"Some will rob you with a six-gun… and some with a fountain pen.” — Woody Guthrie

As the reports of the armed looters came over the Internet, I was immediately reminded of Woody Guthrie’s raspy voice and his unamplified guitar. Has anything really changed since Woody gave voice to the anger and despair of the Depression Era working class?

The armed gun thugs who terrorized the survivors of Katrina made for dramatic electronic copy over today’s mass media.

But thugs armed with fountain pens don’t make good visuals. Those in power who signed away the labor rights of the New Orleans working class, who signed the Jim Crow laws that sustained and fed America’s endemic racism, who signed away the wetlands that sheltered the coast from the fury of hurricanes and who signed away the improvements of levees and flood control were strangely absent from CNN, ABC and the like.

There is corruption in American society from top to bottom. The desperados armed with firearms looted from Walmart are a menace to society. The desperados armed with sterling silver fountain pens from America’s most discriminating retailers are also a menace.