Hmm, didn't it get a little assist from material interest? Avi & Naomi are too enchanted by ideology. Doug
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I think I agree. You're being a little vague, so I don't quite know what you mean.
I read Naomi Klein's essay in the Guardian and didn't like her mother-earth metaphor. She displaced the threat and danger of corporate-state development of natural resources on nature, rather than see the killing off of a whole ecology by the government managed economic system itself.
The Avi piece was better on that point. But it didn't develop it explicitly. I had to fill in the blanks.
I wrote Josh Rushing an email (mistaking him for Avi Lewis) about this intersection between government, corporations, military, and media. I went into some detail about how the high level infracture is mutally coordinated to manage public perception during major disasters. You see the same set of players mobilized each time. It was really obvious with 9/11 forward. Now we have Obama doing exactly the same.
Crisis management effectively has little to do with fixing what got broke and changing policies that lead to the disasters. Crisis management is instead devoted on not fixing the damage and not changing policy. Crisis management is also devoted to covering the root causes and or displacing them.
The economic meltdown is the fault of the poor, The Gulf disaster is an accident that needs investigation, BP are `experts' and the goverment has little role, except to nag and badger.
Journalism has a big blind spot when it comes to the larger view of events and society. As a trade it seems to have its own ideological philosophy that deliberately doesn't look at the system as a system.
I know, we know all that. I was explaining what I wrote to Rushing, because he seemed like a guy who might understand the role he might serve without understanding it. He's in the position to see the profound hypocrisy and lies in direct material reality. I think the question is, does he understand them in the larger view? He seemed like a guy who would, and might be halfway there already.
Probably a mistake. More wishful thinking. Just as a side note. I found it really difficult to email Rushing directly. I had to use a comment page and ask who was reading comments to forward the note to Rushing. Probably hit the delete key.
CG