It is a strange brand of man who can appreciate the innuendos of a trumpet, muted or not - the intricacies of a well-driven bassline, soft and subtle but always present; the nuanced touch of hammers on strings created by deft hands. But the synthesis of these diversified sounds appeals, sticky sweet and musky, to the rookie and the connoisseur.
This is America's music - the precursor to soul and funk-rock, the grandfather of hip-hop, pinned up high and tight in a suit like you knew he would be but never far from his whiskey glass. This is the beat of a movement that has always existed in America and always will, the steady pulsing of a silent oppresion and the creativity it spawns. Make no doubt about it, this is Black music - but it belongs to all of us.
Miles and Yardbird, The Duke and his damsels, a Monk and a piano, Fats Waller, and the rent. Together they tell the story of generation arriving before its time, a single perfect rosebud emerging before the last frost. Destined, in a sense, to stall and die. But the jazz movement was better than that - is better than that. It makes no demands on the music, imposes no social constraints. Listen to it. It's for itself, the pure expression of an emotion no words can match. Listen. Brushing symbols and snare drums, a bass walking with swagger in its step. And then the sax, piercing and clear, just barely this side of cutting, whining and droning at the edge of the register and then coming back down to earth, setting nicely next to the drummer and setting the trumpet free. It does work.
The thing about evolution is that it doesn't necessitate the death of the formerly evolved. Jazz morphed from ragtime and be-bop and morphed into soul, and R&B, and funk-rock, and hip-hop, but it never died. It speaks still from the immortal, the heartbeat of a people and a nation, an almost forgotten but never mistaken confluence of hope and despair, solace and solidarity.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Monday, February 19, 2007
6, Uptown
“Gangstas of Gotham, hardcore hustlin’”- Mos Def
I take the 6, uptown. At 34th, the train is all white. By 59th, half of the suits are gone but caucasia still prevails in my car. After 86th, the change starts, and by 110th I’m one of two white people on the train. And this is strangely comforting.
I am a product of a Catholic, white, upper-middle class neighborhood. I went to a private boarding school in Connecticut. I go to a Jesuit school in Boston. All of these things influence my place in the world, influence the way I think and the way others think about me. I am guilty of elitism, even if I don’t know it. So when I stay on the 6 past Manhattan, headed for the Bronx, I know I don’t understand. I know I can’t fit in, can’t begin to understand the complexities of the environment that surrounds me. And when I listen to my homegirl, a teacher in Hunts Point, I can’t ever understand the problems she sees everyday.
Save my own, I don’t know anyone’s parents who were under 25 when they had children. I don’t know what it’s like to grow up in the city, to have drugs and violence around me in profusion. I don’t know what it’s like to be discriminated against by police and constantly marginalized by a government that wants to forget about me. But I can stay on the train past Manhattan, I can walk the streets of the South Bronx, I can listen with learning ears to Mos Def and Common and Nas and know, for certain, that if my life had been different I wouldn’t have been able to rise above it. But I am white, and I know I cannot understand. That is my one, incommunicable sin. I am an imposter.
The misconception of the ghetto in most Americans’ thought is that it looks scary, different, cold. That the people who live there are in some way different beyond economics, capable of different things. Bad things. That somehow ‘thugs’ are manufactured and perfected, trained as murderers and drug dealers from the start. They don’t realize that the most of the people they think about are kids, pushed into the hustle by money, excitement, and often the very people who love them most. It’s not a struggle, or a problem, or a disease – it simply is.
The man next to me on the six stands two or three inches taller than me. His beard two or three inches longer. His hair two or three shades greyer, his skin more than two or three shades darker. He’s talking to himself. I’m listening. “You think you free,” he says, “but you ain’t. Same old slaveowners, ain’t nothin’ changed. Ain’t NOTHIN’ changed. Nosah. Ain’t nothin’ changed.” No one else on the 6 pays attention. He stares out the window into darkness. He keeps talking. I listen for a long time, understanding some of it, missing most of it, but hearing every word.
“You go to school,” says the man next to me on the platform. I turn my ear and look at him as if I’ve misunderstood. “You go to school?” he repeats, this time with inquisitive inflection.
“ Yes,” I say, “in Boston.”
“Boston, oh.” He turns away. “I used to live in Lowell,” he says, and I see his smile for the first time. “Long time ago.”
