Recent tropical Storm Idalia’s destruction in and the toll it has taken from parts of the U.S. are now well reported in the US media. International news agencies also covered human suffering the furious storm created.
An Associated Press report cited Belond Thomas of Perry, a mill town: “All hell broke loose”.
The Idalia, according to the late-August report, “appeared to be far less destructive than first feared.”
The report told about Jewell Baggett, who was picking “through the wreckage and debris of her mother’s destroyed home, finding a few pictures and her mother’s pots and pans. Her grandfather built the home decades ago and it had survived four previous storms, she said. ‘And now it’s gone’, she said. ‘Nothing left. A few little trinkets here and there.’”
They have to build up home again; and in the economy they live in and work, it’ll take time and labor, unknown and uncertain, that’ll be required to build up a new home. It’s another hardship.
Jewell Baggett isn’t the single victim of the storm. There’re many; and they all face hard, uncertain time. They know the extent of uncertainty and hardship ahead.
The AP has provided a number of photographs of Jewell Baggett and others. A few of the photos are copied below:
Caption of the AP photo above said: “Jewell Baggett stands beside a Christmas decoration she recovered from the wreckage of her mother’s home, as she searches for anything salvageable from the trailer home her grandfather had acquired in 1973 and built multiple additions on to over the decades, in Horseshoe Beach, Fla., after the passage of Hurricane Idalia, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) ASSOCIATED PRESS”
Another AP photo shows:
The photo’s caption says: “Jewell Baggett walks amidst debris strewn across the yard where her mother’s home had stood […] (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) ASSOCIATED PRESS”
AP’s another photo, highly symbolic, shows:
This photo’s caption says: “Jewell Baggett finds a lit green light amidst the debris strewn across the yard where her mother’s home had stood […] (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) ASSOCIATED PRESS”
another photo by AP, “made in a flight provided by mediccorps.org”, shows:
Its caption reads: “[…] [T]he remains of a destroyed home built atop a platform on piles are seen in Keaton Beach, Fla., following the passage of Hurricane Idalia […] (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) ASSOCIATED PRESS”
Power the Idalia exerted is also evident in the AP’s photo below:
The AP photo’s caption said: “Pick up trucks and debris lie strewn in a canal in Horseshoe Beach, Fla., after the passage of Hurricane Idalia […] (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) ASSOCIATED PRESS”
The following photo by AP also stands as symbolic – steps to nowhere or somewhere – while showing the storm’s power:
This photo’s caption reads: “A set of concrete steps carried by storm waters from another building sits amidst the wreckage of a home originally owned by the late grandparents of Jewell Baggett […] (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) ASSOCIATED PRESS”
The following photograph by AP, may be symbolic to someone, also shows the storm’s power:
Caption of the AP photo said: “A pickup truck with an American flag tied to sits halfway into a canal in Horseshoe Beach, Fla., after the passage of Hurricane Idalia […] (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) ASSOCIATED PRESS”
Reports on the storm and accompanying photos remind the mainstream media news reports on Cuba, scores of miles down to the south. There in Cuba, citizens face similar calamities, at times. They are the same humanbeings as the people in the US are. Their homes also get devastated by storms. They have similar sufferings from storms. They are part of the same humanity.
Their uncertainty is not the same, as profit and market are not allowed to determine their fate and future, however. And, there’s a powerful interest that dislikes the Cuban people’s endeavor, their stand with dignity, which the interest considers as audacity and threat to it. The Cuban people have not submited to market while markets enchain the peoples in advanced capitalist states.
In this market, which is now facing devastating natural calamities/extreme weather patterns at unprecedented extent, market operatives are adjusting marketing plans, actually profit-reaping plans, so that loss doesn’t touch market’s deep pocket of profit. So, a report by The Washington Post said:
“In the aftermath of extreme weather events, major insurers are increasingly no longer offering coverage that homeowners in areas vulnerable to those disasters need most.
“At least five large US property insurers – including Allstate, American Family, Nationwide, Erie Insurance Group and Berkshire Hathaway – have told regulators that extreme weather patterns caused by climate change have led them to stop writing coverages in some regions, exclude protections from various weather events and raise monthly premiums and deductibles.
“Major insurers say they will cut out damage caused by hurricanes, wind and hail from policies underwriting property along coastlines and in wildfire country, according to a voluntary survey conducted by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, a group of state officials that regulates rates and policy forms.” (“Home insurers cut natural disasters from policies as climate risks grow”, September 3, 2023)
With this perspective, how the MSM present its news reports when storms wreck devastation in Cuba? How the MSM news report-photos of devastation in storm-wrecked Cuba are presented? How, in general, Cuba and its people’s life are depicted by the MSM?
A careful scrutiny will show the MSM’s presentations are aslant – trying to show “see, the deplorable condition of Cuba and its miserable people”.
It, the slant, the satire, is not only in reporting on storm or natural calamities in Cuba. It’s also on other reports related to Cuba, be it economy, ecology or governance, roads or restaurants, buildings or boys playing, shops or streets, leaders or leading politics. The Cuban people’s achievements are least reported by the MSM, so that people in other lands can’t gain from the Cuban people’s experience, can’t feel inspired, don’t feel confident to organize struggle for a dignified, democratic life, as such feelings and experiences sometimes spread like a prierie fire, sometimes spark sustained struggle.
The MSM’s this “pious”, or deeply profit-motivated effort is present in color, shade of color, angle, background, foreground, focus, etc. of photos; in wordings, formulation of sentences, headings, descriptions, use of pronouns, adjectives, idioms and phrases. The MSM’s this entire effort is relentlessly done since the people of Cuba stood with honor and dignity, since they began their journey toward an exploitation free society. The MSM tries to create:
[1] a negative impression about Cuba, its people, its political and economic system, its struggles for a people’s democratic, dignified life;
[2] a hostile attitude towards the Cuban people’s struggles; and
[3] create an impression that the system of governance in Cuba has failed or is failing.
This is part of class war – exploiting classes carry on against the exploited; and the MSM operates as an weapon in a psychological warfare.
Isn’t it difficult to find
[1] a report by the MSM that tells about the crushing economic and financial sanction imposed on Cuba;
[2] a MSM report that makes a comparison between the two systems – profit-driven, in bourgeois economies, and people’s interest driven, in Cuba;
[3] a MSM report that mentions age of and resources in control of the two economies – advanced bourgeois/imperialist, and Cuba; and
[4] a report by the MSM that tells that it’s extremely difficult for Cuba to pursue a lot of endeavors for making people’s life better because of the imperialism imposed sanctions?
But, it’s the same common persons in Cuba, in the US, and in countries, struggling to join broken pieces of life left behind by devastating storms/cyclones. Moreover, the Cuban people have to constantly bear an extra burden – imperialist sytem-imposed sanctions.
So, are the MSM’s propaganda, exhibitions of “failures” of Cuban system logical, rational, fair, impartial, enlightening that the MSM always claim to be standing for?
Whatever those are, the fact stands as: The MSM, as a tool of the powerful interests hide facts, so that truth goes buried, so that people live in dark, in misery, so that truth dies in darkness and ignorance.
Note: All photos, captions, parts of report by news agency/newspaper cited and copied in this article are not for profit, not for commercial purpose.
