CBS Evening News DISINFORMATION ALERT

[rbajai]

I was just watching the CBS Evening News and could not believe it. They were debunking all the reports of rapes, murders, and horrible conditions in the Superdome/New Orleans convention center. They said reports of these things were greatly exaggerated. Soon people will be saying, "Ah, the Superdome wasn't that bad anyhow. And not that many people died. So maybe Bush isn't to blame after all."

Is the disinformation campaign starting in the MSM? Has Rove gotten to them?

[Guaranteed]

1. I believe that this is actually the position of many on DU.

For some reason.

[Mr_Spock]

27. Yeah, there are offsetting issues - stereotypes are bad also

It's not like there is a winner here - the crime was bad but maybe exaggerated and leaving them with no food and water was bad.

I think the O/P has missed the point?

[babylonsister]

2. CNN's Cooper reported this last night; perhaps the media

over-reported and fabricated during those days after Katrina hit?

[marions ghost]

30. CNN literally did a retraction

saying that actually there were maybe about 6 dead at the dome--4 from natural causes, 1 from overdose and 1 suicide.

I'm doing what I can to spread this "adjustment' to the legend but the story really took hold--sad how so many believed it.

[Catch22Dem]

3. I think some of that stuff WAS exaggerated

to paint the New Orleanians as savage sub-humans. This thing plays both ways. I know the freeptards were drooling over the news of savage behavior at the Superdome because it reenforced their racist views. I'm not saying things like that didn't happen, but I do think some things were exaggerated as well.

[cynatnite]

9. I agree...

Everything was so chaotic and seeing so much trauma on TV like we did it's no wonder that it's so easy to believe the worst.

Anderson Cooper and Aaron Brown were discussing this last night. They both agreed the world will never know the complete truth of what went on. Anderson said that it's possible there was one body with four different people looking at it at different times, then it became four bodies. This is just an example of how it can be exaggerated.

I also agree that the right latched onto these and used it to reinforce their racism.

[JuniperLea]

14. i agree

as another excuse for not coming to their aid right away. the freeptards must think these people were somehow not deserving of assistance because of their behavior. i also think they way they talk about this situation is leading themselves to believe that all the people there were behaving badly.

[Nitrogenica]

16. That is what happened. We paid attention, it was a swift boat smear

http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2005/09/cindy_sheehan.html

[mikeytherat]

45. Just a comment on your "fuzzies"

I have three ferrets right now -- have had more than 30 ferrets over the years, though 15 was the most I ever had at one time (that was a handful!).

mikey_the_rat

[kath]

40. I think a lot of that stuff was deliberately exaggerated as a WillieHorton

-type maneuver.

[Catch22Dem]

49. Willie Horton indeed

Good call.

[proud2BlibKansan]

53. I agree with you

I didn't believe most of the stories when we first heard them and I don't believe them now either. The point was to make the victims seem unworthy of our sympathy. And I think it worked in some respects.

My son has a friend who spent several days in the Superdome and he didn't know about any murders of rapes. Seems like he would have heard something if there was any truth to these stories.

[LSK]

4. oh sure, no food, water, bed, toilet, shower, AC

It was a real PICNIC wasnt it! :sarcasm:

[JuniperLea]

7. like camping out with thousands of your best friends

[acmejack]

17. Indoors though! Camping in?

[JuniperLea]

20. yeah, you know

putting blankets over the back of dining room chairs; microwave popcorn and s'mores... jolly good fun.

[valerief]

5. And Kenyon or whatever the corpse-collecting company is called

will make sure the dead they find are crushed into the nothingness, too.

Lying bastards, all of them.

[Lex]

6. A racist media helped fan the flames that the blacks in New Orleans

were too scary and dangerous to send help in to.

The Red Cross was scared to go in because of the hysterical, racist shit the mainstream media was spewing.

Sure, conditions were freaking terrible and the people needed food and water and medical help ASAP, but they weren't murdering and raping randomly like savages. Which is what the media was saying.

Goddamn.

[Maddy McCall]

10. Exactly. The media fed stereotypical images of "savage black people"

[rodeodance]

11. lots of rumors and no communication eqip to verify much at all.

[rodeodance]

13. these horrible rumors did prevent help from arriving earlier.

[rodeodance]

8. A Nat. Guard Gen was on last night. said very little violence at the Dome.

[aquart]

28. Screw the violence. TELL ME ABOUT THE TOILETS.

Let's talk water, food, DEATH from dehydration.

I am uninterested in the "violence."

Tell me about the heat in that airless black hole.

