31 Aug, 2011
Hurricane Irene could never take from Americans what the banks already have | The Guardian
Even as it cast about desperately for dramatic disaster footage, the broadcast media covered the storm with manic single-mindedness, revelling in the rhetoric of siege and assault. A “big threat to the US” would “viciously” make its way up the coast, “menacing”, “taking aim”, and “pounding” the nation.
Singularly uninterested in weather misery elsewhere, the American media’s wilful parochialism reinforces the state of exception that is the default political setting in this country. A few days before the 10th anniversary of September 11, America was again uniquely under siege and would fight the assault through a combination of bunker mentality and indomitable will.
Cyclones and storms routinely devastate low-lying areas and kill many in countries like Bangladesh and the Philippines. We hear little of these until the body count rises, and they certainly never merit the raindrop-by-raindrop international media coverage accorded to Irene’s American jaunt.
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