THE BUSH TSUNAMI MANEUVER

TELETHONS TO START

IRAQ RESISTANCE ESCALATES

It finally dawned on the White House that the American people are more generous than its government and so, yesterday, President Bush appointed his father (41) and Bill Clinton to head up a national fundraising campaign for victims of the Tsunami tragedy.

What was amusing was to see a Clinton hater on Imus this morning bitterly snipe and spew at the former President’s inclusion. Another member of that motley MSNBC crew justified his presence because he is a great fundraiser. Clinton’s name is still red meat to many in the menagerie.

A PR PLOY

Doug Ireland denounces the maneuver for what it is:

“The White House’s hasty recruitment of Bubba and Poppy Bush to front the Tsunami fund appeal was, of course, a p.r. ploy designed to distract attention from the iniquitous inadequacy of the U.S. response to a natural disaster that has primarily affected peoples with a high melanin content. (If they’d been Europeans, the cash would have been coughed up much more copiously, and quicker).”

http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/01/the_white_house.html

MEDIA STIRS

The President’s delayed initiative(probably in response to the mail he’s getting questioning his inaugural cost overkill and stinginess) may have also woken up some of the dead consciences in media land. (Although the initiatives underway do not constitute the kind of UNITED MEDIA APPEAL we called for) I would like to think some outlets are responding in spirit to our appeal for more media engagement but it is more likely that the executives at NBC/GE march in lockstep with the White House on this issue as they have with the war: According to Broadcasting & Cable magazine:

“NBC Slates Tsunami Relief Specials

“To help relief efforts for victims of the South Asian tsunamis, NBC Universal will air fund-raisers across its properties.

“First, NBC’s New York flagship station WNBC will host a telethon Wednesday evening, Jan. 5, that will be simulcast on other NBC owned-and-operated stations. NBC has also offered it to affiliates. A spokeswoman said that more than 20 have already signed up, with more expected. The show will air at 7-8 NYT on the NBC O&Os.

“Clear Channel, the nation’s largest radio station owner, will also promote the Jan. 15 special on its radio stations.”

At least more money will soon start to flow. How it will be spent is another matter.

Meanwhile, creeps are coming out of the closets. In England, the Guardian reports:

“A man yesterday claimed a ‘moment of madness’ led him to send hoax emails to friends and relatives of people missing in the tsunami disaster saying they were dead. ”

EXTREME SHORTAGES PERSIST

A letter I just received from an Indonesian friend confirms some of the images we are seeing:

“Apparently there’s only one hospital left in the whole area of Banda Aceh with 5 other hospitals destroyed including the loss of ALL their medical personnel … understand the patient queues are in the thousands with dire makeshift clinical conditions and major operations, many children, without anaesthesia.”

DEEPER QUESTIONS

How do we make sense of a tragedy of the extent of the one that has taken so many lives in South Asia. Who can we hold responsible? On the surface, there appears no one–just a force of nature. It appears more of a puzzle for theologians.

Another young Indonesian I met when I was filming there writes (English not her first language)

“Now it’s like God was so angry with these people (The people of Acheh) and none of us can fight against God’s will. Can u imagine that a strong building made by human being can be easily destroyed by the tidal wave but a coconut tree that was created by God remains steadily. What a mighty God He is ! I believe He has special purpose for this.”

I have even read suggestions that cosmic forces, angry gods, even UFO’s were somehow involved. This type of speculation seems beyond the ken of most journalism. So far few reports have referenced the cotinuing aftershocks of the financial crisis, or the other negative inpacts of globalization, that rocked Indonesia and deepened inequality in the late 90’s.

WHO IS TO BLAME?

Roberta Solnit muses about this on TomDispatch.com, writing:

“One of the challenges of a natural disaster is that there is no one to blame, to allow us to make the shift from the difficulty of grief that is a kind of love to the ease of scorn or loathing that is a kind of hatred. Some polemicists have already moved to castigate governments, perhaps as a way of moving away from the uncertain, uneasy realm of such vast suffering that is in many ways natural, suffering that can be mitigated and sometimes prevented but not banned or outlawed.

