Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train

Just as Howard Zinn, the famed Boston University professor and historian who wrote The People's History of the United States, felt it was impossible to be "neutral" and undesirable to be "objective" about human history, so it's been near-impossible for anyone to be neutral about Zinn himself. The Left adored him; the Right loathed him. The historical community seemed split between those who felt he added a stirring chorus of voices to the historical choir (helping to popularize history amongst a general readership in the process) and those who rankled at his methods and tone, feeling that he was not playing by the proper rules of the game. When Zinn passed away a few weeks ago, of course, the emphasis was on the positive and the same is true of this documentary which was released around 2003, a time when Zinn's call for dissidence seemed more relevant than ever.

Much as I enjoy elaborating and extrapolating, sometimes a simple blurb says it best. (Not that I'm going to keep it short myself here; in my defense, neither would Zinn - A People's History runs 682 pages!) In this case the blurb is J. Hoberman's. The Village Voice critic (himself of a definite leftward tilt, though not of the populist variety) wrote of the film, "Deb Ellis and Denis Mueller's fond portrait, less documentary than infomercial, is unrelentingly and in the end self-defeatingly positive -- albeit effective in showcasing Zinn's charismatic personality." That about sums it up - though I'd add that the doc is also hindered by an amateurish and rather ineffective style. Still, it's primary purpose is to provide a snapshot of Zinn's life and personality, and it does achieve this, particulary when it comes to the professor's early and middle years.

As a rightward-leaning high school student (partly the contrarian in me, as most of my peers seemed to be liberals, and knee-jerk ones at that) I often found Zinn's work irritating. Contrary to the notion that Zinn's radical re-evaluation of history remains anathema in hidebound American education, A People's History was assigned reading in several of my classes. Open-minded despite my skepticism towards the left, and genuinely curious as to where they were coming from, I would dig into a fresh chapter eager for a bracing subversion of American mythology. But by the end of each I found myself wearied by the monotony of Zinn's focus on exploitation and victimization, the contrary stubbornness of Zinn's refusal to grant quarter to any American leader as anything other than an dictator in disguise, and mostly by the lack of an intellectual tension or complexity in the work, something I relished even then. Though I still appreciate this quality above all others, in history, in art, in just about anything, I'm much more open to Zinn's approach now.

Re-reading A People's History in the wake of Zinn's death (I'm about 150 pages in at the moment) I no longer find it wearying but completely absorbing. The focus on the economic imbalance and abuse of those with less power seems more like a provocative and openly admitted bias, one which gives the narrative drive and clarity though it certainly works better in some passages than in others. (The colonial years are convincingly rendered via one long cry of moral outrage, directed at the barbarism of a greedy and ruthless culture whose cruelty was only matched by its hypocritical arrogance. However, when it comes to Revolutionary times, the author has trouble portraying Jefferson as essentially an elitist, one whose intellectual adventurousness and passion for liberty were basically beside the point. Even as Zinn struggles to demystify the words of the Declaration of Independence, the quoted passages remain stirring.)

I mention this as a segue back into Zinn's character. Underpinning the seeming one-sidedness of his focus are two qualities which are often missing on the intellectual left: a personal complexity in terms of his relation to the country he's criticizing, and, conversely, a simplicity and moral straightforwardness which is in the best tradition of American radicalism. On the first note, Howard Zinn was an antiwar activist who had fought and killed in war, a fierce critic of air bombardment who had himself been a bombardier in World War II. His positions were not so much contradicted by his history, as necessitated by them; it's quite possible that if he could have re-lived his life he would not have served, but his story is far more compelling in the fashion it occurred: it gives him a moral authority which stems from humility, humanity, and experience. He is not hovering above what he condemns, pointing the finger from a place of purity (like some of the college kids who jeered at soldiers without ever having been in their shoes, either literally or conceptually).

Likewise, Zinn was not an academic theorizing about the working classes after receiving a healthy dollop of Marxism, he was a slum kid who worked menial labor for years before attending college on the G.I. Bill (while struggling to support his growing family). Hence his championing of the underdog was not merely a self-loathing nose-thumbing at the bourgeoisie, as it seemed to be with so many sixties intellectuals. This may also explain his much-noted good cheer and patience with opposing views, at least according to those who experienced him as a teacher. His revisionism was bucked up by a history of patriotic service (however much he questioned it later), and - despite his unwavering criticism of those in power - a relative deficiency of personal bitterness (in the sense that Zinn tended to see almost everyone as tangled in the web, even to a certain extent the spinners). This leads to one of the film's most compelling moments (though it bungles the delivery, it can't really taint the fascination of the anecdote). In North Vietnam to receive some POWs whom the Communists have agreed to release, the representatives of the peace movement (including Father Berringer and Tom Hayden) are invited to sing, as is the tradition at Vietnamese gatherings. Zinn stands up and sings "America the Beautiful."

