In Peter Shaffer's AMADEUS, there is a scene where Constanza shows up at Maestro Salieri's palace conservatory bearing a sheaf of original Mozart compositions purloined from her husband's papers. The scene is narrated by the aging, institutionalized Salieri: "Astounding! Beyond belief! He had simply written down music that was already finished in his head. And finished as no music is ever finished." The aged Salieri elaborates on that perfection: "Displace one note and there would be diminishment. Displace one phrase and the structure would fall."
The aged Salieri's reflections came to mind, painfully, when I learned how a few arrogant Latino pressure groups mobilized meddlesome apparatchiks to strongarm Ken Burns into editing his World War II documentary to suit themselves. Shamefully, they succeeded. This does not bode well for free expression in our country. Tell me, Juan Gonzalez and all you self-appointed political commissars: How does your manhandling of Ken Burns differ from the meddling Mozart endured from the Emperor's advisers? How does it differ from the insufferable Soviet meddling in the work of Prokofiev and Shostakovich? Your blind pursuit of a narrow political agenda - pluralism run riot - has pushed the country a giant stride toward cultural sterility.
Why couldn't you simply produce your own documentary? Why meddle with Ken Burns? Could you not tell your own story better than he could? Or, perhaps - like the Emperor and the Soviets - you share Salieri's lament at Divine Fate: "He gave me that longing, then made me mute."
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Sunday, May 27, 2007
The Reagan Legacy
The Electoral College travesty in 2000 has proven tragic to the Legacy of Ronald Reagan. How much better for his memory had Al Gore assumed the Presidency after his victory at the Polls! President Gore would have erased the ill effects of President Reagan's most glaring errors, namely:
1) $1.7 TRILLION added to the national debt
2) arming the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, thus empowering the Taliban
3) the cut and run from Beirut
4) the arms for hostages policy
If Al Gore had taken office after his electoral victory (and continued President Clinton's conservative fiscal policy), we would now be on the verge of retiring the national debt. Instead, the Bush/Cheney junta drew the conclusion that "Ronald Reagan proved that deficits don't matter." True to their word, they opened the floodgates, raising the debt limit to $9 TRILLION! What happens if the Russians and Iranians denominate petroleum sales in anything other than the dollar and all those unwanted reserve dollars fly back home?
If Al Gore had taken office after his electoral victory, our military energy would have remained focused on Afghanistan after 9/11. With the support of our European allies, we would be fully engaged in the useful work of nation building, following the successful Kosovo model. This would have wiped out the foul taste of the expedient Reagan/Bush policy of abandoning the women of Afghanistan to the tender mercies of the Taliban (after the Soviet withdrawal). Karzai would be secure in Kabul and his country, not secular Iraq, would be the Islamic laboratory for democracy. Imagine the impact of that success on the secular youth of Iran!
We should have selected Afghanistan for the neo-con experiment in democracy. Anchored there with our allies, we would be spared the extreme pressure to cut and run from Iraq. We could happily forget how Reagan invented the cut and run after the Marine barracks were blown up in Beirut in February 1983.
Iran/Contra, of course, would still tarnish the Reagan Legacy. He went a long way toward cleaning that up by apologizing to the American people. Al Gore could not - and should not - clean up that part of Reagan's statue. It was Reagan's own nonsense, and a healthy reminder of Republican wishful thinking in foreign affairs.
1) $1.7 TRILLION added to the national debt
2) arming the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, thus empowering the Taliban
3) the cut and run from Beirut
4) the arms for hostages policy
If Al Gore had taken office after his electoral victory (and continued President Clinton's conservative fiscal policy), we would now be on the verge of retiring the national debt. Instead, the Bush/Cheney junta drew the conclusion that "Ronald Reagan proved that deficits don't matter." True to their word, they opened the floodgates, raising the debt limit to $9 TRILLION! What happens if the Russians and Iranians denominate petroleum sales in anything other than the dollar and all those unwanted reserve dollars fly back home?
If Al Gore had taken office after his electoral victory, our military energy would have remained focused on Afghanistan after 9/11. With the support of our European allies, we would be fully engaged in the useful work of nation building, following the successful Kosovo model. This would have wiped out the foul taste of the expedient Reagan/Bush policy of abandoning the women of Afghanistan to the tender mercies of the Taliban (after the Soviet withdrawal). Karzai would be secure in Kabul and his country, not secular Iraq, would be the Islamic laboratory for democracy. Imagine the impact of that success on the secular youth of Iran!
We should have selected Afghanistan for the neo-con experiment in democracy. Anchored there with our allies, we would be spared the extreme pressure to cut and run from Iraq. We could happily forget how Reagan invented the cut and run after the Marine barracks were blown up in Beirut in February 1983.
Iran/Contra, of course, would still tarnish the Reagan Legacy. He went a long way toward cleaning that up by apologizing to the American people. Al Gore could not - and should not - clean up that part of Reagan's statue. It was Reagan's own nonsense, and a healthy reminder of Republican wishful thinking in foreign affairs.
Pop Sociology with Mr. Kristol
Dear Mr. Kristol,
Your conversation with Brian Lamb on Q&A left the impression that our escapade in Iraq is a giant stride Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy. A perusal of the transcript confirms that impression. How curious! As I recall, President Reagan dispatched Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad over Christmas in 1983 with a $500,000,000 stocking stuffer, tangible evidence of a tilt toward Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War. Our object, apparently, was to keep Iran in a box. Iran is twice the size of Iraq. The mullahs of Iran are the spiritual leaders of the Shi'a world. Iraq's Shi'a majority is concentrated in the oil-rich south. Saudi Arabia's Shi'a minority is concentrated in the oil-rich northeast. Iran exports Terror through Hezbollah. These sobering reflections urged the distasteful necessity of tilting toward Saddam, even though he was using chemical weapons in that vicious war.
Im March 2003, the containment of Iran was no less a necessity that two decades earlier. The invasion of Iraq repudiates the Reagan policy. Only someone self-deluded enough to discount 1300 years of Sunni-Shi'a hostility as "pop sociology" could praise this misadventure as Neo-Reaganite.
Your conversation with Brian Lamb on Q&A left the impression that our escapade in Iraq is a giant stride Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy. A perusal of the transcript confirms that impression. How curious! As I recall, President Reagan dispatched Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad over Christmas in 1983 with a $500,000,000 stocking stuffer, tangible evidence of a tilt toward Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War. Our object, apparently, was to keep Iran in a box. Iran is twice the size of Iraq. The mullahs of Iran are the spiritual leaders of the Shi'a world. Iraq's Shi'a majority is concentrated in the oil-rich south. Saudi Arabia's Shi'a minority is concentrated in the oil-rich northeast. Iran exports Terror through Hezbollah. These sobering reflections urged the distasteful necessity of tilting toward Saddam, even though he was using chemical weapons in that vicious war.
Im March 2003, the containment of Iran was no less a necessity that two decades earlier. The invasion of Iraq repudiates the Reagan policy. Only someone self-deluded enough to discount 1300 years of Sunni-Shi'a hostility as "pop sociology" could praise this misadventure as Neo-Reaganite.
