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NAT HENTOFF WRITES about why there’s nothing truly patriotic about unquestioning rote obedience.
FROM SRI LANKA (“a world where suicide bombings are so routine they don’t make a ripple in the international news”), ten lessons in how not to fight terrorism.
THE GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: The corporate record labels are reeling in major losses, due mainly to the collapse of their longstanding business plans (the incessant hyping of a few bland superstars).
DESPITE THE TALIBAN’S FALL, there are still places on Earth where the simple enjoyment of pop music and nightlife is met with stern rebuke.
THOMAS FRIEDMAN, the NY Times’s second-most-anointed right-winger, facetiously proposes an all-nude airline, “Naked Air,” as a potential security solution.
If Friedman had been more of a journalist and less of a think-tank ideologue, he might have remembered that during the ’70s first wave of skyjackings, the unjustly forgotten humor columnist Arthur Hoppe wrote a much more entertaining piece based on the same premise. Hoppe proposed a Jaybird Airlines, in which not only would all passengers board the plane naked as a jaybird, but the male passengers would be assigned comely Seatmates to “entertain” them whilst in-flight. (Female passengers, in Hoppe’s piece, were expected to merely sit back and listen to the stewardesses (dressed in designer shoes and smartly-fashioned hats) explain the procedures for the unlikely event of a water landing.) The piece ends, of course, with a passenger attempting to take control of the plane–to prevent it from landing.
…ponders and compares some of the events of this past Halloween season.
…our little Son of MISCsalon kaffeeklatsch on Sunday. Many items were discussed, many of which may make it into the print MISC or onto this site.
Later that same day, many of us were also at Titlewave Books on Lower Queen Anne for the store’s monthly reading series. Above, print MISC contributor Doug Nufer warms up the crowd with a short story written in the jargon of circus workers. Below, fellow print MISC contributor Matt Briggs offers highlights from his forthcoming short-story collection.
COMING SOON to this site: You’ll get to buy lovely, durable prints of some of the great photos which have appeared on this site and/or which will appear in forthcoming MISCmedia-published books.
RICHARD TODD WRITES on the future of America’s diffuse culture: “Already in the post-Sept. 11 society we have seen a marked shrinkage in socially acceptable political discourse.”
YR. HUMBLE EDITOR was recently awarded the honor of being one of the 18 jurors who selected the “MetropoList 150,” the Museum of History and Industry/Seattle Times list of the 150 most influential people in the 150-year history of Seattle and King County.
I’m quite satisfied with the final list, available at this link. There’s almost nobody on it I wouldn’t have wanted on it.
Nevertheless, there are several names I wrote in which didn’t make the final selection. In alphabetical order, they include:
IN ADDITION, here are some names nominated by other people (with the descriptions these anonymous nominators wrote) for whom I voted, but who also failed to make the final cut:
(This article’s permanent link.)
JAMES CARROLL WRITES: ” What if the catastrophe of Sept. 11 resulted, over the long term, in recognitions and initiatives that made America–and the world–a far better place… A turning point at which the main mode of resolving world conflict shifted away from the culture of war and toward the culture of law.”
…Francis Fukayama still insists we haven’t gone beyond “the end of history.”
As promised a couple weeks back, here is my preliminary list of some of what I love about this nation of ours. Thanks for your emailed suggestions; more are quite welcome.)
NAOMI KLEIN WRITES about “Protesting in the Post-WTC Age.”
…of the print mag approaching, we’ll start posting select articles from the past issue.
First up: Jenniffer Velasco’s account of adding up the losses in her personal life.
…who’ve opposed wars in the past (sometimes blaming them on “testosterone poisoning” or similar reverse-sexist reasoning) will now have to reconcile any personal opposition to a war against the Taliban with the existing feminist denunciations of that regime’s treatment of women.
Author-essayist Riane Eisler, interviewed in the L.A. Weekly, has her own such ideological reconciliation: The Afghan fundamentalists’ misogyny, she claims, is such an integral part of their ideology of violence and domination that it’s the duty of equality-loving people to fight back against them.
