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A Tale of Two Media:Tragedy and Images
For me, the images down here will be the barges that chugged out of Battery Park carrying corpses bound for vast New Jersey morgues, the smoke and smell and noise, the gaunt and hollow-eyed looks of the cops and firemen digging desperately for their buddies with their bare hands, the relatives on their knees praying all over the place, the video of the couple jumping off one of the towers holding hands, crushed police cars and fire trucks, many with bodies inside, the distant figure on the water everybody said was the U.S.S. George Washington, an aircraft carrier sent to protect New York harbor, and the soldiers with machine guns that are guarding major roadways and airports.
Big stories like this now are covered two ways -- online and off. The former draws millions to websites like CNN's and USA Today's, and new kind of sites like this one. Bloggers and others put up sites so that people could describe what was happening in their own words. People in apartment complexes and news sites posted accounts, and looked for relatives and housing.
As interesting as the Net is -- some of the best and most graphic video of the tragedy was popping up all over the Web -- and as idiosyncratic, the dominant medium when stuff like this happens is still TV, by a wide margin. Hour by hour, TV culls and culls until it finds a handful of quickly familiar images burned into our national and global consciousness. In our time, somebody has a videocam aimed at everything all the time, and within minutes the pictures show up everywhere, on television and the Net. Almost nothing is our culture goes unrecorded or unobserved any longer. The immediacy was as astonishing as the images were unbelievable.
By nightfall, CNN, MSNBC and the networks were moving away from the dramatic video and the indescribable scenes of wreckage and carnage and calling in the policy wonks and propellerheads who hide out in Washington caves until something like this happens. The focal point of all the airtime then shifted from the devastation in New York to the parsing and analyzing of the political, governmental and intelligence communities. For future reference, that may be a good time to turn off the tube and get online, the medium of individual stories, feelings and experiences.
When things like this happen, TV, much more than the Net or the Web, reveals whether leaders rise or fall to the occasion. Mayor Guiliani of New York clearly rose to the tragedy. President Bush, sticking to his cautious sing-song monotone, fled to various bunkers and seemed to shrink throughout the day. Guiliani got bigger by the hour. Defying advice that he hide out until the shooting stopped, he rushed to the scene, was nearly killed, calmed the city down and took charge of the clean-up and rescue. Bush got on his best suit and stuck to the prompter. At least that was the image that TV brought of us of these two very different leaders.
If you love New York, your heart will break when the smoke clears. Something about the city is busted for good, no matter what the mayor says. The damage is not describable, and surely hasn't been captured on TV. There are dead firemen, cops and office workers all over the rubble, everybody is saying, and the dust is so thick even the cadaver dogs are getting sick. Five techs with thermal imaging probes were retreating uptown, their sensitive equipment almost useless in the mud (caused by water poured on the still-burning fires) and smoke and dirt.
The buzz from the cops and reporters standing around is that the death toll will be horrible -- between two and three thousand -- but nowhere near the much higher figures feared yesterday. It seems that many people did get out, calling wives and cops from their cell phones as they went, as did some of the doomed passengers on the hijacked planes. (And a number of the people buried under the towers are still calling for help on their cells. Others got calls from spouses and friends telling them to get out.)
Across the street, a group of structural engineers were reassuring reporters that the towers collapsed of their own structural weakness, the steel melting from the fires, the buildings designed to collapse inward -- rather than fall down -- to save lives.
With their usual hubris, reporters and politicians were promising us that everything was going to change. But if the attacks demonstrate nothing else, it is the folly of that kind of thinking. Terrorists change too, and for all the high-tech equipment pouring into Manhattan, sometimes there isn't a thing we can do to stop them.
It is not like we don't have this on every channel of our TV. It is not like you have some special perspective on what is going on. Please, this is not your "I want to post my feelings" soap box. I was there, I saw it. It is sick, it is unthinkable, but please your monotirade on the subject can be passed on. Please people are coming here to have something else to read besides the 24/7 views we have on TV. Not to forget or forgive, but to look at something else. So as not to get desenitised by it all and become apathetic. Sometimes there is such a thing as just to much. I feel for you, as I feel for everyone envolved, but please do us all a favor and print something besides a rehash of things we are being forced to deal with every minute of the day. Sometimes the best thing is not to have it in your face all the time, otherwise it just gets old. This is not something that was can afford to have people thinking "Jezz enough already", this need to be something that we keep burning until it is righted.
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
Seriously, Mr. Katz, don't you think these people have enough to do without you poking around?
