A letter my friend wrote to the Journal's Jim Stingl

[mojowork_n]

August 12, 2008

Hi, Jim

I'm writing in response to your column last Sunday, "Comic frenzy wasn't funny during 1950's":

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=781281

World War II had ended the year before, but from the context of these paragraphs from George Orwell, I would guess some forms of civilian rationing hadn't yet ended. (In this case, it sounds like there may have been limits placed on foreign currency exchanges.)

In an essay written December 27, 1946, Mr. Orwell wrote:

"...A CORRESPONDENT has sent me a copy of one of the disgusting American ‘comics’ which I referred to a few weeks ago. The two main stories in it are about a beautiful creature called The Hangman, who has a green face, and, like so many characters in American strips, can fly. On the front page there is a picture of what is either an ape-like lunatic, or an actual ape dressed up as a man, strangling a woman so realistically that her tongue is sticking four inches out of her mouth. Another item is a python looping itself round a man’s neck and then hanging him by suspending itself over a balustrade. Another is a man jumping out of a skyscraper window and hitting the pavement with a splash. There is much else of the same kind.


My correspondent asks me whether I think this is the kind of thing that should be put into the hands of children, and also whether we could not find something better on which to spend our dwindling dollars.


Certainly I would keep these out of children’s hands if possible. But I would not be in favour of actually prohibiting their sale. The precedent is too dangerous. But meanwhile, are we actually using dollars to pay for this pernicious rubbish?

The point is not completely unimportant, and I should like to see it cleared up..."

Here's the link. Scroll down to the very last few paragraphs to find the entry:

http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/essays/asiplease1946.htm

(Actually, if you have any interest at all in the issues of "press freedom", "journalistic responsibility", or literary integrity, I'd start with the very first essay written the previous year, and continue reading -- or at least skimming the entries -- up to that quoted excerpt.)

http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/essays/asiplease1945.htm

I read your column last Sunday and I have to admit, I wasn't much impressed. After having been knocked out of my chair by Mike Nichols' Journal-Sentinel swan song (not to mention Mr. Kane's weekend column), somehow, the tale of woe and peril faced by parents in the 1950's seemed more like continued pandering to the moral sensibilities of the stuck-in-a-box posse. ("The culture war was on. A Waukesha County woman..." ...helped lead The Good Fight.)

I know, the Waukesha County demographic base must be critical to your paper's continued survival, and ability to attract advertisers (and provide continued employment), but you never really made it very clear what sort of outrages were being inflicted on the delicate minds of youth, during the McCarthy era.

What was the debate really about? How, exactly, were children being victimized? Gangsters glorified? When, and why, and by whom?

I'm still not that clear on the subject, but not really being that big a comic book aficionado to care very much, I'm going to guess that "graphic violence" -- the sort of shocking imagery described by Orwell -- played a very large role in the debate.

No offense, but if you've watched much television lately, or attended any recent screenings of Hollywood motion pictures, that's a battle that was lost a long, long time ago. There may be a continuing rear-guard action on the new frontlines of "video game violence", but for the most part, the average American has been completely inured to depictions of "...a man jumping out of a skyscraper window and hitting the pavement with a splash."

In point of fact, recalling the brouhaha on talk radio last month when the U.S. Army was asked by Summerfest organizers to discontinue use of some of their participatory, digitized recruitment tools, the "culture war" pendulum may have swung in completely the opposite direction. "Graphic violence" isn't even an issue any more, so long as the targets of violence have been pre-screened and pre-approved by... whom? Advertisers, "actually using dollars to pay for this pernicious rubbish?" The F.C.C., falling all over itself to promote big media consolidation, even as it continues to protect us from wardrobe malfunctions? The Right Wing Noise Machine, sacrificing decency for expediency to keep us all living in fear, anger and continued agitation, because there's... a Terror War on?

We're all so used to the same drill, we don't even stop to think about it anymore.

I don't have any answers, either. (Certainly not any easy ones, and nothing much to do with stopping Terror, or the unfunny Terror Frenzy of *this* decade.) But maybe not unlike that newspaper delivery boy, a long time ago, trying to ride his bike up a slope, some fundamental shift in balance has stirred up more questions than I know what to do with.

I'd really like to know why can't I depend on many writers at my local paper, anymore, to do much objective, critical thinking?

There's some sort of shooting war going on somewhere in Eurasia, but the front section of your paper is about 37th on the list of information resources I expect to consult, in trying to find out:

WHO started what?

WHAT are the real issues?

WHEN did the normal channels for negotiation and diplomacy get de-railed?

WHERE are American interests involved?

WHY has there been so much bluster about Georgian "democracy" and Russian "aggression", but so little mention of the BTC pipeline?

HOW BIG a slice are Halliburton and Dick Cheney expecting to get?

Do the answers to any of those questions have anything to do with the unfunny Terror Frenzy of this decade, and the continuing controversy over the WMD mass deceptions/forgeries/leaks/outings…???

If I knew I could hope to find any honest discussion of any of these questions in the Journal Sentinel, maybe I'd buy your paper for something besides the Sports section, and your consistently adequate and thorough coverage of the Packers, Brewers, and Bucks.

Maybe other folks would, too?

Respectfully,

Pep Streebeck

[mojowork_n]

1. Facts, observations and conclusions you're not likely to see...

...reported by our local news scribes for at least another 6 months, if ever. (Remember how long it took to un-do Judith Miller's leading the journalists' pack, in the run-up to "Mission Accomplished in Iraq?")

