fuck the New York Times. I mean, really, fuck it.
It would be slightly helpful if some "journalistic" organ, instead of apportioning blame, would actually analyze the diffusion strategies being employed by a reportedly incompetent and confused administration.
To look back, as the Times invariably does today and every day, and decide what "went wrong" and who's to blame is to miss the story that is going on right now, right under your nose. The US government is being brilliant.
Its sole fumble was assembling large masses of people into two large places in New Orleans (Superbowl Stadium and Convention Center). Where they could get counted, and perhaps attract some media muscle. But that was just a temporary glitch - a rather too sizeable holding pen. Having a Michael Brown in charge to "account for" the inept indifference of the first response - genius.
The second response is where the real money is.
The deft and dexterous recovery was to fashion a diaspora. Decimate them the fuck out of there. Smaller units all over the place, then fractionate still further. Disperse the media. Disable attention. Got a bolus of them at the Astrodome? Use Homeless Diversion Templates we all know and love: hand them a wad of cash to make them go away. Then lock the door. We in Florida are familiar with US Disaster Aid Exit Strategies.
This is the stuff of backdoor craft. If you don't think so, just look at how it's handled by the Times:
"...so many Americans been on the move" - on the move? as in, pack up the wagon, Sadie, we're headin' to the Promised Land? Why attribute motive force (implicitly linked to choice, deliberation, independence, manifest destiny) to a large group of New Orleanseans who have been trucked or otherwise cargoed to Anywhere USA - just in time to get them off the national radar for 9/11 ceremonies?
"Texas has taken in" - Begging any journalistic question. E.g., What sort of taking is this? What is the actual situation, and what do the debited few do when the Astrodome shuts its doors?
"mile-high shelters...desert mesas...piney woods...flatlands...the breezy shore of Cape Cod and the beige-colored Wasatch Mountain..."
Mom! - We want a freakin huge hurricane so we can go see all these neat places!
The treacly prose collaborates in the enabling of forgetting. Recovery under way. A better tomorrow. The New York Times (just for example, since it has pretensions) does not analyze anything that is actually worth analyzing: It sets up frames that enable us to square away consciences and crises in order to get down to business. Sufficient to each day is the merchantry thereof.
Someone is making a lot of very shrewd decisions. Incompetence is a most serviceable cover story.
To look back, as the Times invariably does today and every day, and decide what "went wrong" and who's to blame is to miss the story that is going on right now, right under your nose. The US government is being brilliant.
Its sole fumble was assembling large masses of people into two large places in New Orleans (Superbowl Stadium and Convention Center). Where they could get counted, and perhaps attract some media muscle. But that was just a temporary glitch - a rather too sizeable holding pen. Having a Michael Brown in charge to "account for" the inept indifference of the first response - genius.
The second response is where the real money is.
The deft and dexterous recovery was to fashion a diaspora. Decimate them the fuck out of there. Smaller units all over the place, then fractionate still further. Disperse the media. Disable attention. Got a bolus of them at the Astrodome? Use Homeless Diversion Templates we all know and love: hand them a wad of cash to make them go away. Then lock the door. We in Florida are familiar with US Disaster Aid Exit Strategies.
This is the stuff of backdoor craft. If you don't think so, just look at how it's handled by the Times:
Hurricane Katrina has produced a diaspora of historic proportions. Not since the Dust Bowl of the 1930's or the end of the Civil War in the 1860's have so many Americans been on the move from a single event. Federal officials who are guiding the evacuation say 400,000 to upwards of one million people have been displaced from ruined homes, mainly in the New Orleans metropolitan area.A few notes on this grotesquerie - everyone can do their own:
Texas has taken in more than 230,000 people, according to Gov. Rick Perry. But others are scattered across the United States, airlifted from a city that is nine feet below sea level to mile-high shelters in Colorado, to desert mesas in New Mexico, piney woods in Arkansas, flatlands in Oklahoma, the breezy shore of Cape Cod and the beige-colored Wasatch Mountain front in Utah.
"...so many Americans been on the move" - on the move? as in, pack up the wagon, Sadie, we're headin' to the Promised Land? Why attribute motive force (implicitly linked to choice, deliberation, independence, manifest destiny) to a large group of New Orleanseans who have been trucked or otherwise cargoed to Anywhere USA - just in time to get them off the national radar for 9/11 ceremonies?
"Texas has taken in" - Begging any journalistic question. E.g., What sort of taking is this? What is the actual situation, and what do the debited few do when the Astrodome shuts its doors?
"mile-high shelters...desert mesas...piney woods...flatlands...the breezy shore of Cape Cod and the beige-colored Wasatch Mountain..."
Mom! - We want a freakin huge hurricane so we can go see all these neat places!
The treacly prose collaborates in the enabling of forgetting. Recovery under way. A better tomorrow. The New York Times (just for example, since it has pretensions) does not analyze anything that is actually worth analyzing: It sets up frames that enable us to square away consciences and crises in order to get down to business. Sufficient to each day is the merchantry thereof.
Someone is making a lot of very shrewd decisions. Incompetence is a most serviceable cover story.
posted by Tom Matrullo at Sunday, September 11, 2005
2 Comments:
sign me up...I live in Ct., but consider myself still a New Yo ker emeritus , as that is where I grew up...I just want an objective view of world dynamics, not a politicized diatribe. there are now 4 things that sell...sex, sex, sports and the goddamned Truth
So sick of NYT writing pieces about places they have "Discovered" like small beach towns because that drives all the rich and wannabe assholes to those places. NYT is the essence of pseudo-cool.
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