![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Go. Read.
In sum - and this should be enough to turn your hair white - the press are being thrown out of New Orleans - they are being banned because the government doesn't want people to know how many bodies are found.
Whether or not you believe that these photos should be seen (personally, I'm not in favour of gore on the cover of Newsweek) this is the sinking of the First Amendment. This is the end of freedom of the press.
Unless we do something.
Call the White House, 202-456-1111, and let them know that there is still freedom of the press - there is no national security issue in this disaster -- there should be nothing to hide when the goal is to seek the truth about what happened.
Whether or not this is an issue of "common decency" as FEMA is trying to play it is irrelevant. Common decency comes into play at the newspaper, magazine, media outlet level - not the government's. The government doesn't get to hide the number of people killed in this hurricane to sanitise its own image.
The numbers of dead will not be less if we don't know about them. But we as a people will be diminished if we let the government cover their own asses in this matter. This isn't about decency. This is about looking better at a time that the government looks awful. Don't let them clean themselves this way.
In sum - and this should be enough to turn your hair white - the press are being thrown out of New Orleans - they are being banned because the government doesn't want people to know how many bodies are found.
Whether or not you believe that these photos should be seen (personally, I'm not in favour of gore on the cover of Newsweek) this is the sinking of the First Amendment. This is the end of freedom of the press.
Unless we do something.
Call the White House, 202-456-1111, and let them know that there is still freedom of the press - there is no national security issue in this disaster -- there should be nothing to hide when the goal is to seek the truth about what happened.
Whether or not this is an issue of "common decency" as FEMA is trying to play it is irrelevant. Common decency comes into play at the newspaper, magazine, media outlet level - not the government's. The government doesn't get to hide the number of people killed in this hurricane to sanitise its own image.
The numbers of dead will not be less if we don't know about them. But we as a people will be diminished if we let the government cover their own asses in this matter. This isn't about decency. This is about looking better at a time that the government looks awful. Don't let them clean themselves this way.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
I do NOT understand people.
From:
no subject
It happened in Afghanistan, then Iraq, and now on home turf.
Do you Americans have any plans to revolt, perchance? NOW would be a good time ;)
From:
no subject
I'm waiting for a riot, somewhere... all it will take is one. I don't want to start it, and I don't want to be wherever it does start.
Most of America is still too comfortable to get upset enough for revolution. Wait for gas prices to rise some more; maybe a nationwide food/power shortage, or a plague... if it goes that way, it'll be ugly. I'm hoping that there will instead be a national outcry, and that the press and other politicians will stand up and refuse to shut up and sit down as they hold the president and his cronies accountable. I'm not sure which would be worse - civil uprising, or nothing.
From:
no subject
http://www.livejournal.com/users/fantasygoat/57974.html
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
or kerry either, for that matter. ;)
From:
no subject
But if it came to that, I'd rather see gore. He has a big package.