…to the next print issue, here’s the full version of an essay that will appear in edited form in the mag. It’s by Eve Appleton (who wrote for our previous print issue), and it’s about a number of issues relating to the threat of war. Its most important point is her proclamation that yes, she is a patriot AND a worker for peace.
MATTHEW ROTHSCHILD WRITES at The Progressive magazine’s site:
“How many innocent people will die in this act of vengeance against thekilling of innocent people? And how many seeds of terror will the U.S. retaliation sow?”
And Howard Zinn writes on the same site:
“We are at war, they said. And I thought: They have learned nothing, absolutely nothing, from the history of the twentieth century, from a hundred years of retaliation, vengeance, war, a hundred years of terrorism and counter-terrorism, of violence met with violence in an unending cycle of stupidity.â€
To Those Who Say I’m Not a Patriot
by guest columnist Eve Appleton
There was a famous Spanish animal expert who was quoted to say, “Man is the only animal to stumble over the same stone twice.”
Advocates of peace are patriots. Advocates of war are patriots. The argument is not one of patriotism. It’s of options.
Options, which in times of shock, pain and confusion are difficult to come by. During these times people are most vulnerable and most susceptible to propaganda. Most out of their reasoning minds.
In my day, now substantial years ago, I was a media queen. My voice could sell anything–product or concept. I engineered, wrote, produced, directed. News, entertainment, educational and commercial programming. I did whatever it took. And I could pump out the propaganda with a speed of force that left my bosses’ mouths agape. Straight to the heart and soul of the listening audience. I was a behavioral scientist in a field day of resources and a world of open receptive minds to play with.
Which is why I quit. I woke up one day to the realization I was feeding the people lies. Worse, they believed me. Even worse yet, they trusted me, acting on my words. Words, images and sounds meshed together with intent to manipulate behavioral response. To my benefit. The pay was handsome. The recognition thrilling. The demand growing.
I was dangerous. I was a hypocrite. And it suddenly became very difficult to look my children in the eye. So I quit. A decision I’ve not yet regretted. Doubt I ever will.
Film (including media broadcast formats) is considered the most prolific medium of manipulation. Its mastery is catagorized as an art. At it most basic function/application, it uses light–a very powerful and actually organic technology–to condition (or communicates with) the central nervous system through the optic nerves in our eyes. Its whole purpose is to manipulate sensory systems through varying patterns of light fluctuation which influence all sensory bodies to a programmed response. Like the sparkle of fire, which mesmerizes.
The difference is intent. Fire does not intend to mesmerize. It just does. Film intends to mesmerize. Media intends to mesmerize. When you get your target audience to respond as anticipated are you considered successful in the “Art.” Open any media text. This is what it will teach. You promptly learn there is no such thing as objective journalism.
I’m writing to you right now with intent to manipulate you. I openly admit it.
I’m trying to get people to think. Which is damn near impossible when they’re in a state of shock, pain and confusion. But, those of us who can. Who are more removed from the direct link to our most recent loss. We need to move out of our pain. Quickly. Because major decisions are being made in these days of confusion, which will affect all our lives for years to come. Decisions which are being made without the attention of the American people. Without giving measure of options. And while we find ourselves in a most vulnerable state.
No matter our pain, no matter our confusion, we need to stay alert. There’s something bigger then us at risk. There is an entire world’s future. And we are all responsible. This is very serious.
Every time I hear the word “war” I remember the Vietnam era. I feel caught in a past era’s nightmare. But this time, I have young adult children, male and female, who, based on my actions and the actions of my fellow Americans, could soon die.
And for what? A decision made in haste during a moment of shock and confusion? A decision made while we are out of our reasoning minds?
I don’t want my children to die. And I don’t want them to have to kill just to live. It’s not my right to ask this of them. Only they can make that decision. Let the people who are willing to die and kill go forward if they must; void of age discrimination, race discrimination, sex discrimination… That’s their right.
Let them go to the front lines. And, with them, the generals and politicians. Let them do the boot camp, carry the guns, shoot to kill. Something tells me the politicians just might protest.