The later years, following Zinn's involvement in the civil rights and antiwar movements, are not as compelling when presented in the documentary. Zinn's feud with BU president John Silber is a potential source of drama, but it's defused instantly when, after beginning to develop the conflict, the filmmakers tie the story up quickly with a rather rambling response by Zinn in a lecture hall. In this and a later speech, Zinn dismisses his critics through guilt-by-association (talking about a historian who criticized his work, he haltingly begins to engage the historian's criticism and then falls back on, "He supported Nixon" and the film leaves it at that). This was the favored tactic of Zinn's more right-wing enemies ("he's a Marxist" or "he's a radical leftist" therefore his arguments must be wrong) and it's no more satisfying coming from Zinn than from them. Indeed, as the filmmakers document Zinn's dogged dedication to dissidence, they ironically display the American left's descent into something of an ideological rut.

Contrary to the teeming mass of freshly radicalized students we see in newsreel footage from the civil rights and Vietnam era, the crowds at the Iraq rallies and book presentations which close the film give the impression of having made up their mind long ago. Asked what she thought of Zinn's talk, one young woman says she liked it because "it basically confirmed everything I already thought." This is a far cry from Zinn's earlier intention to rattle the public's complacency and turn the way students and historians approached the past - and the present - on its ear. To be fair, Zinn himself did not want to preach to the converted; he's shown at one point inquiring, "Are there lots of people there who haven't made up their minds yet? 'Cause those are the people we need, the ones we want to reach." He's assured this is the case, yet in the crowds we see it looks like the usual suspects, clothed in the garb and speaking the language of the self-enclosed guardians of the flame. The heirs of the New Left are no longer new, and their world has become as sterile and fixed as that their progenitors rebelled against.

Anyway, to the end Zinn remains a charismatic presence - and the film, narrated by Matt Damon (who famously name-dropped his Cambridge neighbor in Good Will Hunting), is most successful at giving that presence a channel through which to communicate. Whatever his flaws, the left today could use a healthy dollop of Zinn's good humor, moral clarity, and most importantly and suprisingly, his all-Americanness. Zinn's ideal Left was less one which thrived in a brooding marginalization and alienated sense of "difference" than one which sought to demolish senses of difference, to establish an underlying humanity, and to reclaim the United States for "the people". A mere Marxist catchphrase for many (their particular misanthropy belying their vague anti-elitist rhetoric) the notion of "the people" seemed to have real meaning for Zinn. At his best - which is what I'd like to focus on here, given his recent passing and my renewed appreciation of his work - he can remind even those skeptics among us of radicalism's moral foundations, and constructive potential.

January 20, 2010 - wither the new epoch?

At 9:00 am today, a re-publishing of my Obama piece from last year was slated to go up. The essay, a recounting of my attendance at the president's inauguration 24 hours after the fact, is still up here if you want to read it: as a first-hand memoir of the event and first-draft summation of the zeitgeist, it's still pretty interesting, I think. However, it no longer fits the mood of the moment. I was going to re-post it to commemorate the first anniversary of Obama's presidency today - not only its promise but rumbles of its discontent (which I saw represented, metaphorically, in the confusion and congestion of the gigantic crowd and the difficult of authorities in marshalling them). Yet this ambivalence no longer seems appropriate, because the balance shifted yesterday - the ambivalence is souring into something more bitter, both in terms of the presidency and the populace that elected him.

As most of you know, Republican Scott Brown won the special election to replace Ted Kennedy tonight, beating the originally favored Democrat Martha Coakley for this historically Democratic Senate seat in a historically Democratic state. I am a Massachussetts resident, however I'm still a registered New Hampshire voter - I've remained on the rolls in the state of my birth because, among other reasons, it's a swing state where my vote actually seems to make a difference. Well, the joke's on me today - not that one vote would have dented Brown's shockingly comfortable margin. As an independent, I'm not a down-the-line liberal and I agree with Brown on some issues (well, Afghanistan anyway) over Coakley. But on the crucial issue of the day, health care - on which this 60th vote is actually essential - I've had it with the obstinant do-nothingism of ideologues like Brown.

Likewise with his general toe-the-line sensibility; that a Republican can win just a year after Bush left office doesn't infuriate me so much as that a Republican can win without making any effort to distance himself from the disastrous policies of one of the worst administrations in U.S. history. This victory seems to justify the intransigent, stubborn fanaticism of the right wing over the past year, and for that alone it's worth ruing. But worse than what it "represents" (which may be overblown although things certainly look even more troublesome for November '10 now) is what it means in concrete terms - that the already precarious and compromised health care bill is no longer protected by a 60-vote caucus. If one of the most initially popular presidents in history, with his party more in charge of the capital than it's been in a generation, can't pass a reform that the American people have repeatedly demonstrated their desire for (and if the American people can't quit dithering and hand-wringing long enough to demonstrate this desire when it matters most) ... well then, I might as well declare my disgust with politics once and for all and give up on any hope of moving forward on just about anything.

