Posted on 09/26/2005 9:35:26 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Josef Goebbels would have been happy with much of the mainstream media in the past few weeks since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. Goebbels, for those of you too young to know, was Hitler's propaganda minister. He is credited with creating the concept of The Big Lie. The idea was that if you tell a lie big enough often enough, people will believe it.
The big lie of the Hurricane Katrina story is that is reveals deep and hateful racism in America, that blacks were treated worse than other people because they were black, and that this shows the hypocrisy of this supposedly egalitarian nation.
Here's the truth. Many black people were harmed by Katrina because of where they lived relative to the path of the hurricane and the location of their neighborhoods below sea level and their refusal or inability to obey the mandatory evacuation orders for New Orleans. This is not racism. This is a matter of geography, weather patterns, and poverty or confusion. It has nothing to do with purposeful mistreatment of blacks by whites. Poverty and confusion, certainly big factors here, were in no sense caused by white mistreatment of blacks unless it was white mistreatment of blacks that ended many decades ago.
As soon as the rescue effort started -- and although it was tardy, it was just as tardy for whites and Hispanics as it was for blacks -- the main story was whites by the thousands hurrying to New Orleans to rescue blacks from rooftops, from evacuation centers, from hospitals, from old folks' homes. The rescue effort was totally and utterly colorblind. The idea that blacks in New Orleans were left to suffer while whites in Mississippi or Alabama were treated royally is simply fantasy. Whites suffered too, and yes, they were often helped by blacks.
When the relocations started, blacks by the hundreds and the thousands and the tens of thousands were welcomed into white communities far from New Orleans, into white churches, into white businesses and also welcomed heartily by black churches, whose work has been magnificent. By the way, Wal-Mart went to relocation centers and offered jobs to anyone who had ever worked in any way for Wal-Mart before. No paperwork or documentation needed and they could start the next day. Wal-Mart, that supposed exploiter of the poor and the colored, was on hand to help before any government agency in Charlotte.
Oh, and also by the way, the nation's churches and synagogues opened their hearts to the evacuees and the impoverished by Katrina. I did not see too many help centers run by the ACLU.
It is just plain evil to try to divide the nation -- especially in time of war -- with false cries of racism. The response to Katrina shows just the opposite of racism -- a loving, compassionate response to victims without regard to race. One expects Al Sharpton to cry racism. He would not have a job without that phony cause. But for the media, who should know better, to try to paint such a wicked, dishonest picture -- well, Goebbels would have been proud.
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He also writes "Ben Stein's Diary" in every issue of The American Spectator. Please click here to subscribe.
ping
"I did not see too many help centers run by the ACLU."
Too busy trying to get the Boy Scouts to accept homosexuals.
Rush Limbaugh once warned the Media some years ago to the effect that if they keep up the shenanigans, soon the population would start to see them as 'the Enemy'. It is obvious that the folks in flyover country are souls of better nature than those in the MSM, and it has to be driving the MSM out of their minds that this is so.
Finally someone with some standing has the cajones to call the MSM for what they are!!!!
Thank you Ben Stein...
Bueller...
Ben Stein proves once again what a smart level headed American is. Thanks for posting. This is a great article.
my only problem with Ben Stein is that I hear his voice in my head when I read his work, and man is that annoying.
Probably so. But then again, maybe not today. Maybe with all the new media and other opportunities we have on the internet we have a chance to reach out slap the propagandists right back.....
I just finished this and got it uploaded a few minutes ago. It's not my usual style, a little edgy, and I believe a little more in tune with the younger generation.
It's my take on what I think really went down in NO. Maybe I should have named it "My Tin Foil Hat" but instead I call it, "Katrinas Attempted Coup D'Tat"
Remember we're dealing with people who feel that everyone's actions are controlled by outside forces and personal responsibility for bad situations is something to be shunned. It's like trying to explain to a three year old why it can't have more candy. The child certainly won't understand a word you're saying. It will just start hollering and wailing until it gets the candy. The only solution is to punish the child or ignore it. Giving in just makes the child (liberals) demand more.
Thank you for the PING!!
To the rest Ben Stein PING!!
Oh for heavens sakes.
George Bush didn't:
Cynthia McKinney is disgusting. George Bush's racist America. Somebody should sew her mouth shut.
Should there be those that wish to believe President Bush is conducting ethnic cleansing, so be it.
While Ben's and others preachings to the "choir" gets a big "Amen" from me, let those enemies of the U.S.A., who have no ears to hear them, nor minds to think of the reality they speak, wallow in the mire of their own choosing.
This one only hopes it becomes quicksand.
True. From your page to the voters, I truly hope people get this message and McKinney of GA is gone very soon.
Ben Stein rocks!
Thanks
I truly love this man. He nails it every time.
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