-Caveat Lector-
http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2002-01-02/smith.html/1/index.html
>From sfweekly.com
Originally published by SF Weekly Jan 02, 2002
�2002 New Times, Inc. All rights reserved.
Chump Changes
Journalists are playing into the hands of George Bush when they
unthinkingly insist that everything is different since Sept. 11
By Matt Smith
Some people imagine writing for a living as a blessed existence. What
fool, they surmise, couldn't chat with a few sources, type awhile,
then take the rest of the day off? But the actual task at hand --
contriving meaning from life's meaningless occurrences -- becomes
brutal with time. Sitting before a blank screen, next to a pile of
useless press releases, with a Rolodex of bland sources and a story
due in four hours, is as good a lesson as any about the pointlessness
of existence.
For this reason journalists create, and propagate, Universally
Portentous Events. Remember El Ni�o? For a while during 1997,
newspaper readers could be forgiven for believing that every event
under the sun and rain was somehow related to that year's harsh
winter. Next came Y2K. I recall how easy life seemed when concocting
a lead merely meant typing, "As we near the cusp of a new millennium
... Looking back over the closing century ... As
another thousand years unfold ...," or some such piffle. Next came the New Economy:
It's hard to believe now, but there was once a day when, according to the daily news,
every bozo with a Web site was about to change the
world.
These catch-all news hooks subsided, were forgotten, and for the most part did only
passing harm. But the current monument to journalistic leisure -- "How Americans Have
Changed Since Sept. 11" -- is different: It has all
owed newspaper reporters to become field agents for the Bush administration's project
to set America back 100 years.
At first the story seemed a harmless, occasional palliative for uninspired reporters.1
But week by week, the "Changes" story seemed to spin further out of control. Now,
nearly four months after the New York and D.C. terro
rist strikes, much journalistic enterprise seems linked to showing that people,
society -- even wine connoisseurship,2 for God's sake -- has forever changed since the
suicide attacks. Newspapers, apparently sensing that t
hey, too, must transform, have become creepily sentimental.
A couple of weeks ago a San Francisco Chronicle writer ventured out with a
photographer to interview people in the small California towns of Confidence, Freedom,
and Tranquillity to find out how they'd changed since Sept.
11. I'm not kidding. Last week the cover of the Chronicle's pink Sunday entertainment
section promised to describe how our appreciation of the arts has changed. I couldn't
look inside.
It's not just a problem in San Francisco's journalistic backwater. The trend has taken
hold nationwide. A man named Justin Barrett Hill published an essay in the Denver Post
last month titled "A Time to Mend: A new Americ
a emerges from the ashes." He explained how "we go from being able to boldly challenge
the world through our daily tasks, to wondering what the point of those tasks really
is: Does the lawn really need to be mowed?" Which
raised another question: Why would a Denver resident mow his lawn in December?
USA Today now has a logoed feature section along the lines of the New York Times'
"America Challenged" in which reporters fan out across the country to ask people how
things are different for them since Sept. 11. Given th
at America is a vast country of 230 million people largely unaffected by the
destruction of the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon, USA Today reporters
have been subjected to scouring the hinterlands for nuggets
such as this: "Elya Baskin of Woodland Hills, Calif. Baskin is a veteran character
actor who was looking forward to steady work on The Agency, the new CBS drama about
the CIA. The show's terrorism-focused pilot and early
episodes were rewritten after the attacks, and much of Baskin's turn as a diplomat
from Central Asia got cut."
A new age is upon us, no doubt.
The silliest aspect of this treacly trope shows up when journalists attempt to
interpret otherwise non-noteworthy events through the lens of a nonexistent brave, new
world.
Take, for instance, the incident two weeks ago when students at California State
University at Sacramento heckled the Sacramento Bee's publisher for discussing civil
liberties during a commencement address. This flap has
sailed across the nation's news wires, and has received feature-length treatment in
the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and even on ABC's Nightline, which titled its
segment, "War of Words: Why Is It So Hard to Hear Ea
ch Other Since September 11th?"
