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kittenscribbleI actually scribbled the skeleton of this rant in a journal (an actual print journal!) a couple of days ago; I thought I'd preserve it here for posterity. (It's backwards thinking. People used to commit things to parchment for posterity; for ages monks recopied manuscripts to preserve the knowledge: clear black ink on clean parchment, something reassuring and physical to keep. Now we save data to incorporeal digital bits and call that "backup." But that's a topic for another day.)
Warning: politics, illogic, ire.
I seem to be drifting downhill, at least as far as Independence Days go. The year before last, 2002, I spent Independence Day on the National Mall. It had been the first Independence Day after the towers fell, of course, so security was insane. A barrier surrounded the Mall, interspersed with checkpoints; sweating uniforms poked through each tourist's backpack with a stick, and inspected bottles of water suspiciously. The Mall was covered in dry yellow grass, crammed full of people. The fireworks were beautiful, framing the Washington Monument.
Last year, 2003, I was in Virginia Beach. I attended a small barbecue, and we got stuck in traffic while trying to drive to the oceanfront for the fireworks. We watched the blossoming distant lights from the car, then turned around and headed home. The fireworks were okay. At least I hadn't been the driver, and was able to crane my head from the windows.
This year, my patriotism at an all-time low, I watched Fahrenheit 911 with my mother.
Let me clarify that statement about my patriotism (because it's so necessary to, in these sad days): I love America. I support America. I merely disagree with the direction it's heading in right now, and my spirits are low because I have no power to change that direction. I disagree with our policies and actions to the point that it actively depresses me when I dwell upon it, which is why I try not to dwell upon it so much. Are we clear? Good.
So. Fahrenheit 911.
I didn't actively set out to see a documentary critical of our administration on Independence Day of all days. I tried to see it the weekend before, but it had sold out; I then tried for the day before the 4th, but it got pre-empted by Spiderman 2. (More on that in a minute.) So Mom and I got up early Sunday morning, Independence Day morning, and watched Fahrenheit 911.
Michael Moore is an uncompromising man. He displays the nasty side of war unhesitatingly, almost righteously, showing flashes of corpses, wounds, weeping mothers, babies with bloody limbs, young soldiers both bloodthirsty and terrified, eager and regretful. He thankfully spared his watchers the planes and the towers, instead focusing on our reactions, hands over mouths, the rain of falling paper, ash everywhere. Signs begging for fragments of hope: has anyone seen my father? We need him.
The documentary was dizzying in its mood swings. Moving briskly from despair to savage irony, he moved from 9/11 to a dose of President Bush, on an extended vacation during a time when (or so Moore said) he should have been doing his job. I wasn't a fan of the Shrub to begin with, but watching Moore gleefully lay out a demonstration of oil ties and big business connections wasn't fun either. And the fact that the Saudis got free rides out of the country two days after 9/11, when most of us couldn't even get out of the airports (even Ricky Martin couldn't get a ride home, says Moore with a smirk) is pretty damning.
Suffice it to say that the rest of the movie was similarly dizzying: tearjerking to disbelieving laughter and back, the pendulum swings getting more extreme as the film rolled on. But what really struck me, as I left the theater, was my own helplessness, my inability to act. And, as always, the gullibility of the American people.
This brings me to Spiderman.
(Really.)
The first Spiderman movie had a central theme, delivered to Peter Parker by his uncle: "With great power... comes great responsibility."
Young Peter is floored. The line comes back to haunt him as he skims through the sky in his red-white-and-blue spandex: he has power. Therefore he must use it, and use it for good. There's no getting away from it; in the end, his powers cry out to be used. And so he uses them, to do what he feels to be right.
Americans see themselves in him. We're fed patriotic pap from childhood. We live (we're told) in the mightiest, best country in the whole world. We are rich, free, greatly privileged, and never allowed to forget it. We're taught that democracy is the only possible system in which everyone can be free and happy. We remind ourselves constantly that we must spread our joy and success around the world. We're better than anyone else. We have great power. And therefore, clearly, great responsibility.
But that's all bull, isn't it. Somehow, people in other parts of the world manage to live rich and fulfilling lives without ever setting foot in the good old US of A. There are other countries out there without the freedom we cherish so much, and they seem to be doing all right. What right do we have to go trumpeting our greatness around the world, expecting everyone to fall at our feet? Americans are actually surprised to learn that the rest of the world isn't out there nodding, agreeing that their lives are only second best.
Sure, we have democracy. Sure, it works for us, and works damn well too. But face it, we don't know the first thing about how to teach other people to use it. There are other ways to help.
With all our clout, we could be helping with AIDS, with human rights, with the global environment. Instead, we're out spreading democracy like missionaries spread the word of God, trying to bring freedom to the unenlightened (and largely uninterested) masses. And we will bring our message, at gunpoint if need be.
