Exploiting a Tragedy

greg334 · Mar 19, 2011

Since the Japanese disaster hit the air waves here in the US, many of the news outlets, idiot talk shows and so on have been covering it like it happened here. In some cases their action may have been more of a ratings gain than actual news reporting.

CNN has sent a lot of people over to Japan, they have promoted the goofy TV doctor and Anderson Cooper as superstars on the ground, explaining things like what happens when the radiation hits Hawaii or LA. They are the worst offenders among hundreds of other media people and organizations who have exploited this tragedy for their own gains, it seems that our country like to see others hurt and suffer in TV and in the press - especially the Japanese.

To take my statement a step further, we have in the past taken up large donations to help people in Haiti and for our own. We have gone to extraordinary lengths to help by donations of food and items that are needed. We have put our troops in harms way to help those out which is not even close to being their function in our society. BUT with Japan, donations are slowly coming in, volunteers to help are low and nothing but the media outlets using scare tactics to keep viewers glued to their TV and radios is being said.

Pretty sad when we are worried about a basketball game or what is happening in the middle east which has nothing to do with us.

It is also pretty pathetic that panic has ensued in California and Hawaii about radiation levels when we have been exposed to a lot more in the past while above ground testing took place.

EnglishLady · Mar 19, 2011

greg334 said:
Since the Japanese disaster hit the air waves here in the US, many of the news outlets, idiot talk shows and so on have been covering it like it happened here. In some cases their action may have been more of a ratings gain than actual news reporting.

CNN has sent a lot of people over to Japan, they have promoted the goofy TV doctor and Anderson Cooper as superstars on the ground, explaining things like what happens when the radiation hits Hawaii or LA. They are the worst offenders among hundreds of other media people and organizations who have exploited this tragedy for their own gains, it seems that our country like to see others hurt and suffer in TV and in the press - especially the Japanese.

To take my statement a step further, we have in the past taken up large donations to help people in Haiti and for our own. We have gone to extraordinary lengths to help by donations of food and items that are needed. We have put our troops in harms way to help those out which is not even close to being their function in our society. BUT with Japan, donations are slowly coming in, volunteers to help are low and nothing but the media outlets using scare tactics to keep viewers glued to their TV and radios is being said.

Pretty sad when we are worried about a basketball game or what is happening in the middle east which has nothing to do with us.

It is also pretty pathetic that panic has ensued in California and Hawaii about radiation levels when we have been exposed to a lot more in the past while above ground testing took place.

That is so true. As tragic as this disaster is, there is more "news" going on at the moment that probably does concern us more..... Libya for one example.
IMO - update by all means but don't use scare tactics to make the Japan disaster worse than it already is.

jansiemoo · Mar 19, 2011

I'm wondering why people were so fast sending money to Haiti, but Japan has gotten barely anything. Is it because Japan is a "rich" country and Haiti was "poor? Is it the number of Haitians in this country? Does Pearl Harbor still gave anything to do with it? I'm not trying to rile feathers, just wondering why we seem to be sitting this one out?

moose · Mar 19, 2011

Funny,
we are expected now to increase our Chinese deficit to pay for japan destruction ...
would have worked even better if that quake hit china...

I'd suggest a Robinhood tactic .
invade Libya, steal it's oil ,and give it to japan...

purgoose10 · Mar 19, 2011

moose said:
Funny,
we are expected now to increase our Chinese deficit to pay for japan destruction ...
would have worked even better if that quake hit china...

I'd suggest a Robinhood tactic .
invade Libya, steal it's oil ,and give it to japan...

I agree some what to what everyone has said, but remember everyone thinks we only owe China when the second largest debt holder to
America is Japan. We owe them almost as much as China but like everyone has clearly stated the news media blows it all out of proportion.
Most of what the hold up is about is two things. 1) The Japanese Government doesn't want help and 2) We have a Numb Nut in the White House.

Another scary thing is the latest poll for the Presidential approval rating was at 49% yesterday. I'm scared to death this idiot will get reelected.

chefdennis · Mar 19, 2011

Japan came out early and told the Red Cross that they didn't need the finacial donations...they needed the basics that any country in this same situation would need...

And I agree with Moose, are we suppose to print more worhtless money or borrow more from China to give to Japan??

As for why the volunteers are slow or even low in volume, I really have no idea..but Cheri had posted that when this came up, she was in the middle of a book on how the japanese had tortured our soldier taken prisoner during WW2 and it was hard for her to feel bad about what was going on there now....Now please Cheri, that is not ment to be a shoot at you at all...but how many people still carry the nasty sentiment towards japan because of what a relative might have went thru during the war????

cheri1122 · Mar 19, 2011

Judging by the number of Hondas and Toyotas sold in the US, those who hold a grudge aren't a big majority.
I haven't seen any appeals for 'disaster relief', like most major disasters spawned - I imagine that's a big part of the lack of donations, people who would give aren't being asked to [ie the Red Cross].
PS I finished the book, and have a more negative opinion of General McArthur than the Japanese!

cheri1122 · Mar 19, 2011

And I have a seriously negative opinion of every American who loaded up on iodide, when there's no need for it, because they're taking what many citizens of Japan may need - how stupid and selfish is that?

greg334 · Mar 20, 2011

cheri1122 said:
Judging by the number of Hondas and Toyotas sold in the US, those who hold a grudge aren't a big majority.
I haven't seen any appeals for 'disaster relief', like most major disasters spawned - I imagine that's a big part of the lack of donations, people who would give aren't being asked to [ie the Red Cross].
PS I finished the book, and have a more negative opinion of General McArthur than the Japanese!