Friday, May 25, 2007
The Four Basic Strategic Choices
The American Civil War commenced in April 1861 with the bombardment of Fort Sumter. Four years later, in April 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered his magnificent Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Courthouse.
American participation in World War II began in December 1941, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Less that four years later, in August 1945, the proud Japanese Empire was forced to surrender, unconditionally, at a ceremony aboard the U.S.S. Missouri.
The World Trade Center towers came down on a lovely late summer day in 2001. Today, more than five years later, we are bogged down in a country that never attacked us. Our President keeps blathering about "complete victory." Has he ever given a moment's thought to basic strategy? Did any of us put much thought into it before bombs away? We simple-mindedly rushed off to a silly war in Iraq just to work off a little angst. Now, our nuts are in a vise and its getting quite late in the game. Previous generations, at this point in titanic struggles, had finished mopping up and were building institutions for the coming century.
There are four basic strategic responses to the challenge of Islamic fundamentalism: capitulation, religious war, a principled accommodation, or Victory. A productive discussion of the Victory option requires some discussion of the capitulation option which requires a lengthy rehash of mistakes made in Iraq. So, let's set that aside for awhile.
Religious war is an option distinct from Victory. Religious war means scorched earth. It has always meant scorched earth. Religious zealots, persuaded absolutely of their righteousness and virtue, inhabit a moral universe where the ends justify the means. They can commit the most unspeakable atrocities, convinced that those butcheries are blessed by the Almighty. A smoking, lifeless, radioactive landscape - purged of infidels and secular humanists - is Paradise for Rapture-impaired theocrats. Christian theocrats, if victorious in a modern Crusade against Islamic fundamentalism, would bring us a hellish Heaven on earth indistinguishable from the Caliphate.
A Principled Accommodation, of course, is the most sensible option. In order to be "principled," the accommodation would have to be bloc-negotiated. The second biggest advantage bin Laden has going for him - greater even than idiotic American leadership - is Nationalism. The best way to neutralize this advantage, short of ridding ourselves of the nation-state, would be a negotiated "East is East and West is West" settlement. All of the countries of the Islamic World would have to get together to hammer out a unified negotiating position. All of the Western, historically Christian countries (and Israel) would have to do likewise. Then, the bargaining would commence. The West needs the petroleum, but would prefer to not soak up the excess(politically unstable) population of the Islamic World. That world often faces shortages in food production. The secular modernizers need to import heavy machinery and technology. They would rather not import the cultural garbage - the fashions, the music, the films - of the West. The West could demonstrate good faith by imposing a Jefferson-style export embargo on the cultural garbage. The Islamic World could demonstrate good faith by repatriating its religious fundamentalists. Etc., etc. The negotiating vista is panoramic.
The decision to attack Iraq defied two basic precepts of foreign policy. First - a nation always seeks to keep its enemies balanced against each other. Second - in titanic struggles - the nation must identify its primary enemy. Secondary enemies, willing to fight the primary enemy, must become allies.
Shortly after 9/11, our President identified an Axis of Evil - North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. One - actively, aggressively, and publicly - was working to obtain weapons of mass destruction. The second was, secretly and mendaciously, attempting to do the same. The third had used WMD prematurely, in a domestic dispute, bringing upon itself an internationally monitored inspections regime. Complicating all this is the fact that Iran and Iraq share a long border. Iran has double the population. More than half of Iraq's population are Shi'a Muslims, dominant in Iran. 90% of Iraq's petroleum is extracted from the Shi'a region. Classic balance of power Realpolitik urged s slight tilt in favor of Iraq. The Reagan Administration, recognizing this reality, so tilted. In 1983, during the Christmas season, Donald Rumsfeld showed up in Baghdad with a $500,000,000 goodie bag for Saddam.
Prior to the invasion, the power relationship vis-a-vis Iraq and Iran was fundamentally the same. Iran still had a much larger population. The Shi'a Muslims of Iraq still looked to the ayatollahs of Iran for spiritual guidance. Obviously, the chief beneficiary of the bludgeoning of Saddam's secular Iraq would be the Iranian theocracy.
It also merits noting that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. The President was so informed of this in his daily brief of September 21, 2001. Osama bin Laden, a stateless Sunni fundamentalist, orchestrated 9/11. In 1990, when Saddam invaded Kuwait, Osama begged permission of the Saudi royal family to bring his mujahideen fighters from Afghanistan, certain he could expel Saddam's infidels. The royal family coolly dismissed his offer and called upon the United States to rescue them. Osama went off the deep end when foreign fighters - most of them Christian infidels - took up quarters on sacred Saudi soil.
Saddam and Osama inherit a regional ideological dispute going back to the rebellion of the Young Turks a century ago. It is a bitter, violent feud. Secular modernizers, like Saddam, are natural allies against Osama and the fundamentalist terrorists - our primary enemy (just like Stalin was a natural ally against Hitler, our primary enemy during World War II).
What considerations could possibly negate these fundamentals? The neo-conservatives argued that a functioning democracy in Iraq would transform the entire region into a Jeffersonian utopia (a curious twist of the domino theory of the 1950s). Sounds delicious on the face of it, but when one takes a clear-headed look at the obstacles, it looks more and more like an excursion into the stratosphere of wishful thinking, a recipe for disaster. The execution of such a plan, running counter to the eternal verities of foreign policy, would have to be implemented flawlessly to stand any chance whatsoever. The objects of that plan - the Shi'a, the Sunni, and the Kurds - would have to meekly submit to foreign re-engineering of their society.
Instead, the United States, led by the neo-cons, made mistake after mistake. We acted unilaterally, alienating our friends and energizing our foes. Our leaders dismissed the advice of the multi-agency Iraq Assessment Group, which warned that high troop levels would have to be maintained, postwar, to quell insurgency. Our lack of troops, coupled with the dismissal of Iraq's army and police forces (de-Ba'athification) led to looting, a sure-fire way to alienate the propertied, productive people. (Celebrating that looting as the prerogative of a free people, as our Secretary of Defense did, was an instance of verbal diarrhea polluting the entire war.)
Our leaders ignored insurgency theory, which teaches that a small, localized resistance (like Malaya during the 50s) takes about 9 years to put down. A high-level insurgency will take 30 years to put down. Rather than prepare the American people for this kind of sustained effort, our Leader dressed up in a flight suit and celebrated victory prematurely.
More mistakes followed. De-Ba'athification was a mistake of mythic proportions. Imagine giving 400,000 armed men pink slips on the same day! The mind boggles at the inspired lunacy of such a decision. Restricting reconstruction projects to political contributors eroded bi-partisan (and non-partisan) support for the war. Poor accounting for those projects, resulting in the waste of $8,000,000,000 plus, rewarded the most rapacious people in Iraq, slowing reconstruction to a crawl. Retaining Saddam's torture center at Abu Ghraib was more inspired lunacy.
Neo-Conservative leaders (backed up by the lunatic right wing radio echo chamber) who blended this toxic Kool-Aid, curiously, share a common biography. Few have any direct experience of war, having taken advantage of family connections or the college deferment program to avoid service in Vietnam. Instead, they stayed home muttering bitter imprecations against the liberal media and urging the lily-livered politicians to nuke the gooks. They've been waiting decades to show everyone how real men deal with brown-skinned primitives. But, we drank the Kool-Aid. The gun they held to our heads wasn't loaded.