My father was a career military man in the Strategic Air Command, the bulk of his career involving diplomatic and international services. Much of his work was classified. But the things he experienced we lived first hand, up close and personal, in our home. He was an officer, a colonel. It was said his career didn’t go further because he had a way of pissing off the generals. But they liked him by their side because they knew he was honest. Rare in the military.
He went to Vietnam as a volunteer. He reasoned it was his ability to afford one young person over there a return home chance at life. He felt it was the least he could do. He would grumble under his breath of the travesty of how the war was being run. Said at this rate the end of the war was nowhere in sight. The two biggest problems: Children being sent to do men’s jobs, and politicians running the war.
While he was there, he sent audio tapes from the front for our seventh-grade social studies class. He was very diplomatic. Careful not to say the wrong things. But we all felt it–a sober fear.
He also sent my mom audio tapes. Sometimes we could hear explosions and sirens and screams in the background. He assured us he was nowhere dangerous, far from the enemy front. Then he would chuckle and say he was too mean to die.
He was the one who told me the generals and politicians were never present at the front line. They hid behind the shield of their ranks, claiming themselves too important to be risked. He also said the news reporters never went to the front line, but instead sat at the bars and got drunk, taking their news feeds from the military propagandists. He said they had no idea what was really happening. We were being crucified. He was a career man who believed in his country. He was a devout patriot. He also knew from an eye witness point of view, truth from lie.
My father went to the front line. In fact he crossed the front line on many a mission which required, in his words, “the experience of an officer.” And in doing so, he was exposed to Agent Orange. We didn’t find out till his death. His files conveniently came up missing shortly thereafter. Files I’d read personally because I’d been named executrix of his health and estate. The government was afraid I’d sue and knew I had an ironclad case. It was laid out pretty clearly in those files. But I didn’t want to sue. I just wanted to know why they didn’t let us know sooner, so we could have helped him in his life. There’s nothing to be done after death.
What kind of parents are we if we ask our children to go to war, if not the worst kind? And please, don’t ask me to bless a war sanction and my children’s death for a boost to our economy. There are other ways to do that. And in fact, war doesn’t boost our economy. It leaves generations to come in dysfunction–even with all their body parts attached.
Call me selfish if you must, but I’m fighting for my children’s lives. I would consider myself a horrible mother if I did anything less. And I clearly understand the responsibility before me. I won’t ask my children to kill. I certainly won’t ask them to die. I have no more right to do this then ask children I don’t even know, to kill and die.
But I will ask them to help find and support clear reasoning, educated decisions, and alternative solutions. To start thinking. Justice for those we have lost does not have to be accompanied by more innocent bloodshed. Our children are innocent. If we can’t see this, we are obviously not in our reasoning minds.
What our current administration is asking us to do is not a TV show. It’s very real. The Vietnam War lasted what, ten years? More? If you have a child who is thirteen right now, in five years this child will be eligible for War. (Oh whoopie! He–or she–can die looking for some slimey crazed mad man. Oh goodie!)
And if we are successful in keeping the war off our home land, we can say bye bye to any current luxuries. Probably even our houses. We’ll be holding the jobs our children held while here. We’ll be living on poor wages–those of us lucky enough to hold jobs. Our savings will be depleted, as our industries shut down in the name of wartime crisis. As will our hearts, as our children are shipped home in body bags–or worse, as shellshocked, limbless vegetables.
Unless, of course, the nuclear bombs are deployed. In which case, there’ll be nothing for any of us because we’ll all be maimed, suffering slow death, or just plain dead.
So what do we do?
Options! Start thinking of options.
Our current option is unacceptable. We are intelligent, sophisticated, capable people who represent fairness, justice, liberty, freedom and equal rights. It’s an ideal which only we can make into a reality.
And no one ever said it would be easy. Retaliation is easy. Getting to the truth is more difficult. We need time to discern the information before we run off and start lynching. Lynching is our past. It doesn’t have to be our future. We don’t need to stumble again over this stone. It’s time we learn by doing something new. Something smart, conscious and yes, futuristic. If we don’t, we’ll only ever know war.
Justice doesn’t have to be accompanied by bloodshed. Nor will it be justice if we get only some, or possibly the wrong offenders.
