Posted on 09/29/2005 6:30:00 PM PDT by stillbjorn
I posted this on my blog that is on a rather liberal-dominated site (basically to piss them off hehe). I thought I'd share it here:
I’m very glad that I’ve held my tongue on the subject of Hurricane Katrina. I had a very long essay in my head that I had considered writing a few weeks ago, an essay about how the ‘true’ tragedy of the situation was the apparent inability of the un-evacuated population to act in a civilized manner during a time of crisis. Thankfully, I never wrote that essay. Thankfully, that picture of New Orleans in the aftermath of the hurricane was inaccurate.
We were told by every cable-news channel, accompanied by photos & video of a devastated city, that ten- to twenty-thousand people were dead. We were told that gang-banging black guys had robbed some gun stores and were roaming the city committing mass murder. We were told that in the Superdome, a criminal orgy of rape, murder, drug-use and abuse were taking place. We were told that hundreds of bodies were being piled up in the Superdome’s basement (Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure moment: Does the Superdome even have a basement?!) We were told that victims of the storm holed up in the Convention Center were in similar circumstances, that people were sitting around weak and starving amongst propped up dead bodies, cradling dead babies and comforting rape victims. We were told that when the water was finally pumped out of the city streets, that thousands of corpses would be revealed (I always thought that dead bodies floated in water). And the silliest, most irresponsible of all claims made by the media was that sharks had swam in through the broken levies and were hunting for food in the New Orleans business district.
The truth: The combined body count from the Superdome and Convention Center is TEN. Ten deaths. Six in the Superdome, four in the convention center. In the Superdome, 4 deaths were of natural causes, one was a drug overdose, one was a suicide. I have not heard the causes of the four from the Convention Center. Overall in the City of New Orleans, less than eight-hundred are dead. Less than eight hundred, after we were told to expect ten- to twenty-thousand. Also, it has been confirmed that 4 murders occurred in the 2 weeks following the hurricane. That is on pace (if not behind pace) of New Orleans’ annual murder rate, which is 200 per year. No rapes have been confirmed. Not one rape victim has been interviewed on TV. No one has been interviewed or quoted as having actually witnessed a rape. Oh yeah, no shark attacks either. I guess Miramax will have to scrap the script for ‘Jaws Six: Chaos at Mardi Gras’
I am both relieved and proud of the souls in the Superdome and Convention Center. I am relieved that they did not descend into total urban anarchy in the face of crisis. I am proud that so many survived such adversity and were able to finally be taken to safety without all these horrors coming true. I am also glad to know that dead bodies still do float, and that if we couldn’t see them on the surface of the water, we wouldn’t see them after the water was pumped out. For a second I thought Scott Peterson wasted a lot of time & money on concrete.
Many have made quite an issue out of the fact that many of the stranded victims were black. I find it interesting that members of the media found unverified rumors of mass murder and rape committed by blacks on other blacks to be so believable. I find it even more interesting that ‘civil-rights’ leaders found these reports believable, and then had the guts to turn around and say it was Bush and the Republicans who were the racists. Did anyone question these reports? Did anyone even think to wonder “hey, there are no phones in New Orleans right now, there are no reporters inside the ‘Dome or the Con. Center, how can we be sure about this?” (The soft-bigotry of low expectations?!) I didn’t for some reason. I thought this situation was so shocking and so grave that the media wouldn’t be this irresponsible. Why would the media portray the black population of New Orleans to be uncontrollable, uncivilized animals, all just one bad storm away from raping their way over the brink? And lets not forget that the Associated Press ran photos and stories of people looting food & water from stores. In a story about a couple of white people, they were said to be “searching out food & water.” A black guy doing the same thing was called a “looter.”
The next question I would ask anyone who would listen is this: Where are all the hero stories? After 9/11, we were treated to endless stories of individual Firefighters and Police Officers who committed amazingly brave acts to save lives. Where are the hero stories from New Orleans? The Coast Guard went door to door in helicopters looking for people to fly to safety. Yes, literally, door to door. No small feat. One man (who’s name escapes me), commandeered a School Bus, and on his way out of the city, picked up 70 people and drove to the Houston Astrodome. Oh yeah, he was black, and I don’t think he raped or killed anyone on his way out. Maybe that is why that story wasn’t important enough for MSCBSNBCNNFOX. But hey, Mayor Nagin can be proud at least that one of his thousands of school buses got out of that city (no thanks to him). The media’s sensationalist worse-case-scenario reporting on this situation wasn’t just a small betrayal to the viewer in the interest of getting ratings. (I mean really, if I hadn’t thought that 20,000 people were dead, I would have just watched the Yankees’ games that weekend). They also betrayed the victims holed up in the superdome & convention center. How you ask? Well, apparently, the Red Cross & FEMA were ready to go ahead and bring food and water to those to locations. But thanks to the media’s reporting that the two refuges had become Sodom & Gomorrah reborn, those to organizations decided not to go ahead until the situation cooled down. According to Mike Brown, (aka scapegoat numero-uno, aka Distraction from Ray Nagin) “FEMA does not own any first responder equipment. FEMA does not have a law enforcement squadron that can swoop into any crime scene or crowd and restore order...Its not a law enforcement agency.” Basically he’s saying that thanks to cable news reporting, they were made to think the situation was too dangerous for these people to move in and help out.
This is as far into finger-pointing as I’m willing to go. The 24-Hour news-cycle is destroying this country. The cable news channels are just as much slaves to ratings as ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ or ‘The Apprentice’ are. News is not about truth, information or fact. News is about sensation, shock-value, spin, forged documents, and now, Racism. I think Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner should pay restitution to the people of New Orleans and lessen the tax burden on us that the reconstruction is going to be.
bttt....right on, dude!
do you know what happened to my apostrophes?!?!
is there any way to edit my post on this site?
hell of a first post, huh.
nobody's perfect.
besides, i found shark attacks to be a subject that i could get more comedy out of.
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