We stay silent for a while. I’m in a city I don’t know. I can’t be sure of protocol when it comes to other people. Finally I give in to my curiosity. He seems affable.
“You from here originally?” I ask. He looks at me as if I’m kidding. I’m not.
“No,” says. He looks up at me and smiles, and I am struck by his balanced features and remarkably consistent skin tone. His eyes are piercing, his smile astonishing. “I am,” he pauses, “Dominicano.” He smiles broader, beaming with his declaration. I hear the word in my head for the rest of the trip. Dominicano. And what could I say with such pressing importance? What could I declare with such surety? Blanco? Gringo? Irish? Maybe. But despite my education and my economy and my freedom of movement, I won't mean it like he does.
Coming back, downtown 6, I get off at 103rd. It’s a little past 11 at night. Now, rising to street level from the stairs, I open my eyes to the darkness. It’s quieter than I would have expected, despite the figures that dot the street. At night the bustle gives way to the hustle. Eyes dart when I walk by, clearly out of place, and despite a confident walk a focused gaze I’m careful to remain carefully alert in this environment – searching the corners of darkness. Shit, I realize I’m as bad as anyone else – I’m looking for stereotypes – young black males with baggy pants and – there they are.
And there it is. They. The extension of my incommunicable sin. The other. The ghetto. I listen to the conversation as I pass.
“Damn she din’t call you back yet yo? Ya ass is done, she out right now son-” He laughs.
“Nah, s’ok. She’ll get at me, just wait. And who you waitin’ on anyways? Get outa here punk-”
They’re joshing, half laughing, sparring. In the group of four, the youngest is maybe 14, the oldest 16. At their age, my friends and I got jobs slinging papers in the neighborhood, playing and working like these guys are. The object is different, but the verb is the same. It’s what you do.
The next morning homegirl brings me to a restaurant around the corner. It’s a hallway, mostly, some tables in the front and a hot line beyond a thin curtain in the back. We order burritos and for the first time since Tijuana get what I’m looking for – a mass of shredded chicken, fresh refritos, and tart guacamole smothered in cheese and salsa verde. The tortilla is handmade. The two next to us converse in Puerto Rican Spanish, rolling and fast, shades of Portuguese and Dominican, far from the Castilian in textbooks. They get up and pay, handing the young cashier a 5 for their full meals and drinks.
We finish and approach the register, I pull out my wallet. She writes a slip, hands it to me. $15.95. I offer a 20 and smile, taking my four singles and replacing them in the fold. If only we could get the healthcare system to work like that, I think.
The problem, if we choose to think of it like that, is not the people but the system itself. Somewhere between 86th and 110th, the opportunities go away, the chances get slimmer, the obstacles bigger. Fewer people are going to make it out. It’s the difference between an invisible barrier that has nothing to do with color or heritage – only indifference and ignorance. Put me – white, male, of sound mind and body – in a project at 153rd instead of a brownstone on 65th and strip me of my education, my citizenship, my language, my income. Watch me falter and fail to get by, give up minimum wage for the risk and reward of the game. I don’t have the stock market anymore, I got the rock market – and it never goes down.
And so the 6 uptown becomes the channel that runs beneath the lines on the map, drawn in white and brown, rich and poor, that criss-cross the city, the culture, the nation, the world. It’s a conduit between two worlds, a single train that simultaneously separates and connects the down-town upper-crust with the up-town downtrodden. Opening your eyes and ears on the 6 is easy, but opening your mind to see the larger picture is imperative – you’ll see that the suit at 43rd, a lifetime New Yorker, isn’t lying when he says “ I’ve never been up that far.”
I take the 6, uptown. At 34th, the train is all white. By 59th, half of the suits are gone but caucasia still prevails in my car. After 86th, the change starts, and by 110th I’m one of two white people on the train. And this is strangely comforting.
I am a product of a Catholic, white, upper-middle class neighborhood. I went to a private boarding school in Connecticut. I go to a Jesuit school in Boston. All of these things influence my place in the world, influence the way I think and the way others think about me. I am guilty of elitism, even if I don’t know it. So when I stay on the 6 past Manhattan, headed for the Bronx, I know I don’t understand. I know I can’t fit in, can’t begin to understand the complexities of the environment that surrounds me. And when I listen to my homegirl, a teacher in Hunts Point, I can’t ever understand the problems she sees everyday.
