The
following is an update from Suzanne Taylor and TheConversation.org Making
Sense of These Times [http://www.theconversation.org] Website. Thank you for
your interest. If you wish to be removed from this list at any time, just let us
know.
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July 8, 2002
Dear Listmembers,
In developing this body of work, I can feel the new world gestalting. Whether it's a piece to bring home some
outrage being perpetrated by the government or the corporate world, or, on the
other side of the coin, it's a report
on how much life there is in opposition to
the status quo with some sense
of how those forces could strengthen by our very awareness of them, everything I
post has the intention to galvanize what is coming. I encourage you to not only read the Updates, but to link
through and read
the pieces. Each is a
gem, and together they form a compelling body of new thought. And, when you write to me about what you've
read, we are moving forward in forging the relationships of which a new order of
thinking is comprised. Although it's
a huge world, and this Website is a tiny
speck, it is from small units of passion and intensity that major changes
spring.
I happened
this week to hear a speech Howard Zinn made earlier this year about how
things can change, that goes
with the moving piece of his in this Update, and which
relates to what I'm saying. In the speech, Zinn said, "Think about
democracy -- about true democracy in a country which is supposed to be the most democratic in
the world, but where the political system is undemocratic and corrupt and where the
economic system has no democracy at all,
until it's forced to some extent to be democratic when people organize and they
go on strike and they boycott and they protest and they resist. Only then does democracy come
alive. We shouldn't be
discouraged because of the enormous power that is wielded by those people who
have the arms, and they have the
money, they have the jet planes, they
have the television stations and the newspapers, and they seem omnipotent, but they really aren't...The power that's wielded by the presumably all powerful is hollow and it
begins to crumble as soon as people withdraw their support and their
allegiance...We have a job of bringing
democracy alive by the things we do, by engaging in activity however small the
act. Remember, great movement are made up of thousands and
thousands and thousands of
small acts." May our engagement be one of
them.
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CROP CIRCLE DIARY
ENTRY:
A spectacular new crop circle came
July 4 [see attached image]
-- the second largest
formation to ever have appeared
in the UK, measuring over 750 feet in diameter! (Note Stonehenge in the background.)
All around it are tumuli -- ancient burial sites. Crop circles often are in some juxtaposition to ancient
sites. The fact that southern England is
dotted with such things could be one reason for the circlemakers to have selected that place as a canvas for
their greatest artistry.
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FEATURED CONVERSATION -- Walter Starck:
Walter
writes:
The following is a comment of mine on a current
scientific controversy over a recently published study entitled "Television
viewing and aggressive behavior during adolescence and adulthood" . Dr. Johnson
is the senior author of the study. Needless to say this study, showing strong
positive correlation between TV violence and violent behavior, is being attacked
rather than heeded by the media industry.
Thought it might be of
interest to The Conversation.
Dear Dr. Johnson,
There is a most curious anomaly
in the argument of apologists for TV violence that seems to be consistently
overlooked. The industry is based on the premise that TV is highly effective in
altering viewer behavior to take up what is offered in advertisement. Few, if
any, would deny that it is also a major influence in society, having an
important effect on opinion and behavior with respect to politics, sports,
fashion, music, environmental issues, the economy and sundry other aspects of
our culture. Despite all this, violence as entertainment is used as a
predominant theme in TV drama. Beyond being provided undue prominence it is
sanitized, glorified, and justified through dramatic imagery, spectacular
effects, heroism, and depiction as righteous retribution. The horrific realities
of real world violence both immediately and in ongoing consequences for all
concerned is never portrayed.
To then maintain that indiscriminately
broadcasting an endless stream of such content to tens of millions of people
every day never induces anyone to act violently defies even rudimentary common
sense.
Suzanne replies:
How cogent you
are. I just saw "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" on TV, and was struck --
and repulsed -- by how attractive those outlaws were. They were heroic types who
were ruthless killers. I didn't see the remake not too long ago of "Ocean's 11,"
but when it came out I was asking how it could be that we were being entertained
by gorgeous crooks. In fact, as I asked around my question kind of went nowhere.