There's still that window of hope if the administration can get the House to approve the present bill and keep it safe from filibuster but if not, that new epoch I saw dawning a year ago may have prematurely come to its frozen halt on this day of wretched weather and dismal electoral results - or worse yet, this may be the new epoch, a decade of economic futility, public malaise, and pathetic political impotence - an era whose one redeeming virtue is that it rubs our faces in the shit we managed to avoid in the Zeroes: yet if even that exposure to the elements doesn't serve as a catalyst for change and improvement, what's the point? Might as well plug back in that iPod, turn up the TV and drown out the outside world.

Anyway, I hope this is not the case. But the general feeling is if not now, probably never - not just in terms of physical health care, but in terms of finally putting away childish things and facing up to the future and our nation's spiritual health. We'll see.

In honor of Dr. King

Triumph of the Will

As I may have mentioned recently, I've been tracking down classics I haven't seen (and re-watching old favorites) in anticipation of a long-awaited, perpetually postponed canonical exercise. On Netflix, I set up a queue of about 50 films which it seemed especially pressing to watch. The list ranged from iconic hits without a great deal of critical acclaim (Saturday Night Fever, A Nightmare on Elm Street) to widely acknowledged classics I had seen only parts of (The Great Dictator, Orpheus) to unseen films by auteur directors (Made in USA, Simon of the Desert, Salo). I proceeded chronologically and finished just before the new year; but at task's end I realized there were still a few films I meant to see which had slipped through the cracks.

One of them was Leni Riefenstahl's notorious 1935 Triumph of the Will, probably the most famous, castigated, and cautiously celebrated propaganda film of all time. Documenting the National Socialist Party rally of '34, when Hitler had just ascended to power but had already taken complete control of the country, the film has been imitated even as it's been held at arms' length. Today, Hitler and the Nazis tend to be viewed primarily in conjunction with the Holocaust but to watch Triumph of the Will in 2010 is to be reminded not just how the Nazis saw themselves but how the world first came to see them. Before his name became synonymous with pure evil, the German dictator and his bizarre, unexpected, and wildly popular movement were regarded with a mixture of awe, dread, and comic incredulity - sometimes all three at once. Triumph of the Will was widely screened and, while scorning the political content, many filmmakers admired the craft and later imitated it for their own propaganda films (once Hitler's Germany had unqualifiably become the enemy). Indeed, seeing this film after the films which followed it, one can see all the sources of the Hitlerite myth, both the one he fostered and the one that sprung up when his toxic brand of fanatical monumentalism encountered foreign sensibilities.

Riefenstahl is an artist, and if the sentiments and sensibilities her film celebrates (her later arguments about political neutrality notwithstanding) are rather naive, her articulation of them is exceptionally subtle and disturbingly effective. Note the way she humanizes (and homoeroticizes) the Nazi youth as they horse around early in the day or the meticulousness with which she follows the program of events for the celebration - every roll call, every tribute to every sub-group, snippets of every speech from every sector of the party, as if this was merely a larger-than-life, particularly malevolent Shriner's convention. In keeping to the human and mundane dimensions at first, Riefenstahl allows the film to build slowly until we are suddenly shocked to find ourselves dwarfed by an immense crowd - those playful youth suddenly standing in columns by the thousands, rigid and at attention; those laughably numerous sub-committees unveiled in precise units marching down the street to cheering throngs, goose-stepping in chilling unison like clockwork; speech after speech merely appetizers for the bloody entree - a screeching, hysterical oration by the Fuhrer himself in which previously subdued subtexts (only one prior speaker mentions racial purity, in passing) come galloping to the forefront. The film - along with the event it captures - is brilliantly structured, so that we can see the development of every thread yet still be surprised when it's unveiled in all its pomp and circumstance.

Watching the conclusion, I found myself in several different frames of mind: both disturbed and impressed by the charismatic appeal Hitler still holds, and prone to shivers of recognition when the curtain was lifted a bit and (with 20/20 hindsight) the parade of corpses trudged before my eyes - the direct result of all this ferocious rhetoric and blind devotion. Yet I was also aware of another sensibility in play. I already mentioned that the film exposes us not just to what Germans thought of Hitler, but what others thought of him at the time. What I mean is that Triumph of the Will, although intended as a orgasmic celebration of the Party, is also how many around the world were first exposed to the dictator (either through the film itself or through the footage of Hitler's other rallies and public appearances, which were in the same spirit). This triggers an appreciation of reactions which with time were eclipsed by sheer horror, hatred, and even numbness. What I was reminded of was the stereotypical American reaction of the time: as Hitler ranted and raved on and on about his glorious Fatherland, I pictured a wisecracking Yankee newsman chewing loudly as he rolls his eyes and jots down every crazed word of the Teutonic loon. This dismissive response, perhaps a form of self-protection as much as anything else (those nutty Germans, they aren't like us commonsensical, democratic folks) has been obscured by the very real damage Hitler unleashed, but watching the film as an American, and one well-acquainted with films like The Great Dictator, To Be or Not to Be, and numerous anti-Hitler Bugs Bunny cartoons, this attitude was reawakened in my mind. Just as Hitler "others" his perceived enemies, so it seemed for a time that he could be partially defused by being "othered" himself.