Now that the neo-cons have faked us out and manipulated us into this brain-dead war, they say we must stay the course - a classic example of failing in order to succeed. If we cut and run, the damage to American prestige would be devastating (especially having given the world the finger in the run-up to the war). Securing Iraq would require at least a quarter of a million troops. The counter-insurgency formula actually calls for more like half a million. Meanwhile, the war is draining the Social Security Trust Fund. The hyper-rich scream bloody murder when anyone suggests they should give back their tax cuts. All of this "support our troops" from the right wing loonies is just verbal diarrhea. So, our leaders sit around hoping for a miracle. They've staked American prestige on a sideshow, a diversion from the War on Terror.
One of the more irrational right wing nuts, Melanie Morgan, actually blurted: "If we don't win in Iraq , we are going to lose America." What funky weed has she been smoking? Capitulation in Iraq does not mean the capitulation of America. Does anyone really believe that bin Laden's murderous fundamentalists purpose to rule America? Why is there so much hyper-ventilating about bin Laden trying to destroy the American way of life. Clearly, his primary aim is to stop the penetration of Western materialism into the Islamic World. He does not seek our unconditional surrender. But capitulation in Iraq would expose us as a paper tiger to the Islamic World. It would be wise to get ahead of this, diplomatically, by proposing a Principled Accommodation. That would mean admitting we have made a colossal mistake. God would smile on such an admission. (Chronicles II, 12:7, "They have humbled themselves, therefore I will not destroy them.")
A Principled Accommodation could be dressed up to look a lot like Victory. But, it's not. To defeat Islamic Fundamentalism, we must face the fact that the system of competing Nation-States is an abject failure. In a world where 2 billion people go to bed hungry every night, $900,000,000,000 is immolated on the funeral pyre of defense spending. This priority of swords over ploughshares - the inevitable priority of the Nation-State - is roundly and systematically condemned throughout the Bible. (Jeremiah 25:31 for instance - "the Lord hath a controversy with the nations...") Worshiping the graven images of nationalism leads to a mass grave. Now is the time to tear up the Charter of the United Nations, just as the United States tore up the Articles of Confederation. Just as the United States empowered itself with a Constitution creating competent central authority, the United Nations must write a Constitution transforming it into an elected, representative, and Sovereign body. Such a body would be able to act legitimately against Terrorism.
George W. Bush is a Diving Instrument. An elected, representative, and Sovereign United Nations cannot emerge until the United States fails. The last six years - with neo-con misadventures in foreign affairs and trillions of dollars of new debt - has speeded up that process a hundredfold.
Let's have no more aimless chatter about a Strategy for Victory. Like the American Civil War, the aims of the War on Terror must elevate beyond national self-preservation. Humanity, especially the hundreds of millions of veiled women in the Islamic World, victims of clitorectomies, must be given "a new birth of freedom." With the United States discredited, only an elected, representative and Sovereign United Nations can serve as the midwife.
American participation in World War II began in December 1941, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Less that four years later, in August 1945, the proud Japanese Empire was forced to surrender, unconditionally, at a ceremony aboard the U.S.S. Missouri.
The World Trade Center towers came down on a lovely late summer day in 2001. Today, more than five years later, we are bogged down in a country that never attacked us. Our President keeps blathering about "complete victory." Has he ever given a moment's thought to basic strategy? Did any of us put much thought into it before bombs away? We simple-mindedly rushed off to a silly war in Iraq just to work off a little angst. Now, our nuts are in a vise and its getting quite late in the game. Previous generations, at this point in titanic struggles, had finished mopping up and were building institutions for the coming century.
There are four basic strategic responses to the challenge of Islamic fundamentalism: capitulation, religious war, a principled accommodation, or Victory. A productive discussion of the Victory option requires some discussion of the capitulation option which requires a lengthy rehash of mistakes made in Iraq. So, let's set that aside for awhile.
Religious war is an option distinct from Victory. Religious war means scorched earth. It has always meant scorched earth. Religious zealots, persuaded absolutely of their righteousness and virtue, inhabit a moral universe where the ends justify the means. They can commit the most unspeakable atrocities, convinced that those butcheries are blessed by the Almighty. A smoking, lifeless, radioactive landscape - purged of infidels and secular humanists - is Paradise for Rapture-impaired theocrats. Christian theocrats, if victorious in a modern Crusade against Islamic fundamentalism, would bring us a hellish Heaven on earth indistinguishable from the Caliphate.
A Principled Accommodation, of course, is the most sensible option. In order to be "principled," the accommodation would have to be bloc-negotiated. The second biggest advantage bin Laden has going for him - greater even than idiotic American leadership - is Nationalism. The best way to neutralize this advantage, short of ridding ourselves of the nation-state, would be a negotiated "East is East and West is West" settlement. All of the countries of the Islamic World would have to get together to hammer out a unified negotiating position. All of the Western, historically Christian countries (and Israel) would have to do likewise. Then, the bargaining would commence. The West needs the petroleum, but would prefer to not soak up the excess(politically unstable) population of the Islamic World. That world often faces shortages in food production. The secular modernizers need to import heavy machinery and technology. They would rather not import the cultural garbage - the fashions, the music, the films - of the West. The West could demonstrate good faith by imposing a Jefferson-style export embargo on the cultural garbage. The Islamic World could demonstrate good faith by repatriating its religious fundamentalists. Etc., etc. The negotiating vista is panoramic.
The decision to attack Iraq defied two basic precepts of foreign policy. First - a nation always seeks to keep its enemies balanced against each other. Second - in titanic struggles - the nation must identify its primary enemy. Secondary enemies, willing to fight the primary enemy, must become allies.
Shortly after 9/11, our President identified an Axis of Evil - North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. One - actively, aggressively, and publicly - was working to obtain weapons of mass destruction. The second was, secretly and mendaciously, attempting to do the same. The third had used WMD prematurely, in a domestic dispute, bringing upon itself an internationally monitored inspections regime. Complicating all this is the fact that Iran and Iraq share a long border. Iran has double the population. More than half of Iraq's population are Shi'a Muslims, dominant in Iran. 90% of Iraq's petroleum is extracted from the Shi'a region. Classic balance of power Realpolitik urged s slight tilt in favor of Iraq. The Reagan Administration, recognizing this reality, so tilted. In 1983, during the Christmas season, Donald Rumsfeld showed up in Baghdad with a $500,000,000 goodie bag for Saddam.
Prior to the invasion, the power relationship vis-a-vis Iraq and Iran was fundamentally the same. Iran still had a much larger population. The Shi'a Muslims of Iraq still looked to the ayatollahs of Iran for spiritual guidance. Obviously, the chief beneficiary of the bludgeoning of Saddam's secular Iraq would be the Iranian theocracy.
