h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm going to see Farenheit again tomorrow.

The first time I saw it, during the opening of the film, which deals with the election, I was so disheartened when I saw the voters from Florida trying to get heard in Congress. They weren't allowed to speak, because no one had a signature by a Senator. Person after person is told to sit down and shut up. When one lady finally snaps and says something like "I don't care if I don't have a Senator's signature" the audience cheered. I wish one Senator had had the nerve to sign these people's petitions.

Also dealing with the election, I was surprised that Bush's vehicle had rotten eggs and such thrown at it on inauguration day. I don't remember hearing that in any of the election coverage. I've never heard of such a thing happening to an incoming President.

<>

Yes, that's exactly it.

>> I was surprised that Bush's vehicle had rotten eggs and such thrown at it on inauguration day. I don't remember hearing that in any of the election coverage.

You don't expect the news to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, now? How can you *possibly* be surprised that bad press is no press?

I have no idea whether it happened or not, I am certainly not saying that MM is morally better than the American press, but surely, surely, surely you know that bad news is routinely repressed?

B

"Fahrenheit 9/11, opens in the UK today."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/netnotes/article/0,6729,1256628,00.html




I hope this means it will be opening in Spain soon!


az

>>>
>> I was surprised that Bush's vehicle had rotten eggs and such thrown at it on inauguration day. I don't remember hearing that in any of the election coverage.

You don't expect the news to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, now? How can you *possibly* be surprised that bad press is no press?

I have no idea whether it happened or not, I am certainly not saying that MM is morally better than the American press, but surely, surely, surely you know that bad news is routinely repressed?
B
<<<

In NZ, the 6th of Feb is Waitangi day and is celebrated as the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty between the representatives of Queen Victoria and the indigenous Maori. It's our national day.

Every year the politicians, and usually the Prime Minister, and other dignatories, go up to Waitangi and get invited onto the Marae for the ceremony and speeches etc.

And every year for yonks there are protests from Maori and other NZers unhappy with how Maori are treated as second class in their own country.

Typical protests include spitting on the ground in front of visitors - this year one man blew snot on the ground in front of everyone. I'm sure buttocks have been bared. And this year someone managed to throw a couple of gobs of mud at the leader of the Opposition and hit him on the head

This all gets televised. The mainstream media goes to great lengths to get this on TV, and it _always_ focusses on what it considers bad behaviour, and how terrible all these radicals are.

In fact alot of the actions are culturally significant expressions of
protest, but of course the media isn't going to go and talk to the people doing the spitting and ask them what they are protesting about. Or if it does it takes the most sensational sound bite.

My point being that the news isn't that somebody spat or that eggs were thrown - it's that people felt it necessary to resort to such behaviour, and that they have a voice that needs to be heard.

Good on the people that threw eggs at the Shrub on his way in I agree JEllen - if it happened it seems a significant event to not have been reported on.



I think someone here threw an egg at the Queen one year (not at Waitangi though)

Thanks az - That was quite a funny article by Sarah Left

Bad news is repressed?

Oh dear god, does this mean all the stuff I'm seeing about another potential Enron...and the Islamic Jihad threat to decapitate any lawyer who represents Saddam...and the 14 year old kid from New Mexico who shot his family over 4th July weekend...is GOOD news?

This is tangentally connected to Moore.

For those who don't know, O'Reilly is a rather conservative broadcaster who has a show on Fox in the USA, and a radio show of the same name (The O'Reilly Factor). He seems to treat everyone with the same basic level of contempt, but last night he really caught my ear with the rant that follows:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,125165,00.html

Go read.

It's an interesting backlash and I'd be fascinated to see what the folks on this here thread make of it.

Good point, Gradient. And one of the reasons I seldom watch the news on television anymore. It's bad enough just reading about it most of the time.

Though Blues Shark is here in Seville this week on holiday with SLG and he *has* been watching the tv news. And last night he commented on how much more graphic (in the sense of showing ugly stuff) tv news is here than in the UK.

Thing is, it isn't that I shy away from looking at the ugly side of life. Though it does exhaust me. I guess it's more that all the 'new' ugly stuff is no different from all the 'old' ugly stuff I've previously seen depicted. Only the date, location and 'characters' change (sometimes).

az

whoops, Gradient, obviously my last posting was a reply to your posting 207 (well, and this posting is in case it wasn't obvious)

az

Understood, Az.

I find it odd that bad news, especially graphic bad news, sells so well.

I know that Gory Details seem to make interesting TV. There are a lot of Forensic shows on cable - FBI Files, Crossing Jordan, CSI etc as well as factual stuff. It's all about the hows and whys of crime.

The news is largely the same. We want to be able to look away in disgust, I think, and at the same time maybe there's an element of "I'm glad it wasn't me", among other things.

I have to say, though, that I don't enjoy that kind of reporting and for all the faults that the BBC has I do miss its brand of journalism. It's also interesting to hear how news is reported elsewhere. The USA doesn't really do international very well, at least on the local level, and I can't stand CNN.

O'Reilly seems to be doing what he is accusing Moore of doing - selectively quoting to support his position. I guess we all do that to a certain extent, but it seems to be developping into a sport (i just read most of Christopher Hitchen's article about F 9/11 that was linked off the article that az posted).

Anyhoo, it'd be interesting to take each or O'Reilly's points and analyse them a bit.