[Tomee450]

29. I saw that interview.

I also heard a photographer say that most of the crowd was well behaved, not acting violently at all.

[Lindsay]

12. I didn't see the news report, but I think we (and the media)

need to differentiate between the reports of crime and the reports of conditions there.

I did hear on one news report the coroner saying that the reports of murder were not born out by the bodies he'd seen.

OTOH, the conditions for the evacuees at the Superdome and Convention Center were horrendous - the heat and humidity, no food or water, sanitary facilities way insufficient for the number of people, and locked down "for their own protection."

My own suspicion is that many of the "crimes" reported were Rovian spin to "prove" that a big military presence was required to keep order. Big oops, there, Rover. Facts got in the way of spin for once.

[shraby]

24. Bingo! You win the gold star. They wanted to

push military take over and violence was the key...whether there was violence or not as long as the public perceived there was a lot of it was what was necessary.

[Gold Metal Flake]

38. Thank you!

Your suspicion is supported by how shrub tried to use relief to blackmail Blanco into federalizing the LA-NG. The stories of rapes and murders of women and children at the hands of evil inner city men (read scary nigrahs) were trumpeted like a clarion call to the radical right's base of racist pigs.

Fact was, people helped each other. People sought out and brought back food and water. It is very important, now that we see that NOLA was allowed to be destroyed by Bushco for profit, that we expose every lie we can. It's important for when we take power, we must force our reps to do the right thing and return NOLA to it's citizens.

Another thing about NOLA: Imagine for a moment the amount of familial history that has been destroyed. Family history in documents going back to the time of slavery and before. Proof not only of family heritage going back to Africa, but also proof of the terrible crimes of kidnap and enslavement. Vital history washed away. What a massive crime. Yet, I am sure there are those who would take pleasure and comfort in that loss.

[MidwestTransplant]

15. See Bar Bush was right! I knew it!

[hippiegranny]

18. My understanding of this

is that the initial reports of less than exemplary conduct of those stuck there was incorrect. It was as if the press was trying to portray the victims as savage animals, thereby lessening any sympathy people would have for them. Kind of like how they reported that rescuers were being "shot at" by the stranded. Only to find out later that they were only trying to capture the attention of the rescuers. Kind of like how they showed pictures of a white family carrying loaves of bread and captioned the photo "they found food" while at the same time showing a picture of blacks with food and bread with captions of "looters."

[pretzel4gore]

19. the pigmedia lies

roberts wouldn't have been confirmed if the pigmedia never lied....it's got nothing to do with the mess at superdome....the pigmedia LIES! about everything, all the time....
i notice there are lotsa people at DU who cannnot accept that the pigmedia lies and that's it....

[Berry Cool]

21. I guess I was watching different media than some of you

The media I was watching pointed out how terrible the conditions were for the people living in these "shelters," without spinning tales about the crime or violence.

[pretzel4gore]

55. maybe rage colours perspective(?)

between the bush crims and their well paid whores (jennings estate worth $50 million, didya hear? that was NOT for his journalistic skills!) rage is the fuel that drives everything for me nowadays. so possibly your perpective is closer to the truth: nevertheless i will believe anything about the nazipoos, the worse, the better....

[formercia]

22. Baghdad on the Bayou didn't happen

now we have to figure out who had an agenda to precipitate the ordering of Federal Troops into New Orleans. These armed troops should have put away their guns and helped people instead of driving around in armored vehicles and neglecting the people who needed help. Citizens were in more danger from being shot by trigger happy police and troops than they ever were from looters and thugs.

What did happen and is still happening is mismanagement and fraud.

[sando]

23. Just one lil ol point

In the many days of watching the horrors at the Superdome and the Convention Center I never once heard any of the people being interviewed there ever mention a number of people who'd been killed violently. Did anyone else ever see this? As I recall the people I heard were talking mainly about having no water, no food, no medicine, and were basically afraid they would die there from thirst and heat. So what is this BS that the press is trying to pass off on us? I believe they want us to look at something that didn't happen and in doing so take our eyes of the things that did happen, ie Bush and Co was absent and the Feds did nothing to help those people.

[rodeodance]

42. the mayor himself made comments about killings, rapes.

[rbajai]

25. Ah, okay, I understand more now.

Thanks for your comments all. I think it is a little clearer to me now. You all made some great points.

[aquart]

26. It's on PBS, too.

And an NBC guy is testifying that nobody could show him anyone who had been raped.

[applegrove]

31. Oh - I think the fact that many died from lack of water is bad enough.

That's not going to be debunked.