Save my own, I don’t know anyone’s parents who were under 25 when they had children. I don’t know what it’s like to grow up in the city, to have drugs and violence around me in profusion. I don’t know what it’s like to be discriminated against by police and constantly marginalized by a government that wants to forget about me. But I can stay on the train past Manhattan, I can walk the streets of the South Bronx, I can listen with learning ears to Mos Def and Common and Nas and know, for certain, that if my life had been different I wouldn’t have been able to rise above it. But I am white, and I know I cannot understand. That is my one, incommunicable sin. I am an imposter.
The misconception of the ghetto in most Americans’ thought is that it looks scary, different, cold. That the people who live there are in some way different beyond economics, capable of different things. Bad things. That somehow ‘thugs’ are manufactured and perfected, trained as murderers and drug dealers from the start. They don’t realize that the most of the people they think about are kids, pushed into the hustle by money, excitement, and often the very people who love them most. It’s not a struggle, or a problem, or a disease – it simply is.
The man next to me on the six stands two or three inches taller than me. His beard two or three inches longer. His hair two or three shades greyer, his skin more than two or three shades darker. He’s talking to himself. I’m listening. “You think you free,” he says, “but you ain’t. Same old slaveowners, ain’t nothin’ changed. Ain’t NOTHIN’ changed. Nosah. Ain’t nothin’ changed.” No one else on the 6 pays attention. He stares out the window into darkness. He keeps talking. I listen for a long time, understanding some of it, missing most of it, but hearing every word.
“You go to school,” says the man next to me on the platform. I turn my ear and look at him as if I’ve misunderstood. “You go to school?” he repeats, this time with inquisitive inflection.
“ Yes,” I say, “in Boston.”
“Boston, oh.” He turns away. “I used to live in Lowell,” he says, and I see his smile for the first time. “Long time ago.”
We stay silent for a while. I’m in a city I don’t know. I can’t be sure of protocol when it comes to other people. Finally I give in to my curiosity. He seems affable.
“You from here originally?” I ask. He looks at me as if I’m kidding. I’m not.
“No,” says. He looks up at me and smiles, and I am struck by his balanced features and remarkably consistent skin tone. His eyes are piercing, his smile astonishing. “I am,” he pauses, “Dominicano.” He smiles broader, beaming with his declaration. I hear the word in my head for the rest of the trip. Dominicano. And what could I say with such pressing importance? What could I declare with such surety? Blanco? Gringo? Irish? Maybe. But despite my education and my economy and my freedom of movement, I won't mean it like he does.
Coming back, downtown 6, I get off at 103rd. It’s a little past 11 at night. Now, rising to street level from the stairs, I open my eyes to the darkness. It’s quieter than I would have expected, despite the figures that dot the street. At night the bustle gives way to the hustle. Eyes dart when I walk by, clearly out of place, and despite a confident walk a focused gaze I’m careful to remain carefully alert in this environment – searching the corners of darkness. Shit, I realize I’m as bad as anyone else – I’m looking for stereotypes – young black males with baggy pants and – there they are.
And there it is. They. The extension of my incommunicable sin. The other. The ghetto. I listen to the conversation as I pass.
“Damn she din’t call you back yet yo? Ya ass is done, she out right now son-” He laughs.
“Nah, s’ok. She’ll get at me, just wait. And who you waitin’ on anyways? Get outa here punk-”
They’re joshing, half laughing, sparring. In the group of four, the youngest is maybe 14, the oldest 16. At their age, my friends and I got jobs slinging papers in the neighborhood, playing and working like these guys are. The object is different, but the verb is the same. It’s what you do.
The next morning homegirl brings me to a restaurant around the corner. It’s a hallway, mostly, some tables in the front and a hot line beyond a thin curtain in the back. We order burritos and for the first time since Tijuana get what I’m looking for – a mass of shredded chicken, fresh refritos, and tart guacamole smothered in cheese and salsa verde. The tortilla is handmade. The two next to us converse in Puerto Rican Spanish, rolling and fast, shades of Portuguese and Dominican, far from the Castilian in textbooks. They get up and pay, handing the young cashier a 5 for their full meals and drinks.