“The economics that kept these countries from having warning systems and pushed the poor into living on the perilous coastal edge are part of the disaster, but no government generated or even foresaw this earthquake with, says my local paper, the force of 2 million atomic bombs the size of the one dropped on Hiroshima. The fault on which it occurred was thought to be inactive.”

HE TRIED TO WARN

But if the fault was inactive, does that mean there was no one and nothing at fault? Yesterday, I mused about the fact that there was no one to call. I meant it as a kind of metaphor but today Reuters is reporting that a Thai official in the know tries to spread the alarm. Here’s what happened. Am I prescient or what?

SAMITH’S STORY

PHUKET, Thailand (Reuters) — A Thai expert says he tried to warn the government a deadly tsunami might be sweeping towards tourist-packed beaches, but couldn’t find anyone to take his calls.

Samith Dhammasaroj said Monday he was sure a tsunami was coming as soon as he heard about the massive December 26 earthquake off Indonesia’s Sumatra island that measured magnitude 9.0 — the world’s biggest in 40 years.

“I tried to call the director-general of the meteorological office, but his phone was always busy,”Samith said as he described his desperate attempts to generate an alert which might have saved thousands of lives.

“I tried to phone the office, but it was a Sunday and no-one was there,”said the former chief of the meteorological department now charged with setting up an early warning disaster system for Thailand.

“‘I knew that one day we would have this type of tsunami. I warned that there would be a big disaster,’ he told reporters.

‘Everyone laughed at me and said I was a bad guy who wanted to ruin the tourist industry,’ he added.

THE WARNING ISSUE

The Tsunami Tragedy Blog out of Australia is filled with disturbing and largely unreported stories about maneuvers by various governments to take advantage of this disaster. They range from a refusal to pass on warnings, to counter-insurgency military operations taking place in Aceh and Sri Lanka under the façade of humanitarian operations. Check these out:

“Australia wouldn’t warn other countries.”

“It’s not up to Australia to give warnings in other countries,”the spokesman said.

“Canberra alert failed to warn embassies of waves.”

“AUSTRALIAN embassies were taken by surprise after being warned the Indian Ocean earthquake was not powerful enough to trigger a tsunami. Seismologists in Canberra issued a major alert within 30 minutes of the earthquake occurring off the Indonesian island of Sumatra on Sunday.

“That warning by Geoscience Australia — the Federal Government’s earthquake monitoring agency — was conveyed to diplomatic posts in the looming disaster zone. But the experts believed the quake was too deep under the ocean to produce a huge tidal wave, according a Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman.

“The revelations will strengthen the push for a tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean. ”

US COVETS BASE

Sirinapha writes:

“Is the tsunami aftermath a ‘window of opportunity’ for bolstering the Pentagon’s presence in Southeast Asia? The Thai people reject the proposed build-up of the American military at Utapao air base and in the Gulf of Thailand. The tragedy of the natural catastrophe in the Indian Ocean should not serve as a pretext for strengthening the U.S. military presence on land, sea and in the air in the region.

“The Pentagon has announced it is returning to its old Vietnam War haunts at Utapao Royal Thai Naval Air Force Base 90 miles south of Bangkok on the Gulf of Thailand. In this clear escalation of the American military presence in Southeast Asia, the ostensible plan is to set up a ‘command center’ for the tsunami emergency relief effort. Utapao air base will serve as a staging base for U.S. military and rescue aircraft. The emergency relief operations appear to provide a windfall opportunity for beefing up the American military presence in Southeast Asia, part of the expanding Pentagon strategy of ‘forward positioning,’ establishing sites, so-called ‘air cargo hubs,’ where American forces can stash equipment and enter and leave as desired.”

INDONESIA WAGES WAR ON ACEH

IMC Washington:

“The Indonesian military said on Friday it was still launching raids against separatist rebels in tsunami-devastated Aceh, despite having earlier called a ceasefire to help aid efforts. ‘Our security operations continue, the only difference is that it may be less in scale and intensity,’ Lieutenant Colonel Nachrowi, of the military headquarters’ general information department, said.