[pitohui]

34. it's being debunked as we speak

today they released the first official list of the dead in louisiana from katrina

there are 32 names on that list

32!

they did include the name of the lady who aaron broussard brought to notoriety, eva rodriguez, otherwise they'd prob. sweep her under the rug too!

more than that are known dead in st. rita's nursing home alone -- 34

yes they are lying thru their teeth abt the reality of crime in new orleans, abt the reality of the violence & the gangs, and now they want the dead swept under the damn rug

it is truly outrageous

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09_29.html#083575

[applegrove]

39. Sorry - but many died who didn't need to and many were traumatized.

That does not change.

[pitohui]

32. yes absolutely

donald trump discovered he would have trouble financing his new $200 million project in new orleans if tourists knew the truth about our crime problem...so history must be rewritten in front of our eyes

sad, it dishonors the dead, and it also dishonors the victims of the murders and rapes, who are primarily black, while pretending it is somehow racist to report these crimes

eddie compass went from saying that rapes & murders were running wild to saying that there were zero rapes, the day after the zero rape claim, he resigned from the new orleans police force

this is way dirty, to cover up the dead & the raped because they inconvenience the powerful

i really did not think they would sink this low

[slaveplanet]

47. You are correct

Massive coverup going on.

Sadly we are never going to know now what the scope of the violence was.

The people that buy into this latest version are complicit in the dishonor.

Let's peel back the fog and examine how this story has morphed.

One of the first detailed versions in print can be sourced to Brian Thevenot reporting certain bodies that both died from environmental and violence as fact.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09_06.html

Now Brian Thevenot can be sourced to this latest round of new lower count findings: At the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, just four bodies were recovered, despites reports of corpses piled inside the building. Only one of the dead appeared to have been slain, said health and law enforcement officials.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09_26.html#082732

If you read both articles carefully, you will see that he is sourcing others for his conclusions.

Either way he has no business writing either of these articles.

but that hasn't stopped AP from picking up and running with both stories....Now CBS, and CNN have done the same.

He has no business writing them because if he wanted to know what the REAL story was, he could have gotten off his ass and gone down there and reported it first hand.

LIKE A REAL REPORTER

now we've all seen the TV camera reporters on scene at both the SD and CC. I have on video, evacuees telling the camera that there are bodies in there(CC).

so now the MSM expects us to believe that they never went in those buildings to verify those claims?
what a load of crap...
either they are so chickenshit they have no business on our TV screen...or they did go in and do not want us to know the truth(I'm referring here to the reports done while the crowds were still there, not afterwards)

Now I've searched all over for any first hand reporter's report(the reporter is the actual witness) and I've come up nearly empty.
I now think I know why.

One reporter did get into the CC to view the refrigerator.

This Reuters account gives us a clue as to the difficulty of that prospect. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N03464940.htm
"People here said there were now 22 bodies of adults and children stored inside the building, but troops guarding the building refused to confirm that and threatened to beat reportersseeking access to the makeshift morgue."

He himself tells of the difficulty: As we walked past the Windsor Court hotel, we were stopped by a female state trooper. "Y'all came over here without guns? Don't go there. Don't go there unless you have a machine gun around your neck.

In another account he tells how he evaded checkpoints:

I began my day about 6 a.m. in the parking lot of a Waffle House in Baton Rouge, La. Daily News photographer Mike Appleton and I had slept in the car. There isn't a hotel room to be found from Texas to Arkansas.

We gassed up the SUV, fueled ourselves with coffee and headed for New Orleans. Police at a checkpoint turned us back - no media allowed, they said - so we pulled out the map, figured out some back roads with help from the locals, and shadowed the mighty Mississippi on our way into town.

and another: http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/24990/

AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe how you got into New Orleans yesterday?

TAMER EL-GHOBASHY: Yesterday we got into New Orleans by trying our best to circumvent the various police checkpoints along the main interstate and the surrounding larger arteries. With the help of some local folks, we were able to use back roads that were at that point unmanned by police.

Having no Internet and phone in New Orleans, we are forced to go back to Baton Rouge in order to transmit our reports and our pictures. I'm with a photographer by the name of Michael Appleton, but today we got in. They had -- the back roads were manned. They were only letting in emergency vehicles, according to them. We found a way by doing something rather unadvisable, but we got here.

AMY GOODMAN: What was that?

TAMER EL-GHOBASHY: Well, we drove on the levee for a portion of our trip...

AMY GOODMAN: What is it like to drive on the levee?

TAMER EL-GHOBASHY: It's nerve wracking simply because you don't want to get caught, but otherwise there's plenty of room on it to actually fit a car across of it. It's designed to have vehicles drive on it, whether it be emergency vehicles or official vehicles or what.

