Great satire: Katrina and People Like Us

[drscott]

This is the funniest skewering of the self-important I've seen in a long time, and applies to a lot of the posting here recently as well as to HuffPo.

I knew if I restrained myself from writing about it, somebody else would do it better.

In a related note, Yahoo put together a meta-list of "missing people" sites, and when I put Volney's name in, it turned out he was being sought by several people. I transferred the info to Volney via Bear411, and he swore he'd have gotten around to them eventually. :-)

Comments

[abearius.livejournal.com]

Please tell me that knit ties aren't really back in fashion.

[goldibehr.livejournal.com]

We are not implying that cannibalism is bad. Here at the Huffpo, we love ancient, spiritual cultures. And you can't get much more ancient or spiritual than the Anasazi tribe, and they used cannibalism in religious ceremonies as a method to get followers to pay tribute and build monuments. What these folks were doing was a religious, healing process. In a pot.

*snicker*

[tdjohnsn.livejournal.com]

OMG...that's too funny.

(and thank you for posting it. It is -really- nice to know that someone I know (at least peripherally) thought it was funny. If I ever voiced approval of something like that on my pages my "friends" would rip me a new one. I think that is why I don't post all that often anymore.)

[abearius.livejournal.com]

I thought it was funny, too, even though I would fault it for conflating all positions into an acts of rhetorical posturing. (That's "bullshit" in less polite terms.) People (victims and onlookers alike) are pissed about the we we've prepared for and handled Katrina, and rightly so. Granted some people, like Pelosi or Clinton, are working the political consequences of this, which is kind of what career politicians do, so I don't find it all that shocking. But equating every instance of this outrage with pretentious intellectualism or facile demagoguery is as smug and irresponsible an attitude as the ones it mocks. That kind of is the point of satire, after all, but just because it sounds good doesn't mean it adequately describes the situation at hand.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

That's one of the reasons Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) is so popular: the normal news uncritically transmits premade, spun content from the various power centers, but Stewart et al satirize them at the same time they cover the daily news. Which puts the perspective where it belongs. A piece like this one is more of a self-contained antidote to a constant diet of high-minded, self-interested propaganda, and so of course it can't delve into the serious parsing of the true from the false or misleading.

But it's funny.

[abearius.livejournal.com]

That is the danger and the allure of satire. To write it or to understand it, you have to be so deeply aware of and invested in the paradigm it attacks that you feel the pain of the contradictions it exposes, which is what makes you laugh. The danger comes when you accept the satire as normative discourse. Then you become an ethical monstrosity like Sean Hannity. Or Hunter S. Thompson. In those cases, the only real language becomes the ability to mock and distort your opponents, a process that leads you to forget how to structure or express compassion, even when the only means you have for expressing it is frustrated anger.

I'd prattle on about this for hours, but I have to shove on. The tarantula is looking for me.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I heard. :-) You should probably stop thinking for a few hours. Most of the world is happily ignorant, people treating each other largely kindly, children playing, life going on. The spiders come from thinking the marbling of venality in all human societies invalidates the good.

Your point re: satire is well taken. But without it those who are sure of themselves would run roughshod over those of us who know enough to be uncertain.

[abearius.livejournal.com]

No, no, no, no, no, Dr. Scott. You have it all wrong. The tarantulas are vortices of self-realization. They merely manifest themselves as giant taranulas so that you will resist them until you are ready to be consumend by them. It's all highly symbolic, you see. Highly symblic.

As for satire, I [perhaps vaguely] recall that one of the Celtic triads lists mockery as one of the Druids' special powers. It worked because they were, as ecclesiastics and philosophers, intimately connected with military and civil administration. It was also a power of the bards. A few instances in the Mabinogion associate it with the wives of powerful men. Basically anyone who controlled language could ruin the reputation of(or destroy the confidence of) even the bravest and most capable king, or bring the most deserving villain to ruin.

[mrdreamjeans.livejournal.com]

I'm probably one of the people targeted as overly earnest:) I will continue to care about issues, about politics, about the ineptness of our goverment. I'll write about them whether I reach a high standard or not...whether anyone reads what I write or not.