Stay out. Leave them alone. Let them do their jobs. They don't need to worry about your sorry ass while they try to do the hardest thing most of them have ever had to
I would have to say the opposite. The Statue is a symbol of freedom, liberty, and hope, the ideas this nation was founded on. A few thousand mindless salaried workers, living vicariously through their material possessions, in a glorified indentured service, living between paychecks -- do the loss of these people really affect anything? Despite the media hoopla, life will go on as normal once the newscast ratings drop and people get tired of seeing the same 15 minutes worth of footage looped repeatedly on TV. As sorry as I am, simply for the sheer number of victims, I can't say I can hold them above the ideal of Liberty.
Bin Laden being trained by the CIA has nothing to do with nothing. That information isn't very hidden. Would anything be different if the average US citizen knew that? Or what if the Russian had trained him? Do you really get the feeling that the US public is really worried about whoever did this's life story?
You go on with classic 90s leftist claptrap. We bomb people, and shit happens. Leftists moan. We don't bomb, and instead try to enact pressure via sanctions, and rules elect to let their people starve. And leftists moan. The ability of leftists to harvest new territory for moaning is unlimited.
And btw, with you oft repeated, non fact checked leftist bullshit indymedia tripe - its been proven that in that so called 1991 footage there is a palestinian kid running around in a collegiate football jersey of a player who played college ball 95-7. Instead of criticizing the mass media, why not also look within, and maybe not blindly accept and repeat non fact checked forwarded email allegations from some random South American professor as being some legitimate independent media source.
ostiguy
Thank god!
Katz are you trying to say President Bush is a coward and is not in control?
I am a fellow New Yorker living in lower Manhattan (SoHo). I understand the mayor of my city (hell of a guy) jumping in front of the camera every five minutes. Guiliani has not been specifically targeted by the terrorists that slammed into the World Trade Towers. Do you want President Bush to be tap dancing in the rubble before the cameras or meeting with his staff to coordinate a response to this unbelievable ACT OF WAR? Remember, Ari talked about specific tactical information the terrorists appeared to have that only President Bush's security detail should know. Scary. Because of former FBI Agent Robert Hanson(sp?), it has been reported those sort of details were passed to the Russians. Who else might have received them? I wish they would have stuck him in the mountain fortress NORAD maintains.
I, personally, believe the "cautious sing-song" monotone is one hell of a lip bitting act. I would not be surprised if a string of profanity that would make a sailor faint has erupted from his soul in private. Remember what he said about Clymer.
Sure President Bush isn't Bill Clinton (glad handing for the camera today) in the speaking department. But, I don't need anyone to feel my pain right now. I want a cold, calculated, well planned, painful, mass devastation of the terrorists, their homes, their families, their harboring country and any nation caught funding their operation. Rinse. Repeat.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
- If this act was because the US has armed Israel, why then didn't the terrorists go after General Dynamics, Lockheed, Ratheon, or another US company which develops and sells these weapons? Why are they killing a bunch of bankers and stock brokers instead of the guys who developed the F16?
- As much as you might dislike what Israel is doing to the Palestians, they're not the one's going around and intentionally bombing pizza joints and wedding receptions. I have a hard time condeming Israel going after terrorists who are killing people who's only crime is trying to get married.
- If Saddam didn't put his own people in harms way (can you say "human shield"?) they wouldn't get hurt when the US bombs legitiment military targets.
- And if the sanctions are so horrible in Iraq, then why doesn't Saddam simply comply with the UN resoultions and allow them to inspect for bio and chemical weapons? Why is Saddam choosing developing weapons of mass distruction over the welfare of his own people?
- When was the last time American's were dancing in the streets because some Palestians or Iraqi's died in an attack? Honestly, that's what has me the most sick. It's one thing for someone to be a terrorist and kill a few thousand people, it's even worse to be happy about it.
- Yes, everyone loves to complain about American foreign policy. Of course whenever there is any natural disaster or other event (like war) which destroys a nation, the US is always the first there to help and you don't hear people complain then. The US singlehandedly rebuilt most of Europe and Japan after World War II, not to mention countless times we've sent aid to countries for famine, disease, or other natural disasters. Maybe if the rest of the world wasn't so fucked up we wouldn't have to keep getting involved all the time. Somebody has to be the world's police officer and I don't see anyone else asking to fill the role. Oh, and when was the last time another country came and offered help to the US when we had a natural disaster? I don't remember anyone offering help after the San Francisco Loma Predia quake or the hurricanes in Florida. Hell, I don't see Japan, England, France, China, or anyone else for that matter helping us now other than making a few strong statements to the media which will be forgotten in a month.
