Pixelated Semantics

A schizotypical inventory

A different idiot please

There seems to be a trend in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to blame the living victims (a strategy perhaps to shift focus from the political leaders justly attracting the anger of the public over an inept response). One commentator writes:

'What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. [...] People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. [...]

People living in piles of their own trash, while petulantly complaining that other people aren't doing enough to take care of them and then shooting at those who come to rescue them [...] is a perfect summary of the 40-year history of the welfare state and its public housing projects.

The welfare state - and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages - is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans.'

Apparently those poor enough to require welfare have no 'moral' right to expect they actually be assisted by their 'government' following a disaster. To any reasonable observer, the 'people living in piles of their own trash' are doing so not by choice, they are living in storm damage detritus. Somehow it is 'petulant' to expect a humane, timely response instead of abandonment. The truly 'brutish' mentality is one that aggressively blames the victims of a disaster to avoid social responsibility.

The President's mother seems to have a similar outlook. On a visit to a relief center yesterday she stated:

'So many of the people here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them" she chuckled after a tour of the Houston Astrodome in Texas. "What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas".'

To Ms. Bush, it is 'scary' that underpriveleged disaster victims would like to recover from their trauma, embellished with a strong suggestion that they are somehow improving their conditions by being displaced and impoverished.

Aaron Broussard, (the president of Jefferson Parish now famous for his tearful display of humanity on international TV) is quoted (in the same Scotsman article) as saying of the estimated 40,000 dead, in almost perfect counterpoint:

'Bureaucracy has murdered people in the greater New Orleans area. And bureaucracy needs to stand trial before Congress today. So I'm asking Congress, please investigate this now. Take whatever idiot they have at the top of whatever agency and give me a better idiot. Give me a caring idiot. Give me a sensitive idiot. Just don't give me the same idiot.'

Debate is emerging over the use of words like 'looting' and 'refugee' in media coverage of the event: some reports are questioning whether the scale and nature of the 'violence' and 'looting' has been fairly and accurately depicted at all. Certainly there are first-person accounts that provide a very realistic perspective compared to the mainstream media, such as one from two stranded paramedics, or this from some film-makers and photographers.

Item posted by AutoEditor at 12:56 pm ::