous quote that war is the continuation of politics by other means, but most people also miss his real point: When compromise is impossible, when the political process can no longer gain what one group needs to survive (or thinks it does), that group won't simply shrug their shoulders and crawl off into a corner to die, they'll shrug their shoulders and turn to violent militance as their only remaining option.

Whatever the answer, I hope we find it soon; I hope we have time....