3/27/2019 Debunking The Disaster Myth Narrative: No One Panics, No One Loots, No One Goes Hungry | Zero Hedge

Debunking The Disaster Myth Narrative: No One Panics, No One

Loots, No One Goes Hungry

by Tyler Durden
Tue, 03/26/2019 - 23:05

Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding
of their history.”  ~ George Orwell

I was recently doing some research about the aftermath of some natural disasters that took place here in
America. I was shocked to find that the articles I was looking for – ones that I had read in the past – were
pretty hard to find, but articles refuting the sought-for pieces were rampant.  Not just one event, but every
single crisis aftermath that I looked up, had articles that were written after the fact stating in no uncertain
terms that the hunger, chaos, and unrest never happened.

Apparently we, the preparedness community, are all wrong when it comes to the belief that after a
disaster, chaos erupts and civic disorder is the rule of the day.

According to “experts” it never happens.

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Panic?  What panic?

According to newspaper articles written after Superstorm Sandy devastated the East Coast and after
Hurricane Katrina caused countless billions in damage in New Orleans, people were calm, benevolent and
peaceful.  Heck, they were all standing around singing Kumbayah around a campfire, sharing their canned
goods, calming frightened puppies, and helping the elderly.

Apparently studies prove that the fear of anarchy, lawlessness, and chaos is nothing but the “disaster
myth”.  Reams of examples exist of the goodness and warmth of society as a whole after disaster strikes.
All the stories you read at the time were just that – stories, according to the mainstream media:

Yet there are a few examples stubbornly fixed in the popular imagination of people reacting to a
natural disaster by becoming primal and vicious. Remember the gangs “marauding” through New
Orleans, raping and even cannibalizing people in the Super-Dome after Hurricane Katrina? It turns
out they didn’t exist. Years of journalistic investigations showed them to be racist fantasies. They
didn’t happen. Yes, there was some “looting” — which consisted of starving people breaking into
closed and abandoned shops for food. Of course human beings can behave atrociously – but the
aftermath of a disaster seems to be the time when it is least likely. (source)

The Disaster Myth

The Disaster Myth is a narrative created by the establishment and delivered by their stoolies in the
mainstream media.  The Disaster Myth points fingers at many of the things that are commonly believed to
be true by the preparedness community.  Included in this narrative:

People do not panic after a disaster – instead, they pull together.

The official government response is always speedy and appropriate.

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You will be taken care of if you simply comply peacefully with authorities.

There is little increase in post-disaster crime.

Looting?  Only hungry people getting food from unmanned stores. Who wouldn’t do that?
Beatings and assaults?  Didn’t happen. Disturbed people made these stories up for attention.
Gang rapes?  No way. You watch too much Law and Order: SVU.
Murder, mayhem, and gangs of youth on the streets?  Silly readers – we just made that up.
However, these statements all stand in direct opposition to the stories we hear from news
sources duringthe crisis.

Remember this?
We heard terrible stories from eyewitnesses who suffered from hunger, thirst, and unsanitary condition in
the Superdome after Katrina.  We heard about citizens being robbed of their 2nd Amendment rights by
police after the crisis, and we heard about gang rapes, looting, and mayhem.

Fast forward to Sandy where people were defecating in the hallways of their high rise apartments and
digging through garbage to find food just a few days after the storm.  As for the official response, who can
forget the FEMA shelter that closed because of inclement weather?  Of course, the weather was inclement –
it was a freaking weather-related disaster!

Here’s how bad it got.

Mac Slavo of SHTFplan wrote of the unrest, discomfort, and mayhem after Superstorm Sandy ransacked the
East Coast:

For tens of thousands of east coast residents that worst case scenario is now playing out in real-
time. No longer are images of starving people waiting for government handouts restricted to just
the third-world.
In the midst of crisis, once civilized societies will very rapidly descend into chaos when essential
infrastructure systems collapse.
Though the National Guard was deployed before the storm even hit, there is simply no way for the
government to coordinate a response requiring millions of servings of food, water and medical
supplies
Many east coast residents who failed to evacuate or prepare reserve supplies ahead of the storm are
being forced to fend for themselves.
Frustration and anger have taken hold, as residents have no means of acquiring food or gas and
thousands of trucks across the region remain stuck in limbo.
Limited electricity has made it possible for some to share their experiences:
Via Twitter:

I was in chaos tonite tryin to get groceries…lines for shuttle buses, only to get to the
no food left & closing early (link)

I’m not sure what has shocked me more, all the communities around me destroyed, or
the 5 hour lines for gas and food. (link)

Haven’t slept or ate well in a few days. Hope things start getting better around here
soon (link no longer available)

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These days a lot of people are impatient because they’re used to fast things.
Fast food, fast internet, fast lines and fast shipping etc. (link)

Glad Obama is off to Vegas after his 90 minute visit. Gas lines are miles long..
Running out of food and water. Great Job (link)

Went to the Grocery store and lines were crazy but nail salon was empty so I’ve got a
new gel manicure and some Korean junk food (link)

So f*cking devastated right now. Smell burning houses. People fighting for food. Pitch
darkness. I may spend the night in rockaway to help (link)

At the time of the event, even the mainstream reported on the affluent East Side residents dumpster diving
in search of food. Was this NBC report, complete with video, a work of salacious fiction?

