I am wholly pessimistic about American society. I believe The Wire is a show about the end of the American Empire. We are going to live that event. How we end up and survive, and on what terms, is going to be the open question.
David Simon, creator of “The Wire”
This week I spent every evening watching the dvd’s of the fourth season of HBO’s “The Wire.” I know that Armando plans to write about the fifth season that starts January 6th, so I thought I’d give some background about how the creator has envisioned the show and its purpose since it seems to echo so many of the themes that we talk about here.
The quote above is from a speech David Simon made over a year ago at Loyola University. If you’ve got half an hour, I’d highly recommend watching the three segments of this on youtube here, here, and here. I’ll summarize some of his main points. But of course, I can’t do the whole thing justice in a few words.
Simon explains the reasons for the end of the American Empire this way:
I am not reposting this now because I think it is great. I’m reposting this now, because I wrote it when we still had habeas corpus and to support Wexler’s Call for Cheney’s Impeachment.
(Condemn- to state that something or somebody is in some way wrong or unacceptable)
What would our forefathers say about the state of the nation today?
I imagine if they were alive now, they would say something similar to what I have written after they read this, at least.
“In the eight months ending last May, Justice attorneys declined to prosecute more than nine out of every 10 terrorism cases sent to them by the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies. Nearly 4 in 10 of the rejected cases were scrapped because prosecutors found weak or insufficient evidence, no evidence of criminal intent or no evident federal crime.”
…the persistent and pervasive belief in the American dream is what undercuts both serious talk about class and it acts as a safety valve to protect our current system against peaceful but radical change.
It’s called a dream because… you have to be asleep to believe it:
UCC closed with
Until ordinary Americans can be pried away from the American dream and encouraged to formulate a new one, they will always view progressives with fear and distrust and our ability to build coalitions will be hindered. Ordinary Americans aren’t stupid or unaware. They know something is wrong. They suspect long held deals have been trashed, but articulating an alternative requires them to reject long held notions.
Anyone who’s read most of my comments knows that they all boil down to one thing: trying to remind as many people as possible that they are not powerless, that each of us, working together have the power to turn everything around, or from the politicians in Washington’s view – upside down.
You’ll know that I think, from the kind of comments that Democratic Party apologists post, such as this one for example, that one of the first steps we need to take en mass, is to make it as subtle as a ball peen hammer or a club between their eyes that we are no longer listening to them… that it is them that need to listen to us, or lose their power and position.
The election system is not yet broken and corrupted so badly that it cannot be used as that club…
They need to be terrorized into doing their jobs, or marginalized out of political existence if they will not.
There is still almost a year before the 2008 elections. And I know I repeat myself often, but I believe that the Congressional leadership and senators and representatives who are up for reelection next year, and Democratic presidential candidates, need to be placed in stark cold sweating terror of losing their congressional majority, and of not winning the White House, before they will feel motivated to make any substantial and fundamental changes at all…
As long as they remain confident that they will have the votes they need without doing what they were hired to do, they will continue to ignore the peasants, the, in their minds, “stupid ignorant fucks who don’t understand” real politics. The rabble who just are too dumb to get that “If they were poor and they were sleeping on my sidewalk, they would be arrested for loitering, but because they have ‘Impeach Bush’ across their chest, it’s the First Amendment.”
They – democratic candidates – need to be told, and they need to be told NOW, they need to have it made as clear and forcefully as you can make it NOW, that they will have your support, that they will have your volunteer work, that they will have your money, you contributions, that they will have your vote next year.
But not just by promising to do something. ONLY by doing something.
Do what? Each candidate needs to be told that they must pressure the democratic leadership in Congress to do the things you want them to do, and they will have your vote WHEN those things have been done, and not before.
A radical concept? Vote for RESULTS. Not for PROMISES.
I’m talking to you here – not just the collective you of all readers – but YOU – the single person reading this right now… and I have two questions for YOU:
What is there to be afraid of?
Can things get any worse if you stand up for yourself when they call or knock on your door?
Don’t HOPE they’ll do what you want. TELL them what to do. And MAKE them do it.
(to kossacks and dharmaniacs – I’d like your help with this)
To whom it may concern:
You recently asked me for money. You do that a lot. This time, I gave you some. Very little. Some of my friends on blogs like dailyKos and docudharma will be wondering why I gave you anything at all. You, on the other hand, may be wondering why I gave so little.
The reason I gave so little is the same reason I might leave a tiny tip in a restaurant with really horrible service: I intend it as an insult. Why?
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration is pushing to take control of the promotions of military lawyers, escalating a conflict over the independence of uniformed attorneys who have repeatedly raised objections to the White House’s policies toward prisoners in the war on terrorism.
The administration has proposed a regulation requiring “coordination” with politically appointed Pentagon lawyers before any member of the Judge Advocate General corps – the military’s 4,000-member uniformed legal force – can be promoted.