We finish and approach the register, I pull out my wallet. She writes a slip, hands it to me. $15.95. I offer a 20 and smile, taking my four singles and replacing them in the fold. If only we could get the healthcare system to work like that, I think.
The problem, if we choose to think of it like that, is not the people but the system itself. Somewhere between 86th and 110th, the opportunities go away, the chances get slimmer, the obstacles bigger. Fewer people are going to make it out. It’s the difference between an invisible barrier that has nothing to do with color or heritage – only indifference and ignorance. Put me – white, male, of sound mind and body – in a project at 153rd instead of a brownstone on 65th and strip me of my education, my citizenship, my language, my income. Watch me falter and fail to get by, give up minimum wage for the risk and reward of the game. I don’t have the stock market anymore, I got the rock market – and it never goes down.
And so the 6 uptown becomes the channel that runs beneath the lines on the map, drawn in white and brown, rich and poor, that criss-cross the city, the culture, the nation, the world. It’s a conduit between two worlds, a single train that simultaneously separates and connects the down-town upper-crust with the up-town downtrodden. Opening your eyes and ears on the 6 is easy, but opening your mind to see the larger picture is imperative – you’ll see that the suit at 43rd, a lifetime New Yorker, isn’t lying when he says “ I’ve never been up that far.”
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Swimmers Wanted
First, the cars. They’ve got to go. Replace them with rickshaws, bicycles, flying saucers, or magic carpets – but for heaven’s sake get rid of the cars. Then we can start talking, and after that maybe we’ll get somewhere.
When one is presented with the grandiose task of saving the world, as we all have been since the beginning of time, it becomes rather important to have a firm grasp on the terra firma we inhabit. Because despite our personal beliefs and morals, we are all living polygamous lives, attached as much to the planet and each other as to any spouse or family member. And as a part of this human constellation I am constantly and continuously appalled by the beauty and grace of this doting earth, our collective and enduring life-partner.
There is something undoubtedly spiritual, and now thinking about it, undoubtedly Christian about this relationship between man and his surroundings. Earth as the savior of the human race, willing to suffer for our sins of folly as we dump, poison, maim, and rape her alive, reveling in our shallow and falsified sense of supremacy and control.
We are not an inherently evil people – the concept of evil itself has little use for the rational thinking, who, upon meditation will realize that its definition is so subjective as to effectively erase it from the fabric of reality. Yet individually we possess the power to stifle good, and collectively we can stifle it almost entirely if we please, leaving the world dirty, dark, and barren, scattered with the remains of a society and a species that long ago had a glimpse at something spectacular but moved along too quickly to realize it.
This is where the Christian mythology breaks down. If we miss our opportunity, as Judas missed his, to allow good to flourish, the result will not be salvation and eternal forgiveness, it will be extinction. The serpent will cease to be a necessary spur for the development of an otherworld paradise and will simply remain a serpent, most likely slithering around on earth long after our grand stupidity condemned us to an early grave. This realization is cause for both desperation and rejoice.
When we think and talk about the greatest accomplishments of human history, we mention agriculture, the steam engine, space travel. We fail to realize that our single greatest talent, responsible for all things we’ve ever accomplished, is our ability to self-realize; that is, to actively recognize the fact that we are human beings living in an environment that includes more than our own simple existence. It from this impetus that we realize the need for food, shelter, and water, from this impetus that we realize our physical limitations and take steps to protect them, from this impetus that we create massive structures and otherworldly technology. And it is from this simple impetus that we can realize our own collectively irresponsible behavior and take steps to reverse it, saving Judas from the Pharisees, as it were. That alone is reason for supreme hope.
So I will start by swimming against the current in an effort not to break away but to drag the whole school with me, interconnected as we all are. If a few turn around and start swimming, a few more must follow, and a few more, a few more, until the whole gamut sprints into the arms of that most faithful spouse I know, the one who provides for us in times of need and times of plenty, in times of sickness and health, and the one who, in death, will ultimately and unconditionally receive us.
When one is presented with the grandiose task of saving the world, as we all have been since the beginning of time, it becomes rather important to have a firm grasp on the terra firma we inhabit. Because despite our personal beliefs and morals, we are all living polygamous lives, attached as much to the planet and each other as to any spouse or family member. And as a part of this human constellation I am constantly and continuously appalled by the beauty and grace of this doting earth, our collective and enduring life-partner.
