U2 and Greenday have been stirring things up with this video. No matter what you think, it’s actually technically very clever. But I wonder how the American public will receive it?
At the time of posting this here (thanks to Shae by the way for switching me on to this) there were nearly 6000 comments on just one YouTubers site regarding the video. Maybe I’m being unfair on your average YouTuber here, but there seems to be a lot of angry people, including servicemen, who are screaming about how fake this video is and how there were no military jets or apache helicopters in New Orleans after Katrina. Clearly the point of the video was lost on them!
It might be no coincidence that the video appears just as the mid-term elections are happening and when the current administration is banging on about how important their war on terror is.
Think back on what I saw in Katrina struck areas on Louisiana and Missisippi, I for one think it’s a disgrace that a country can spend nearly two hundred million dollars a day fighting an unwanted war in a far off country, while whole towns and communities still lie in ruin struggling to return to normality. I wonder how Katrina hit regions might look today if the American government was willing to spend $7,400,000 per hour (that $122,820 per minute) on homeland relief rather than on the rebranded and seemingly unending ‘Long war’ in Iraq?
I know some might critisize me for that opinion, but I think if every American had been able to spend a week in Waveland Missisippi they wouldn’t have felt that different to me, regardless of their political opinion.
TV coverage didn’t even scratch the surface of the reality of the scale of devastation from Katrina. Of the coverage there was, most seemed to focus primarily on New Orleans leading people now to accosiate Katrina almost exclusively with that city rather than the many other towns and cities it demolished along the vast Golf Coast.
While the U2/Greenday video might paint and overly simplistic view of what might have been, I think the images serve as a timely reminder that homeland relief is as important, if not more so, than homeland security.
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The Saints Are Coming : By U2 & Greenday
Wrote the following comment on Nov 3, 2006 at 5:49 pm
truly, not as seen on tv…
Wrote the following comment on Nov 3, 2006 at 5:50 pm
Perhaps this was not an intended purpose of the video, but it also prompted me to think about what it must feel like for the Iraqis to be wrapped up in American military presence. In the video military craft is being deployed for “noble” purposes, but it is still a dominating presence. The jets are dropping supplies, which is good, but in order to do that they are going by in sonic sweeps, which can be intimadating. Those scenes where the skies are filled with various military craft whose purpose is to bring aid, would, regardless of the purpose, stir fear and a sense of being occupied by a dominating power. The Saints, mighty, powerful, “glorious” and strong, are indeed coming!!!!!
Wrote the following comment on Nov 22, 2006 at 5:37 pm
im really touched by that its a really true cause a family member of mine was killed by katrina