A Pentagon spokeswoman did not respond to questions about the reasoning behind the proposed regulations. But the requirement of coordination – which many former JAGs say would give the administration veto power over any JAG promotion or appointment – is consistent with past administration efforts to impose greater control over the military lawyers.
Okay, something was definitely funny about that sky and those clouds.
Her eyes had snapped open this time. She was alert enough now at least, to know she wasn’t alert. There was an immense war waging within her. Half of her was doing everything it could to stay awake and alert. The other half was using everything but the kitchen sink to drag her back down into the darkness of …sleep?
But really the sky shouldn’t be that color, and those clouds definitely had square edges. She realized the clouds were mad out of tiles. She was confused, but she didn’t notice. She tried to turn her head and that is when she realized she wasn’t really in her body. Wasn’t really filling it up anyway…so she did. She turned her head and looked out the window…..sort of thingee over there.
There’s a hole in the world like a great black pit
And it’s filled with people who are filled with shit
And the vermin of the world inhabit it.
But not for long.
This past week I had the great luck to attend an advance screening of Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd, now the third (and a half) major incarnation of Sondheim’s 1979 musical, based on a 19th century pulp slasher. Sweeney is the greatest of all musicals, combining sophisticated music and well-written characters in an almost impenetrably dark moral fog.
What’s most interesting from our perspective is the way Sweeney Todd grapples with the problem of capitalism, an issue foregrounded in the classic Broadway staging and to some extent in the new film version. Let’s take a closer look at a few moments that emphasize this critique.
Note: This essay contains spoilers, and plenty of them. If you don’t want to know what happens in the musical/film, stop reading now.
There’s a hole in the world like a great black pit
And it’s filled with people who are filled with shit
And the vermin of the world inhabit it.
But not for long.
This past week I had the great luck to attend an advance screening of Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd, now the third (and a half) major incarnation of Sondheim’s 1979 musical, based on a 19th century pulp slasher.
What’s most interesting from our perspective is the way Sweeney Todd grapples with the problem of capitalism, an issue foregrounded in the classic Broadway staging and to some extent in the new film version.
An interesting article over at Alternet asks what happened to the American dream, and provides some evidence that it is exactly that: a dream. Essentially Americans are not increasing their social and economic mobility even as they believe they still can. I would argue that the persistent and pervasive belief in the American dream is what undercuts both serious talk about class and it acts as a safety valve to protect our current system against peaceful but radical change. Indeed any social/political movements that have been moderately successful ( and certainly I think we all have opinions about whether the goals have been achieved and not for lack of trying) in the post WWII era in the phase of American capitalism have been largely about gaining some acceptance, respect, and equality within the dominant culture not an attempt to dismantle it. Capitalism in the United States has survived to some degree by allowing moderate critique and limited rights for those who were previously denied them. Inevitably, once moderate gains were made those very groups have been forced to defend themselves against cultural reactionaries which might explain why some of the more radical notions that emerged from the activism of black, gay, the transgendered community and feminists that did challenge the structures of consumer capitalism were silenced. People are still fighting on the inclusionary front. It is ironic that issues like gay marriage, partnership, and parenting rights are very much about joining the American dream, the myth of harmony, not trying to disrupt or replace. Many on the cultural reactionary right are pushing back not against radicals who want to attack capitalism and American myths but those who to varying degrees might actually embrace some of them. At least the myths that say we are a family oriented society.
Joshua Holland argues that free wheeling mobility does not exist noting that the greatest predictor of how much an American will make is what their parents make. Add to that one other factor Holland does not mention but is worth considering: fixed pensions are disappearing. Both of my parents have fixed pensions ( retired teacher and retired nursing college instructor), so while my income approximately matches theirs at comparable times in life even with adequate savings for retirement I might be lucky to equal them. I am not crying the blues, many Americans in my age group cannot set aside money in a 403B or something similar, nor will they have fixed company pensions.
Well, let me set the scene, courtesy of the online weather report for this part of NorthEast Ohio …
NOW … AREAS OF HEAVY SNOW … AND A MIX OF SNOW … SLEET AND FREEZING RAIN WILL CONTINUE THROUGH 8PM. THE MIX PRECIPITATION WILL BE ALONG AND SOUTH OF A MARION TO CANTON LINE. A INCH AN HOUR SNOWFALL WILL BE FROM AROUND MANSFIELD TO CANTON. UNTREATED SURFACES AND ROADWAYS CAN BE ICY AND SNOW COVERED AND SLIPPERY.
… indeed, my mum was trying to talk me out of my little trip, first downtown to the bank (like, eight blocks) and then down main street to the bargain supermarket, then back. Not far at all, and in the fall simply a pleasant little excursion.
But … oh my, oh no, there was sleety snow falling down! Oh my!
Oh … did I say joy? The joy, after the fold.
NB. Picture gleaned from the Intertubes … not taken by your humble scribe. Indeed, since it comes from Peninsular Far West Asia … Amsterdam, to be precise … and I’ve only been on the southeastern edge of that massive continent, it could not possibly be taken by your humble scribe.
