Text 13517, 141 rader
Skriven 2007-04-13 19:38:05 av Josh Hill (16962.babylon5)
     Kommentar till en text av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Ärende: Re: Attn JMS: The five stages of grief and  "FALLEN SON: THE     DEATH 
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On Thu, 12 Apr 2007 03:51:51 GMT, "Vorlonagent"
<nojtspam@otfresno.com> wrote:

>Absolutely you can critisize the government.  Absolutely you should.
>
>On the other hand, "dissent" does not cover anything you want to say. 
>That's why there are sedition laws on the books.  That's why the First 
>Amendment is not in any sense an absolute or unlimited right.
>
>I'm not referring to stuff that I consider criminal disloyalty, so there is 
>no direct match to the Nightwatch incident.  Nor do I refer to Bush-hatred 
>except as an exceptionally virulent subset.  Liberalism has its favorite set 
>of punching bags, which include the US government (when in the hands of a 
>Republican), Christianity, the police, big business and, I'm sure, a few 
>other that don't come to mind.  In fact there's a good chunk of liberalism 
>that levels hatred at some of all of them.
>
>When Tony Stark is converted into a metaphor for everything a liberal 
>dislikes in big business, I have a problem with that.
>
>A big part of Civil War was showing the US government arbitrarily declaring 
>good people "terrorists" (when they refuse to register, and registration 
>means they now work for the government).  The label "terrorist" is not used, 
>but it doesn't mean to.  And a prizon is built in the negative Zone that 
>equates to the "gulag" that Guantanamo Bay is alleged to be and isn't.
>
>There's nothing seditious in this, let's be clear.  But it's not any kind of 
>legitimate dissent either.  It's a cross between a generic liberal view of a 
>Republican government (gotta watch 'em every second or they'll turn the 
>countyr into a police state) peppered with a few Liberal War on Terror 
>assertions.  It's like Clark's ISN hatchet job on Sheridan.  They're making 
>their characters say and do what follows their viewpoint.
>
>Another comics I have seen depicts US soldiers executing Iraqis for no good 
>reason.
>
>I see this stuff all the time from Liberal sources.

This seems a bit tendentious to me. But I want to set aside partisan
differences for the moment, because I think you've hit on something
that's been bothering me for some time now, to whit, the constant
drumbeat of defamation of our government and, by implication, our
culture on television and in the movies.

Well, after the next paragraph, anyway! :-)

I'm no friend of George W. Bush or his cronies in the White House and
the RNC. I'm saddened by their incompetence and chilled by their
bullying tactics and disregard for the law, not because I think
they're tyrants, but because history tells us that the path from
democracy to tyranny is a gentle slope that reveals the fearsome
precipice only when it's too late to climb back up. I'm ashamed to see
my country engaging in activities like torture that make a mockery of
our nation's most deeply-held values while providing fodder to our
enemies.

But serious as I think these transgressions are, they're nothing
compared to those of the Hollwood-created government I see on
television, where every action adventure show seems to have taken from
the Heavenly Stock of Recycled Plots an American government riddled
with black helicopter psychopaths who arrest, torture, and murder
people at will.

I don't think I'm naive about the abuses that do occur in this
country. I'm old enough to remember Kent State and Watergate and the
massacre at My Lai, the murder of Medgar Evars and the FBI sliming of
Martin Luther King, to remember when frequenting a gay bar meant being
herded off to jail. I've seen cops arrest the innocent and prison
guards beat inmates, been shocked by the torture of Abner Louima, the
beating of Rodney King,.the photographs of Abu Graib. These offenses
are fair targets for outrage, and I believe that when we attempt to
suppress that criticism we weaken ourselves -- that frank
self-criticism is one of the essential advantages of a free society,
the willingness to take honest stock of one's flaws leads an
invaluable weapon in the arsenal of national improvement.

But it seems to me that ever since the Vietnam War disillusioned the
up-and-coming generation of our intellectual elite, Hollywood has
progressed beyond frankness to self-defamation, to the portrayal of an
America in which the unusual is portrayed as commonplace, in which the
merely unconscionable becomes the heinous, in which FBI agents
brutalize children and black-suited operatives commit serial murder.

I understand that television isn't reality, that the dictates of an
action-adventure plot require that the hero be more heroic, the
villain more villainly, the action more intense than they are in real
life, and I appreciate the value of dire what-if scenarios such as
JMS's Night Watch.

But if we're a bit more realistic than studies give us credit for,
we'll admit that we get much of our information about the way the
world works from motion pictures and television. And that's doubly
true if we're learning about a country or culture not our own.
American culture now has a global reach. And that means that the man
on the street in Saudi Arabia or Baghdad gets much of his information
about the United States from works that we recognize as fiction, but
without the relatively reliable news sources and real-world experience
that help us draw the distinction between fiction and reality. And
that information -- judging at least by the subset of shows with which
I'm familiar -- is not infrequently a warped one: lawless, violent,
shallow, sexually irresponsible, faithless, and despotic. In a
conflict that is, as much as anything else, a war of ideas, a battle
for the hearts and minds of the Middle Eastern man on the street,
that's a grave liability.

Nor do I think that the corrosive ill-effects of these distortions
stop at our borders. Art is the wellspring of our group behavior, the
codification of our social memes. Some of the most vulnerable members
of our society -- children, those who grow up in the isolation of the
ghetto -- are particularly susceptible. To some extent, we all are.
And when society is portrayed as an amoral place, when the government
is portrayed as corrupt and uncaring, those become self-fulfilling
prophecies.

Hollywood prides itself (and sometimes knocks itself) on its roll as
purveyor of moral guidance. That's a valuable role. But the message of
a drama isn't limited solely to its outcome -- to white hat triumphing
over black, to the obligatory decency of the heroes. The way a drama
portrays the world is as important as the outcome.

Conservatives are known to complain about sex in the media, and
liberals about violence. IMO, it's one case -- far from the only one
-- in which both sides are right, and would perhaps do better to find
common ground than to maintain the current ineffectual standoff. We
sixties liberals -- I take your point here -- have to reign in our
conspiracy-theory paranoia. I need hardly add that you conservatives
might consider dealing with your dirty laundry /before/ you have to
say "Jeez, Mom, it's a mouse, not a rat." The decision of a
highly-placed Justice Department official to take the fifth may not
portend the fall of the Republic, but it sure gives the black
helicopter crowd grist for the mill.

-- 
Josh

[Truly] I say to you, [...] angel [...] power will be able to see that [...]
these to whom [...] holy generations [...]. After Jesus said this, he departed.

- The Gospel of Judas
--- SBBSecho 2.12-Win32
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