And while we may have a damn good idea of one or some responsible, please don’t think I’m buying this was the act of a lone madman and a posse crew. That’s just ridiculous. Even Kissinger said that pulling off an attack of this sort required extensive resources. This guy may be rich, but clearances alone for what just happened suggest far more complicity. We need to get to the bottom of this.
It’s important to our future to know the truth. We need to account for all responsibility. We’re not going to be any more safe with a quick fix-it mobbing and a bunch of young dead lives. We’re just going to be more pathetic; or we’ll be nuclear waste.
In my in-box right now are several emails–hate mails–that, when compared to the 34 “non-hate” mails, don’t give a frame of reference to 85 percent of the American people wanting war. But our TVs keep telling us we want war. Our leaders urge us to raise flags. To wear them on our heads. Put them on our cars. We assume it to mean we support America. Our leaders are interpreting it as a vote for war. Where is the voice of the 34-vs.-2 emails?
Also, why is there an assumption that because I advocate peace, clarity and conscious action, I’m not a patriot? Peace is not a statement of anti-patriotism. It is a plea of intelligence. My resistance to flag waving right now, is not a negative statement toward my country, but toward the media blitz which seeks ratings and recognition and deep pockets without an ethical consciousness.
People are more divided right now then I’ve seen them in a long time. They are only under a symbolic media illusion of being united. But if you get into the streets, or listen for a moment to the ones who’ve been seeking peaceful solution; if you were to experience the hate mail and threats and name calling they have had to endure; you’d know there is an anger raging through the streets of America, dividing neighbor against neighbor, which is far more terrifying then any new advent of airplane bomb.
Our world has been glued to its TV sets, programmed by people they don’t even know. Unknown people they are empowering with their trust. Some of us have spent our time away from the TV sets–reaching out to sources of all kinds and status, looking for answers which may provide alternative solutions.
We have been thinking. Mostly because we are so very aware of how much there is to lose. And how precious this life really is. This does not sound anti-patriotic to me. It sounds smart. And caring. And compassionate. And concerned. And serious.
As you pray to your god tonight, or meditate in compassion, ask your god or your self to help us all start thinking. Of options; of solutions geared toward truth. Solutions which will show the world we are not barbarians like those who have terrorized us, but rather, intelligent, conscious, well reasoned and greatly empowered with the strength of clarity.
We are a great nation. And yes we are young. Maybe. And I do believe it possible. We the young can show this old world, old dogs aside, we know how to learn new tricks. We can reverse the sins of our fathers. We can successfully not trip over the same stone twice.
Please do not send children to war; world into hardship; hatred toward neighbor. Start thinking. Start writing. Start talking and advocating other ways. We can all do this together. Probably better then we can do any war. Peace for one and all.
Love
Eve
—
Eve’s Apple Laboratories
Herbal Aphrodisiacs
Home & Health Alternatives
Seattle, WA
http://evesappleinc.com
email: evzapple@zipcon.com
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RICHARD DAWKINS WRITES:
“Those people were not mindless and they were certainly not cowards. On the contrary, they had sufficiently effective minds braced with an insane courage, and it would pay us mightily to understand where that courage came from.”
ERIC S. NYGREN WRITES:
“One of the best ways Americans could express atriotism right now would be to trade in their SUVs for high-mileage hybrid cars. (Or get trade in cars
for bikes, buy a buss pass, etc.)
“There is an almost direct line of causality between America’s gluttonous reliance on foreign oil and our current woes. It’s been noted that the catalyst that started Osama bin Laden on his current path was coming home to Saudi Arabia to find a huge contingent of U.S. troops, who were there in preparation for the invasion of Iraq, which Bush pere felt we needed to invade because of… well, you get the idea. It doesn’t take much intellectual candlepower to connect the dots, but that’s apparently more than our current political leadership seems to have.
“America has been on notice since the 1973 oil crisis that we need more prudent policies to foster energy conservation, alternatives and independence. Discussion of such policies has been precisely nowhere in evidence amongst the current din and clamor, which shows just how little we’ve learned over the last 30 years.”
