I am getting this sinking feeling we are all being scammed. We have heard of 20,000 up to 40,000 deaths, Rapes, Murders, Mayhem, widespread looting and shooting. Now the death toll is expected around 200-400. During the week after the hurricane we were hearing that bodies were strewn all over the place. Now we hear that searchers have found very few bodies except tragically for 40 elderly patients in an old folks home.
Could all the stories we have been hearing be total fabrications? This story in the Boston Globe is one of many that are starting to question the veracity of all these horrific events.
BY NOW THE IMAGES and stories of looting and mayhem in New Orleans--the residents ''shopping" for nonessentials in an abandoned Wal-Mart, alleged rapes in the Superdome, a shot fired at a rescue helicopter--have been burned into the brain of every television watcher and newspaper reader in America. But do they give us an accurate picture of the aftermath of the flood?
In fact, if criminal violence were indeed rampant in New Orleans after Katrina hit (setting aside the taking of food, water, bandages, and other necessities of survival), that would contradict much of what sociologists have learned in a half century of research about such situations. ''The evidence is overwhelming," says Enrico Quarantelli, an emeritus professor of sociology and the founding director of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware, ''that in the standard natural disaster or technological disaster"--like a chemical spill--''you're not going to get looting."
Some obviously happened because we have pictures from the media. But pictures alone cannot show the real magnitude of a problem. Pictures can be used to blow things completely out of proportion where unscrupulous politicians and others can use them to their advantage or they can be fabricated out of whole cloth.
Some of it could be sensationalism from the media to trump up ratings but not all media outlets could have colluded to deceive the American people. No this would have had to be something planned and coordinated.
Mayor Nagin said he personally saw bodies everywhere. Where are all the bodies you told us about Mayor Nagin? Where is the evidence of the widespread murders and rapes? We have only heard anecdotal stories about these things happening, but no actual eyewitness accounts.
There are two factors that could have motivated the Mayor and others to make the situation seem much worse than it was, politics and money. Those who scream the loudest usually have something to hide, and the guilty are always the first to point fingers. Mayor Nagin was doing a lot of screaming and finger pointing.
Democrats wasted no time in blaming President Bush for all the death and Mayhem that may not of happened at all. All the horror stories surely motivated the congress to quickly approve the 50 billion dollar aid package. Without the trumped up stories would the congress have been so generous? The feds better keep a sharp eye on that money and make the mayor and local officials account for every dime. Otherwise the raping and looting may have been perpetrated on the American people themselves.
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