"signs that things are getting better"

[annabanana]

This is the line that begins EVERY SINGLE MEDIA PIECE about NO this morning. And each piece is studded with "the President will tour..." and "finally seeing progress and signs of hope"...

And everything is just find and progressing well and nothing else to see here folks we have it all under control so go back into your stupor and don't worry your beautiful minds anymore with this unpleasantness and filth and squalor and poverty and death and loss............

AGAIN I am screaming at the TV..

[KharmaTrain]

1. It's Better Than A Week Ago

That's said, look at what what was happening.

For the folks of that region, I only wish some sembelence of order after all they've been through. If that's happening in some small way, it is an improvement.

I see the tendency on DU for people to wish the worst of a bad situation, not to spite the victims, but in their hate to this regime. Be it predictions of 25,000 dead bodies or the disappointment that the count wasn't so high.

The corporate media is going to spin and lie...but the facts can't be erased or photo-op'd or schmoozed away. Millions of American who felt they were safer two weeks ago, don't today. Nothing the talking heads are going to say since this regime has lied so often it has zero credibility.

I'm seeing more and more people who are openly critical and ridiculing this regime now than I've ever seen. That's what the people are really saying.

[soup]

6. 'Wish' the worst, Expect the worst, or See the worst?

I have to hope, and believe, that nobody here 'wishes the worst' for any given situation under any circumstances. Expect the worst wrapped in sugar-coating, see the worst and hope to avert or change it, yes. But wish the worst? Guess I'm missing something.

Otherwise, good post, and I agree. There's a change in the air. Unfortunately it took the destruction of the Gulf Coast, and this much pain and devastation for many to get beyond the sweet lies. Horrible price to pay.

[KharmaTrain]

8. It's Extended Outrage

My point was how some, in their outrage at this regime have shown an almost wishful hope to see a high death toll...while I've read others who seem upset it won't be as high. Inversely, I think it's sickening when I hear a Repugnican say "it's not as high as we thought"...as though less deaths absolve the travesty that occured.

For those of us who paid attention and watched this storm build and come ashore, we expected the worst. Personally I was real concerned about the storm surge going into Lake Ponchetrain...which it did...and how it could overspill the levees. I'm no civil engineer and just had Weather Channel and websites...yet somehow I know a lot more than the mucky muck crooks in Washington.

I think many in this country are starting to realize how had they have been had. Many suspected things were being done on the sly or they would tolerate a certain degree of hubris. For the most part it was removed from their lives.

That's no longer the case...but we're still not to the point where people are gonna grab pitchforks and torches and march on the White House. Sadly there's more prices to pay due to this regime's corruption and it's going put this country through a lot more soul searching. Here's hoping the good souls prevail.

Cheers and thank-you...

[annabanana]

11. nobody "wishes the worst"

But we have been lied to with such staggering regularity that the standard line, whatever it is, when it is repeated without variety by every single major media source..... it is, and must be, suspect.

We must become a connoisseurs of the media and know the mass-produced from the homemade.... recognize when it's made of natural ingredients and when it's full of partially hydrogenated crap.

[leveymg]

2. Restoration of order phase of the story-telling process

Happens every time. What's left on almost all of our minds, however, is that much the filth and squalor and death and loss could have been prevented. That's a step forward.

[Qibing Zero]

3. This is a result of the 24/7 news media

You remember why you don't watch it when tense situations finally start to die down, and there is less and less going on. They really have nothing to talk about, but fear that if they start offering thought-provoking discussion they'll end up with a CSPAN-like atmosphere (which they absolutely fear in this advertising/consumer age).

[liberal N proud]

4. Never forget New Orleans

That shall be the battle cry for the 2006 elections and beyond.
Never forget 9/11 has worked for the bu$h regime, this is the anti 9/11... It proves to the nation that bu$h and his cronies are incompetent and we need to take that to the voting booths in Nov 06.

We are NOT safer than before 9/11, If anything we are less safe.

[merbex]

5. It doesn't matter what they say, B* fumbled the ball,he doesn't

get a second chance to make a first impression about this event,and people are waking up to the toatl incompetence that permeates this administration

With soaring gas and heatng prices and winter coming B* could LIVE in NO and personally rebuild homes ala Jimmy Carter and it won't mean shit to his poll ratings

Stick a fork in him he's done

Finally and at a terrible human cost

[XanaDUer]

7. Now "Today" is talking about how * screwed up Katrina

and how his numbers are low, low, low.

The male anchor is even saying that, after two weeks, they are trying to create a "level of engagement" like after 9/11.

[acmejack]

9. Geez, I rushed to open this thread-needed to know things were improving...

But, alas, everything remains hopelessly fubar, at least to the eye of a layman.

[pepperlove]

10. Media whores....

will keep on talking like that until the numbers go back UP for * ... it is infuriating.. he struts in and out of NO now at leisure and people seem to fall all over him (as shown on TV of course)... makes me :puke:

[WildClarySage]

12. Signs that things are back to normal-

the media has gone back to parroting the latest RW spin.

[PATRICK]

13. Some of this is institutional boosterism

for the American legend. Some of it is the same response in the aftermath of any catastrophe, a ceremonial "moving on", like having your hand held by the coroner until he escorts you out the door.

It is fairly safe to expect this is bolstered by their prostrate bending to the WH will so this ritualistic news function is tainted, rendered suspicious for many more Americans. The news organizations response, like any other professional caught in destructive behavior, is to keep doing it until it starts to work again.

many people here are constantly cheered by some reporter switching on a light bulb, displaying judgment, compassion, outrage or conscience, some flicker of doing their job, but the trajectories will always veer- for now- back to the power line. It is systemic. To think that any deviation or individual signals a sea change is judging the ocean by the boats plowing against the waves. Soon the atmosphere will right itself. The hypnotist hand will wave from the screen. No, one will not forget the disappearing words from the MSM. One will not be much comforted by the sop poured out cheerily amid a return to trivial distractions.

But one will find the impetus to take action dissipated like the winds of the hurricane. And no political leader knows how to keep the fight for justice alive or appears much able to act or lead to action.

A riveting memory of a picture of a reporter holding a child joined obscenely withe chamber of commerce recovery mode. Even now Silverado Bush is probably printing t-shirts with the logo "I Survived Katrina" to sell at $29.95 to survivors(implanted with locator chips) with one dollar off if using the provided ATM card.

And those wearing those shirts will not be allowed to come home. The press will react a bit to that predictable story and that too shall pass.