“‘The principle is that all our forces in Aceh are basically continuing their duty under the security operation. But they also have to accord a large portion of their time for the humanitarian relief efforts.

“‘We continue to launch raids into suspected GAM [Free Aceh Movement] areas and our vigilance remains high.’”

PROTESTS AT THE UN

John Miller reports:

“Acehnese and U.S. groups will call on the United Nations to exercise leadership essential for a coordinated, efficient and impartial relief effort in the tsunami-stricken region of Aceh. Condemning the Indonesian government’s haphazard response they urged an international disaster relief operation to avoid a catastrophic increase in the death toll that has already claimed close to 100,000 lives.

“‘The Indonesian civilian government and military is unable and unwilling to quickly distribute aid to all survivors of the disaster. The lack of disaster response coordination among ministries and the military is compounded by notoriously corrupt military and civilian institutions,’ said Robert Jereski, U.S. Coalition for Earthquake and Tsunami Relief in Aceh. ‘The Indonesian armed forces are continuing their military operations in Aceh and are frustrating the delivery of aid to the victims of the earthquake and tsunami. Rather than helping the people, in a number of areas the troops are intimidating villagers, scaring them away from their villages, looting their homes, and stealing food’”.

ISRAELI RESPONSE

Gideon Levy writes in Ha’aretz:

“Even if people are born equal, they are not equal in their death. It’s important where they died and under what circumstances. The world has already pledged billions for the regions in Southeast Asia that were ravaged, conglomerates and individuals in Europe and the United States have mobilized to donate and dozens of countries are sending aid, among them Israel, albeit with its usual grandstanding. When it comes to natural disasters, the world - and Israel, too - shows far greater generosity and alacrity than it does in cases of man-made disasters.

“When a tourist region is hit, attention is all the more intense. Anyone watching television in the West might think the tsunami struck Sweden or Switzerland. The majority of the survivors seen on the small screen look like Europeans. Here, we sometimes get the impression that this is an Israeli calamity. ‘The worst of all’ was the banner headline on Friday in the mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronoth, which reported the identification of the bodies of two Israelis.

“Fewer people died in all the earthquakes that struck the world in the 20th century than in one remote war in Biafra, and far fewer than the number in another disregarded war in Congo. Whereas no one could have prevented the tsunami in Asia or the earthquake in Iran, wars can be prevented or stopped. But countries do not like to get involved in other people’s wars. It is not just a matter of aid that was not delivered, but of sheer attention. The difference attests to self-righteousness and a double moral standard…”

THE HEALING POWER OF MUSIC

Tsunami — new song by David Rovics

What do you say to someone
Who’s just lost everything
Eventually things might be OK
As he’s standing there
With all that’s left of life
Before the ocean rose and took it all away

I was at the mosque
I wasn’t on the shore
I guess it was my lucky day
And when I made it home
There was no one there
The ocean rose and took them all away

We were fighting
For independence
That’s all that I was thinking yesterday
But now all I’m thinking
Is we’re on an island
And the ocean rose and took it all away

We’re on an island
And the big trees all were cut
And this is how we all had to pay
Maybe Mr. Ford
Was on vacation in Thailand
When the ocean rose and took it all away

If this had happened
In Kyoto
Or San Francisco, I wonder what they’d say
But this ain’t New York
It’s just Aceh
Where the ocean rose and took it all away

David Rovics
www.davidrovics.com

ON TO IRAQ

Anyone want to wager on when the elections will be postponed. England’s Telegraph reports:

“Concern is now growing that an intensified campaign of intimidation over coming weeks could spectacularly derail Iraq’s electoral commission’s efforts to get enough of the country’s 14 million adult population registered in time to give the vote credibility.”

About one third of all the electoral workers — about 2,000 people have resigned.

