joe hagan has a wonderful article in the latest new york observer. c.i. passed it on knowing i would especially appreciate one item:
Tonight on NBC, the original Apprentice—that is, Brian Williams on NBC Nightly News. Is it just us, or does Mr. Williams seem like the genetic result of crossing Jimmy Stewart, Paul Lynde and a tangerine?
no, joe, it's not just you. there is something truly creepy about brian williams. why? i think joe's gotten close to the issue, there is nothing authentic or genuine about brian williams as he comes off on television.
when he's 'anchoring,' you never for a moment forget that he is reading the news. there's no substance, there's nothing. you just watch (if you must) and think, 'oh, he's reading the teleprompter.' he's done nothing to earn the viewers trust or respect.
but to watch nightly news, you'd never know that. he operates, not unlike the bully boy, as though he has a mandate. he doesn't. to the average nightly news reader, brian williams is a big shrug, a big huh?
it's not just that he's bland, it's, as joe points out, that he's not quite right. there's just something there that doesn't fit. it's as though there's no person sitting behind the desk.
it's disturbing.
i want to quote something else that was forwarded to me, this time by sherry:
The new American militarism also manifests itself through an increased propensity to use force, leading, in effect, to the normalization of war. There was a time in recent memory, most notably while the so-called Vietnam Syndrome infected the American body politic, when Republican and Democratic administrations alike viewed with real trepidation the prospect of sending U.S. troops into action abroad. Since the advent of the new Wilsonianism, however, self-restraint regarding the use of force has all but disappeared. During the entire Cold War era, from 1945 through 1988, large-scale U.S. military actions abroad totaled a scant six. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, however, they have become almost annual events. The brief period extending from 1989's Operation Just Cause (the overthrow of Manuel Noriega) to 2003's Operation Iraqi Freedom (the overthrow of Saddam Hussein) featured nine major military interventions. And that count does not include innumerable lesser actions such as Bill Clinton's signature cruise missile attacks against obscure targets in obscure places, the almost daily bombing of Iraq throughout the late 1990s, or the quasi-combat missions that have seen GIs dispatched to Rwanda, Colombia, East Timor, and the Philippines. Altogether, the tempo of U.S. military interventionism has become nothing short of frenetic.
As this roster of incidents lengthened, Americans grew accustomed to -- perhaps even comfortable with -- reading in their morning newspapers the latest reports of U.S. soldiers responding to some crisis somewhere on the other side of the globe. As crisis became a seemingly permanent condition so too did war. The Bush administration has tacitly acknowledged as much in describing the global campaign against terror as a conflict likely to last decades and in promulgating -- and in Iraq implementing -- a doctrine of preventive war.
that's from andrew j. bacevich's 'the normalization of war' and i think we need to be thinking about this.
when we all get together on saturday nights (ava, dona, jess, ty and jim of the 3rd estate sunday review, c.i., betty, sometimes kat and/or folding star of a winding road), we discuss a number of issues that never make it into the third estate sunday review. we're all rushing to read through this or add a thought about that and we get into some really free wheeling conversations.
of late, one of them has been about our nation's responses. it seems more and more that the bully boy has set the agenda and our only response to any problem, crisis, tragedy is a military response. there are more responses than sending in the marines and i think we need to break from the knee jerk reaction to always resort to sending in troops (which risks their lives). grown ups can do that, they can find other solutions. but the bully boy can only think war, war, war! and it's hurting our country.
we need to move beyond thinking there 'oh send in the troops.' mad maddie albright (as c.i. calls her) is infamous for wanting to send in troops during clinton's administration against the opinions of colin powell. when he objected, mad maddie replied basically with what is the point of having this military if you don't use it?
mad maddie, we have vaccines for small pox, what are you suggesting?
because that sort of limited thinking does suggest somethings. (no mad maddie wasn't suggesting small pox.) we need to move beyond the idea that 'we're mad and we're going to kick your ass!'
these are conversations we have on saturday nights and pull from what we see in our activist circles and it's obvious that this is a dialogue that's going on nation wide even though it's not getting a lot of attention and even though it doesn't have everyone's ear.
but this is a point when we need to start asking, how do we deal with these things?
and i also think we need to move beyond dualism. granted the 'carrot' would be an improvement over the bully boy's little stick - which must be red and raw from over use by now.
but i do think that we need to be actively considering what our government could be doing.
i think we've accepted the idea that because this is how our country responds to x, then that is just the way it should be now and forever.
so if you have time tomorrow, put yourself in the oval office and think of a situation. think of sudan or nepal or any area and ask yourself, 'what could i do?'
if you're nervous, don't be.
if the bully boy can do his bad job and get away with it, could you really do worse?
attitudes are being bred across the world, anger at us over our government's policies. that anger will be there long after the bully boy's term ends. we need to figure out how we're going to address it. in 3 more years, bully boy's stick will be a small, bloody stump. we're going to need to have some new tools to work with. think about it.
in the words of inxs:
A new sensation
Hate baby hate
When there's nothing left for you
You're only human, what can you do?
It'll soon be over
Don't let your pain take over you
Love baby love
It's written all over your face
There's nothing better we could do
Than live forever
Well that's all we've got to do
Hey nowI'm gonna take you over, a new sensation, a new sensation
Right now
Gotta hold on you a new sensation, a new sensation
A new sensation, a new sensation