AMY GOODMAN: Surrounded by water?

TAMER EL-GHOBASHY: No. No. The portions that - at that area are completely dry. The only evidence of the hurricane you would see are sporadic downed wires, downed trees, and maybe some signs ripped out of the ground. Things like that.

He perseveres
He was wary of the rumors:
"I was skeptical of the claim and a man took me to a massive refrigerator in the center's kitchen."

What does he see:
"Eight bodies were inside, though there was no power to keep the refrigerator on. I found the other two corpses around the back, on a loading dock.

The body of an elderly woman sat in a wheelchair covered with a red-and-blue checkered cloth. Her feet stuck out and had blood on them. Next to her was a woman wrapped in a white sheet."
http://www.nydailynews.com/09-02-2005/news/v-pfriendly/story/342770p-292645c.html


So there you have it...a first hand reporters account

Why is that being ignored for the newer accounts?

let's take a look at the OSS handbook on how to psyops an atrocity....

http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/oss/psywarmanualnotes.htm

11. What makes a good atrocity story. I am convinced that a large portion of the atrocity stories being used by the Allies, e.g. in BBC's broadcast in Arabic, are ineffective even though probably true. It may be that the confirmed liar can tell a more convincing atrocity story than an honest man. Atrocities are probably more readily believed when attributed to a group unambivilant hatred. Atrocities with precedent are probably also better. Effective atrocities should be poignantly presented, full of human interest stuff, of pathos or real horror. At the same time, there probably are psychological factors making a civilized person reject or fail to assimilate the full impact of the atrocities stories, no matter how true.

12. Effective denial in propaganda. The propagandist should know how to effectively deny false claims or the true claims spread by the enemy. Some in use are effective, others pathetically inadequate. One hunch is to study the diversions that creep into the denial of an outright false-hood and the denial of something without a grain of truth in it. The propagandist should strive to make the denial of a semi-truth follow the pattern of a confidential denial of a clear-cut falsehood. One should not overdo the characteristics of the latter, however, at the same time one may want to purposely use ineffective denials in order to spread rumors and the like, thus, if we are trying to get a given rumor spread, an official statement that persons in power have no comment to make would probably lend popular credence to the rumor.

------------------

Everyone tries to pull the truth to their side, but more times than not....It lay somewhere in the middle.

Reports of the brutality, some feel, make the victims look like savages, Likewise covering it up dishonors the victims and lets the snakes slither away

[Lydia Leftcoast]

33. Even if everyone behaved perfectly, they were still without food and water

in sweltering heat and forced to live in unsanitary conditions. They were abandoned for days on end.

[rodeodance]

43. some of the people were interviewed--'tension' was the big word and

scared.

[ucmike]

35. i'm sure the truth is in the middle somewhere

i beleive there was some chaos and violence such as was reported, but not in the overwhelming numbers first reported. i think this was the result of the media craving anything sensational to report, then reporting the same instances from different view points. if there were 5 bodies in the superdome and 1000 people saw them, and told someone it would seem that there were 5000 bodies. it also has to do with the tendency to exaggerate in the face of disaster and overwhelming circumstances. remember the "dozens" of missing planes on 9/11, how about the fires and bombings in dc prior to the pentagon attack?

the reason i doubt these reports is from past experience with racially based disaster rumors.
-within hours of 911 there were reports that no jews went to work in nyc that day-nonsense of course. there were reports that the entire arab community in paterson, or paramus, or edison, or was it rutherford....took to the streets in spontaneous celebration. i've yet to meet anyone who actually witnessed it or even saw video of it.
-hours after the recent london bombings there were credible press outlets reporting that -again- jews were warned to stay home. in fact, rumors had the isreali consulate making official warnings of bombings scheduled for that morning. of course, it was just rumors or worse.

there is a rascist element out there that seems to spring into action immediatley whenever there is a chance to blame some minority or ethnic group. it happens everytime there is a large scale disaster.

[bklyncowgirl]

36. Fear of violence delayed aid

Choppers were afraid to fly in and evacuate hospital patients. Even the National Guard was afraid to to go in until they could appear in overwhelming force.

[bloom]

37. They were afraid of violence even before there were rumors of violence...

From someone who was there - and who volunteered to help out with a special needs group:

"The people in the special needs section were given priority when evacuations from the Superdome first started. By Tuesday evening, all but 30 immobile special needs persons remained, and they were laid out on military issued cots.