There is something undoubtedly spiritual, and now thinking about it, undoubtedly Christian about this relationship between man and his surroundings. Earth as the savior of the human race, willing to suffer for our sins of folly as we dump, poison, maim, and rape her alive, reveling in our shallow and falsified sense of supremacy and control.
We are not an inherently evil people – the concept of evil itself has little use for the rational thinking, who, upon meditation will realize that its definition is so subjective as to effectively erase it from the fabric of reality. Yet individually we possess the power to stifle good, and collectively we can stifle it almost entirely if we please, leaving the world dirty, dark, and barren, scattered with the remains of a society and a species that long ago had a glimpse at something spectacular but moved along too quickly to realize it.
This is where the Christian mythology breaks down. If we miss our opportunity, as Judas missed his, to allow good to flourish, the result will not be salvation and eternal forgiveness, it will be extinction. The serpent will cease to be a necessary spur for the development of an otherworld paradise and will simply remain a serpent, most likely slithering around on earth long after our grand stupidity condemned us to an early grave. This realization is cause for both desperation and rejoice.
When we think and talk about the greatest accomplishments of human history, we mention agriculture, the steam engine, space travel. We fail to realize that our single greatest talent, responsible for all things we’ve ever accomplished, is our ability to self-realize; that is, to actively recognize the fact that we are human beings living in an environment that includes more than our own simple existence. It from this impetus that we realize the need for food, shelter, and water, from this impetus that we realize our physical limitations and take steps to protect them, from this impetus that we create massive structures and otherworldly technology. And it is from this simple impetus that we can realize our own collectively irresponsible behavior and take steps to reverse it, saving Judas from the Pharisees, as it were. That alone is reason for supreme hope.
So I will start by swimming against the current in an effort not to break away but to drag the whole school with me, interconnected as we all are. If a few turn around and start swimming, a few more must follow, and a few more, a few more, until the whole gamut sprints into the arms of that most faithful spouse I know, the one who provides for us in times of need and times of plenty, in times of sickness and health, and the one who, in death, will ultimately and unconditionally receive us.
The Heat is On
The influx has begun. We are beginning to reach the saturation point in the mainstream media with articles talking about everything from energy security to climate change to oil independence to alternative energy to the one phrase you still can’t say on TV; global warming. But what is the crux of this issue? Where do we focus? When there are so many competing versions of the same problem, it can be hard to identify the reality of the situation, even harder to know what steps to take to fix it.
On Tuesday, the UN released what’s widely considered the most comprehensive and conclusive study on global warming. The results should be alarming: the best scientists in the whole have concluded with 90%+ certainty that the changes in the earth’s climate have been caused by the actions of man. The changes that may have already have caused future sea levels to rise above recorded levels, caused huge weather patterns like the Gulf Stream to change, and altered the atmosphere’s chemical makeup were our fault.
It’s hard for a general audience to accept these truths, and apparently even harder for those who stand to lose profits. According to the U.K.’s Guardian, The American Enterprise Institute, an oil lobby funded primarily by Exxon-Mobil, has offered scientists and economists $10,000 each to publish articles that undermine the findings of the UN report. The article also reports close ties between the lobby and the federal government: “AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.” It seems that even science can be bought.
This type of blatant manipulation of scientific evidence casts doubts on the reliability of any report on an issue so controversial as this one. But the case for global warming has been made and made strongly; it seems only the conglomeration of the oil business, the auto industry, and the Bush administration that try so vehemently to oppose the evidence. Yet their campaign has been successful. While 73% of those surveyed in a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll said that global warming was a “serious problem,” only 44% said it would be an “important factors” in determining their vote, compared with 47% who said it was “not a factor” in their decision. As long as it doesn’t influence policy, the Bush administration could care less about global warming.
It seems obvious that the links between big business and government have become increasingly close in the past few years – from Haliburton’s stranglehold on military contracts, many without competition, to the links between the Bush family and Saudi Arabian investors, to the revolving door between government agencies and the K street lobbying agencies which seems to have been well-lubricated by the Bush administration. But this is America, we say, where the government works for the people! Our politicians can’t be corrupt! The media gives us this image, this myth to cling to and then whitewashes us with news on both sides of the issues in an effort to be “fair and balanced,” when really they may be doing the American public a great disservice by not adequately explaining the backing for research and findings and failing to look critically at the links between interest groups and government actions.