Frankly, anyone who thinks terrorism is "deserved" or "acceptable" or that "they deserved it" is morally corrupt in my opinion. The whole purpose of terrorism is to attack the innocent population for political purposes. There is no moral high-ground or legitimate reason for terrorism.This is a gross distortion.
The US does not blindly support Israeli policy. In fact, the Bush administration has been quite critical, and so was the Clinton administration. Nowhere NEAR the harshness the Israelis deserve, but then again, you can hardly blame the Israelis feeling the way they do - they want SECURITY, when every fucking nation around them is in a constant state of war, established for the sole purpose of destroying Israel. It was said that negotiations would not continue unless the violence stopped. And the suicide bombings continued. Tell me, what the FUCK are they supposed to do?
US Jets do not randomly bomb civilian targets in Iraq either. They may accidentally bomb civilian targets from time to time, but their intent, one which MANY of my tax dollars go to fund - is to take extreme care to AVOID Iraqi civilian targets, even when the irresponsible Iraqi military puts it's own fucking civilians in harm's way by positioning it's targets among them.
America will never be the same again, but it takes more than a little nick like this to bring us down. As far as it's enemies are concerned, the United States IS invincible.
No matter how much America would modify it's foreign policies to suit any Palistinian refugee's wet dreams, you know damn well that not everyone would be pleased, and such attacks, plots, and hatred would continue. So put a cork in it. We've all heard the hate-filled rhetoric that attempted to justify the attack - and frankly, it falls flat on it's face for what it is. Deciet, Distortion, and Devilry.
Neither this post, nor this article are (Score 5: Interesting).
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
What this magical "American Public" thinks right now is immaterial because their views are based entirely on the biased jingoistic crap on the mass media. Within minutes it was being compared to Pearl Harbor and we were "at war", notwithstanding that even if the ties to bin Laden are correct, this was a criminal act commited by a group of private citizens, not a military attack justifying a military response. In fact your complete denial of causality is the perfect proof of the power of mass media. You admit you don't care who did this or why, and yet you must realize that if not for a century of western meddling dating to World War I, this never would have happened, the WTC would be standing, and thousands of Americans would be alive right now. True, none of this can be changed, but that does not mean that the solution is to perpetuate and even intensify the very conditions that cause attacks such as this. When proper context is not presented, and words like "mindless" and "unprovoked" are repeated endlessly, it plays into the hands of the very people who seek to perpetuate the violence.
Again, context. The sanctions were not necessarily a bad idea immediately after the war, and they were, at that time, preferrable to bombing. But after some time, when the extent of the humanitarian disaster became apparent, and it also became apparent that they were not serving their purpose (to displace Hussein), they should have been ended. That they were not, and remain in place, considering the number of people who have now died, is a crime against humanity.
I accept that this could have been incorrect. I believed it had a high probability of truth only because I had seen nothing else to the contrary (conclusive proof that it WAS current). Even if there is a shirt in the footage that could be dated to no earlier than 1995, that still does not prove that it is current. I am willing to accept that what I have stated is not a fact. I am willing to accept that it might have been hasty and ill-thought to post it as such here (although the source I received that information from is usually quite trustworthy). Perhaps if you could consider carefully the facts surrounding this entire situation yourself, instead of continuing your name-calling and specious, deceptive argument, you would find it beneficial.
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
This is not the only thing Israel are doing. Bulldozing homes? Racist segregation? Shooting at children who dare to throw stones at the police?
I think your news sources are a little biased. Hint: Most US and Israeli news sources are heavily biased in the Israeli direction.
* And if the sanctions are so horrible in Iraq, then why doesn't Saddam simply comply with the UN resoultions and allow them to inspect for bio and chemical weapons?
This is a joke. The sanctions will only be lifted when the UN is satisfied that they are not developing weapons - but there is no way to prove a negative, hence this gives carte blanche to continue the sanctions forever.
Besides, everyone agrees Saddam is evil. If it's his fault, it's madness to place the Iraqi economy in his hands, and therefore it's the US's fault as well. If it's not his fault then it's the US's fault, so either way the US must shoulder some responsibility. Why is the US supporting central planning, for God's sake? I thought the US was supposed to be anti-communist? Why don't they allow innocent Iraqis to trade on the open market?
Yes, everyone loves to complain about American foreign policy.