Well there have been a scattering of appeals for donations, nothing like Haiti or New Orleans. If we are such a country that cares, this disaster is worst than those two combined at this point and we need to step up and ask what can we do for them as a people, not as a government. Voluntarism seems to be way way down, I think it may be a race thing in all honesty.

If you have a negitive opinion about Macarthur from that book, read Hirohito - the Biography and see what the guy did to protect war criminals. You will grow to hate the guy.

cheri1122 said:
And I have a seriously negative opinion of every American who loaded up on iodide, when there's no need for it, because they're taking what many citizens of Japan may need - how stupid and selfish is that?

I don't have a negitive opinion for that reason but for another reason, they are stupid, not just dumb but plain stupid. There is no reason to panic, and no reason to stock up on anything, even in that state of Hawaii. We have had more exposure from above ground tests in the south pacific than we will get from Japan and that should have had more concern about how those tests effected us but no one seems to see any reason to be concern.

The other reason is that a lot of stupid people feed the entertainment (our main stream news media outlets) with their need to know. One reason why that TV doctor and Cooper is over there - they are padding their ratings with this sensationalized reporting. The same seems to be with Egypt and Libya, where the news sparkles behind the person with the mic.

Turtle · Mar 20, 2011

"Well there have been a scattering of appeals for donations, nothing like Haiti or New Orleans."

That's because Japan is nothing like Haiti or New Orleans. One, New Orleans is here, not somewhere else. Two, Haiti has no other resources of their own to handle their disaster, whereas Japan most definitely does. Japan's central bank has continued to flood the markets with cash, more than $700 billion, to keep everything from ATM withdrawals to relief operations up and running. What happened in Haiti devastated Haiti. What happened in New Orleans devastated New Orleans. What happened in Japan didn't devastate Japan. Japan doesn't need our donations. Haiti and New Orleans did. Japan doesn't need our volunteers and troops to help out. Haiti and New Orleans did. There are 35 million people, nearly all of them unscathed, in the Greater Tokyo area, versus 9.7 million people in all of Haiti, nearly all of whom were devastated. What happened in Japan was bad, dollar damages likely unprecedented, but on a people scale and the everyday lives of Japan, it doesn't hold a candle to Haiti.

greg334 · Mar 20, 2011

Turtle, I said scattered appeals, not massive appeals.

Whether or not they, Japan needs the money is not the issue, the organizations who are there do, and that is where the appeals are coming from. They may not need as much as say they needed for Haiti but they need money nonetheless.

The tragedy in Japan is worst than the other two combined, not because of the loss of life or the devastation from the tsunami but rather the radiation and the effect of that on the environment. You can rebuild the coast, it has been done a few times there, you can have population growth but you and I both know that cleaning contaminated areas are hard to to if not impossible. This will end up displacing entire populations, not like Haiti or New Orleans, even though we should have done that in New Orleans.

Haiti and New Orleans are both another issue, we bent over backwards for New Orleans and it is still a mess. Haiti is a cluster*** of a country that has been a mess because of the meddling going on by everyone and will not be what they could be until they take control of their own situation.

layoutshooter · Mar 20, 2011

Japan will recover, even from the radiation part, faster than New Orleans or Haiti did. Why? Because they WANT too. They will do it them selves. The people will pitch in and WORK. They won't sit back and whine that the government has to do EVERYTHING for them. They are NOT lazy like those in New Orleans. Had EVERYONE down there pitched in and did the work, it would be done. They did not. Haiti is just a total mess.

Turtle · Mar 20, 2011

greg334 said:
The tragedy in Japan is worst than the other two combined, not because of the loss of life or the devastation from the tsunami but rather the radiation and the effect of that on the environment.

Worse than the other two combined? Not even close. First, there's no point in trying to compare Japan to New Orleans. You can compare New Orleans to the areas in northern Japan that were hardest hit by the quake and tsunami, but that's about as far as the comparisons can go. But even at that, you have to contrast the difference between an unprepared and complacent New Orleans to the people who not only have the longest recorded history of tsunamis, but invented the word in the first place, with tsu and nami being the two Japanese words meaning Harbor Wave. The Japanese people were neither unprepared nor complacent.

As for Haiti, the earthquake there had a massive, devastating impact on every person living there. Their lives are still dramatically affected. Many schools and businesses remain closed to this day. The Sendai quake and tsunami occurred on a Friday, and on Monday the vast majority of Japanese went back to work and school.

The environmental damage, even if one or more of the reactors ends up going Chernobyl, while bad, bad, bad, it's not any environmentally worse than a BP or Exxon Valdez oil spill, when you get right down to it. There will be areas that will be uninhabitable for decades to be sure, but it's not like the entire country will have to be relocated. There will be farm produce, dairy and meat from localized areas that will be inedible due to radiation for a time, just like fish from the Gulf was inedible for a time. And because the vast majority of the radiation at the reactors is likely to be at least somewhat contained, the chances of of a Chernobyl-like total meltdown and massive radiation leak is very low. But even if it happens, the wind there blows mainly out to sea, and not at, say, Tokyo.

Even if you take it all into consideration, the quake, the tsunami and the radiation, what happened in Japan still pales in comparison to the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake and the resulting Indian Ocean Tsunami, which killed 230,000 people in 14 countries, and displaced more than half a million people in each of Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka.

I certainly don't want to come off as being cold or to diminish the severity of what happened in Japan, because it's really bad. But we certainly don't need a "We Are the World" concert and pledge drive to raise money for a country that sits third on the list of the world's largest economies. They'll be OK. And we'll give them any assistance they might need. But we don't need to blow it out of proportion any more than people in California or Iowa need to be hoarding potassium iodide pills.