It also merits noting that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. The President was so informed of this in his daily brief of September 21, 2001. Osama bin Laden, a stateless Sunni fundamentalist, orchestrated 9/11. In 1990, when Saddam invaded Kuwait, Osama begged permission of the Saudi royal family to bring his mujahideen fighters from Afghanistan, certain he could expel Saddam's infidels. The royal family coolly dismissed his offer and called upon the United States to rescue them. Osama went off the deep end when foreign fighters - most of them Christian infidels - took up quarters on sacred Saudi soil.
Saddam and Osama inherit a regional ideological dispute going back to the rebellion of the Young Turks a century ago. It is a bitter, violent feud. Secular modernizers, like Saddam, are natural allies against Osama and the fundamentalist terrorists - our primary enemy (just like Stalin was a natural ally against Hitler, our primary enemy during World War II).
What considerations could possibly negate these fundamentals? The neo-conservatives argued that a functioning democracy in Iraq would transform the entire region into a Jeffersonian utopia (a curious twist of the domino theory of the 1950s). Sounds delicious on the face of it, but when one takes a clear-headed look at the obstacles, it looks more and more like an excursion into the stratosphere of wishful thinking, a recipe for disaster. The execution of such a plan, running counter to the eternal verities of foreign policy, would have to be implemented flawlessly to stand any chance whatsoever. The objects of that plan - the Shi'a, the Sunni, and the Kurds - would have to meekly submit to foreign re-engineering of their society.
Instead, the United States, led by the neo-cons, made mistake after mistake. We acted unilaterally, alienating our friends and energizing our foes. Our leaders dismissed the advice of the multi-agency Iraq Assessment Group, which warned that high troop levels would have to be maintained, postwar, to quell insurgency. Our lack of troops, coupled with the dismissal of Iraq's army and police forces (de-Ba'athification) led to looting, a sure-fire way to alienate the propertied, productive people. (Celebrating that looting as the prerogative of a free people, as our Secretary of Defense did, was an instance of verbal diarrhea polluting the entire war.)
Our leaders ignored insurgency theory, which teaches that a small, localized resistance (like Malaya during the 50s) takes about 9 years to put down. A high-level insurgency will take 30 years to put down. Rather than prepare the American people for this kind of sustained effort, our Leader dressed up in a flight suit and celebrated victory prematurely.
More mistakes followed. De-Ba'athification was a mistake of mythic proportions. Imagine giving 400,000 armed men pink slips on the same day! The mind boggles at the inspired lunacy of such a decision. Restricting reconstruction projects to political contributors eroded bi-partisan (and non-partisan) support for the war. Poor accounting for those projects, resulting in the waste of $8,000,000,000 plus, rewarded the most rapacious people in Iraq, slowing reconstruction to a crawl. Retaining Saddam's torture center at Abu Ghraib was more inspired lunacy.
Neo-Conservative leaders (backed up by the lunatic right wing radio echo chamber) who blended this toxic Kool-Aid, curiously, share a common biography. Few have any direct experience of war, having taken advantage of family connections or the college deferment program to avoid service in Vietnam. Instead, they stayed home muttering bitter imprecations against the liberal media and urging the lily-livered politicians to nuke the gooks. They've been waiting decades to show everyone how real men deal with brown-skinned primitives. But, we drank the Kool-Aid. The gun they held to our heads wasn't loaded.
Now that the neo-cons have faked us out and manipulated us into this brain-dead war, they say we must stay the course - a classic example of failing in order to succeed. If we cut and run, the damage to American prestige would be devastating (especially having given the world the finger in the run-up to the war). Securing Iraq would require at least a quarter of a million troops. The counter-insurgency formula actually calls for more like half a million. Meanwhile, the war is draining the Social Security Trust Fund. The hyper-rich scream bloody murder when anyone suggests they should give back their tax cuts. All of this "support our troops" from the right wing loonies is just verbal diarrhea. So, our leaders sit around hoping for a miracle. They've staked American prestige on a sideshow, a diversion from the War on Terror.
One of the more irrational right wing nuts, Melanie Morgan, actually blurted: "If we don't win in Iraq , we are going to lose America." What funky weed has she been smoking? Capitulation in Iraq does not mean the capitulation of America. Does anyone really believe that bin Laden's murderous fundamentalists purpose to rule America? Why is there so much hyper-ventilating about bin Laden trying to destroy the American way of life. Clearly, his primary aim is to stop the penetration of Western materialism into the Islamic World. He does not seek our unconditional surrender. But capitulation in Iraq would expose us as a paper tiger to the Islamic World. It would be wise to get ahead of this, diplomatically, by proposing a Principled Accommodation. That would mean admitting we have made a colossal mistake. God would smile on such an admission. (Chronicles II, 12:7, "They have humbled themselves, therefore I will not destroy them.")
A Principled Accommodation could be dressed up to look a lot like Victory. But, it's not. To defeat Islamic Fundamentalism, we must face the fact that the system of competing Nation-States is an abject failure. In a world where 2 billion people go to bed hungry every night, $900,000,000,000 is immolated on the funeral pyre of defense spending. This priority of swords over ploughshares - the inevitable priority of the Nation-State - is roundly and systematically condemned throughout the Bible. (Jeremiah 25:31 for instance - "the Lord hath a controversy with the nations...") Worshiping the graven images of nationalism leads to a mass grave. Now is the time to tear up the Charter of the United Nations, just as the United States tore up the Articles of Confederation. Just as the United States empowered itself with a Constitution creating competent central authority, the United Nations must write a Constitution transforming it into an elected, representative, and Sovereign body. Such a body would be able to act legitimately against Terrorism.
George W. Bush is a Diving Instrument. An elected, representative, and Sovereign United Nations cannot emerge until the United States fails. The last six years - with neo-con misadventures in foreign affairs and trillions of dollars of new debt - has speeded up that process a hundredfold.
Let's have no more aimless chatter about a Strategy for Victory. Like the American Civil War, the aims of the War on Terror must elevate beyond national self-preservation. Humanity, especially the hundreds of millions of veiled women in the Islamic World, victims of clitorectomies, must be given "a new birth of freedom." With the United States discredited, only an elected, representative and Sovereign United Nations can serve as the midwife.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
A Question for each Candidate
SENATOR BIDEN
Clear- headed strategic thinkers, like Jim Webb, warned that the invasion of Iraq was an excursion into the stratosphere of wishful thinking. Why did you ignore those warnings and vote to authorize?
SENATOR CLINTON
President Reagan compensated for his cut and run from Beirut by crafting a policy of using Iraq to contain Iran and Hezbollah. Succeeding Presidents, including your husband, adhered to that policy. Why did you vote to reverse it?
SENATOR McCAIN
Counter-insurgency theory tells us that a high-level insurgency takes 30 years to defeat. Isn't the present surge - attempting to secure Baghdad - just the first belated move in a very long term struggle?
SENATOR EDWARDS
Given that so much of the Administration's case for war was dependent on the self-interested assertions of the embezzler Ahmad Chalabi and a defector code-named "Curveball," why did you discredit the countering assertions of Hans Blix?
SENATOR DODD
In the light of Enron and various other gigantic frauds, President Clinton's veto of the Securities Tort Reform Bill has proven very wise. Why did you lead the fight to override?