Another American reaction came to mind: one captured in the Peter Jennings turn-of-the-milennium TV miniseries "The Century." An octogenarian WWII veteran recalls being spooked by newsreel footage of the Germans marching (and God could they march, as Triumph never fails to remind us: it's a shame they didn't stick to their real - and far more harmless - talents). He remembers shuddering at their precision - the fact that they seemed like an undefeatable war machine while Americans were still practicing with wooden weapons and "grenades" filled with baking soda. The b-roll footage played over his reminiscence, in conjunction with the eerie music, bears out this trepidation. The incredulity and the fear: both responses keep us from falling entirely under the aesthetic spell of Riefenstahl's extremely effective propaganda. The very nationalism which enabled Hitler's rise, and was widely condemned in the wake of war, is in this case actually a rescue valve (at least for those of us who aren't German): allowing us to dismiss, fear, or loathe Hitler as something outside of ourselves and our culture. Safely ensconced in our Americanness or Britishness or whatever, we can sneer at him as the evil enemy and not a potential threat lurking within.

Yet, of course, there are universal aspects to Hitler's rise and adulation, and universal aspects to the appeal of Triumph of the Will. The film is aesthetically attractive, but more disturbing is its attractiveness as, well, is ideology the right word? The politics of National Socialism were more an aesthetic than a coherent political ethos. I recently saw a fascinating film about the artistic roots and products of Nazi Germany, called The Architecture of Doom. Its closing lines are worth quoting in full:

"Defining Nazism in traditional political terms is difficult, mainly because its dynamic was fueled by something quite different from what we usually call politics. This driving force was, to a great degree, esthetic; its ambition was to beautify the world through violence. From the first murders of mental patients to the mass-murders of Jews, there is no real political motive. It was not enemies who were liquidated, nor opponents of the regime, but innocent people whose very existence was in conflict with the Nazi dream.

The civilian character of the mass-killing makes it unlike war-crimes. These were civilian murders under a military guise. The obscure mental baggage, the bizarre political notions, which constitute a kind of under-vegetation in European culture, suddenly saw the light of day with Hitler. Hitler went from words to deeds. Without restraint, he transformed an abstract ideology into a hellish reality.

In her famous essay "Fascinating Fascism", Susan Sontag further muses on the latent and residual appeal of the Fascist sensibility Riefenstahl taps into:

"National Socialism - or, more broadly, fascism - also stands for an ideal, and one that is also persistent today, under other banners: the ideal of life as art, the cult of beauty, the fetishism of courage, the dissolution of alienation in ecstatic feelings of community; the repudiation of the intellect; the family of man (under the parenthood of leaders).

These ideals are vivid and moving to many people, and it is dishonest - and tautological - to say that one is affected by Triumph of the Will and Olympiad because they were made by a film maker of genius. Riefenstahl's films are still effective because, among other reasons, their longings are still felt, because their content is a romantic idea to which many continue to be attached, and which is expressed in such diverse modes of cultural dissidence and propaganda for new forms of community as youth/rock culture, primal therapy, Laing's anti-psychiatry, Third World camp-following, and belief in gurus and the occult.

[...]

Riefenstahl's current de-Nazification and vindication as indomitable priestess of the beautiful - as a film maker and now, as a photographer - do not augur well for the keenness of current abilities to detect the fascist longings in our midst. The force of her work is precisely in the continuity of its political and aesthetic ideas.

Ironically, Sontag earlier notes that Riefenstahl's aesthetic has not been very influential on documentaries. What she doesn't note is how influential it has been on fiction films, particularly the blockbusters (which developed mostly after she wrote her essay) - many of which are either explicitly (Raiders of the Lost Ark) or implicitly (Star Wars) anti-Nazi in content. Yet when I saw that massive, undeniably impressive shot of Hitler, Himmler, and the leader of the S.A. (whose name escapes me) approaching a giant altar surrounded by an immense mass of regimented men, I thought of George Lucas - and not the various shots of Darth Vader in such formations, but rather the celebration of the Rebel Alliance at the end of A New Hope.