You can't just dismiss this! Bah. Loans and grants don't make up for installing evil dictatorships, Vietnam, and supporting genocide in East Timor. Wise up. America is no angel on the world stage. More like a Satan, on balance. Don't believe me - read www.zmag.org
Female Prison Rape in NY
Yet, America's blind and unconditional support for Israeli atrocities and crimes against the Palestinian people,
Let's just start with this one. I should point out first that the territories Israel currently occupies which stand beyond its internationally recognized borders circa 1950 are, if you will, trophies of war. They are the result of no fewer than three failed genocidal assaults upon the Israeli people and homeland. They were claimed by Israel as a buffer zone against further attacks, following the reasoning that foreign powers would be less-inclined to attack through these regions if their own people lived in them.
I do not in any way condone Israel's actions or methods. But I do recognize the logic behind their possession of these occupation zones, as well as the ultimate responsibility of the Arab nations which attacked Israel for those zones' existence. The people living in those zones have chosen - or perhaps have been spurred - to revolt. Israel is taking the actions it sees fit - within its own territory - to quell those revolts.
Israel's domestic and foreign policies, and its behavior towards the (well-armed, hostile, and actively revolting) citizens of those zones, are its own business - that is their right as a sovereign nation. All have the right to an opinion regarding them. None have the right to attempt to forcibly alter them.
plus the ongoing American assault against the Iraqis
The Iraqis, as a result of their own actions, have been placed under strict conduct limits. American military power protects those limits. The Iraqis choose - voluntarily - to test those limits and are assaulted in return. This is not naked aggression we're talking about , unlike the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. This is the enforcement of an internationally agreed-upon cease-fire to which Iraq itself is signatory. It is perhaps easiest to think of Iraq as a criminal here in America who has broken the law and has given up a large measure of his or her rights as a consequence.
was bound to boomerang sooner or later.
Yes, I suppose it was. I am detecting a disturbing trend in the Arab world - and I do not fault any one person or persons, nor any religion for this - to expect things to be given them. They demand the ejection of Israel from the Middle East. They demand the withdrawal of support for Israel by the rest of the world. They demand a Palestinian homeland. They demand, they demand. But they offer no concessions, no cooperation. They refuse to assist in curtailing terror factions. They refuse to acknowledge their own grievous violations of human rights. They refuse to accept that the Jews have as much right to a land of their own as the Muslims do (and if strict historical precedence is any indication, *more* so). Most importantly, they refuse to accept that America, as much as any nation on earth - has the right to choose its own allies. Attacks such as the one we suffered on Tuesday are nothing more than a schoolyard bully's attempt to affect another individual's behavior. "Stop being friends with so-and-so or I'll pound you one! Okay, I warned you!".
Reflect, if you will, on the truth of the fact that a nation may choose its own course and its own destiny, its own allies and its own policies, and then try to tell me that we "had this coming."
Just don't be surprised if I laugh in your face before ignoring you completely.
Chris Tembreull
"My karma just ran over your dogma."
Palenstinians never got any of my sympathy:
1) They teach thier children hatred from day ZERO in the name of thier bastard "religion" that brings destruction on 2000 years of civilisation and progress.
2) They shoot thier guns in the air and cry for more blood on TV.
3) They have wreacked havoc on countless nations with thier travesties hijacking planes, and bombing innocent people for decades now! I
Personally have had enough of this shit.
Enough is enough.
Time to start rounding them up and putting them someplace where they can't hurt people. Once we get rid of the governments, the countries and the organizations doing these sorts of terrorist activities, it should be a much quieter place.
The only people who will be left are those willing to settle thier differences at the table, peacefully, like civilised human beings.
Not too mention the fact that once those sorts of precedents are set, people, nations will THINK TWICE before invading, bombing or killing innocent people.
-hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
First is a change in the design of the aircraft itself.Why not make new airplanes where the cockpit is not acessible by the inside ...but instead has a private outside door ?
Bullshit. No offense.
Aircraft Security. Simple. Arm the citizens. If even a modest proportion of Americans were armed, there would have been no hijacking.
They'd have to figure something else out, but for damn sure they'd take several millions armed Citizens into account.
Display some adaptability.
Too bad the speech was lame and he looked like a deer in the headlights. He looked better earlier in the day when he was speaking off the cuff between airplanes rather than staring at a teleprompter; the various world leaders that CNN and BBC were showing were mostly speaking from notes or without notes, and looked much more genuine. I agree with Katz that Giuliani was doing a good job of acting like a leader, and like a mayor, and reacting like an actual human (though almost getting killed like he did will certainly get your attention.) While Bush just didn't.
On the other hand, Bush at least didn't go off on a "we'll kick your ass" rant against anyone specific before they've really identified which Bin Laden was responsible for it; we're better off without that kind of warmongering.