The real story at CSUS is far simpler: There has been no change. As a former student
there, I can attest that Sac State is a fraternity-driven commuter school whose
students have never had patience for discussing current
events. Decades ago, as now, CSUS was a bastion of the narrowly focused.
"One student came in after class and demanded to know what right I had to give him a C
on a paper," recalled one former CSUS instructor I spoke with after the heckling
event, who gave history classes there 20 years ago. "
I told him it was my superior understanding of the English language. He didn't take
that well. He was jumping around like he wanted to punch me."
But the harm of this story goes beyond filling newspapers with silliness. It provides
a rationale for implementing our president's right-wing agenda.
Many of these "Changes" articles contain some version of the phrase "before, overt
patriotism was considered somehow tacky," as if the hostile, flag-waving misogynists
who ply America's back roads suddenly have become ico
ns of erudition. Another bit of bollocks: "We never will look at police officers and
rescue personnel the same way. We also never again will look at our military in the
same light. Such men and women help define the word
"hero' in America" (again, citing egregious offender USA Today). The idea, I imagine,
is that Americans now believe we should go back to the days before Vietnam and the
Knapp Commission, when we were a nation of apologist
s for military adventurism and police brutality.
The following "Changes" story also distorts reality to suit cynicism: The country was
once riven by a contentious presidential vote; we now stand behind our leader. While
it's true that Americans have allowed George W. Bu
sh to grossly violate the public trust in numerous ways since Sept. 11, the idea that
we've all become patsies seems overly pessimistic.
It's no accident that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are the most faithful propagators
of the "Changes" theme, intoning whenever they can that America will never be the
same. They and their wealthy right-wing backers have
always believed America should transform, and become the sort of country that existed
100 years ago, before we actually did change in myriad, profound ways. This has been
George W. Bush's agenda from the moment he entere
d government.
Most of the last century was distinguished by events that provoked profound shifts in
our national sensibilities, much to the consternation of wealthy conservatives.
The turn-of-the-19th-century corporate scandals and the muckraking journalism that
followed inspired a permanent, widespread suspicion toward corporate behemoths. The
Great Depression forged a national consensus about gov
ernment's responsibility to care for the poor, aged, and infirm. The civil rights
movement transformed the way the state was permitted to treat racial minorities. In
Vietnam, Chile, Guatemala, and El Salvador, we found th
at putting blind faith in our armed forces can turn us into a nation of savages. After
Watergate we learned to be suspicious of secretive politicians. And after the Watts
riots, the Knapp Commission hearings, and Rodney K
ing's televised beating, we concluded, as a people, that criminal justice must be
exposed to public scrutiny.
The news business and our president have created an untoward synergy, each helping the
other fulfill unrelated needs. But the "Changes" story won't suit journalists in the
end. The Bush administration's goals of a more se
cretive government and a less closely supervised justice system will leave the Fourth
Estate out in the cold. America at large, which invested a century in forging changes
for the better, has even more to lose.
So if, as you walk to the store next week, you're approached by a desperate man
holding a notebook, and he says, "Pardon me, I'm a reporter. Do you mind if I ask you
some questions about how you've changed since Sept. 11?
" be pleasant, but firm.
"I haven't changed at all," you'll say.
1 "Dawn of a New Day," Matt Smith, SF Weekly, Sept. 26, 2001.
2 "After Sept. 11, a return to the world of wine," Jerry Shriver,USA
Today, Dec. 21, 2001.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material
is distributed without charge or profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information
for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe
simply because it has been handed down for many generations. Do not
believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do
not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not
believe in anything merely on the authority of Teachers, elders or wise men.
Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it
agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all.
Then accept it and live up to it."
The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sutta
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled
one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller,
German Writer (1759-1805)
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that
prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
"Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless
of frontiers."
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will
teach you to keep your mouth shut."
--- Ernest Hemingway
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