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As far as civil unrest is concerned, the “Twittersphere” was jammed with people planning looting spreesin
the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.  Those who were already of criminal leanings saw the disaster as a
great opportunity. In the great North American Edit, however, these tweets are said to be part of the myth –
apparently they were just kids playing around.  Some reports pooh-poohed the very idea that looters had
run amok.

This article from Prison Planet refutes all of the refuting and says that the civil unrest DID occur and that it
generally does, given evidence from past events.

Legends from the past? Every single extreme weather event in recent years in the United States has
been followed by looting.

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As MSNBC reported at the time, looting during Hurricane Katrina was so prevalent that it “took place
in full view of police and National Guard troops.”
Residents described the scenes as being like “downtown Baghdad” as looters filled garbage cans full
of stolen goods and floated them down flooded streets.
As Forbes’ Erik Kain points out, “looting and rioting…occur after most natural disasters,” including
after Hurricane Irene as well as Hurricane Isaac.
Looters also targeted victims of the Colorado wildfires earlier this year.

But again and again, we’re told that none of it happened.

Here’s a sampling of articles and studies supporting the Disaster Myth Narrative:
http://ann.sagepub.com
http://voices.yahoo.com
http://articles.washingtonpost.com
http://www.slate.com
http://www.minnpost.com
http://nextcity.org
http://dspace.udel.edu

Does this sound familiar?

This revision of inconvenient history will sound quite familiar to anyone who has read George Orwell’s
masterpiece 1984 (which was not meant to be an instruction manual, by the way.)

In the novel, the main character, Winston Smith, worked for the Ministry of Truth, which was actually a
department of propaganda whose job it was to rewrite any faction of history that did not make the
government look omniscient.

In George Orwell‘s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Ministry of

Truth is Oceania‘s propaganda ministry. It is responsible for any necessary falsification of historical
events. The word truth in the title Ministry of Truth should warn, by definition, that the “minister”
will self-serve its own “truth”; the title implies the willful fooling of posterity using “historical”
archives to show “in fact” what “really” happened. As well as administering truth, the ministry
spreads a new language amongst the populace called Newspeak, in which, for example, truth is
understood to mean statements like 2 + 2 = 5 when the situation warrants.
The Ministry of Truth is involved with news media, entertainment, the fine arts and educational
books. Its purpose is to rewrite history to change the facts to fit Party doctrine
for propaganda effect. For example, if Big Brother makes a prediction that turns out to be wrong,
the employees of the Ministry of Truth go back and rewrite the prediction so that any prediction Big
Brother previously made is accurate. This is the “how” of the Ministry of Truth’s existence. Within
the novel, Orwell elaborates that the deeper reason for its existence is to maintain the illusion that
the Party is absolute. It cannot ever seem to change its mind (if, for instance, they perform one of
their constant changes regarding enemies during war) or make a mistake (firing an official or
making a grossly misjudged supply prediction), for that would imply weakness and to maintain
power the Party must seem eternally right and strong. (source)

But….WHY????
So why the vast effort to expunge tales of mayhem and to make it seem like our own national disasters
really weren’t that bad? Why does the government and the media want us to think everything is just fine?

I can think of no other reason than their own irrelevance.

Remember when the Cajun Navy began rescuing people from floods and they ran into all sorts of legal
issues? The did a better and more efficient job than officials and the people “in charge” just wouldn’t have
it.
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If you don’t NEED them, then there is no leverage to force you into compliance.  You don’t NEED to go to
Camp FEMA in order to have 3 squares a day.  You don’t NEED to give up your guns in order to have a roof
over your head and government-supplied security.  You don’t NEED to get some kind of chip implanted in
your arm to be scanned in order to receive “benefits” like medical care, food, and even money.

Self-sufficiency means freedom.  When you can feed yourself, clothe yourself, shelter yourself, and protect
yourself, you are far less likely to need to cede your freedoms in order to stay alive. And in a nation
governed by those who are frantically trying to withdraw our constitutional rights, this just won’t do.  They
need leverage.

So the establishment has created a narrative that tells us what we are doing is silly and unnecessary.
They are rewriting history (and not just about disasters) even though we only lived that history in the past
decade.  Even though we know the truth of the matter because we watched it live, they are changing the
facts to make us doubt our own perceptions.

To give credit where it’s due, the current head of FEMA seems to be doing things a little differently. But
don’t expect the media and Congress to follow suit.

But we know the civil unrest is really occurring.

If this civil unrest is not occurring, why is the National Guard called to keep the peace?  Why are state police
riding around on tanks wearing body armor? Why were the guns of law-abiding citizens taken away in the
aftermath of Katrina?

My family and I have opted to be prepared with food, water, a self-defense strategy, and home security.  We
believe that when bad things happen, worse things often follow before order is restored.  We won’t be
lining up to get an MRE and a bottle of water to share amongst us. We won’t require a cot at Camp FEMA.
 We won’t need to give up our firearms in order to get our next meal.

Which reality are you going to believe?

Are you going to believe the one that you witnessed or the perverted rewrite that the mainstream media is
trying to push upon you?

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