February 22nd, 2007 — America at war, movies
The Society for Ethnomusicology has come out strongly against the use of music as torture and specifically calls out the government.
The Society for Ethnomusicology condemns the use of torture in any form. … The SEM is committed to the ethical uses of music to further human understanding and to uphold the highest standards of human rights. The Society is equally committed to drawing critical attention to the abuse of such standards through the unethical uses of music to harm individuals and the societies in which they live. The U.S. government and its military and diplomatic agencies has used music as an instrument of abuse since 2001, particularly through the implementation of programs of torture in both covert and overt detention centers as part of the war on terror.
I hate the idea of torture. Really. But can’t help it. The first thing I thought of was Billy Wilder’s outrageous 1961 capitalists vs. commies satire One, Two, Three, which was shot on location in Berlin as the Wall was being erected. (In the 1920s, Wilder spent his youth in Berlin, and fled after the rise of Hitler and the Nazis.)
In the movie, Horst Buchholz plays a dedicated East German who falls in love with a spoiled American girl and is tormented by his political convictions. But that’s not all. He’s tortured too—in a memorable scene in which “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” blares over and over again in his ears.
Remember: this is a comedy. Billy Wilder-style, of course, which means it is savage. (I’ve said it many times before and I’ll say it again. I’m wild about Billy. Unfortunately, I haven’t had time to go back to my Wilder festival.)
Someone posted the torture scene on YouTube, but it was taken down. I saved the cached version of the thumbnail:
February 22nd, 2007 — America at war, aside
After the amusing week-long brouhaha demanding that Hilary apologize, I’m almost sorry to hear so many in the leftosphere sound so…well…rational.
As Matthew Yglesias points out in response to Will Saletan’s grumpy piece:
This isn’t to say that voting for the war was the right thing to do. But there’s every reason to think she thinks it was the right thing to do. She’s not refusing to “admit” anything; she’s just saying what she thinks.
Here are some of the comments (snipped from various postings) from Yglesias’s post:
The vote was probably the right call, except in retrospect. The best course of action was to present a credible threat of force, forcing iraq to accept strict inspections.
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Since Hilary was backing the UN route as an alternative to war the resolution said exactly what she was arguing for. The only way that she could vote against the resolution would be if she knew for certain that Bush had absolutely no intention of good faith.
Of course now we know and suspected then that Bush was not acting in good faith. But acting on the suspicion of bad faith is exactly what the Republicans had been doing when they controlled Congress.
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It would be wrong for her to offer an apology when she thinks in her heart she acted in good faith.
She believes that given the assurances of Bush that he would use the resolution as a bargaining chip to get full inspections and go to war as a last resort and the scary intel provided to Congress she made a reasonable decision.
It would also be ridiculous for any Dem to apologize for the Iraq war when Bush/Cheney themselves have offered no apologies.
On the other hand, Ezra Klein still wants Hillary to apologize, and while laying out his case he paints a pathetic picture of what he thinks happened in the run-up to the 2002 vote:
Mike [Tomasky] argues that, “I don’t believe for a second that any of them [liberal-leaning Senators] thought that handing George W. Bush the authority to launch a preemptive war was in any conceivable way a good idea.” But that, sadly, wasn’t the question. Had Democrats been thinking more clearly, they would have considered Bush’s record, his competence, his instincts, and just said no. The moment, however, was not one conducive to clear thought. And the question was never framed or explained quite like that. Rather, an array of foreign policy wisemen and self-styled Iraq experts fanned out to speak to those politicians they were closest with and convinced them to vote for the resolution [[Oh, I see. Congress shouldn't have trusted foreign-policy wisemen and "self-styled" Iraq experts. So they're not really responsible for their votes. --ed.]] as a way of voting for their personal wars. So the number earnestly voting for Tom Friedman’s war, or Kenneth Pollack’s war, or Christopher Hitchen’s’s war, was really quite large. These were the folks Democratic politicians invited into the dining rooms and offices to advise them, and these folks, publicly as well as privately, sold their personal Iraq Wars, rather than George W. Bush’s war. That’s not to say the Democrats who voted wrongly — nor the pundits or individuals, like me, who thought wrongly — were anything but stupid for it. [[Really? I protest. I was not and am not now stupid. It was the right---and only---decision at the time. --ed.]] But the support wasn’t disingenuous. Indeed, in some ways, that makes it all the worse.