Indeed, one could contend that Triumph and other politically reactionary classics like Birth of a Nation are more honest than many latter-day movies - they tie their aesthetically exploitative and domineering styles to unapologetically fascistic content. Don't get me wrong; I love many of these films that seek to weave a spell over us, to manipulate our emotions, to stir us. But this is precisely why I think value judgements of art and value judgements of politics should exist in different realms. This may seem contradictory, given my previous statements, yet what I'm getting at is this: every sin ranging from totalitarianism to day-to-day egoism can be made attractive onscreen. Indeed, it doesn't even have to be "made" attractive - its attraction exists already inside of us, else these phenomena would never have arisen in the first place.

Aesthetics is all about what's attractive, not necessarily what is good: and recognizing the power of a work is not to say it is morally right. Ultimately, the irony is that a Triumph of the Will may be less ethically dubious than a Star Wars (which is, by the way, one of my favorite films and, I'd contend, a great one). It does not reaffirm questionable values under cover of a recognizable righteousness but rather (unintentionally) exposes them by tying them to a repudiated ideology - it drops the mask, so to speak. This is in some regards a hypothetical argument because I'm not sure all the values Sontag reproaches are entirely flawed - yes, they can lead to fascism, but some of them can also lead to anti-fascism; and to be fair, there's enough ambivalence in her litany of similar movements to suggest she reads them the same. Furthermore, even if the values are reproachable, we still need an outlet for them - and better that outlet be on the screen than on the street. The pity, of course, is that the world Triumph of the Will evokes was manifestly not just on the screen.

Which brings me back to the start of my ruminations: in order to watch this film during my busy schedule and concluding Netflix line-up, I searched online for a streaming copy. There were several on You Tube, but ultimately I chose one on Google Video. Why? Because watching the You Tube clips made me uneasy - many were posted, and all were frequented, by neo-Nazis. The calm with which they discussed their views, eschewing rather than celebrating the Holocaust, scolding rather than excoriating critics of their ideology, only made it all the more disturbing, a reminder that Hitler and his appeal do not belong entirely to the past. Among the residual messages Triumph unveils to us today: the appeal of fascism, if we're honest, has deep roots, and the topsoil which obscures them is perhaps thinner than we'd like to believe. Aside from its aesthetic appeal, its historical impact, its fascinating "inside look," Triumph of the Will is essential viewing for this very reason.

This turned out to be a much longer piece than expected. Perhaps it'd be a better fit on The Dancing Image, as I try to keep things brief here, and maybe in the future another essay of this length will go up there instead. However, it was written very impromptu (unlike the majority of pieces I hope to put up at my old, and hopefully soon re-active, blog), and besides, I'd rather leave the space clear for that upcoming round-up right now. Let this particular dark cloud linger here for the time being...

Welcome to Hugowood

Of course, the big Newsweek news this week is Sarah Palin's cover photo, apparently filched from Runner's World magazine without their permission. You can see it here - quite unsurprisingly it's stirred up cries of sexism, and not just from the (suddenly sensitive) right. Frankly, I'm as scornful of the pathetic ex-governor as the next sensible person, but I don't think Newsweek's cover is doing the anti-Palin cause any favors. Actually, I see it as part and parcel of Newsweek's increasing tendency to take too strident, crusading, and misguided a tone with its journalism: see also "The Case for Killing Granny," Newsweek's boneheaded cover from several months ago which attempted to discredit the "death panel" crowd by, um, making their case for them (?!). Sold a lot of magazines I'm sure, but I highly doubt it won many fence-sitters to the side of Obamacare (and should that even have been Newsweek's mission in the first place?). Editor Jon Meachum's introductions to each issue also seem to take a frequently holier-than-thou tone, and this is by my count the second Palin cover issue to rather hysterically warn the country against her. If you wanted to turn her fans and quasi-fans even further against the mainstream media and the "liberal elite" (and throw in a few previously sympathetic feminists to boot) you couldn't do a better job if you were a GOP operative.

Well, that's more than enough on that - I only mention it because I went to the site for another link and wound up with a lot of articles on Palin and Newsweek's homemade controversy. The article I was digging for is actually a small piece in an issue from a few weeks ago, which I just read tonight. It's called "Lights! Camera! Revolución!" and it details, with a snide tone, Hugo Chávez's attempts to create a Bolivarian Hollywood, replete with propagandistic entertainments, empty studios, and censorial government boards.

Look, I'm not one who will eagerly step up to Chávez's defense. Despite his egalitarian promises, he seems to be a colossal boor with strong authoritarian tendencies, one too scatterbrained and egotistical to lead his country to the promised land which he himself has promised them. In addition, he's alleged to have decimated Venezuala's cultural scene in a philistinic quest to stamp out "elitism" in the arts.

