I can second the above with the fires.Â
Most the time, when people say âoh FEMA or something sent people right?â re: fires, its actually people from other countries showing up and kinda ignoring the government telling them to fuck off and staying on behalf of local departments because we REALLY need them.Â
If thereâs a huge ass disaster, and the government is sitting there with a thumb up itâs ass, help is offered and most the timeâ shit, it gets there!
But then the feds do something really fucking dirty.
They insist they were the help, if itâs talked about at all.Â
They insist those people putting out fires were federal people, because to most people a firemanâs a fireman. The people handing out water and food, a relief worker is a relief worker. So on and so forth.Â
We had people come up when the fires were so bad a while agoâ not the Australians, but i think there was like a German group of like 3 guys that flew themselves over? They came out of sheer âthis is horrible and weâre helpingâ and my dad [local fire chief] had them working with our guys and the feds lost no time telling every news outlet that it was THEIR people doing all the fire knockdowns and structure work when these guys were running into buildings and grabbing people, pets, and peopleâs important documents because they knew papers were a pain in the ass to replace.Â
What you gotta understand is that our government is very intent on selling us and the rest of the world [as much as possible] the idea of a powerful and self reliant country. All our reporting on disasters, starts with the scaremongering and then moves to âbut our people can handle it because weâre the best at handling thingsâ and then they move on before the idea itâs out of control comes to mind. The average person outside of the disaster has no idea, if they have never been around such an event or met someone who regularly deals with these things, they will kinda probably nod along with that. Because we have no real scope on the scale and impactâ by design. Our media intake is very controlled to slant everything to the âeh, we can handle it and everyone else out thereâ they need our help because theyâre not so good at handling disasters like we are.â
People who know better, reading international news, interacting with international social groups, looking outside their sphere of communityâ we know better but that kinda slant is really hard to break from because of that grip American media has on information.
So, taking that knowledge, we further have restricted reporting on certain disasters because theyâre considered unimportant.Â
Hurricanes are considered important, earthquakes are only considered important if it wrecks something the government cares about or somewhere a couple million people live that theyâll upset the national money flow/they can throw money at someone to make the news care, floods are only important if itâs in a similar manner to earthquakes but since they occur annually theyâre rarely reported on nationally, mudslides that kill people or leave hundreds homeless arenât important to the government even through they happen constantly, wildfires that consume most of the nation/continent each year generally are unimportant until they consume a town or threaten a government interest/money flow location.
Terrorist attacks are always important because people will talk about them.
So, when we do get help for any of the above, itâs possible that most people may have no idea about whatâs happened, let alone that helpâs been sent. Or if people know something happened, the details are vagueâ the news donât care to give the nitty gritty. Youâll know something happened and people are suffering and âgee, isnât it good youâre not themâ and then now the weather.
So, yeah, basically no one really knows we get help.