Gawd, am I tired of this shit. There was no “Pollack’s war” and “Friedman’s war” and “Hitchens’s war.” Pollack and Friedman and Hitchens were among those who explained the “liberal” rationale for war. If Congress bought the rationale in 2002, it’s not the rationale that was wrong.
February 22nd, 2007 — aside, infotainment
This morning, NYT columnist Bob Herbert commented (in ”Anna, Britney, and Zawahiri“) on our national hunger for distraction:
The nation may be at war, and Al Qaeda may be gearing up for a rematch. But that’s no fun, not when Britney is shaving off her hair and Jennifer Aniston is reported to have a new nose and the thrill-a-minute watch over Anna Nicole’s remains is still the hottest thing on TV.
It was Neil Postman who warned in 1985 that we were amusing ourselves to death. I’m not sure anyone knew how literally to take him.
More than 20 years later, the masses have nearly succeeded in drawing the curtains on anything that’s not entertaining. No one can figure out what do about Iraq or Al Qaeda. A great American cultural center like New Orleans was all but washed away, and no one knows how to put it back together. The ice caps are melting and Al Gore is traveling the land like the town crier, raising the alarm about global warming.
But none of that has really gotten the public’s attention. None of it is amusing enough. As a nation of spectators, we seem content to sit with a pizza and a brew in front of the high-def flat-screen TV, obsessing over Anna Nicole et al., and giving no thought to the possibility that the calamitous events unfolding in the world may someday reach our doorsteps.
The only thing I disagree with here is that we’re amusing ourselves to death. Much as I loved Neil Postman’s book and much as I understand his concern, we aren’t dead yet!
We like to watch:
We know what we’re supposed to be doing. We’d rather be distracted. Want proof? TVNewser’s got proof. He’s got the figures to show what happens when one cable “news” network opts out of Anna Nicole coverage.
Here’s the answer to my
question about how CNN would do by ignoring Anna Nicole. The winner of each hour is in green:
At 3pm,
FNC averaged 323,000, MSNBC averaged 164,000, and
CNN averaged 120,000 in the demo.
At 4pm, FNC averaged 170,000,
MSNBC averaged 277,000, and
CNN averaged 135,000 in the demo.
At 5pm, FNC averaged 258,000,
MSNBC averaged 388,000, and
CNN averaged 176,000 in the demo.
At 6pm, FNC averaged 321,000,
MSNBC averaged 525,000, and
CNN averaged 215,000 in the demo.
I will, as usual, take the contrarian view. So people want to find out all about how her body is decomposing and who will take care of that little baby. Big deal.
It’s not as if obsessively following every burp and fart of the Libby “case” is any more elevating—it’s just gossip and dirt about a different type of celebrity (not-white-trash journalists and government figures). The only difference is that we’re doing it in front of our computer monitors, about something that is supposedly important.
It is all infotainment.
And infotainment rules.
It’s the way we get our information in a world in which there is too much information. The clevery sound bites, the simple but addictive story lines (will her body rot before she’s buried? who will take care of that poor child?), the outrageous archetypes (Playboy model marries rich octogenarian), the exhibitionistic family “spokesmen” who spill their guts to Larry King—believe it or not, they all have something to teach us. Every one of these sad cases is a morality tale. We don’t go to church (well, some of us, anyway). Our schools are not allowed to teach the difference between right and wrong (it’s all relative).
Infotainment allows us to rehearse our own morals (or feel superior to those who don’t have any) in a world where morality is just not discussed anymore. People watch this stuff instead of reading the crappy novels (pulp fiction) and screen-idol magazines that used to capture their imagination. They’re not amusing themselves to death any more than long-ago visitors amused themselves to death when they visited freak shows at their local carnival. They’re following stories—soap operas. That’s all.
If they weren’t watching Anna Nicole coverage, they would not be out there curing cancer or rebuilding Afghanistan and New Orleans. Most people aren’t that altruistic. Instead, they’d be wasting their free time doing something else equally worthless.
It’s our world, and welcome to it.
February 22nd, 2007 — aside, housekeeping
I updated and fixed the post I wrote late last night…in case you’re interested. I have things to add. Some other time.