But - and this is a huge but - he is not a "totalitarian"; not even close. He remains hugely popular and has won several elections. Say what you will about him, note his repression of the press and opposition, and affinity for Castro and Ahmadinejad, but implying he's a dictator is stepping way out of line. Yet this is what Mac Margolis does repeatedly in the Newsweek piece, casually comparing Chávez's homegrown film industry to that of Stalin, Franco, and in the author's words "other 20th-century autocrats he emulates."

This kind of careless language is no light matter given the U.S.'s history in the region. Think the toppling of Guatemalan democracy in the 50s (at the behest of United Fruit), the CIA-fueled bloody coup and violent reign of Pinochet in Chile in the 70s, the illegally-funded war against the Sandinistas (who also won an internationally-monitored election) and the devastating support for a government which facilitated nun-raping, priest-assassinating death squads in El Salvador in the 80s. With that kind of history (to name just a few examples) government and media labelling of an admittedly flawed ruler as dictatorial and now even "totalitarian" are to be regarded with extreme suspicion. How interesting that Newsweek, and the rest of the media, lets loose a lot of excessive liberal yapping on a cultural issue like Sarah Palin's presidential ambitions (despite the fact that even conservatives think - and probably hope - she hasn't a chance) yet they unquestioningly go along with the neoconservative line that Chávez is a "dictator" in the same category as other anti-American despots like Castro, Mussolini, and even Hitler, despite the verifiable fact that he is not.

(This is not the first time I've found a Newsweek article so wrongheaded I had to air my objections. Last winter I criticized Newsweek for another article - this one a tone-deaf, yet highly indicative, piece of cultural criticism looking back on art in the Bush years. Here is my response.)

The Muslim Matter (Fort Hood & Maj. Hasan's Religion)

Adam Reilly has an excellent editorial in the most recent Boston Phoenix in which he pretty much manages to articulate everything I've been thinking about the massacre at Fort Hood and the media's reaction. You can read it here.

While Hasan's religion certainly seems to have played a role in the shooting, and it would be foolish for commentators to avoid or deny this (which some have been doing), there's something quite offputting about the way Fox News and other conservative media outlets have been covering the story. Reilly puts his finger on it is this astute piece:

For much of the conservative commentariat, the answer was obvious from the outset: anyone seeking to explain the atrocity Hasan perpetrated, they claimed, can start and end with his faith. Here in Boston, for example, WTKK-FM's Michael Graham teased his afternoon radio talk show by saying of Hasan's motive: "Let's face it: you and I both know the answer." At michellemalkin.com, meanwhile, the author herself situated Hasan in a broader category she'd created six years ago — "Muslim soldiers with attitude"— and reiterated her own previous contention that the Muslim members of the US armed forces constitute a menacing fifth column. (In Malkin's incendiary words: "The Islamist infiltration of our troops is scandalous. Not one more American, soldier or civilian, must be sacrificed at the altar of multiculturalism, diversity, open borders, and tolerance of the murderous 'attitude' of Jihad.")

And then there was Shepard Smith, every liberal's default choice as favorite Fox News personality, who followed a similar line of thinking when he described Hasan's name — without actually saying it — during an interview with US Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas on Thursday:

SMITH Senator Hutchison, other news organizations are identifying the shooter. . . . Have you been given a name, and what do you know about this suspect? How much are you able to tell us?
HUTCHINSON I have been given a name, but I would not want to confirm that, because I don't know if this person's family has been identified. . . .
SMITH We've been given a name, as well, and quite frankly, I'm not comfortable going with it till it's given to me by the United States military. . . . But the name tells us a lot, does it not, senator?
HUTCHINSON It does. It does, Shepard. And that's why it's a very sad situation.

He goes on to take some on the left to task for pooh-poohing Hasan's religious beliefs and floating the questionable argument that Hasan's actions were a symptom of PTSD. I think I'm even less comfortable than Reilly with the notion that we can blame PTSD - and by extension the military's justifiably criticized approach to the disorder - for Hasan's behavior. Yes, he counseled many returning vets with no doubt harrowing war stories. But does that constitute "trauma"? Hasan had never served in a war zone; true, he was set to deploy overseas (in a non-combat role) in the near future, but PTSD stands for "post-traumatic stress disorder" not "pre-traumatic stress disorder."

I don't want to dismiss this idea altogether; it is my understanding that there can be secondhand symptoms experienced by someone dealing with a PTSD victim and coming into a similar situation. Yet this type of indirect disorder would have had to play such a minor role in Hasan's overall motivation that to "blame PTSD" seems to trivialize the very real suffering of PTSD victims who have experienced combat and still manage not to murder. Furthermore, Hasan's action appears to have been entirely premeditated - which hardly seems a sign of the kind of blind, furious rage which would characterize the action of a PTSD victim (to my understanding; anyone who knows better please correct me if I'm wrong).

