Racism and propaganda

Recently we at jcreadsthenews were able to conduct an experiment. DP (also known as Delicious Pandemonium) is a very left-wing reader and volunteered for our experiment. First, we removed her from her normal media environment, then took her journal entries from her return.

DP's normal media environment consists of Democracy Now! and Air America on the radio, various internet sources for news. (NO TV!)

To Remove DP from her media coccoon, we sent her to Switzerland for 2 weeks in the alps. Upon her return, we stole her journal. Here is an account of her re-entry into American culture.

Because I was out of the country when Hurricane Katrina hit I was
removed from the initial fervor of the first five days. I saw the images on TV,
but I had just seen tons of coverage of the floods in Switzerland. It was
just another flood. It seemed pretty bad, but I was far away and it was just
another one of the bad American activities.

In the Atlanta airport I waited for my plane facing the large windows
to observe the tarmac and sunlight. I tried to read but there was too much
hub bub. I heard a man from the Black Caucus saying the lack of response to
Hurricane Katrina's demolition was a race issue. Oh boy, back in the US
of A, I thought and nearly rolled my eyes. I doubted that race had any
bearing on natural disaster. Though I'm a bleeding heart lefty I thought this
was far fetched and that waving the finger around and screaming Racism was
inappropriate. Apparently in the Atlanta airport I had yet to fully
understand the situation.
You see how the mind works here, the subject was not "understanding" the
situation correctly at that time. Later, after successful re-entry into
her media sphere, she has this experience:
I made the mistake of falling asleep at 6:30PM, after returning home
from my temp. receptionist job. Upon awakening, I realized what has
happened in New Orleans. I woke up thinking of the images I saw and
that no onewith helicopters or boats came to these people's rescue
over all those days. I woke up with this dawning on me and I grew
horrified. Were all those people left to die because of the color of
their skin? It's too horrible. The external influence of news reminded
me to blame Bush, but inside I don't. There are chains of command all
over this country. There is a police force in Tennessee, Kentucky, etc.
and I know there are people in these chains who have a conscience.
Where were all the people with the power to say: send rescue teams,
send food, send water... are they all under the influence
of their chains? Maybe their helicopters don't fly that far.
Here the subject actually recognizes the "external" influence of her media
environment, and feels pressure from it to "blame Bush."   Notice also the
subject's cognitive dissonance- DP is being told it's racism, but finds it
difficult to believe.  You can feel this tension in the entry- logically, DP
reasons, there were people all over who had the ability to help, did they just
stay home?  Is DP able to find any mention of anybody helping these hurricane
victims in her normal, everyday media environment?

Not without actively pursuing the question- difficult to do in an airport, or
while working at an ass-flattening, soul-sucking job.

I believe most Americans will take the news as it is fed to them.  Meaning, they
will believe that people died because of racist policy, or if they get their news
from the other end of the radio, that Hurricane Katrina was a just punishment from
a righteous G-d who heard there was going to be a gay pride event the following
week in New Orleans.  Or whatever their favorite "news" source tells them to
think.