RESISTANCE LARGER THAN WASHINGTON THOUGHT

More ominous is this report from Agence France Press (AFP):

“Iraq’s insurgency counts more than 200,000 active fighters and sympathisers, the country’s national intelligence chief told AFP, in the bleakest assessment to date of the armed revolt waged by Sunni Muslims.

“‘I think the resistance is bigger than the US military in Iraq. I think the resistance is more than 200,000 people,’ Iraqi intelligence service director General Mohamed Abdullah Shahwani said in an interview ahead of the January 30 elections.

“Shahwani said the number includes at least 40,000 hardcore fighters but rises to more than 200,000 members counting part-time fighters and volunteers who provide rebels everything from intelligence and logistics to shelter.

“The numbers far exceed any figure presented by the US military in Iraq, which has struggled to get a handle on the size of the resistance since toppling Saddam Hussein’s regime in April 2003.

“A senior US military officer declined to endorse or dismiss the spy chief’s numbers.”

A GOOD IDEA

When asked what he thought of Western Civilization, the great Mahatma Ghandi remarked famously “it would be a good idea,” I am reminded of that observation when discovering this item on the BBC website:

“The British Army secretly restricted the number of recruits from ethnic minorities for 20 years, newly released official documents show. From 1957 Army medical officers were instructed to note all new recruits with ‘Asiatic or Negroid features’. The data was used to limit the number of ‘non-white’ troops in the Army.”

YOUR LETTERS: TIME TO EMULATE THE GREEKS

Thedoore Goutas writes:

“I don’t know whether your appeal for a telethon has been realised or not in the US. However most of the Greek media, both public and private are taking part today, 4 January 2005, in a telethon started at 05.45 and planning to end it next morning. Telecommunication companies of the country support the effort and people are texting their messages offering money for the tsunami victims. Websites allow transactions in cooperation with banks. So far more than 4 million Euros in cash are offered by people. Just an example of what people can manage when media act with responsibility.”

BACKLASH

Paul Palmer:

“Maybe this will be castigated as a heartless approach which I can afford because no wall of water is washing away my house but I think your enthusiastic plea for contributions and telethons to/for a Tsunami SOS is misplaced.

“The standard media are running this 24/7 and your voice is insignificant when you merely add it to theirs. Where you can contribute is as a gadfly, as you normally do, pointing out the chinks in the phony openhearted tightfisted aid story.

“You should be contrasting the millions, pledged reluctantly for assistance, with the billions, pledged eagerly, for destruction in Iraq.

“You should be sniffing around beneath the smiling pledges to find out what is actually being offered or sent. I’m 99% sure that any so-called aid will end up being primarily aid for US corporations, pals of Bush, to insert their snouts into every aspect of life in Aceh or Sumatra or Sri Lanka, for decades to come or more. I wonder how much so-called aid will end up in the form of loans that will be paid back down the line with resources from these rich countries. How will PR promises compare to actual appropriations? I don’t know these answers but history teaches clearly and grimly.

“How will this gigantic catastrophe change anything for the future, compared to the insignificant by comparison WTC Bombing which was seized on by even unsuspecting Americans as having ‘changed everything’. What was it about 9-11 that was so transformative compared to this ho-hum Mother-Nature-misbehaves-again event that probably transforms nothing for the good in the lives of common people?

“How will the sending of the American military to Aceh set up a new torment for that tormented people? Will the American soldiers be leaving anytime soon? Will they be involved from now on in joint operations with the Indonesian military?

“These are the issues where you can actually add good value to the discussion, not in fundraising for dollars with American flags attached.”

RESPONSE: This is the Media Channel. Our appeal was for more Media responsibility/engagement, and more investigative reporting not just charity dollars. Your questions are valid but your tone is in my view misplaced and insensitive in the face of the scale of this disaster. And look at the deeper issues I have been raising.

Clint Clark:

“Please don’t let Religious Leaders use this latest natural disaster in the Indian Ocean to their financial and membership growth advantage. This kind of lasting damage to humankind and our planet would be worse than the death and destruction caused by the tsunami. Don’t let the images and stories you see on and in the Ruling Class owned media detour you. There is an agenda that has nothing to do with good-deed doing, going on. This is an impressive and manipulative photo op (an infomercial) for the Ruling Class and Religion to show how ‘necessary’ they are to our species. Look past the event, and into the future, and you will know that, now is the time to ‘Let the cat out of the bag.’”