We have great power, but that doesn't mean we should go around telling everyone else to think like us, think the way we do, think what we tell them to think. There's a word for that, and it's not "freedom."
Warning: politics, illogic, ire.
I seem to be drifting downhill, at least as far as Independence Days go. The year before last, 2002, I spent Independence Day on the National Mall. It had been the first Independence Day after the towers fell, of course, so security was insane. A barrier surrounded the Mall, interspersed with checkpoints; sweating uniforms poked through each tourist's backpack with a stick, and inspected bottles of water suspiciously. The Mall was covered in dry yellow grass, crammed full of people. The fireworks were beautiful, framing the Washington Monument.
Last year, 2003, I was in Virginia Beach. I attended a small barbecue, and we got stuck in traffic while trying to drive to the oceanfront for the fireworks. We watched the blossoming distant lights from the car, then turned around and headed home. The fireworks were okay. At least I hadn't been the driver, and was able to crane my head from the windows.
This year, my patriotism at an all-time low, I watched Fahrenheit 911 with my mother.
Let me clarify that statement about my patriotism (because it's so necessary to, in these sad days): I love America. I support America. I merely disagree with the direction it's heading in right now, and my spirits are low because I have no power to change that direction. I disagree with our policies and actions to the point that it actively depresses me when I dwell upon it, which is why I try not to dwell upon it so much. Are we clear? Good.
So. Fahrenheit 911.
I didn't actively set out to see a documentary critical of our administration on Independence Day of all days. I tried to see it the weekend before, but it had sold out; I then tried for the day before the 4th, but it got pre-empted by Spiderman 2. (More on that in a minute.) So Mom and I got up early Sunday morning, Independence Day morning, and watched Fahrenheit 911.
Michael Moore is an uncompromising man. He displays the nasty side of war unhesitatingly, almost righteously, showing flashes of corpses, wounds, weeping mothers, babies with bloody limbs, young soldiers both bloodthirsty and terrified, eager and regretful. He thankfully spared his watchers the planes and the towers, instead focusing on our reactions, hands over mouths, the rain of falling paper, ash everywhere. Signs begging for fragments of hope: has anyone seen my father? We need him.
The documentary was dizzying in its mood swings. Moving briskly from despair to savage irony, he moved from 9/11 to a dose of President Bush, on an extended vacation during a time when (or so Moore said) he should have been doing his job. I wasn't a fan of the Shrub to begin with, but watching Moore gleefully lay out a demonstration of oil ties and big business connections wasn't fun either. And the fact that the Saudis got free rides out of the country two days after 9/11, when most of us couldn't even get out of the airports (even Ricky Martin couldn't get a ride home, says Moore with a smirk) is pretty damning.
Suffice it to say that the rest of the movie was similarly dizzying: tearjerking to disbelieving laughter and back, the pendulum swings getting more extreme as the film rolled on. But what really struck me, as I left the theater, was my own helplessness, my inability to act. And, as always, the gullibility of the American people.
This brings me to Spiderman.
(Really.)
The first Spiderman movie had a central theme, delivered to Peter Parker by his uncle: "With great power... comes great responsibility."
Young Peter is floored. The line comes back to haunt him as he skims through the sky in his red-white-and-blue spandex: he has power. Therefore he must use it, and use it for good. There's no getting away from it; in the end, his powers cry out to be used. And so he uses them, to do what he feels to be right.
Americans see themselves in him. We're fed patriotic pap from childhood. We live (we're told) in the mightiest, best country in the whole world. We are rich, free, greatly privileged, and never allowed to forget it. We're taught that democracy is the only possible system in which everyone can be free and happy. We remind ourselves constantly that we must spread our joy and success around the world. We're better than anyone else. We have great power. And therefore, clearly, great responsibility.
But that's all bull, isn't it. Somehow, people in other parts of the world manage to live rich and fulfilling lives without ever setting foot in the good old US of A. There are other countries out there without the freedom we cherish so much, and they seem to be doing all right. What right do we have to go trumpeting our greatness around the world, expecting everyone to fall at our feet? Americans are actually surprised to learn that the rest of the world isn't out there nodding, agreeing that their lives are only second best.
Sure, we have democracy. Sure, it works for us, and works damn well too. But face it, we don't know the first thing about how to teach other people to use it. There are other ways to help.
With all our clout, we could be helping with AIDS, with human rights, with the global environment. Instead, we're out spreading democracy like missionaries spread the word of God, trying to bring freedom to the unenlightened (and largely uninterested) masses. And we will bring our message, at gunpoint if need be.
We have great power, but that doesn't mean we should go around telling everyone else to think like us, think the way we do, think what we tell them to think. There's a word for that, and it's not "freedom."
