||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
MIKE DAVIS, SOCIALIST WORKER - There's been a fractal class bias at
absolutely every level of the coverage [of the California fires].
If you look at the international news, it's all about the fires
threatening Malibu. If you look at the coverage in San Diego, what gets
the attention is the Witch Creek fire threatening Republican north
county, rather than the Harris fire threatening more Democratic south
county.
There are a lot of invisible victims who aren't enjoying backrubs and
nouvelle cuisine down at Qualcomm stadium.
This has turned into a carefully managed, semi-hysterical celebration of
Republican values--all drawing a marked contrast to New Orleans. The
Copley and Murdoch-controlled media--which is the media, largely, in San
Diego--is congratulating us that we have leaders with such fine law
enforcement and military experience.
Meanwhile, Arnold Schwarzenegger was going around the stadium, saying
people are happy, and everything's wonderful--they have yoga, they have
massage, they can get Padres autographs. When a newswoman had the
temerity to confront him, he grabbed her arm so hard that it looked like
he was going to break it, and he started shouting at her, "All you have
to do is look around here and see how happy people are."
The only discordant note is from Duncan Hunter, the right-wing
Republican presidential candidate, who seems to think he's in Iwo Jima
and not San Diego County. He's been blasting the authorities for not
letting the Marines fight the fire--though the Marines have very little
capability to do that.
But the consistent representation is--to use the words of Geraldo
Rivera--that this is the "anti-Katrina." Or as another Republican said,
"We have a civilized evacuation.". . .
The Los Angeles Times had an article that said climate change wasn't a
factor in the fires. This is probably balderdash. Everything that's
happening, including the dramatic number of mega-fires in the rest of
the West, accords with the simulations generated in the climate models
used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Not only are extreme events becoming more common, but it's possible that
the base climate of the Southwest and most of the rest of the West is
itself changing. One of my old buddies who I saw at the reunion just
retired from the state park service as a ranger, and he's horrified by
what he sees happening. He says that the pine forests in the San
Bernardino Mountains are dead--they're just fuel. In other words, what
we're seeing are not simply extreme events, but epochal changes in the
environment and vegetation. . .
So you end up with this irony--the very Republicans who should be
wearing sackcloth or running to hide in Paraguay are instead being
treated like American heroes, whose conservative values have triumphed
over tragedy.
All of this is drawn in a continuous, invidious and basically racist
comparison with New Orleans and the victims of Katrina--even though,
with the exception of blue-collar people in the eastern part of the
country, the scale of loss isn't close to the same magnitude. . .
The solution has to lie in changing power relations within communities
and within the region. In truth, the issues of affordable housing, job
creation for youth, protecting the environment and dealing with
congestion are all part of a single fabric.
The problem in the past has been that groups like the Sierra Club tend
to be focused just on the open space and environmental side of it. They
haven't given answers to people who are worried about growth or jobs.
Nobody's making the elementary point that we need massive reinvestment
in the inner cities, and making communities more environmentally stable,
and more conservation and restoration work in the hills.
What's needed is a populist politics that relates these issues and shows
that at the end of the day, you have to fight to try to change the
balance of power.
Once again, the Democrats are missing an opportunity because they're not
prepared to take on the real issues. They're too gutless to attack the
invidious comparison of the wildfires to New Orleans, or the
self-celebration of these corrupt Republicans.
It may partially be the bias of the media, but on five local TV
stations, I've yet to see a Democrat. That's because they just yield the
ground, just as over the war and everything else of fundamental
importance. And besides, most of the Democrats here get money from the
same developers.
http://www.socialistworker.org/2007-2/651/651_08_Collision.shtml
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
MIKE DAVIS, SOCIALIST WORKER - There's been a fractal class bias at
absolutely every level of the coverage [of the California fires].
If you look at the international news, it's all about the fires
threatening Malibu. If you look at the coverage in San Diego, what gets
the attention is the Witch Creek fire threatening Republican north
county, rather than the Harris fire threatening more Democratic south
county.
There are a lot of invisible victims who aren't enjoying backrubs and
nouvelle cuisine down at Qualcomm stadium.
This has turned into a carefully managed, semi-hysterical celebration of
Republican values--all drawing a marked contrast to New Orleans. The
Copley and Murdoch-controlled media--which is the media, largely, in San
Diego--is congratulating us that we have leaders with such fine law
enforcement and military experience.
Meanwhile, Arnold Schwarzenegger was going around the stadium, saying
people are happy, and everything's wonderful--they have yoga, they have
massage, they can get Padres autographs. When a newswoman had the
temerity to confront him, he grabbed her arm so hard that it looked like
he was going to break it, and he started shouting at her, "All you have
to do is look around here and see how happy people are."
The only discordant note is from Duncan Hunter, the right-wing
Republican presidential candidate, who seems to think he's in Iwo Jima
and not San Diego County. He's been blasting the authorities for not
letting the Marines fight the fire--though the Marines have very little
capability to do that.
But the consistent representation is--to use the words of Geraldo
Rivera--that this is the "anti-Katrina." Or as another Republican said,
"We have a civilized evacuation.". . .
The Los Angeles Times had an article that said climate change wasn't a
factor in the fires. This is probably balderdash. Everything that's
happening, including the dramatic number of mega-fires in the rest of
the West, accords with the simulations generated in the climate models
used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Not only are extreme events becoming more common, but it's possible that
the base climate of the Southwest and most of the rest of the West is
itself changing. One of my old buddies who I saw at the reunion just
retired from the state park service as a ranger, and he's horrified by
what he sees happening. He says that the pine forests in the San
Bernardino Mountains are dead--they're just fuel. In other words, what
we're seeing are not simply extreme events, but epochal changes in the
environment and vegetation. . .
So you end up with this irony--the very Republicans who should be
wearing sackcloth or running to hide in Paraguay are instead being
treated like American heroes, whose conservative values have triumphed
over tragedy.
All of this is drawn in a continuous, invidious and basically racist
comparison with New Orleans and the victims of Katrina--even though,
with the exception of blue-collar people in the eastern part of the
country, the scale of loss isn't close to the same magnitude. . .
The solution has to lie in changing power relations within communities
and within the region. In truth, the issues of affordable housing, job
creation for youth, protecting the environment and dealing with
congestion are all part of a single fabric.
The problem in the past has been that groups like the Sierra Club tend
to be focused just on the open space and environmental side of it. They
haven't given answers to people who are worried about growth or jobs.
Nobody's making the elementary point that we need massive reinvestment
in the inner cities, and making communities more environmentally stable,
and more conservation and restoration work in the hills.
What's needed is a populist politics that relates these issues and shows
that at the end of the day, you have to fight to try to change the
balance of power.
Once again, the Democrats are missing an opportunity because they're not
prepared to take on the real issues. They're too gutless to attack the
invidious comparison of the wildfires to New Orleans, or the
self-celebration of these corrupt Republicans.
It may partially be the bias of the media, but on five local TV
stations, I've yet to see a Democrat. That's because they just yield the
ground, just as over the war and everything else of fundamental
importance. And besides, most of the Democrats here get money from the
same developers.
http://www.socialistworker.org/2007-2/651/651_08_Collision.shtml
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
No comments:
Post a Comment