I also can't entirely concur with Reilly's ultimate conclusions. On the one hand, he suggests that the Army do more to deal with religious tensions in the ranks (apparently Hasan felt a conflict between his faith and his duty; and allegations of harassment have surfaced as well). While I agree, I'm not sure this would do much to prevent a future Hasan-like shooting, and the theory that it would seems to give too much credence to the idea that Hasan was in some way indicative of Muslim soldiers, or even Muslim soldiers with conflicts of conscience. (Notions that Reilly elsewhere and thoroughly debunks.)

Finally, I'm not sure that much of anything can result from this incident. Ultimately, religious questions and exposure to PTSD victims aside, Hasan's actions were those of an isolated and dysfunctional individual. The only aspect which may be worth exploring further is his relationship to the radical cleric Anwar al-Alwaki, who praised Hasan in the wake of the killing. Even that will probably turn out to be more a case of "like minds" than anything else.

Of course, none of this is going away, as Hasan - it's easy to forget (I have numerous times) - is still alive and will be facing many questions soon enough. Perhaps we can have a meaningful discussion on some of these tangential questions, but in the spirit of inquiry without various agendas getting in the way, most perniciously of those who flirt with (or fully embrace) bigotry and seek to paint Muslim soldiers with a broad brush.

Two News Stories

I was going to begin today with a post called "One Week on Another Blog" thanking everyone for their enjoyment of & participation in my new venture. However, there's too much going on right now and I'd rather focus my attention elsewhere; nonetheless, let this serve as thanks to those who dove right in for the first week of The Sun's Not Yellow.

Two stories seem to be dominating the start of this week. In an exciting surprise, the House passed its own version of major health care reform by 5 votes. In a grim surprise, one which emerged right away but is continuing to develop, it turns out that the shooter at Fort Hood was a Muslim, and not incidentally so. (The links are to the AP stories.) I hope to discuss both these issues, but particularly the former, in the comments section below the post.

I have not been following the health care debate with enough vigor (and one needs vigor to navigate the intricacies of the various bills and the back and forth of the legislation) to comment extensively now, but informed readers are welcome to clarify particular points. I would have hoped for something more universal than the present reform (it's claimed to cover 96% of Americans), and I have some questions about elements of this particular plan. Among my questions: what's the cutoff for mandates (at what income level would consumers be forced to buy health insurance, as opposed to having it provided), what's the definition of "large companies" required to offer coverage, how stiff are the penalties for consumers and companies who don't purchase, and what's with the projection that a public option's premium will be higher than private insurer's?

I have no illusions about the bill being perfect - and it's also my understanding that this version will have to be reconciled with what the Senate recently passed (please correct me if I'm wrong - how different are the Senate and House versions?). But by the standards of what we are used to, this is a sweeping rehaul, and it's a welcome change. Less importantly, this is a big victory for Obama, or at least a big step on the way to victory. If he ends 2009 with major health care reform signed into law and a new strategy and firmer mission in Afghanistan, I think he can tentatively call his first year in office a success.

The violence at Fort Hood hits close to home, as my cousin serves there when he's stateside (thankfully, he is presently "safe and sound" - ?! - in Iraq). That the alleged killer is apparently alive, and has recently been taken off a ventilator, means that this story is not going away, and its ramifications will continue to grow in the coming weeks and months. What does that mean? The tragedy could be hijacked to fit political ends. Right now, it seems to be the action of one deranged man (though he hid his derangement quite well). His own faith and his opposition to the war obviously played a part in his justification for killing, but to what extent are these "causes" indicative of any larger phenomenon?

I had written several paragraphs more, particularly focusing on the right's tendency to extrapolate, but as so far most commentators have been relatively subdued I'll refrain from casting stones. Suffice to say, we should wait for more information to come out before drawing conclusions about, on the one hand, trauma and conscience being "responsible" for Hasan's actions, and, on the other hand, any connections to the larger world of radical Islam or terrorism beyond the cursory (particularly worrisome are suggestions that this is at all representative of America's Muslim population, a population which is one of the most integrated and moderate of any Western country - to clarify, it clearly is not indicative at all).

So then, a thought for the fallen and their families, and for those who risked life and limb to stop Hasan's rampage. Hopefully, the country can allow tragedy to unify rather than to divide. Criticisms may be in order down the line, but let's keep perspective here: sometimes it's easier to digest something when it's made to fit a larger narrative. I'm as guilty of that impulse as anyone, but real life is not the movies and sometimes a senseless killing is just that. (Of course, sometimes it isn't. We'll know more later.)

Please discuss, particularly the health care debate, below.