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/08/09/10898/

The outbreak of war in Georgia on Friday offers a disturbing and somewhat surreal taste of what to expect from John McCain should he become our nation’s Commander in Chief. As the centuries-old ethnic animosities between Georgia and Ossetia boiled over into another armed conflict, drawing in neighboring Russia, McCain issued a stark-raving statement from Des Moines that is disturbingly reminiscent of the language used in the lead-up to NATO’s war against Yugoslavia in 1999, a war McCain zealously pushed for:

“We should immediately call a meeting of the North Atlantic Council to assess Georgia’s security and review measures NATO can take to contribute to stabilizing this very dangerous situation,” McCain said.

http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/editorial/17337/georgia039s-folly

United States Vice-president Dick Cheney has spoken out against this "Russian aggression", but elsewhere in the West there has been silence.

There is no mood for involvement in such a territorial spat.

As published in this newspaper yesterday, both sides are behaving badly; it is outrageous that Russia is attacking Georgian towns and airfields.

Restraint is urgently needed.

But the moral of this tragic little story is that if you are going to kick sand in the face of someone several times bigger and more powerful than you, then you had better have persuasive muscle and a pretty good strategic plan to back you up.

President Saakashvili, it appears, had neither.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/5568/

Almost as soon as the terrible violence broke out in Georgia and South Ossetia, voices in the West were insisting that this was a straightforward tale of a plucky independent republic (Georgia) standing up to a ‘bully wreaking havoc’ (Russia). Georgia is presented as bravely defending its democratic writ by wishing to hold on to South Ossetia, while Russia is accused of ‘dismembering’ a nation state by supporting the South Ossetians’ separatist sensibilities (1). There have been demands for the Western powers, in particular America, to defend Georgia – a rare representative of ‘freedom and civilisation’ in the East (2) – and to chastise the Russians. One commentator says Russia should be ‘denied the prestige that comes with membership of the G8’ (3).

The problem with this fairytale script that is being cut-and-pasted on to the horrendous massacres of people in South Ossetia and Georgia is that it is almost entirely wrong. Georgia is no free-spirited, democratic republic, but an increasingly authoritarian regime that bans overly critical media outlets and criminalises opposition parties (4). Russia is acting not from an imperialist, expansionist standpoint but out of desperation, behaving recklessly because it feels its sovereign authority challenged by numerous ex-Soviet republics.

And, most importantly, far from Western involvement being the solution in Georgia, there has already been far too much of it: Washington’s arming, goading and cajoling of former Soviet republics has intensified instability across the Caucasus and Central Asia and around the rim of one of the most populous, powerful nations on Earth: Russia.

The bloodshed that occurred over the weekend, as Georgian forces bombed the breakaway territory of South Ossetia and Russia responded by attacking Georgia, can be seen as the destructive outcome of Washington’s increasingly hungry and erratic foreign policy. What is missing from much of the Western morality tale of Georgia vs Russia is any serious assessment of Washington’s role in militarising former Soviet republics and giving a green light to their anti-Russian posturing. From the Ukraine to Uzbekistan to Georgia, Washington has backed a string of dodgy ruling parties and dictatorial leaders as they have upped the ante with their former rulers in the Kremlin. The end result has been more authoritarianism in the East and unpredictability in world affairs.

Well, OK, this reaction from Gorbachev made the Washington Post, so maybe it'll show up, somewhere, a bit sooner than any of the rest of this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/11/AR2008081101372_pf.html

Small nations of the Caucasus do have a history of living together. It has been demonstrated that a lasting peace is possible, that tolerance and cooperation can create conditions for normal life and development. Nothing is more important than that.

The region's political leaders need to realize this. Instead of flexing military muscle, they should devote their efforts to building the groundwork for durable peace.

Over the past few days, some Western nations have taken positions, particularly in the U.N. Security Council, that have been far from balanced. As a result, the Security Council was not able to act effectively from the very start of this conflict. By declaring the Caucasus, a region that is thousands of miles from the American continent, a sphere of its "national interest," the United States made a serious blunder. Of course, peace in the Caucasus is in everyone's interest. But it is simply common sense to recognize that Russia is rooted there by common geography and centuries of history. Russia is not seeking territorial expansion, but it has legitimate interests in this region.

Here's the fire-breathing dragon, in the middle of the tent, as yet to be addressed by anyone in the room:


http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Baku+Tbilisi+Ceyhan+pipeline+Halliburton+Cheney

What is it that's keeping the media from even talking about stuff like this? Sean Collins has an article, here,

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/reviewofbooks_article/5507/

titled, "The Balkanization of America", discussing a recent guest of Jon Stewart's, on The Daily Show

(It's no secret that Jon and the rest of The Daily Show posse have surpassed The Onion, as "America's Finest News Source." It's not really a joke that we have to rely on a 'comedy show' for information, insight, and truth.)

Edit after-thought:

I sure didn't do a very good job of snipping and pasting from Mark Ames' article in "The Nation" -- that first link on top, at Commondreams. There's so much more, there, if anyone has any curiosity at all about any of these issues...

[MessiahRp]

2. A nice Dragnet reference at the end

Almost like something he would recite to the uptight Joe Friday.

Rp