GOVERNOR GILMORE
Have you made a careful enough study of counter-insurgency theory (as Jim Webbs has done) to give your plans for victory in Iraq any credibility?
MAYOR GIULIANI
During the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, first responders were handicapped by the lack of inter-operability of radios. Why were they hampered with the same problem during the second attack 8 years later?
GOVERNOR HUCKABEE
How can you square a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 with the 4th verse of the 90th Psalm and the Second Book of Peter?
SENATOR BROWNBACK
Secular people view the Evangelical interpretation of the Book of Revelations as a gigantic death wish. Evangelical support of the war in Iraq looks like wish fulfillment to us. How can any of this be peddled as the Culture of Life?
CONGRESSMAN KUCINICH
How much spending on social programs can the economy absorb without destroying the dynamism of the free enterprise system?
CONGRESSMAN PAUL
How can huge corporations be prevented from using institutional power to pursue a Luddite policy of sabotaging advanced technologies, i.e. General Motors destruction of the electric car?
CONGRESSMAN TANCREDO
Are you truly counting on my white trash neighbor to pick the lettuce?
CONGRESSMAN HUNTER
A great American once described the Great Wall of China as "a monument in brick, stone and mud to a usually static point of view." Why should we invest in a monstrousity deeply offensive to President Reagan?
GOVERNOR RICHARDSON
The next President will inherit a pig's breakfast of a policy for the Korean peninsula. How can we counter the successful brinksmanship of Kim Il Jung?
SENATOR OBAMA
The next President will inherit a catastrophe in Iraq, something you warned us about. What's the use of being right when everyone else is wrong?
GOVERNOR ROMNEY
Given that the most activist Supreme Court Justice is Clarence Thomas and the least activist is Stephen Breyer, a Clinton appointee, will you appoint sensible moderates to the Court?
SENATOR GRAVEL
The Alaska delegation has proven the most gluttonous hogs at the trough. What will you do about pork barrel spending?
GOVERNOR THOMPSON
Is the compassionate Conservative extinct?
SENATOR THOMPSON
Would it be correct to assume that, since you think the policy President Bush has pursued in Iraq is "just about right," that we can look forward to more surges and neo-con adventures in the future?
Clear- headed strategic thinkers, like Jim Webb, warned that the invasion of Iraq was an excursion into the stratosphere of wishful thinking. Why did you ignore those warnings and vote to authorize?
SENATOR CLINTON
President Reagan compensated for his cut and run from Beirut by crafting a policy of using Iraq to contain Iran and Hezbollah. Succeeding Presidents, including your husband, adhered to that policy. Why did you vote to reverse it?
SENATOR McCAIN
Counter-insurgency theory tells us that a high-level insurgency takes 30 years to defeat. Isn't the present surge - attempting to secure Baghdad - just the first belated move in a very long term struggle?
SENATOR EDWARDS
Given that so much of the Administration's case for war was dependent on the self-interested assertions of the embezzler Ahmad Chalabi and a defector code-named "Curveball," why did you discredit the countering assertions of Hans Blix?
SENATOR DODD
In the light of Enron and various other gigantic frauds, President Clinton's veto of the Securities Tort Reform Bill has proven very wise. Why did you lead the fight to override?
GOVERNOR GILMORE
Have you made a careful enough study of counter-insurgency theory (as Jim Webbs has done) to give your plans for victory in Iraq any credibility?
MAYOR GIULIANI
During the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, first responders were handicapped by the lack of inter-operability of radios. Why were they hampered with the same problem during the second attack 8 years later?
GOVERNOR HUCKABEE
How can you square a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 with the 4th verse of the 90th Psalm and the Second Book of Peter?
SENATOR BROWNBACK
Secular people view the Evangelical interpretation of the Book of Revelations as a gigantic death wish. Evangelical support of the war in Iraq looks like wish fulfillment to us. How can any of this be peddled as the Culture of Life?
CONGRESSMAN KUCINICH
How much spending on social programs can the economy absorb without destroying the dynamism of the free enterprise system?
CONGRESSMAN PAUL
How can huge corporations be prevented from using institutional power to pursue a Luddite policy of sabotaging advanced technologies, i.e. General Motors destruction of the electric car?
CONGRESSMAN TANCREDO
Are you truly counting on my white trash neighbor to pick the lettuce?
CONGRESSMAN HUNTER
A great American once described the Great Wall of China as "a monument in brick, stone and mud to a usually static point of view." Why should we invest in a monstrousity deeply offensive to President Reagan?
GOVERNOR RICHARDSON
The next President will inherit a pig's breakfast of a policy for the Korean peninsula. How can we counter the successful brinksmanship of Kim Il Jung?
SENATOR OBAMA
The next President will inherit a catastrophe in Iraq, something you warned us about. What's the use of being right when everyone else is wrong?
GOVERNOR ROMNEY
Given that the most activist Supreme Court Justice is Clarence Thomas and the least activist is Stephen Breyer, a Clinton appointee, will you appoint sensible moderates to the Court?
SENATOR GRAVEL
The Alaska delegation has proven the most gluttonous hogs at the trough. What will you do about pork barrel spending?
GOVERNOR THOMPSON
Is the compassionate Conservative extinct?
SENATOR THOMPSON
Would it be correct to assume that, since you think the policy President Bush has pursued in Iraq is "just about right," that we can look forward to more surges and neo-con adventures in the future?
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
A Lesson in Civic Virtue
Don't you just admire the disinterested civic virtue of the non-partisan Trailhead Group, totally "unaffiliated with any political campaign?" They just, quite innocently, want the public to know the objective, unvarnished truth about Bill Ritter. They don't even know Bob Beauprez. They don't know that Bob Beauprez got Hammered into voting for every rancid slice of pork in Washington. Bob Beauprez is, in no way, responsible for the $250,000,000 bridge to nowhere. The Trailhead Group does not know - or care - that Bob Beauprez is all in for the brain-dead, blood for oil foreign policy of the Bush Administration (reversing the Reagan policy of containing theocratic, Hezbollah-sponsoring Iran).
The Trailhead Group wants us to know that Bill Ritter is responsible for Denver's murder rate - higher than New York City. They, quite innocently, just don't know that almost every American city has a higher murder rate than New York, the largest city in the country. (In 1999, the murder rate in the quiet Republican hamlet of Littleton dwarfed the murder rate in New York.)
Why is the Trailhead Group so ignorant/hostile toward New York? Could it be that they want to excuse Bob Beauprez (my Congressman, by the way) for getting Hammered into turning Homeland Security into a pork barrel fiasco? While the Federal Government - controlled by rural and suburban Republicans - plows Homeland Security funds into petting zoos in Alabama, New York City has invested $2,000,000,000 of municipal funds into Counter-Terrorism.
Nonetheless, the civic virtue of the Trailhead Group inspires me. Just like them, I shall fully disclose. I have known Bill and Jeannie Ritter since college days. Jeannie was one of the gang (we called ourselves Nerf International) on the 11th floor of Turner Hall at UNC. Jeannie was the one who got all of us to take in physically and mentally handicapped people when the Special Olympics came to Greeley. Jeannie was the one who got the girls on the floor organized into springing a surprise breakfast for all the guys one Saturday morning. Jeannie was always the one with a stress-busting joke at mid-terms. And when the gang got together last summer for a reunion, Bill and Jeannie were the ones who remembered that one of us, since college, has been stricken with MS. Bill and Jeannie were the ones who brought Denise to the party. That was perfectly normal. Bill and Jeannie have always done our remembering for us.