Year Obama

A year ago today I was speeding through the back highways of New Hampshire with my radio blaring, listening to a constant stream of static occasionally interrupted by dispatches from news bureaus - the bureau varied depending on whichever station was coming in clearest at the moment. I had just finished a one-day job in rural Vermont (rather redundant, I know) and when I left the location in the evening, only a couple states had been declared - I think McCain actually had the lead at that point. As I drove, state after state fell and it became clearer and clearer that the expected Obama victory was coming to arrive. I arrived home shortly after the race had been called, in time for the speeches - one eloquent in defeat, the other soaring in unprecedented victory - and to write, before going to bed, my final thoughts on the election (found in a comment under a recent post on The Dancing Image):

I was thinking about posting a final post on Obama's speech and his promise and his risk, but instead I'll let this comment be my coda to the election.

First, the speech tonight had the power of a great, popular movie. Grandly orchestrated, with sentiment approaching hokum (that soaring music as Obama's multicultural, multigenerational ticket and family gathered onstage) yet genuine emotional depth (the picture of Jesse Jackson, a man who has often been very critical of Obama, openly weeping, was one of the most moving sights I've seen). It even had its stoic, downbeat counterpoint, with a very gracious, very dignified concession by John McCain, whom I've increasingly regarded as a tragic figure. I some ways, we could call the 2 hours between 10:30 and 12:30 the greatest movie of the decade.

As far as I'm concerned, this past decade has seen not just a political deficit, but a cultural one as well. There have been some good, and a handful of great, movies (though admittedly many remain to be seen by me). But where were the masterpieces - the Godfathers or Easy Riders or Citizen Kanes - which told great stories and also connected with the zeitgeist, the cultural milieu? In popular music, did we have any Beatles or Rolling Stones or Bob Dylan? Are they even possible anymore? Cinema, music, literature, art - none really seemed to be able to conjure up that heady brew of transcendence, popularity, and grand vision that was attained in the past. Perhaps we have become too fragmented, or too sheltered and diversified in a vast media cocoon?

Obama offers the promise of transcendent greatness, based in part on something we haven't seen in our politics OR in our culture for years: the possibility of unified deeply-felt shared experience. Whether he will acheive this greatness I do not know. It is admittedly vague and almost intangible, but he has already shown us two immense sources of strength.

We've seen The Great Symbol, the man who has a way with words, who connects with people, who is really the first true presidential candidate, the first public servant, of the 21st century in everything from his framing of issues to the way he marketed his campaign (can you think of another symbol as imaginative as the ubiqutuous [sic] O/sunset rising over a harvest field?). And yes, the first black president. That is huge, absolutely huge, and the most concrete way in which Obama's election was, no matter what we thought we expected, shocking and moving.

He has also shown, quite apart from this idealistic, transcendent appeal, a skill as a shrewd, intelligent, fiercely accomplished politician: The Great Campaigner, or The Great Operator. We've only seen him in this regard as a campaigner, but his performance was astonishing. So he is not only someone who can speak well, but who can get things done, at least in one sphere.

But while we've seen The Great Symbol and The Great Operator, we must await the Great President, which is all that really matters in the end. How will the symbolism of change play out in policy? How will his operative skills apply to internecine warfare and the attempts to bridge party divides and the inevitable downturns in public opinion?

Now, I voted for Obama because I took a rational look at his policies vs. McCain's, his demeanor vs. McCain's, not because of these larger-than-life qualities. But it's these qualities which make me excited about him and his possiblities [sic], even as part of me remains skeptical and pragmatic about his prospects.

As for Obama's potential president greatness, this is where the big mystery lies because no matter what anyone says we really don't have any evidence, except words (and we all know how this can be betrayed or disappointed) as well as conjecture based on his other strengths, how he will operate in this arena.

Maybe then, this was just the trailer - if so, I hope the movie lives up to its promise.

He's not a Great President yet, by any means. But then again, it took him a while to become the Great Campaigner too...

Anyway, I sat down at this computer to write about Obama's troubled "first year" (which I put in quotes because it's only been a little over nine months - an important distinction, I think). However, I find myself going back to that historic moment instead. Is it just nostalgia for lost dreams?

Well, no, actually. Though disappointment and frustration with the president is in the air, I was not expecting a Messiah. I still think he has greatness in him, but it will continue to take some adjustment. The real assessment of his first couple years will not be made until next year - right now, the crucial moments on issues from Afghanistan to health care (despite a number of missteps and a lack of effective leadership) remain on the horizon. It's ridiculous to award him the Nobel Peace Prize, but it seems just as ridiculous to get disappointed this early. At any rate, I've been largely distracted from politics this year (and distracted from other things as well, as anyone who's attempted to follow my intermittent blogging can attest to). I've followed the issues sporadically but not with sufficient rigor to warrant a full-on essay about Obama's first year. Instead I offer up a look at the past, if you're interested (and haven't seen these already) - my political series from last fall, in anticipation of the election (needless to say, many of the issues addressed remain anything but resolved), and my description of Obama's inauguration, which I was able to witness in person.

Godspeed, Mr. President, but gear up. The next few months will be critical.