While the World Burns, the Washington and Media Elite
Party Through the Night
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001098.html
In Nepal, thousands lay dead and dying in a horrendous earthquake and
its aftermath. In Baltimore, righteous anger over the crushed spine
and death of a young black man in police custody was triggering
violence and arrests.
And last night while those events raged, the Washington political and
media elite were hypocritically and drunkenly joking and partying in
their formal finery, a mere 40 miles from Baltimore itself, at the
White House Correspondents' dinner.
For CNN and its fearless leader Jeff Zucker, it wasn't even a close
call as to how best to handle this confluence of simultaneous events.
They simply provided hours of wall-to-wall coverage of the partying
elite, while reassuring everyone that they'd catch up with the deaths
and arrests later, after their crucial coverage of boozing and
backslapping at the big party was over and done.
Oh yes, and they suggested that if for some perverse reason you cared
less about the 1% yukking it up than mass deaths and protest arrests,
you could just go searching around online and maybe you could dig up
something -- assuming you had a decent Internet connection and a means
to access it, of course.
Well, to paraphrase "Major Kong" from "Dr. Strangelove" -- I've been
to one world's fair, a picnic, and a rodeo -- and this is one of the
most egregious examples of the "Nero fiddling while Rome burned"
syndrome I can recall in my entire lifetime to date.
"Obscene" and "perverse" are the only "polite" terms I can think of to
describe this situation. The invectives that more properly illustrate
the depths of this depravity and what they tell us about income and
social disparity here in the USA, are unfortunately not words suitable
for family audiences.
We all deserve one hell of a big apology from the political and media
snobs who are responsible for this sickening display of hypocrisy and
elitism run wild.
But don't hold your breath for that apology. 'Cause they got the big
bucks and the big power -- and we don't.
We ordinary people one and all must say polite goodnights to our
masters, for when you're hot you're hot. And when you're not -- you're
not.
And we're most definitely not.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein ([email protected]): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://google.com/+LaurenWeinstein
Twitter: http://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
_______________________________________________
pfir mailing list
http://lists.pfir.org/mailman/listinfo/pfir