It's really easy to write something like this guy's satirical drivel, to skewer, to puncture conceits, live in a place of refined cynicism. It's like a theater critic who finds it easier to be destructive, rather than constructive in their analysis.

I see where some people might find it amusing; I'm not on that list. This guy's post alone is regurgitation of a certain self-involved point of view. *sigh*....maybe I''m just really tired and temporarily lost my sense of humor....

I am angry about what has happened in the wake of Katrina. I am also trying to do what I can to be part of a solution, assist in the recovery.

Regardless, I miss you, my friend. Hugs....

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

There's nothing wrong with being angry at the terrible things you're seeing and hearing about. Just don't let that anger be used by people who would direct it toward selfish goals of their own. It's often wise to step back from it and ask yourself what you really know about what you think is going on; then you can more rationally pursue a course of action in response. It will be weeks or months before the many failures of many people can be sorted out and separated from rumor and spin, so I'll do my bit to help, but not come to any conclusions as to who (if anyone) didn't do their jobs.

[abearius.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is a fuckup all right. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure that out. Just looking at the reactions. Turning away the Red Cross, putting a surge of volunteer first responders on hold, not calling in help, banning the press from the scene, etc. are classic reactions in a situation where things are happening fast and the people in charge don't know what to do. (Perhaps I am being too personal, but I have done the same thing when I was overwhelmed and did not know how to ask for help, or even have any clue as to what the right response to a situation should or could be. And I have seen others do the same.)

This is not to say that these people are pernicious; it just means that they are not competent to respond to a crisis of this magnitude. They should step down because, frankly, they aren't really in charge to begin with. And who appointed them? *the wheels of simple mathematics are in motion*

I agree with your methodology, but you do not have to be a specialist to see how bad we've handled all of this. You can just compare our response to Cuba's or China's.

http://www.ifrc.org/publicat/wdr2002/chapter2.asp

Hurricane Michelle ripped through Cuba in November 2001, the most powerful storm since 1944. But just five people died. Successful civil defence and Red Cross planning ensured that 700,000 people were evacuated to emergency shelters in time. Search-and-rescue and emergency health-care plans swung into action. In Havana, electricity and water supplies were turned off to avoid deaths from electrocution and sewage contamination. Cuba’s population was advised in advance to store water and clear debris from streets that might cause damage. Later, the United Nations (UN) reported that the government’s “high degree of disaster preparedness... was decisive in the prevention of major loss of life”.


How da ya like them apples, Dottore?

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

Well, one interesting factoid, sourced from many places but even in the Daily Kos:

The Red Cross has been saying for a while now that the state DHS was preventing them from entering New Orleans. Since the Superdome is a subset of New Orleans, I don't see how this is new information or in any way capitulation to the Bush Spin Machine.

Believe it or not, the two aren't mutually exclusive. Just because FEMA, Brownie, Chertoff and Dubya really really royally fucked up doesn't mean that the Lousiana or New Orleans authorities may not also have fucked up. If, in your desire to see Bush blamed, you turn a blind eye to the facts then you're really sinking to the level of the Bush Spin Machine.

That's the point at which the average news consumer reasons, "I can hear Republicans spouting their talking points or Democrats spouting theirs, so I may as well conclude the truth is unknowable and tune out." Very postmodern, but not conducive to what we all want to see -- Bush held accountable. Don't contribute to the spin vs. spin scenario -- don't rewrite history to make the Red Cross a Republican propaganda pawn when in reality, they've been saying for days that the Louisiana authorities kept them out.

There will be more than enough to blame Bush for while letting this one pass in the name of truth.

It appears a great deal of the fuckup was in corrupt and incompetent local governments. As this quote says, the only charges that will stick are the ones that are true.

[abearius.livejournal.com]

I'm not making the point that you refute, so I agree with you. :-) The Republicans have not cornerd the market on lazy, corrupt politicians.

Still, the fact that Cuba does this better than us is, well, rich.

And Furthermore. . .

[abearius.livejournal.com]

Charles Dean is an embarrassment.

[abearius.livejournal.com]

You go right on dreaming in them jeans, Bubba. I'm right there with you and I have better links, too. (http://www.ifrc.org/publicat/wdr2002/chapter2.asp)