So, I guess the Trailhead people are just better than me. I'm partisan.
The Trailhead Group wants us to know that Bill Ritter is responsible for Denver's murder rate - higher than New York City. They, quite innocently, just don't know that almost every American city has a higher murder rate than New York, the largest city in the country. (In 1999, the murder rate in the quiet Republican hamlet of Littleton dwarfed the murder rate in New York.)
Why is the Trailhead Group so ignorant/hostile toward New York? Could it be that they want to excuse Bob Beauprez (my Congressman, by the way) for getting Hammered into turning Homeland Security into a pork barrel fiasco? While the Federal Government - controlled by rural and suburban Republicans - plows Homeland Security funds into petting zoos in Alabama, New York City has invested $2,000,000,000 of municipal funds into Counter-Terrorism.
Nonetheless, the civic virtue of the Trailhead Group inspires me. Just like them, I shall fully disclose. I have known Bill and Jeannie Ritter since college days. Jeannie was one of the gang (we called ourselves Nerf International) on the 11th floor of Turner Hall at UNC. Jeannie was the one who got all of us to take in physically and mentally handicapped people when the Special Olympics came to Greeley. Jeannie was the one who got the girls on the floor organized into springing a surprise breakfast for all the guys one Saturday morning. Jeannie was always the one with a stress-busting joke at mid-terms. And when the gang got together last summer for a reunion, Bill and Jeannie were the ones who remembered that one of us, since college, has been stricken with MS. Bill and Jeannie were the ones who brought Denise to the party. That was perfectly normal. Bill and Jeannie have always done our remembering for us.
So, I guess the Trailhead people are just better than me. I'm partisan.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
They weren't called Know-Nothings f''r nuthin'
During the 19th Century, a potato blight struck Ireland. The semi-feudal, agricultural economy collapsed. Millions of unwashed, ignorant, drunken, wife-beating Irish streamed into our country. A political party emerged, determined to keep them out - a bunch of flag-waving xenophobes calling themselves the "American" party. The "business of America is business" party, the Whigs, promptly christened them the "Know-Nothings." The epithet stuck - and for good reason.
Capitalism calls for the free flow of all factors of production. Labor is a key factor of production. The more a country obstructs the free flow of all factors of production - including labor - the less capitalistic that society becomes. The Know-Nothings, faced with a choice between xenophobia and economic efficiency, chose xenophobia.
Today's Know-Nothings are making the same ignorant choice. The anti-immigration demogogues assert that home-grown Americans will gladly do the work done today by Mexicans. This assertion disputes the practical everyday experience of restaurant and hotel proprietors, fruit and vegetable growers, textile manufacturers, domestic service providers, building contractors, etc. One South Carolina peach grower reports that - even though he pays well above the minimum wage - he has never seen a home-grown American last a full day picking fruit. If the Know-Nothings get their way, a whole lot of produce will rot next harvest.
(Don't get me wrong! I'd love to see my white trash neighbor put in just one day of honest labor. But you'd have to pay another guy to stand over him with a whip.)
During the mid-19th Century, the industrial workers of the Northeast faced more than cheap Irish competition. A stream of illegal immigrants from the South - fugitive slaves - flowed across the Ohio River. All political parties - Whig, Democrat, Know-Nothings, etc. - united in opposition to this flow of desperate people seeking a better life. Only a tiny minority of abolitionists - mostly devout Christians instructed by their Bible to "welcome the stranger" - defied the Fugitive Slave Act.
In the courts of antebellum America, most dark-skinned people were the object of property law, torts and such. Theoretically, in the Free States, concepts of Equity applied. Occasionally, the law groped in the dark between the pragmatic expediencies of the one and the universal principles of the other. One such case came to trial in Coles County, Illinois in 1847.
"General" Robert Matson, a Kentucky farmer, bought Black Grove, a farm in Coles County, in 1843. Each Spring, he brought some slaves north from his Kentucky property to work Black Grove. After harvest, these slaves returned to Kentucky - except for Anthony Bryant, who stayed behind as a sort of manager/caretaker. Some uppity notions must have crossed his mind during the quiet Winter months. He may have wondered whether residence in a Free State made him free?
In 1847, Anthony Bryant was joined by his wife, Jane, and her four children. (One of more of these children may have been sired by "the General.") Matson's common law wife, Mary Corbin, resented Jane. Mary's stays at Black Grove were sheer hell for the Bryants. By August, they had had enough and fled to the hamlet of Oakland. The local innkeeper, Gideon M. Ashmore, an abolitionist, put them up - defying Illinois' Black Laws. The local Justice of the Peace issued a writ ordering Ashmore to produce the Bryants, who were then carted off to the county jail in Charleston. A hearing followed. Slave men and abolitionists prepared to take action, no matter what the verdict. In this violent atmosphere, the Justice of the Peace became persuaded that he lacked jurisdiction. The Bryant family was bound over to the Sheriff , where they could be sold under the Black Laws, to pay their jail fees of $107.30. To prevent this miscarriage of justice, Ashmore sued out a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of the Bryant family. Matson, meanwhile, sued Ashmore (and Dr. Rutherford, another abolitionist) for enticing his slaves, damages totaling $2500.
In October, the habeas corpus proceedings and the suit for damages were joined and placed on the docket of the Coles County Circuit Court. "General" Matson retained the services of a fine attorney from Springfield, whose antecedents traced back to the Commonwealth. He was a lanky, homely fellow named Abraham Lincoln.
Mr. Lincoln argued torts, torts, torts. He demonstrated that his client owned the Bryants and the slaves were "in transitu" - never permanently settled in Illinois. Judge William Wilson, of the Illinois Supreme Court, pressed Mr. Lincoln, trying to clarify the standing of the case in Equity: "Mr. Lincoln... if this case was being tried or issue joined in a habeas corpus, and it appeared there, as it does here, that this slave owner had brought this mother and her children, voluntarily, from the State of Kentucky, and settled them down on the farm in this State, do you think, as a matter of law, that they did not thereby become free?" Mr. Lincoln, presented with a hypothetical based on Equity, replied honestly: "No, Sir. I am not prepared to deny that they did." The "General" was not pleased.
During the trial, Mr. Constable, representing the Bryants (too lazy to look up Mr. Lincoln's 1841 argument defending a runaway in Bailey v. Cromwell), quoted Curran's famous defense of Rowan: "I speak in the spirit of the British law, which makes liberty commensurate and inseparable from British soil; which proclaims even to the stranger and sojourner the moment he steps upon British earth, that the ground on which he treads is holy and consecrated by the genius of universal emancipation, no matter in what language his doom may have been pronounced; no matter what complexion incompatible with freedom in Indian or African sun burned upon him, no matter in what disastrous battle his liberty may have been cloven down; no matter with what solemnities he may have been devoted upon the altar of slavery; the first moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain the altar and the gods sink together in the dust; his soul walks abroad in her own majesty; his body swells beyond the measure of his chains that burst from round him and he stands regenerated and disenthralled by the genius of universal emancipation."
