Utterly shocked, again

[louiselux]

Checking americablog this morning and this stopped my heart: Geraldo Rivera and Shepard Smith are reporting that the authorities have locked everyone in the convention center with no escape, and a checkpoint is stopping people from leaving New Orleans.

Oh my god. The video of their Fox news report from inside the Superdome is hosted on crooks and liars - it's harrowing. From what I understand it's also shocking that it's *Geraldo* and on Fox news, too. After the crying and the ranting, the anchor had the gall to say to one of them 'but let's get a perspective on this', to the reply 'this *is* the perspective'.

eta: Guardsmen halt evacuation at Superdome - also leave me pretty much speechless. A funny/terrible quote from someone still in there: "I don't want to go to no Astrodome. I've been domed almost to death."

Comments

[fenris_wolf0]

Well yes, but you need to consider the source: anything coming from Geraldo Rivera or FOX News is likely to be lies and a complete manipulation of reality.

I'd rather hear facts from a non-Bush partisan network other than FOX (anyone lese would do, really) and any journalist other than Geraldo Rivera: the man has made a career of being an idiot and misinforming the American public again and again.

Not that I would be all that surprised if this report is actually true considering prior unexplainable and unjustifiable decisions the authorities have been taking...

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

I don't know anything about these guys really, apart from people not trusting them to be non-partisan, but the two reporters in there were uncompromising in their shock and horror at the failure of the relfief effort-- it certainly didn't put the government in a good light, and that's the understatement of the year.

[fenris_wolf0]

I do not pretend to know much about such matters, but Geraldo Rivera is not even exactly a journalist, he is a talk show host, sadly famous for being as bad as or worse than Jerry Springer; using the worst type of 'anything for ratings' stuff. Since I obviously have made it a point never to watch, I cannot tell you how bad he is, but his name has been a byword for scum here for years.

Similarly, FOX News -which is owned by Rupert Murdoch- have been spouting the most astonishing lies and Republican spins on every major issue for years: they have a major part of the responsability for brainwashing Americans into believing Bush regarding the justification of the war in Iraq, along with Al Qaida being funded by Saddam, the presence of WMD and other such lies and half truths.

The FOX News school of journalism is now sadly famous and has been a major instrument in Bush's 2004 re-election through constant bombardement of Republican messages.

So even though I do not exactly trust the other TV networks, the combination of the name of Geraldo Rivera and FOX makes me wish someone else -say, a real journalist- would confirm.

But again, this report could be true, and frnakly it sounds sadly likely, based on some prior reports about the authorities refusing help not just from foreign governments, but also from other US states! The Red Cross is still being prevented from entering New Orleans to help stranded inhabitants, apparently.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

From the things I've read since, it seems everyone was shocked for exactly these reasons-- that it *was* Geraldo Rivera (who, yes, sounds like not exactly the world's most effective journalist) saying these things and on Fox news too, and that when the anchor tried to shut one of them up, he wasn't having it.

I looked around and found a report on yahoo news that backed them up, saying that the evacuation had been stopped.

The Red Cross is being prevented being let in? God, it's truly unbelievable.

[fenris_wolf0]

And no discussion or even rhethorical question as to why it was stopped... Interesting.

I do hope that this will shock more people into understanding the serious consequences of having an amateur as a president and that relief will arrive soon for all those undergoing this ordeal.

And being a rather unforgiving person, I still assume that Rivera did it for the attention he thought it would get him.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Point taken about Rivera - but it's probably better that he did it than not and the surely reasons why he did it are secondary, as long as the point got across.

Can Bush come back from this, do you think? As some journo over here said, he's got a tin ear when it comes to judging the right thing to say.

[fenris_wolf0]

Point taken about Rivera - but it's probably better that he did it than not and the surely reasons why he did it are secondary, as long as the point got across.
You make a very good point, though the universally reviled persona of Rivera makes this a bit doubtful.

Can Bush come back from this? Of course he can: the media machine over here a pretty strong and efficient one and I have seen an awful lot of comments to the effect that anyway all these people in New Orleans are criminals, lazy, little better than animals and moreover they are black. Bush cannot be blamed for a natural catastrophy or the fact that New Orleans was stupidly built below sea level, the local officials are corrupt and the ones to blame, American taxpayers are sick and tired of subsidizing those good-for-nothing people living in swamps down there and so on and so forth. (*)

I never, ever, thought I would see such comments in my life, and from so many. And the debate is not helped by the rabid fanaticism of the people who disagree with that type of point of view (I would use a stronger word, but stuff like this leaves me wordless). I feel like saying 'please stop being on my side, you are making the rest of us look bad'.

