Dear Mr President
Hey, want to fight a War on TerrorTM ?
I've found a really good one, and it's not far away from you at all. You can actually drive there, which has got to cut down on expense. Even better, it seems that the Terror hasn't been delivered by Terrorists. So there's one less thing to worry about! It turns out you can cut out the middle man and get garden variety Terror in your own backyard. How about that? Who knew? All you need to do is watch a natural disaster unleash itself on an impoverished population, then sit back and wait until they're dying of thirst, hunger and disease. Eventually Terror will set in, at which point you can swoop in and fight it. Or not - it's up to you, really.
True, it's not the kind of Terror we're used to. You know, that ambiguous, vague kind you usually talk about. The kind that's related somehow to 9/11 and to Iraq, to caves and bunkers and shoeless children playing soccer in dusty streets. That Terror is hard to get a grip on. And rightly so. It's carried out by men we can't find, invisible cells, secret societies. After all, if it were easy to pin down, it wouldn't be Terror!
Or would it? Because this other Terror, this new, American Terror, is fairly concrete. It's babies dying of dehydration. It's help that is supposed to arrive but doesn't. It's all that money poured into Homeland Security, but still no medicine for the sick. It's the rhetoric about America's love of freedom - a love which doesn't extend to giving the largely black populations left in Katrina's path the freedom to eat. To not be afraid. And to leave the unbearable squalor of the New Orleans Superdome before those sheltering at the Hyatt, who at least presumably had beds.
Of course, this kind of Terror happens in other countries as well. We don't really hear about their hurricanes, earthquakes and tornadoes so much. It's certainly not enough to pre-empt things like those handy CNN 'People in the News' segments, where we can learn about pivotal figures in the entertainment world. In fact, just last year, when the Asian tsunami first struck, CNN didn't see fit to interrupt their biography of Billy Graham. Their website, however, did prominently feature a handy poll: Would the tsunami negatively affect tourism in Asia? And let's be very clear: such issues were worth thinking about. If, for instance, I'd wanted to go on holiday to Thailand with Billy Graham, I'd have had all the information I needed. Well done, media!
Article comments
1 - Bennett
Great links Teletart, and well done.
Let me know if you get a response from the head of the line. Perhaps a hug from GW will help you forget this messy bit of disaster.
2 - Bob A. Booey
Wow.
My beautiful little dumpling gets all political :)
This was really well-written. It pains me to think that people waited 2, almost 3 days, for any sort of response from federal administrators, who claimed ignorance to the news we were all watching for a full two days while people starved to death and died without medicine or rescue.
Can we get married already, baby? :)
That is all.
3 - teletart
Thanks for the comments.
Bob, yet again I must turn down your proposal. So sorry. However, I'm sure there's a Mrs Booey out there for you - obviously not as perfect as me, but such is life.
And you're so right, Bennett - a hug would fix everything. One of my fave PR shots was of W walking through some rubble with a posse of white guys dressed just like him. It did even more to reinforce that image of 'us' vs 'them'. Though perhaps it was more honest than the rustling-up of dazed victims for photo-ops.
teletart
4 - teletart
Just an update - thanks to the wonderful www.sploid.com I've been alerted to the fact that the Hyatt story I linked to has since been changed. The original version is up there as a link to a cached Google page. And I've put the sploid link in as well.
tt
5 - Bob A. Booey
Darling,
You're not allowed to take my mock flattery seriously and turn me down so dismissively :)
It's part of our schtick.
That is all.
6 - teletart
Bob: mock? Nooooooooooooooo! Don't go breakin' my heart!
7 - teletart
Today, Homeland Security claimed it has been too busy focusing on terrorism to plan for natural disasters.
Ummm call me crazy, but what's the difference between Mother Nature destroying your levees, and terrorists doing it? Don't you still need a comprehensive disaster relief plan? If, heaven forbid, a big old bomb went off somewhere, wouldn't you need to be ready for evacuations, mass panic, looting, disruption of water supplies, medical emergencies, food shortages...? Or does that sound too much like common sense?
8 - Anthony Grande
"but what's the difference between Mother Nature destroying your levees, and terrorists doing it?"
Terrorists are preventable. The mayor of NO and the Governor of LA should have done something about the Levees.
Where exactly are those two???
9 - teletart
But Anthony, terrorism ISN'T preventable. That's partly what makes it terrorism. Sure, you can apprehend suspects, disseminate intelligence, and try to foil sinister plots. But somewhere along the line, Homeland Security has got to be about securing the homeland after an attack, as well as before.
As for culpability - of course everyone shares in that to some degree - though all the finger-pointing is part of the problem, as no one seems sure just who to point a finger at. My post was more about the use of "Terror" as a spectre of evil - when evil can come just as benignly, through keeping food and water from the hungry and thirsty.
teletart