Mr. Lincoln's associate, Mr. Ficklin, observed the homely man wince.
The flood of illegal immigrants are drawn to our sacred soil. They aspire to a better life. A body of law blind to Equity deems them criminals. Is that the spirit of American law?
Capitalism calls for the free flow of all factors of production. Labor is a key factor of production. The more a country obstructs the free flow of all factors of production - including labor - the less capitalistic that society becomes. The Know-Nothings, faced with a choice between xenophobia and economic efficiency, chose xenophobia.
Today's Know-Nothings are making the same ignorant choice. The anti-immigration demogogues assert that home-grown Americans will gladly do the work done today by Mexicans. This assertion disputes the practical everyday experience of restaurant and hotel proprietors, fruit and vegetable growers, textile manufacturers, domestic service providers, building contractors, etc. One South Carolina peach grower reports that - even though he pays well above the minimum wage - he has never seen a home-grown American last a full day picking fruit. If the Know-Nothings get their way, a whole lot of produce will rot next harvest.
(Don't get me wrong! I'd love to see my white trash neighbor put in just one day of honest labor. But you'd have to pay another guy to stand over him with a whip.)
During the mid-19th Century, the industrial workers of the Northeast faced more than cheap Irish competition. A stream of illegal immigrants from the South - fugitive slaves - flowed across the Ohio River. All political parties - Whig, Democrat, Know-Nothings, etc. - united in opposition to this flow of desperate people seeking a better life. Only a tiny minority of abolitionists - mostly devout Christians instructed by their Bible to "welcome the stranger" - defied the Fugitive Slave Act.
In the courts of antebellum America, most dark-skinned people were the object of property law, torts and such. Theoretically, in the Free States, concepts of Equity applied. Occasionally, the law groped in the dark between the pragmatic expediencies of the one and the universal principles of the other. One such case came to trial in Coles County, Illinois in 1847.
"General" Robert Matson, a Kentucky farmer, bought Black Grove, a farm in Coles County, in 1843. Each Spring, he brought some slaves north from his Kentucky property to work Black Grove. After harvest, these slaves returned to Kentucky - except for Anthony Bryant, who stayed behind as a sort of manager/caretaker. Some uppity notions must have crossed his mind during the quiet Winter months. He may have wondered whether residence in a Free State made him free?
In 1847, Anthony Bryant was joined by his wife, Jane, and her four children. (One of more of these children may have been sired by "the General.") Matson's common law wife, Mary Corbin, resented Jane. Mary's stays at Black Grove were sheer hell for the Bryants. By August, they had had enough and fled to the hamlet of Oakland. The local innkeeper, Gideon M. Ashmore, an abolitionist, put them up - defying Illinois' Black Laws. The local Justice of the Peace issued a writ ordering Ashmore to produce the Bryants, who were then carted off to the county jail in Charleston. A hearing followed. Slave men and abolitionists prepared to take action, no matter what the verdict. In this violent atmosphere, the Justice of the Peace became persuaded that he lacked jurisdiction. The Bryant family was bound over to the Sheriff , where they could be sold under the Black Laws, to pay their jail fees of $107.30. To prevent this miscarriage of justice, Ashmore sued out a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of the Bryant family. Matson, meanwhile, sued Ashmore (and Dr. Rutherford, another abolitionist) for enticing his slaves, damages totaling $2500.
In October, the habeas corpus proceedings and the suit for damages were joined and placed on the docket of the Coles County Circuit Court. "General" Matson retained the services of a fine attorney from Springfield, whose antecedents traced back to the Commonwealth. He was a lanky, homely fellow named Abraham Lincoln.
Mr. Lincoln argued torts, torts, torts. He demonstrated that his client owned the Bryants and the slaves were "in transitu" - never permanently settled in Illinois. Judge William Wilson, of the Illinois Supreme Court, pressed Mr. Lincoln, trying to clarify the standing of the case in Equity: "Mr. Lincoln... if this case was being tried or issue joined in a habeas corpus, and it appeared there, as it does here, that this slave owner had brought this mother and her children, voluntarily, from the State of Kentucky, and settled them down on the farm in this State, do you think, as a matter of law, that they did not thereby become free?" Mr. Lincoln, presented with a hypothetical based on Equity, replied honestly: "No, Sir. I am not prepared to deny that they did." The "General" was not pleased.
During the trial, Mr. Constable, representing the Bryants (too lazy to look up Mr. Lincoln's 1841 argument defending a runaway in Bailey v. Cromwell), quoted Curran's famous defense of Rowan: "I speak in the spirit of the British law, which makes liberty commensurate and inseparable from British soil; which proclaims even to the stranger and sojourner the moment he steps upon British earth, that the ground on which he treads is holy and consecrated by the genius of universal emancipation, no matter in what language his doom may have been pronounced; no matter what complexion incompatible with freedom in Indian or African sun burned upon him, no matter in what disastrous battle his liberty may have been cloven down; no matter with what solemnities he may have been devoted upon the altar of slavery; the first moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain the altar and the gods sink together in the dust; his soul walks abroad in her own majesty; his body swells beyond the measure of his chains that burst from round him and he stands regenerated and disenthralled by the genius of universal emancipation."
Mr. Lincoln's associate, Mr. Ficklin, observed the homely man wince.
The flood of illegal immigrants are drawn to our sacred soil. They aspire to a better life. A body of law blind to Equity deems them criminals. Is that the spirit of American law?
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Aristotle meets the Monster that ate Hollywood
More than two millenia have passed since Aristotle wrote his Poetics, an exposition on playwrighting. Today, it is mostly read by college freshmen forced to do so to meet core curriculum requirements at the better liberal arts colleges. Few read it with pleasure. Most forget it with alacrity. Plawrights and screenwriters, however, ignore Aristotle's Poetics at their peril. Hollywood producers, unfortunately, ignore him religiously. In fact, they stand him on his head.
In his Poetics, Aristotle lists, in order of importance, the six elements which make a great play: 1) plot; 2) character; 3) theme; 4) diction; 5) song, and 6) spectacle. Hollywood producers invest heavily in "production values." This is just a fancy phrase for "spectacle." Special effects, stunts, car chases, explosions, etc. consume the largest chunks of their budgets. Story is an afterthought.
Hollywood is digging its own grave. At the very least, "they" are starving our culture. Big budgets require rapid returns. A movie must get on as many screens as possible. The lion's share of the investment must be recouped in the first weeks after release - before the fickle audience sprints on to see newer and more "spectacular" special effects. This requires a huge investment in advertising - which only makes the hole even deeper. If the producers guess wrong, they might as well jump in the grave and let the bean counters kick the dirt in.
Demographics drives decision-making. On weekends, the malls of America are filled with adolescents. Parents are glad to get rid of them for a few hours. Hollywood producers compete furiously to draw these millions of kids into the theaters. These kids don't come to hear a story. They want to watch things blow up during the intervals between their glandular secretions. This is the beast Hollywood seeks to feed not tame.