ON THE COVERAGE

Bradley Laing:

“Thoughts at random about tsunami news coverage: First hand accounts in television coverage will be dependent on finding people who speak English for live interviews. understandably, that means foreigners. Since many people find Tv news easy to use, the prespective will mostly be ‘western’.

“The ‘Dog Saves Child’ stuff may be a standardized news ‘peg’ but at least it provided a translated into English language account of people who were not ‘western.’

“If there was some sort of TV news videotape footage to death toll ratio required by law, we’d have to see fifteen times as much news coverage as the war in Iraq has, based on the death toll.”

A ROCK CONCERT?

Mary Beth Shanahan:

“I liked the Tsunami pitch posted at mediachannel.org. What a tragedy. Yes…. the rich must help. How about a rock concert? Those always do well…… the Florida folks seem to feel as if they were left out of “pocket sentiment.”Well who said it’s a fair world. But my God, those poor people of Asia. I will go there in 6 months…just to help with whatever and write some stories along the way. It would be good for my soul to help those souls!”

Robert Hilden from Berkeley:

“In all of the discussions of the aid to tsunami victims I have seen, none has mentioned that DAILY our aid to Israel is 10 million bucks. In fairness, we give another ‘pay off’ to Egypt of around 7 million. So, the first amount offered, the 35M would equal 3.5 days aid to Israel. Our total aid per annum is now around 3 billion.”

MAD COW

Bonnie Parker-Duke from Magnolia, Arkansas:

“Having read of the government’s plan to allow beef imports from Canada regardless of the latest case of Mad Cow up there, I think it’s time to do something at the grassroots level. In spite of the government’s protest that cases of the human form are few and far between, if you will go to the CJD Foundation site and read their guest book, you will see that it’s just not so. It’s frightening.

“I glean what I consider the most pertinent political and environmental articles and forward them to two specific groups of my friends every day but I’m not sure they get forwarded beyond that so I’m not sure how effective my particular group of friends would be in such an effort. But you reach millions so I’m wondering if you might take this one on. Death by CJD is particularly ugly. We have a government that simply does not care about us. I think we are left to take care of ourselves in whatever way we don’t find morally rehensible and I think that a national boycott might work. WE won’t be listened to but the protest by our beef growers will be. They contribute to the campaigns of our ‘leaders.’

www.cjdfoundation.org/viewguestbook.asp

Evelyn vd Riet:

“Thanks for hanging in there. I am among those not asking whether the election was stolen. It was. And I believe the implications go far beyond ‘merely’ a stolen election.

“Did you read Wayne Madsen’s Dec. 6 Special Report? Texas to Florida: White House-linked clandestine operation paid for ‘vote switching’ software.

“On 31st Dec. Wayne emailed a year-end summary of further work done and where it is pointing. I have no idea how all of Wayne’s courageous work will be used. My terror is that it will be made to vanish into the ether.

www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/120604Madsen/120604madsen.html

BEST SPELLING ERROR TO DATE

I was called to task for writing “Doctors Without Boarders.” Was it me? It is Funny.

Condolences to the family of former Congress member Shiriley Chisholm who died at age 80 on the first day of the New Year. See Shola Lynch’s great film Chisholm’72 when you can.

www.pbs.org/pov/pov2005/chisholm/

Mrs. C was the “Unbought and Unbossed”candidate for the 1972 Democratic presidential candidate. Read John Nichols’s Online Beat for an appreciation of Chisholm’s life:

www.thenation.com/thebeat/index.mhtml?bid=1&pid=209

Keep your letters coming and watch this space. Its about to become much better looking. I will be speaking about media and my contribution in the book WHAT WE DO NOW tomorrow night at the Bluestocking book store on the lower east side. More details tomorrow.

Reach me: dissector@mediachannel.org