I don't think this is surprising. It's a mythic theme in the u.s.: Depression-era bank robbers heroized in Bonnie and Clyde, stealing from the rotten banks. It's also part of the good capitalist v. bad capitalism theme, too. Capitalism isn't bad, in and of itself, but only bad because of rot at the top. That rot at the top encourages this kind of looting backlash. Had Saddam et al exploited them good 'n' proper, they wouldn't be reduced to savages looting anything and everything that comes their way. Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities exemplifies this tale. Masters of the Universe--in the ghetto, behind the pulpit, cruising Wall St.--all products of a bad capitalism which encourages everyone to become greedy looters, preying on one another. Sherman McCoy's father and his wife, stand by and tut tut about the debased values embraced by "new capitalism's" Master's of the Universe, who produce nothing. [1]
For Rummy and for the media, the identification is more like that in "A Little Glass of Rum": Their rage is read as "like us": materialistic to the core. They want things. Having been denied them for so long, supposedly, their rage is about wanting to possess. Anything, anything at all, simply for the sake of possessing it.
It's playing well in Peoria, so far as I can tell and as limited as such observations go. In turn, the televised looting distracts from the real looting. And, sorry to say, the history of postwar looting is too well known for it to have been ignored in the planning. The looting's been allowed: "we really aren't interested in policing you. we're not here to stay. oh, but wait, you want our help? really? well, ok...we'll step in since you asked."
I'd like to know how it's playing in the ME. Because, no doubt, this administration actually thinks that images like that will encourage mass insurrections in Iran, Syria, etc. @@
Kelley
[1] (A similar theme is found in the film, The Edge, a David Mamet screenplay which is, again, about con games and con games within con games. Alec Baldwin represents striving, greedy new capitalism where information and image are the stuff of exchange. There is no there there, only the endless repetition of image. New capitalism has no values to ground it, keep it in check--the endless repetition of images refer, ultimately, to nothing. It's greed is truly about the act of possession. Anthony Hopkins is old capitalism, which although it strives to possess, those things are things sought also for beauty, edification, understanding, values--civilization. When old and new clash in the state of nature, old capitalism has those values and that knowledge--the cunning--to outwit nature and survive.)