Global warming has become a flagship example of this type of deliberate malleability of the news and of science in the name of industry and profit. Exxon-Mobil last year made $39.5 billion in profits; the largest margin in recorded history. To contrast, in the recently released federal budget for fiscal year 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency was allotted $7.7 billion. With this type of economic disparity, it’s easy to understand why the problem is so hard to combat. The facts remain that the private sector, especially in the energy industry, and its close links to so many of the positions of influence in the federal government, hold an immense resource gap over the heads of regulator and citizens alike. Yet what remains appalling to an informed American is the ready access to this type of information and the complete lack of attention these links receive in the mainstream media.
In short order, one can find the records of every single congressional session of the last several years, the sponsors behind every Washington lobby, the past private sector career of many of our current public servants. The internet has placed a huge array of information at our fingertips; we need only to thumb through it to find the hidden story behind the actions of our government. The links are barely concealed beneath a thin veneer of public trust and faith in a system of government separate from business. Woven of slick language and impeccable public relations illusions, the veneer is enough to sway most of the voting population.
When combined with an issue as inflammatory as global warming – an issue that, if proven, stands to gigantically alter the way we live – this type of media gloss can be extremely effective at mitigating public outcry and large-scale outrage. The government and the corporate world aren’t the only one who prefer business as usual; we all do. Not a single consuming American wants to believe that his or her actions have a potentially catastrophic consequence in the future. The mere shadow of a controversy is enough to stifle large-scale action on the issue. Until it becomes apparent to a large portion of Americans that the survival of their grandchildren is solely dependent upon their actions in the immediate future, it’s hard to imagine any sort of sea change. Until we find a reporter or an agency that’s willing to expose the obvious interconnections between interests and policy, science and profits, we may be doomed to an incremental and unsubstantial resolution of an issue that is at once pressing and enormous.
On Tuesday, the UN released what’s widely considered the most comprehensive and conclusive study on global warming. The results should be alarming: the best scientists in the whole have concluded with 90%+ certainty that the changes in the earth’s climate have been caused by the actions of man. The changes that may have already have caused future sea levels to rise above recorded levels, caused huge weather patterns like the Gulf Stream to change, and altered the atmosphere’s chemical makeup were our fault.
It’s hard for a general audience to accept these truths, and apparently even harder for those who stand to lose profits. According to the U.K.’s Guardian, The American Enterprise Institute, an oil lobby funded primarily by Exxon-Mobil, has offered scientists and economists $10,000 each to publish articles that undermine the findings of the UN report. The article also reports close ties between the lobby and the federal government: “AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.” It seems that even science can be bought.
This type of blatant manipulation of scientific evidence casts doubts on the reliability of any report on an issue so controversial as this one. But the case for global warming has been made and made strongly; it seems only the conglomeration of the oil business, the auto industry, and the Bush administration that try so vehemently to oppose the evidence. Yet their campaign has been successful. While 73% of those surveyed in a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll said that global warming was a “serious problem,” only 44% said it would be an “important factors” in determining their vote, compared with 47% who said it was “not a factor” in their decision. As long as it doesn’t influence policy, the Bush administration could care less about global warming.
It seems obvious that the links between big business and government have become increasingly close in the past few years – from Haliburton’s stranglehold on military contracts, many without competition, to the links between the Bush family and Saudi Arabian investors, to the revolving door between government agencies and the K street lobbying agencies which seems to have been well-lubricated by the Bush administration. But this is America, we say, where the government works for the people! Our politicians can’t be corrupt! The media gives us this image, this myth to cling to and then whitewashes us with news on both sides of the issues in an effort to be “fair and balanced,” when really they may be doing the American public a great disservice by not adequately explaining the backing for research and findings and failing to look critically at the links between interest groups and government actions.
Global warming has become a flagship example of this type of deliberate malleability of the news and of science in the name of industry and profit. Exxon-Mobil last year made $39.5 billion in profits; the largest margin in recorded history. To contrast, in the recently released federal budget for fiscal year 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency was allotted $7.7 billion. With this type of economic disparity, it’s easy to understand why the problem is so hard to combat. The facts remain that the private sector, especially in the energy industry, and its close links to so many of the positions of influence in the federal government, hold an immense resource gap over the heads of regulator and citizens alike. Yet what remains appalling to an informed American is the ready access to this type of information and the complete lack of attention these links receive in the mainstream media.