The acrimony levels being reached are making me fear for the future of Western civilization and I am hardly exaggerating.

Remember, this is an administration which seems to be weathering not just the completely absurd Iraqi situation, but also several major scandals such as Karl Rove committing high treason, being nailed for it and still getting away scot free (I expect him to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor any day now). Karl Rove: one of Bush's 'eminence grises'. The very same one Bush senior fired for babbling to the press in an inacceptable fashion -through the same journalist- several years before.

However, I am hoping that what is going on will wake up America to the real, material consequences of this type of ideology.

Note:
(*) I am not denying that taken individually some of these assertions may be correct, only that they have absolutely no relevance that I can see to the current events.

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

And being a rather unforgiving person, I still assume that Rivera did it for the attention he thought it would get him.

It's possible. It's also possible it may have been a road to Damascus experience for him - and that it may be for people who rely on FOX News for their information. (And he did seem genuinely shocked and horrified in that clip, just as the other FOX reporter seemed genuinely shocked and furious. The other one was better at getting across information through his shock and fury, but that doesn't mean that Rivera was ramping up the emotion cynically - I've seen highly articulate news reporters reduced to that state before, most memorably recently with Channel 4's Jon Snow reduced to first incoherency and then shocked silence when the pictures from the Beslan siege were released).

[fenris_wolf0]

Yes, it is possible and of course the important thing was to let that truth be known, but assuming he was not just exploiting these horrifying events, that kind of doubtful reception is what one gets for exploiting other people's misery as a career.

Like the boy who cried wolf, they pay the price later by not being believed when they uncharacteristically tell the truth.

:(

[scribblemoose]

What the fuck?!!

What are they doing?!! Why???

This whole thing just keeps getting worse and worse and worse...

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Apparently a

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Apparently a <a href="http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/09/greta-van-susteren-praises-looter.html"15 year old boy stole a school bus and drove it to NO and rescued a dozen people</a>. If he can do that I fail to see why the government can't manage to.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Proper link

[shati.livejournal.com]

*stares*

Well, fuck.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Yeah.

But at least it's beginning to sound like quite a lot of people have got out now. I don't know why they've stopped though.

[karose.livejournal.com]

"Well greed is a bottomless pit
And our freedom's a joke, we're just taking the piss
And the whole world must watch the sad comic display
If you're still free start running away."

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

.. except there's nowhere to go. I can't imagine what it's like being American right now. It's hard enough watching it all from over here.

[whimsy-chan.livejournal.com]

It's even worse when some self-righteous asshole starts going on about the people who "chose" not to leave NOLA when the call to evacuate went out. Excuse me, but New Orleans has a lot of very poor people living there--I'm sure they wanted to get out, but they simply did not have the means to. And even if they had the money and the mobility to just up and leave, where would they go?

[karose.livejournal.com]

I'd assumed I was embarassed to be an American for going on four years now, but I hadn't had any idea how much further it could go.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

I didn't meant to slam your country in any way. It's just Bush and his slimy cohort-- well, surely he's finished now, even if it might not feel like that. The rest of the world has seen him spring to *no action* and is judging him right now on television and in print, justifiably, as a failure. America is a great place and it has the potential and the drive to pull itself back together, and I'm sure it will.

[karose.livejournal.com]

I disagree. I think amnesia will settle in again and Bush will carry on as he has, and our anger will fall on deaf ears just as before. This is a pit we're getting sucked into and I've no idea what to do for it but just get the hell out while I can. Someone please fucking nuke us. It'll be a mercy killing.

...I'm being too harsh, though. No, I hold my fellow countryman in high esteem, since the average civilian is doing more than our great fearless leaders are. But we're still trapped, and the apathy is just waiting to sink back in.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

God, hang in there. I don't know what to say and it's not much, but you have *all* my sympathies. I'm thinking of you, if that helps or not. Lx

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

This is definitely the point at which words fail you.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

I don't know what to say right now, except I am so so sorry for everything. *hugs tight*

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

*hugs* Well, so am I! I wish I could do more, that's all I can say. I know that's how most of us who are far from there feel, anyway.