The rewards are enormous. The dead hand of risk aversion gropes everywhere. Even medium budget projects must run the gauntlet of bean counters and demographics gurus before they get the green light. Nia Vardalos wrote a funny slice of life story called My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Eventually (so the rumor goes), she found herself in a room with 53 people weighing the pros and cons of taking her stage play and making it into a movie. A consensus took hold: cute story, bad demographics. They told her to transform her Greek family into a Mexican or Italian family. Ms. Vardalos put her foot down. "No! I'm Greek!," she said. If Mr. and Mrs. Tom Hanks had not been firmly in her corner, the movie probably would never have been made.
Storytelling or plot - #1 on Aristotle's list - costs next to nothing. Have you ever seen a big budget film trumpet the screenwriter in its advertisements? Of course not. The public is wooed by the lead actors or the director. The writer is a cipher. So - Hollywood marginalizes the writer while it spends millions for demolitions experts. It's all about feeding the monster.
This state of affairs creates a marvelous opportunity for regional film companies. There is plenty of talent here in Denver - a few good writers and dozens of excellent actors. Ask anyone who attends theater regularly.
Every state in the Union can support a film industry. Colorado is especially well-suited, blessed with "spectacular" scenery, a dry, sunny climate, and an innovative technological sector. Our population is large enough to support high quality, story-intensive, low budget films. The Colorado Film Commission, presently, rebates 10% of "below-the-line" costs for movies made here. That's a good start. But a strategic decision must be made. Can Colorado recapitulate the experience of New York City in the first decades of the 20th Century where theater and film cross-pollonated? The acting talent is already here. We should use it. The writing talent needs nurturing. Let's do so.
(Did you know that the next Sam Shepard graduated from Centaurus High School just five years ago?)
Hollywood abandoned the writer decades ago. Our culture piles up more rubbish year after year. The writer stands against this trend with his finger in the dike. We have a duty to stand up to the Monster that ate Hollywood.
In his Poetics, Aristotle lists, in order of importance, the six elements which make a great play: 1) plot; 2) character; 3) theme; 4) diction; 5) song, and 6) spectacle. Hollywood producers invest heavily in "production values." This is just a fancy phrase for "spectacle." Special effects, stunts, car chases, explosions, etc. consume the largest chunks of their budgets. Story is an afterthought.
Hollywood is digging its own grave. At the very least, "they" are starving our culture. Big budgets require rapid returns. A movie must get on as many screens as possible. The lion's share of the investment must be recouped in the first weeks after release - before the fickle audience sprints on to see newer and more "spectacular" special effects. This requires a huge investment in advertising - which only makes the hole even deeper. If the producers guess wrong, they might as well jump in the grave and let the bean counters kick the dirt in.
Demographics drives decision-making. On weekends, the malls of America are filled with adolescents. Parents are glad to get rid of them for a few hours. Hollywood producers compete furiously to draw these millions of kids into the theaters. These kids don't come to hear a story. They want to watch things blow up during the intervals between their glandular secretions. This is the beast Hollywood seeks to feed not tame.
The rewards are enormous. The dead hand of risk aversion gropes everywhere. Even medium budget projects must run the gauntlet of bean counters and demographics gurus before they get the green light. Nia Vardalos wrote a funny slice of life story called My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Eventually (so the rumor goes), she found herself in a room with 53 people weighing the pros and cons of taking her stage play and making it into a movie. A consensus took hold: cute story, bad demographics. They told her to transform her Greek family into a Mexican or Italian family. Ms. Vardalos put her foot down. "No! I'm Greek!," she said. If Mr. and Mrs. Tom Hanks had not been firmly in her corner, the movie probably would never have been made.
Storytelling or plot - #1 on Aristotle's list - costs next to nothing. Have you ever seen a big budget film trumpet the screenwriter in its advertisements? Of course not. The public is wooed by the lead actors or the director. The writer is a cipher. So - Hollywood marginalizes the writer while it spends millions for demolitions experts. It's all about feeding the monster.
This state of affairs creates a marvelous opportunity for regional film companies. There is plenty of talent here in Denver - a few good writers and dozens of excellent actors. Ask anyone who attends theater regularly.
Every state in the Union can support a film industry. Colorado is especially well-suited, blessed with "spectacular" scenery, a dry, sunny climate, and an innovative technological sector. Our population is large enough to support high quality, story-intensive, low budget films. The Colorado Film Commission, presently, rebates 10% of "below-the-line" costs for movies made here. That's a good start. But a strategic decision must be made. Can Colorado recapitulate the experience of New York City in the first decades of the 20th Century where theater and film cross-pollonated? The acting talent is already here. We should use it. The writing talent needs nurturing. Let's do so.
(Did you know that the next Sam Shepard graduated from Centaurus High School just five years ago?)
Hollywood abandoned the writer decades ago. Our culture piles up more rubbish year after year. The writer stands against this trend with his finger in the dike. We have a duty to stand up to the Monster that ate Hollywood.
Incubator for the Theater
When I think of a Golden Age (Periclean Athens, Elizabethan London, or Rooseveltian America, for example), a few defining strokes dominate the canvas. There is open recruitment of talent into leadership elites. There is a confident spirit of inquiry into the pragmatic and speculative sciences. And, there is lively, original Theater.
Today, in America, the same monster (an incubus?) that ate Hollywood has eaten regional theater. Big budgets, big marketing, big actors, bog productions, and big ticket prices all add up to gigantic risk aversion. Original Theater must run for cover. Free enterprise theaters, to survive, must impose limitations - minimal sets, tiny casts, etc. Such theaters often try to carve out a special niche, thus further limiting themselves. And limiting Original Theater.
There is a useful place for an incubator. Reader's Theater. Playwrights benefit from seeing and hearing their plays read and critiqued. Actors benefit from the work. The audience benefits from exercising the little gray cells in the cranium.
To make an impact, three things are necessary - space, a schedule, and participation. The Colorado Theater Guild, thanks to Gloria Shanstrom, has given us a chance to make an impact by solving space and schedule. If local playwrights do not take advantage of this program BY PARTICIPATING (which means attending readings other than one's own), the fault will lie, Dear Brutus, not in the stars but in ourselves.
Today, in America, the same monster (an incubus?) that ate Hollywood has eaten regional theater. Big budgets, big marketing, big actors, bog productions, and big ticket prices all add up to gigantic risk aversion. Original Theater must run for cover. Free enterprise theaters, to survive, must impose limitations - minimal sets, tiny casts, etc. Such theaters often try to carve out a special niche, thus further limiting themselves. And limiting Original Theater.
There is a useful place for an incubator. Reader's Theater. Playwrights benefit from seeing and hearing their plays read and critiqued. Actors benefit from the work. The audience benefits from exercising the little gray cells in the cranium.
To make an impact, three things are necessary - space, a schedule, and participation. The Colorado Theater Guild, thanks to Gloria Shanstrom, has given us a chance to make an impact by solving space and schedule. If local playwrights do not take advantage of this program BY PARTICIPATING (which means attending readings other than one's own), the fault will lie, Dear Brutus, not in the stars but in ourselves.
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