<p>Regarding your post in #15, do you not recognize a difference between CNS news and publications like the National Review or Weekly Standard? My conservative friends wouldn’t be caught dead getting their news and commentary from a source like CNS because it’s polemical to the point of absurdity, building stories on glaring logical fallacies. These friends of mine see the crassness, thoughtlessness, and willfull ignorance in outlets like CNS, Rush, etc., just as I see the same qualities in someone like Michael Moore. I realize you’re inclined to be defensive in light of your sense of a left-wing bias in mainstream media, but don’t allow this defensiveness to lower your intellectual standards. To do so is to surrender to the kind of thoughtless, lazy discourse that increasingly dominates our culture and, as I see it, threatens our freedom–both as individuals (when we can’t see beyond our own prejudices) and as a nation.</p>
<p>I guess I should have put the smiley on that one. But the world at large, as expressed during the United Nations meeting on media influence in world events (my D attended), views our mainstream media to be just as biased as we view outlets like al jazeera. It’s all a matter of viewpoint. My reference to the BBC is based on the world’s view expressed in that meeting – BBC is the middle ground (least biased). So while CGM views CNS as right wing radical, others in this country view CNN as left wing radical. It really depends on where your standing. Many people view our “mainstream” media outlets as having agendas that they push. It is, after all, entertainment, not hard news, that sells.</p>
<p>When my kids were little, and something unfortunate happened, they would invariably cry “I didn’t mean to” to which I would answer, “you have to mean not to.” </p>
<p>This ineptness may be traced to people who are over their heads, but why were they in positions of power to begin with? I propose that it is because the current trend in government is not to think that helping out citizens is the government’s job, so appointing an Arabian horse official to run FEMA is seen as a reasonable choice, a choice borne of indifference to what FEMA was created to do, and an indifference to the most vulnerable members of society, who most need a government that looks out for and supports them.</p>
<p>They didn’t mean to hurt the poor, the marginalized, and the displaced, but they have to mean not to.</p>
<p>Yes the authorities on every level were in over the heads. There is still a “Why?” component to that fact. Florida and federal authorities would have done a much better job had Katrina devastated Tampa, for example. So says me. So hopes me, perhaps.</p>
<p>Yes, there was bias in the media. Was it the wrong bias? True, more material loss was suffered in other segments of the population, but the media chose to concentrate on the developing dehumanization of New Orleans’ poorest victims, many of whom were black or elderly. Did that dehumanization happen in Mississippi and Florida? Or did the surrounding societies meet the need in those communities? I confess ignorance.</p>
<p>For me, the dehumanization was the crux of the event. A beloved, modern, western, 20th century city of 1 million in the most powerful nation in the history of mankind–brought to ground by water and wind. There but for luck go all of us? Holy cow. If and when we are brought to such despair, will we also lose the ability to keep social mores stitched together? </p>
<p>Watching the scenes from the city I know so well, having toured Incan and Mayan and Roman and Egyptian ruins, I had a glimpse of how such cultures disappear–live on CNN and the BBC.</p>
<p>Garland, I think that’s a very fair assessment. I think a lot of officials in this case WERE in over their heads. I don’t think anyone runs for mayor or governor or president hoping they will have to deal with a disaster. They should run expecting to deal with one just in case…but the odds are usually in their favor that nothing of this magnitude will happen. There were many incompetent people in leadership positions when Katrina hit. That incompetence and unorganization was clear as soon as reality set in. I was not a fan of Haley Barbour when I lived in Mississippi, but as the governor I must admit that he did a very credible and competent job following Katrina. I personally feel that’s why the devestation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast didn’t get as much press. We slow down to look at car accidents on the side of the road, not to watch cars operating as they should be. The situation in Louisiana was a train wreck so all cameras focused on it. It was pure incompetence that caused the situation in New Orleans, not racism.</p>
<p>Garland: Well said. I suspect this is a mere harbinger of the consequences of a coherent philosophy of attacking government service to the public, since those of us who are well off can generally rise above misfortune with our own resources, while the poor and working class live closer to the line between coping and disaster. Cutting taxes = cutting services = putting the poor and working class in peril, waiting for the next hurricane/flu epidemic/recession/plant closure, etc., while making the affluent sector’s piece of the pie ever bigger through lowered taxes. We’ve been coasting for a few years, but the tactic of starving government services will continue to bear bitter fruit. “Small enough to drown in a bathtub” may prove to be a prophetic turn of phrase.</p>