Two highly dedicated and deeply concerned military nurses remained with the patients that evening. They told me something that sent shivers down my spine. They very somberly said they wanted to help me. So they informed me that after midnight, the generators were expected to fail and plunge the Superdome into unannounced pitch darkness. They added when that happened, the soldiers would withdraw because they would be incapable of maintaining order or defending themselves. The nurses urged me to find a hiding place inside the stadium or to head out in the waist-deep water that surrounded the Superdome and seek shelter elsewhere. That night, I kept pacing between the special needs area and the small concourse outside the Superdome.

I understood that if the lights went out in the Superdome at night, pandemonium would break out and a horrific stampede would follow. I finally understood why the soldiers had earlier positioned a few concession stands as a makeshift barricade around the special needs group. I sat on a bench off the empty concourse of the Superdome, which was usually packed during the day, waiting for the lights to fade out and the screams to begin. For the first time, I thought to myself, this could be the day I die. At 4 a.m., I dozed off without realizing it... I woke up Wednesday morning relieved the generators had not given out during the previous night and headed back to a small section of the Superdome set aside for mostly elderly people with special needs.

The atmosphere in the dome had gotten incredibly tense and the soldiers were walking around with shotguns, which I assumed was an ideal weapon for close quarter combat.

Twice the day before people had walked up to the special needs area bleeding from either accident or fight injuries thinking we were the first aid station, which was actually one floor below us. When I got to the special needs group, I realized the conditions there were horrendous and deteriorating rapidly. Many of the special needs people had been in their feces- and urine-soiled gowns for three days and all of them had been sweating profusely in the sweltering unventilated stadium.

Without medical training, there was little I could do but fan them, give them water through syringes or talk with them. One of the ladies was a 91-year-old great-great-grand mother who had immigrated from Cuba when she was 25 years old. I would practice my amateur Spanish with her and she would correct me. One of the men there was a retired Tulane University police officer who was now paralyzed from the neck down. He told me stories of students who bought him lunch after begging him not to inform their parents he busted them.

At 5 p.m. (Wed.), the last special needs person was loaded onto an open-top, high-bed military truck and I was given permission to join them. I stepped onto the truck with only the clothes on my back and nothing inside my pockets. When I asked why the truck was about to leave when it could accommodate twice as many people, a soldier replied they had not yet devised a way to evacuate people from the crowd in an orderly fashion without starting a riot. Remembering all the children and elderly people who thronged the crowded hallways of the floors above me, I could not shake the guilty feeling in me."

http://www.idsnews.com/subsite/story.php?id=30911

----

I think the fear of riots was ridiculous and FEMA/the military did everything they could to encourage rioting.

[formercia]

44. They wanted to declare martial law on a federal level

Bush wants absolute control and this was a way to set an agenda to push through legislation giving him more powers.

[Name removed]

41. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[HoosierClarkie]

46. Isn't that what Harry Connick Jr. has been saying all along.

So What? It doesn't change the fact that the people were abandoned and treated inhumanely! This pisses me off because they are going to spin this into, "Well the media hates Bush and there were not that many people stranded and bla bla bla" They are good spin doctors, but I will NEVER forget what really happened. A bunch of dumbasses doing nothing to help these people. Yes, there were babies who died! Yes there were people who were shot at by National Guard trying to get help! No, our Federal government did not care enough to help until a WEEK later. Then, they left the bodies in the street for starving dogs to eat! I do not care how many times they try to rewrite the script.

[ComerPerro]

48. So they are done blaming the people of NO, and are now just denying?

[moondust]

50. The RW spread the exaggerations.

And got them into the media. Typically trying to paint those black people as criminals.

[stevedeshazer]

51. You make me laugh. Nice try.

Try to peddle this spin elsewhere.

[shance]

52. I think the media fabricated the violence and chaos and rapes,

probably from the Administrations propaganda corps, however the deaths I believe have been huge and they are trying now to mix the two together (violence and death) which should not be confused. The deaths are being covered up as we speak.

Just look at who's dealing with the casualties? The funneral group who I believe was indicted in Funneral gate.

The overemphasis on the violence,raping and looting was probably largely propaganda.

The deaths are being covered up.

The two are totally different.

Everything is opposite day with our media and the Administration. Look for what they are NOT telling you, versus what the media and Administration keep harping on. That's to keep us distracted from what they are doing behind the curtain.

[Parche]

54. CBS NEWS

BREAKING NEWS The Sunami near Indonesia last year was not that
bad, hardly anyone killed, the destruction was imagined, because
they are third world, it wasnt that much, not may people were
affected.......in fact a lot of people used that killer wave
to use their new surfboards.