Screed Of The Day

Quit wagging fingers

2006-05-16T15:55:00.000-07:00

I was wandering through Wikipedia today, reading about a few different subjects, when I came across Michael Moore’s Oscar acceptance speech. Among other things, it consisted of Moore saying, “shame on you,” to the president, and the government of the United States.

“Shame on you.” I’ve got to ask, Michael, did you think that was going to work? That Bush would think, ‘hey, he’s right, I’m doing shameful things, maybe I should stop?”

Though I find myself in agreeance with Moore’s general positions, I also find myself having huge issues with how he says them. He uses details in his arguments that are usually true, but also carefully picked. He edits his footage to imply truths that facts or experience do not bear out, overemphasizing a point with his somber narration, rather than letting his truths be stated simply as truths. But ‘shame on you’ takes the cake. Saying it does not impose any kind of moral code on those who do it, and in the cases of faceless corporations and densely bureaucratic governments, there is no internal morality to adhere to. It implies a higher moral position, while capitulating power, admitting that someone else has to bring these brigands to justice, because we’re just too gosh darn small.

I noticed it when I was walking a picket line last summer. I agreed that we were under lockout measures, that the company had done something wrong. But when the scabs crossed the line, or when the television cameras arrived and started rolling, the line became a mob, shouting ‘SHAME’ at the company, its representatives, and their former co-workers who crossed the line. What’s the point? It’s not going to change anyone’s minds, and only serves in both admitting your victim status and your powerlessness to stop it. It’s asking for a higher power to come in and punish the bully.

This is an endemic problem for the left wing, for those who value truth, honesty, individual freedoms. Intellectuals and protesters alike accept the system of being on the outside looking in. Making their statements of injustice but not providing solutions. Or if they are suggesting anything, they still refrain from doing any of it. Crying ‘shame’ and hoping someone does something about it.

Of course, I’m in the same bloody boat, so I’ve got to screed myself here. I observed this, and this screed is not much more than crying about them, too. Not doing anything.

I don’t have all, or even very many of the answers about how to fix any of this, but I am getting tired of being told about it, without anyone doing anything else.

It’s a damn shame.

A Return to the Screed

2006-04-11T12:44:00.000-07:00

What is the screed, of this current day?

Watching George Bush vacillate.

I thought I’d enjoy it. I thought it would be the peculiar enjoyment, the schadenfreude, of watching someone I dislike show up their own incompetence. But it only made me mad.

Let’s avoid the details, because they really only cloud the issue. The bones of it lie as thus: a White House individual leaked information that outed a CIA agent. Leaving aside the mess of motives (which include an implied attempt to discredit critics of the ‘Invasion of Iraq’ passport, the elusive WMDs) Bush has, in his ideology-peppered speeches, has said that the leak was actually intentional. He leaked it, or rather in a wonderful sense of historical revisionism, says that he declassified it, because he thought the American Public had a right to know.

Now, correct this crazy canuck if he’s wrong, but I was under the impression that the White House had a fairly robust press corps, that are usually at the President’s beck and call. Hell, even if he doesn’t want to say something in an actually press release, he can toss it into the many speeches that are given at the many events he attends.

Is it illegal to accuse the president of lying? Or to openly criticize? I’m still waiting for the worldwide, ‘oh, come on! You can’t expect us to believe that, can you?’ But it never seems to come. I suppose, along with the screed, I’ve got a demand for the press of the world: call this out. Don’t meekly parrot what you record or videotape, but actually examine. Investigate. Bring back the stereotype of the hard-nosed reporter, looking for a great story. This is a great story, an American political farce, just waiting to be snapped up. Be brave.

Are We Convinced?

2005-08-04T09:38:00.000-07:00

A Brazilian man is shot multiple times in the head. Karl Rove was hot,
now he's not. Are our memories this short?

Apparently, it's enough that atrocities happen, that governments
fumble. If we read about it, see it on television, we consider the
media to have done their job. Most consider the media to be a
balanced, neutral source of information, because 'that's their job.'

Is this all it takes to convince us? To give us the illusion that
wrongdoing is ousted, That we are in full possession of all the facts?

This seems most clear when I read an editorial in the Chicago
Tribune[1], saying that London's police, to combat terrorism, must
'make split-second decision as they follow shoot-to-kill orders.
Sometimes, they will be wrong.' Over and above the insanity of
British police shooting an innocent man in the head, already
loathsome, is the unbelievable support and apology for these actions
by a member of the media. Sometimes they will be wrong? No. It is the
public's right to have an unreasonable expectation of their police,
because though people do make mistakes, the police, the law, are
ostensibly there to correct those mistakes. And if the
police make mistakes? They should be corrected, on
an order of ten or so.

I realize that balanced, neutral reporting is an ideal, not a reality,
but something that deviates so far from that ideal is still
surprising. The short attention span that the Western World has been
diagnosed with, has now become so clearly symptomized in the constant
hunt for the 'next big story,' and any story only lasts because
nothing bigger or more surprising has trumped it. Rather, Rove should
not be able to sit in any restaurant, anywhere in the world, without a
guy carrying a camera and a notepad at all times. We should not be
satisfied with statements from the British police or government.

In that ideal world, the media would hound those who need hounding,
until we know what happened, and how to keep it from happening again.

I'm not sure if I even want to start speculating about how often the
media will have its own political leanings. Suffice it to say, if even
what you read and see has been split down the line, where do you start
looking for truth? Maybe down in the gutters of opinion columns, and
news blogs, too off-the-cuff or amateur to worry about pissing off a
corporation or government contract.

Things go right back to the beginning, don't they? When word-of-mouth
was the original news distributor, and you either agreed with what you
heard, or you didn't. Or you keep asking questions.

Have I convinced you?

[1] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0507260246jul26,0,4265376.story?coll=chi-newsopinion-hed

The First Screed

2005-04-08T12:53:00.000-07:00

As mentioned above (or as I will mention, since I havn't gotten to it yet, I wanted to begin posting as soon as possible) the screed is a list, particularly a tiresome one.

To assuage any fears, I'm not actually looking to become tiresome to anyone, but the thrust here is to be taking a long hard look at the world around us, and asking very basic questions. Like, why aren't we more upset? Why aren't we righteously angry at the wrongs being perpetuated today?

Somewhere inside the core of all of this is me wondering about us. The West. In particular the North American modern culture. We have it so good here. But I don't think I'm alone in feeling this sense of the axe about to fall, the end of what we know. And so it makes me think, and ask.

That's all I'm doing here. Asking questions. Looking for answers. At the very least, get to know the question a little better.