Nobody seemed to think there was anything particularly untoward about that.
Yesterday, there was a cutaway from a regular broadcast of some local show for
"Breaking News," which was a stand-off going on in the Bay area between police
and a gunman holding a hostage on a freeway -- the Bay area is hundreds of miles
from us, so nobody who was watching the show needed to know about the freeway
closure. Violence is our regular diet -- a vestige of watching people thrown to
the lions, and the like -- which has got to be doing us no good.
Walter
responds:
A couple of messages posted
elsewhere that may be of interest to The Conversation:
The following is a copy of a response from myself to a
reply from the senior author of the TV violence study:
I hope I didn't sound as if I was assuming you to be one
of the apologists. I appreciate that your study shows a clear correlation
between watching TV violence and violent behavior. Instead of trying to dismiss
your findings the entertainment industry should be taking heed. That they can
seriously propose that although their ad space is worth billions for its
influence on viewers their content has no effect at all simply amazes me. Then
when presented with objective evidence to the contrary they try to dismiss it.
Ultimately of course the industry does what it does because it is
profitable. What is truly amazing is that viewers have an apparently insatiable
appetite for the same boring, mindless, non-believable swill. If you could
figure out that attraction we might be getting close to the real core of the
problem.
...and this is a comment on a
thread in an advanced diving technology discussion list I subscribe to. One
response in particular was of real concern. It was posted by an individual who
is an FBI agent in Miami but the mindset revealed would have been quite
comfortable in the KGB under Stalin:
Most of us seeing images of Islamic mobs burning effigies
think, "What idiots!". Seeing Americans doing much the same with an effigy of
Bin Laden on the 4th of July is disturbing. The righteous wrath directed at
Esbjörn Nordesjö for noting (but not judging) the similarity is even more
worrying. Although violent retaliation and increased security may be a necessary
response to immediate threat, as a sole solution they are doomed to failure.
Against people who are willing, even anxious, to sacrifice themselves for their
beliefs retaliation is as much a provocation as it is a deterrent. Modern
society has too many vulnerabilities and technology provides too many means of
mayhem and disruption for increased security to be more than moderately
effective.
Venting our righteous wrath and indignation may feel good but
it doesn't do much to solve the problem. Any real solution is going to have to
involve dealing with problems endemic to the Islamic world as well as the nature
of our involvement with it. It is also going to have to address our own
problems, not the least of which is a hopeless addiction to their oil.
Regardless of how justified it may be, simply insisting we are right and
everyone else is wrong is only going to provoke more of the same. This view is
purely pragmatism not political correctness. Esbjörn has only provided a glimpse
of how others may see us. What others think about us has led to the current
situation. Shooting the messenger is stupid. We need to learn what we can from
the message.
Benjamin Franklin said, "We must all hang together, or
assuredly we shall all hang separately." In the world we are creating this
advice increasingly applies to all humanity. If we can't find a means to
co-operate we shall assuredly bring disaster upon all of us.
Suzanne
responds:
Thanks so much for passing along these remarks. Just
common sense. Why isn't it the prevailing intelligence? But seeing as it's not,
I think our important question is what are we going to do about it. The fire of
the world is far too hot. Something awful could go wrong. It is THE work to make
everyone wise to common sense.
Walter, I so encourage you in getting
yourself heard. You have the clearest articulation. It would be a gift if it was
given. Being your audience is a treat for me.
How did "boring, mindless,
non-believable swill" get in when violence was the topic? That's was a place
where I didn't follow the flow.
This is great:
"That they can
seriously propose that although their ad space is worth billions for its
influence on viewers their content has no effect at all simply amazes me."
And the common sense starts here: "Although violent retaliation and
increased security may be a necessary response to immediate threat, as a sole
solution they are doomed to failure." When that sinks in, we can get serious
about what else to do.