In short order, one can find the records of every single congressional session of the last several years, the sponsors behind every Washington lobby, the past private sector career of many of our current public servants. The internet has placed a huge array of information at our fingertips; we need only to thumb through it to find the hidden story behind the actions of our government. The links are barely concealed beneath a thin veneer of public trust and faith in a system of government separate from business. Woven of slick language and impeccable public relations illusions, the veneer is enough to sway most of the voting population.
When combined with an issue as inflammatory as global warming – an issue that, if proven, stands to gigantically alter the way we live – this type of media gloss can be extremely effective at mitigating public outcry and large-scale outrage. The government and the corporate world aren’t the only one who prefer business as usual; we all do. Not a single consuming American wants to believe that his or her actions have a potentially catastrophic consequence in the future. The mere shadow of a controversy is enough to stifle large-scale action on the issue. Until it becomes apparent to a large portion of Americans that the survival of their grandchildren is solely dependent upon their actions in the immediate future, it’s hard to imagine any sort of sea change. Until we find a reporter or an agency that’s willing to expose the obvious interconnections between interests and policy, science and profits, we may be doomed to an incremental and unsubstantial resolution of an issue that is at once pressing and enormous.
Retro Gonzo
President’s Bush’s approval rating hovered steadily around a stellar 35% this morning, reflecting the lowest faith in an American leader since Richard Nixon’s end of term 24% rating, the lowest in recorded history. As the American people and their representatives on both sides of the aisle begin to voice mutual disdain for our highest authority, it’s worth taking a look back at Tricky Dick and his own fall from grace.
Writing to his editor in February, 1972, three months before the Watergate break-in and nine month prior to the biggest landslide victory in history, Hunter S. Thompson eerily captures the bizarre and surreal nature of a campaign that would become known for its seminal role in the culture of corruption, scandal, and misrepresentation that has become synonymous with American politics:
“At first I thought it was me; that I was missing all the action because I wasn’t p lugged in. but then I began reading the press wizards who are plugged in, and it didn’t take long to figure out that most of them were just filling space because their contracts said they had to write a certain amount of words every week…But they all seemed very depressed; not only about the ’72 election, but about the whole long-term future of politics and democracy in America.”
The disillusionment he speaks of rings all too clearly in the minds of pundits and citizens alike in the current political arena – one where more citizens voted against the president than for him and where the spoon-fed press corps ask scripted questions and remain to content to report from a professional distance. While the critics of this president have made themselves heard, the hamstrings of mainstream journalism have become increasingly apparent, as they were becoming to Hunter Thompson in 1972. Frustrated by the “Boys on the Bus,” as Timothy Crouse would later dub the crew of reporters assigned to the campaign, Thompson bemoans what he saw as the current mode of journalism; “ sucking up the news and then spewing it out by the ‘Five W’s’ in a package that makes perfect sense.” In hindsight, his beef becomes even more legitimate.
Perhaps the most slanderous campaign in U.S. political history, the run up the ’72 election saw Nixon’s staff revert to the political equivalent of guerilla warfare, with tactics ranging from public slander via fabricated letters to personal attacks on opponents to high school pranks including the ordering of take-out under the opposition’s name. Yet nearly all of these tactics went unreported by the mainstream media outlets, and the Nixon administration won an unprecedented 60% of the popular vote in November of 1972.
When the Watergate scandal broke in 1974, the Nixon administration fell like a house of cards, crucified by the public. But until then the media had remained content to recite instead of report, to placate instead of investigate. Hunter S. Thompson remained a glaring example; his work far from acceptable in the traditional journalistic tradition. He was personal, political, and biased. He was both loved and hated, responding to each sentiment with vigor and spunk. Despite personal opinions, what remains is a striking example of a journalist who was able not just to report the news, but to report on the news.
Despite his penchant for blunt statements, vulgar language, and drug use, what Thompson’s writing conveys is a sense of place both physical and chronological; an anchoring of historic events in the permanently relevant substance of personalities and human interactions. Lifting the veil of American politics, he dared to say what he saw in his own terms, focusing on candidates as much as issues, practice as much as results. His letters, here and elsewhere, mix cynic humor and astute observation with a rambling intensity that connotes both extreme frustration and an ardent sense of urgency.