Note on my political biases - I don't like either of these politicians - Giuliani's a fascist who substantially increased government power by inventing extensive abuses of RICO and by pushing poor people and non-"respectable" people out of the visible parts of NYC. But he's doing a great job here. Bush never struck me as being Presidential material - he's a frat boy along for the ride on the coattails of his despicable but competent father and doing whatever the military-industrial complex wants; Jeb Bush would have been a much better choice. And I'm not really impressed here. Bill Clinton would have done a much better job - he may be a sleazy used-car dealer, but he's a really really competent politician. I'm not sure how well Al Gore would have done - he'd be more genuine than the other two, and I'd guess he'd be more likely to end up looking like a leader than Bush, but he could also blow it pretty badly. I'm glad I'm not stick in their shoes this week.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
OK, dickweed, let me rephrase that for you.
When was the last time Americans were dancing in the streets because some Palestinian or Iraqi CIVILIANS were killed?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
'President Bush, sticking to his cautious sing-song monotone, fled to various bunkers and seemed to shrink throughout the day, [and then] Bush got on his best suit and stuck to the prompter.'
I'm going to have to agree with Katz that Bush really didn't set an example that I feel is true for Americans. However, I have to wonder what any of us would do if we where in President Bush's shoes? I couldn't honestly answer that question.
I would like to think that I could be as brave as Mayor Guiliani, but I really might be as cowardly as Bush. Now I am not supporting Bush's actions of hiding out in his bunkers gathering information, and making small comments to the American people. Let's take a second and think.
'Would I put myself in the line of fire? Or would I run and hide?' A tough choice to make, I would hope most of us do not follow Bush's lead, and that we follow Mayor Guiliani's actions.
The Tweak Files: Sanity is for t
"...when was the last time another country came and offered help to the US when we had a natural disaster?"
This year. Last year. The year before. And the year before that.
Ignorant, arrogant, isolationist idiot that you are, you have no idea how often Canada has had to come down to the US to bail your asses out of wildfires, floods, ice storms, and earthquakes.
First to help my fucking ass. America was the *last* to help in WWII, *last* to help in the Yugoslavian conflict, and still hasn't done a damn thing to help Canadian peacekeeping troops in any number of global hotspots.
Plus you refuse to pay up your UN dues, and then figure you still have a voice in the UN.
Your attitude is exactly what earns America a hearty "fuck you" from so much of the world.
If you weren't posting during a time of great grief and a tragedy that strikes at every peaceful country in the world, I'd impolitely remediate your ignorance.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Yes, I agree, we should have stayed and pointed out that practically all of those people accusing Israel of racism is VICIOUSLY racist against Jews and Israel.
The racism conference was a joke, it was hijacked by racists whose sole gole in life is to destroy Israel and kill all the Jews. Every Islamic terrorist organization holds zionism as the biggest evil in the world.
Recently (maybe 4-6 months ago) the news was doing a story on the violence in Jerusalem. They were discussing the Temple mount(that Sharon visited to start this current mess), they had an Islamic cleric on to talk about it, he was saying that there never was a Jewish temple there, claiming that there is no proof! Yet when archaeologists were digging there and unearthing Jewish artifacts the Palestinian's immediately ended the excavation.
Q.
Your arrogance is exceeded only by your ignorance.
Britain has already pledged support for subsequent American action against Terrorism.
Similarly, several teams within the UK have offered to go to New York and help dig through the rubble. And some of those teams have done this many times in the past - usually at earthquake sites. Since the UK doesn't suffer from earthquakes, and yet we have people experienced in coping with their aftermath, that rather implies we do go help other countries too.
As for 'singlehandedly rebuilt most of europe and japan' - don't even dream for a moment that it wouldn't have happened without US help. Also consider that the US was the only nation of any size or power in the entire WWII that didn't have its infrastructure and manufacturing capability bombed senseless (or worse) during that war. Which meant that the US didn't have to cope with their own country, whereas everybody else did. Britain was bankrupted during WWII because we defended Poland from the aggressive Germany - I don't recall the US helping out then!
Incidentally, the terrorists probably knew that financial targets were better than factories - higher death count, far far greater impact on the world economy - and America really hurts when the economy is bad.
As for Iraq: Why shouldn't Saddam hold weapons of mass destruction? Maybe he sees them as his only defense against American aggression? Maybe he obstructs UN observers BECAUSE he is under sanctions, BECAUSE his air force can't fly over their own country without coming under attack?
Maybe the US fucked up bigtime by not finishing the Gulf War in the first place, pulling out because the American people were scared of the possibility of American deaths.
Shit, and here was me hoping Americans would learn something from this incident. Obviously not.