Potemkin Earthquake?

Kate of the Canadian Small Dead Animals blog, who is actually vacationing in Beijing this week, writes that “Watching CCTV coverage of the massive Chinese quake aftermath (as best I can, considering the language gap) one can’t help but notice how ‘sanitary’ the images are“:

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While there’s plenty of footage showing collapsed buildings and roadways, crushed cars and landslides, the “rescued” quake victims dragged from the rubble before Chinese television cameras are uniformly limp, dazed, and amazingly clean. If one were of a suspicious nature, one might suspect there was some staging going on.

There also seems to be a lot of footage of soldiers moving supplies around in an orderly, efficient manner.

It seems all very reassuring, as I’m sure was intended. There is no question that the death toll will be both staggering and under-reported.

A totalitarian regime papering over its country’s ongoing crises during an Olympic year? Maybe I should have called this post, “Recreate ’38”.

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