His tone is one that seems hard to find today. For several reasons, it seems unlikely that the current administration, and perhaps any administration today, would give a journalist like Thompson the chance to get anywhere near as close to the candidates as he did. But his is the type of journalism that we may need the most as we look toward the 2008 Presidential election and beyond. Americans are faced today with a bevy of institutionally imbedded problems constantly being reinforced by the ever-wider reach of a contemporary media that finds itself intertwined with (and increasingly beholden to) big business. Mass media conglomerates and lumbering PR firms dominate what has become the business of information, and the window of opportunity for independent journalism to reach the populace is closing fast. It is Thompson’s blunt, fast combination of realism, punditry, and disdain for spin that Americans must rely upon if we are ever to organize a honest grassroots movement for political change.
Writing to his editor in February, 1972, three months before the Watergate break-in and nine month prior to the biggest landslide victory in history, Hunter S. Thompson eerily captures the bizarre and surreal nature of a campaign that would become known for its seminal role in the culture of corruption, scandal, and misrepresentation that has become synonymous with American politics:
“At first I thought it was me; that I was missing all the action because I wasn’t p lugged in. but then I began reading the press wizards who are plugged in, and it didn’t take long to figure out that most of them were just filling space because their contracts said they had to write a certain amount of words every week…But they all seemed very depressed; not only about the ’72 election, but about the whole long-term future of politics and democracy in America.”
The disillusionment he speaks of rings all too clearly in the minds of pundits and citizens alike in the current political arena – one where more citizens voted against the president than for him and where the spoon-fed press corps ask scripted questions and remain to content to report from a professional distance. While the critics of this president have made themselves heard, the hamstrings of mainstream journalism have become increasingly apparent, as they were becoming to Hunter Thompson in 1972. Frustrated by the “Boys on the Bus,” as Timothy Crouse would later dub the crew of reporters assigned to the campaign, Thompson bemoans what he saw as the current mode of journalism; “ sucking up the news and then spewing it out by the ‘Five W’s’ in a package that makes perfect sense.” In hindsight, his beef becomes even more legitimate.
Perhaps the most slanderous campaign in U.S. political history, the run up the ’72 election saw Nixon’s staff revert to the political equivalent of guerilla warfare, with tactics ranging from public slander via fabricated letters to personal attacks on opponents to high school pranks including the ordering of take-out under the opposition’s name. Yet nearly all of these tactics went unreported by the mainstream media outlets, and the Nixon administration won an unprecedented 60% of the popular vote in November of 1972.
When the Watergate scandal broke in 1974, the Nixon administration fell like a house of cards, crucified by the public. But until then the media had remained content to recite instead of report, to placate instead of investigate. Hunter S. Thompson remained a glaring example; his work far from acceptable in the traditional journalistic tradition. He was personal, political, and biased. He was both loved and hated, responding to each sentiment with vigor and spunk. Despite personal opinions, what remains is a striking example of a journalist who was able not just to report the news, but to report on the news.
Despite his penchant for blunt statements, vulgar language, and drug use, what Thompson’s writing conveys is a sense of place both physical and chronological; an anchoring of historic events in the permanently relevant substance of personalities and human interactions. Lifting the veil of American politics, he dared to say what he saw in his own terms, focusing on candidates as much as issues, practice as much as results. His letters, here and elsewhere, mix cynic humor and astute observation with a rambling intensity that connotes both extreme frustration and an ardent sense of urgency.
His tone is one that seems hard to find today. For several reasons, it seems unlikely that the current administration, and perhaps any administration today, would give a journalist like Thompson the chance to get anywhere near as close to the candidates as he did. But his is the type of journalism that we may need the most as we look toward the 2008 Presidential election and beyond. Americans are faced today with a bevy of institutionally imbedded problems constantly being reinforced by the ever-wider reach of a contemporary media that finds itself intertwined with (and increasingly beholden to) big business. Mass media conglomerates and lumbering PR firms dominate what has become the business of information, and the window of opportunity for independent journalism to reach the populace is closing fast. It is Thompson’s blunt, fast combination of realism, punditry, and disdain for spin that Americans must rely upon if we are ever to organize a honest grassroots movement for political change.
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