Walter
replies:
The "boring, mindless, non-believable swill" refers to the actual content of most violent media fare. If you
haven't done so, take a look at a few of
the Willis, Stallone, Schwarznegger, et al., genre of
action films or any of the endless stream of police dramas with
murder as their overwhelmingly predominant theme. If you manage
to sit through more than a couple, you will begin to think my characterization
is somewhat charitable. The popularity of
such material is in many ways more
worrying than the fact that it is on
offer.
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COLUMN FROM GEOV PARRISH: Cruel and Unspeakable
Punishment -- July 2, 2002
Suzanne's comments:
As opposed to the
death penalty as I am, I went even deeper into my conviction when I read this. I
always remember a career warden who all of a sudden couldn't do it any more, and
spoke about the toll it took on the humanity of everybody involved with
executions. After all the reasons to oppose the death penalty, from the issue of
executing innocent people to it being unconstitutional as "cruel and
unspeakable," Geov goes further. "But none of the legal hair-splitting speaks to
the basic, underlying problem with the death penalty: if killing people is
wrong, it follows then that having the government kill people is wrong, too. And
as a premeditated, publicly-funded spectacle, it's in many ways worse...Why do
we kill people to show people that killing people is wrong?"
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William
Golden sent us this
piece:
FIVE STAR PIECE: A Break-in For Peace, Howard Zinn -- July, 2002
Suzanne's comments: This came to me with this comment from the person who sent it to
William Golden: "It is not often that reading an article, either on line or in a
magazine, brings tears to my eyes. This one did." It made me cry, too. Here's a
great history lesson, from one of our best progressive voices, about a pivotal
moment in the Vietnam War. The startling outcome of the trial of the Camden 28,
who broke into a federal building to destroy draft records -- "an act of
symbolic sabotage, designed to dramatize the anguish felt by these people over
the death and suffering taking place in Vietnam" -- perhaps can give us some
faith in the possibility that what is so misguided now can take a turn to the
light. "As today we watch with some alarm a nation mobilized for war, the
politicians of both parties in cowardly acquiescence, the media going timorously
along, it is good to keep in mind that things do change. People learn, little by
little. Lies are exposed. Wars once popular gradually come under suspicion. That
happens when enough people speak and act in accord with their conscience,
appealing to the American jury with the power of
truth."
Other quotes
drawn from the piece:
What was unusual about the trial was that
the defendants were able to do what had not been possible in the previous trials
of draft board raiders (the Baltimore 4, the Catonsville 9, the Milwaukee 14,
and many others). In those trials, the judges had insisted that the war could
not be an issue, that the jury must consider what was done as ordinary
crimes--breaking and entering, arson (where draft records were burned, as in
Catonsville), destruction of government property.
In Camden, Judge
Fisher did not forbid discussion of the war. The defendants were allowed to
fully present the reasons for their action--that is, their passionate opposition
to the war in Vietnam...
To my surprise, Judge Fisher allowed me to
testify for several hours. I recounted what the Pentagon Papers told us about
the history of the Vietnam War, and discussed in detail the theory and history
of civil disobedience in the United States. I said that the war was not being
fought for freedom and democracy; the internal memoranda of the government spoke
instead, again and again, of "tin, rubber, oil."
...when I testified for
the Milwaukee 14 the year before, and began to talk about Henry David Thoreau's
ideas on civil disobedience, the judge stopped me cold, with words I have not
been able to forget: "You can't talk about that. That's getting to the heart of
the matter."...
[The acquittal of the Camden 28] was the first of these
trials in which the jury had been permitted to listen to the heartfelt stories
of fellow citizens as they described their growing anguish for the victims,
American and Vietnamese, of a brutal war. And the jury was led to understand how
the defendants could decide to break the law in order to dramatize their
protest. Most importantly, the year of the trial was 1973. By now the majority
of the American people had turned against the war.
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