I'll start with this one:

>>
• America is sending $15 billion to Africa to help victims of AIDS.  We were unable to find out how much France contributes, if anything.  To be fair, Canada sends $270 million, which is substantial.
<<

And this is just off the top of my head at a rather late hour, but...my understanding is that the Bush admin is cutting international aid to organisations that support women having access to abortions. So organisations that are working in the 'developping' world to ensure adequate access to birth control are losing funding if they don't take on Bush's anti-abortion policies. I hope that the irony of funding AIDS/HIV programmes at the same time as reducing birth control funding is obvious.

I think also that when you compare different countries and what they give to foreign aid, and you look at percentage of something like GDP instead of a yearly figure, then the US doesn't come off that well.

Not to mention the US led capitalist philosophy that enables drug companies to price AIDS drugs to high for Africa to afford

~~~

>>
America has a provable history of freeing oppressed people all over the world in fighting evil dictators.
<<

Maybe O'Reily hasn't heard of the Pine Ridge Reservation (wishing Analeise was still around).

~~

I don't really get the whole American obsession with freedom as an absolute value irrespective of the cost, so I'm not sure what O'Reilly is on about in general. I thought some of his examples were quite sick (eg the Central America one). And the one about Saddam Hussein.

To tackle some other points. Reagan did not end the Cold War. Gorbachev instituted Perestroika and Glasnost. As I recall Reagan and the West then supported Yeltsin whose absurd rush to a free market resulted in the collapse of the Russian economy, and the distribution on the black market of nuclear technology. Also Reagan had the opportunity to multilaterally disarm all nuclear weapons, an offer he turned down.

Reagan may have helped in responding positively to Gorbachev, but he did not end the cold war.

As for Central America (and I'll throw South America in here as well) the US has a history of supporting totalitarian regimes as long as they are anti-communist, and overthrowing democratically elected left wing governments and putting in right wing dictatorships. Remember 9/11? That's 9/11/1973, when Allende was ousted in a CIA backed coup.

Care to mention Uzbekistan? Totalitarian regime that rigs elections and tortures opponents. Saudi Arabia? Produced the terrorists responsible for attacking the WTC, and reguarly abuses human rights. Both supported by the US. And don't forget the Middle East country whose leader was trained and put in office by the CIA, where he proceeded to torture, kill and gas his people, and waged vicious wars against his neighbours with weapons supplied by the US. Yes, I'm talking about Iraq.

I think that the reason people get so incensed about American foreign policy is the arrogance of the US and it's refusal to admit mistakes, but commbined with this ludicrous attitude that it is a beleaguered underdog concerned only with helping the oppressed of the world. If it lived up to it's hype we would love the place.

Forgot to mention. A lot of the money going into African AIDS work is for Christian missionaries preaching abstinence. Condoms and education may be a better idea.

hehe...knew I'd get some interesting perspective on the O'Reilly comments.

Is the perception that America is evil fair?
Is there an education gap or an understanding gap that needs to be filled before people see America for what it is instead of what we'd like it to be?
(And that last comment cuts both ways, folks, do Americans need to be told how they appear to the rest of the world and how might we go about that?)
Is the perception of America as evil actually a racist statement?
And is the relative level of civilisation in other countries colouring the international view of America because other nations "would never ever do that"?

I don't see Michael Moore as cowardly, as O'Reilly states. He's pretty wise, being the kind of man who won't walk into a bear trap when he sees one.

The American perception of Freedom as an absolute value actually stems from the European perception that individual freedom is a cherished concept. The French and British had both legislated that concept over the course of their history and, considering that they were the two nations who had the most to say about the development of the original 13 colonies it's hardly surprising that those tenets of belief might have become a rallying cry for the USA.

Look at how the country started out, and why. Look at what Britain tried to do to the rights of colonists to trade; where they bought and sold goods, who to and for how much. Look at the taxes they were expected to pay and how little say they had in the matter.

It's not surprising that they feel the need to hold the idea of Freedom as the most important thing their nation represents.

"It's not surprising that they feel the need to hold the idea of Freedom as the most important thing their nation represents."

It's not the idea of Freedom, it's THEIR idea of Freedom. Everyone thinks it's a neat idea, but that certainly doesn't mean they agree on what it means.

Good one Dibs

~~~

Some interesting questions Gradient:

>>Is the perception that America is evil fair?<<

I know that there is the odd person that considers the US to be evil, but is that really a general feeling? I intensely dislike what it is doing, but I certainly don't see the nation as a whole as evil. I also suspect that if Canadian youths are using the term evil it has a somewhat different meaning than when adults use it - a teen might descibe a bad haircut as being evil, and adult might describe Hitler as being evil.

>>Is there an education gap or an understanding gap that needs to be filled before people see America for what it is instead of what we'd like it to be?
(And that last comment cuts both ways, folks, do Americans need to be told how they appear to the rest of the world and how might we go about that?)<<

I think that there are definitely things that the reat of the world has been seeing for along time that the US itself hasn't wanted to look at. I'm sure that there are things about the US that I don't understand that an American could explain to me. This would go for any country I think.

I think there is much more awareness amongst Americans now about how the world perceives the US, and more of a willingness to see that some of that perception is worth taking note of (O'Reilly aside I guess).


>>Is the perception of America as evil actually a racist statement?<<

No, because 'American' isn't a racial identity. Is there cultural prejudice against Americans? - for sure, although one needs to be careful to not putt all criticism of the US on that bag, as was often done in the past.


>>And is the relative level of civilisation in other countries colouring the international view of America because other nations "would never ever do that"?<<<

That is a tricky one. I tend to think that the only reason that the US is singled out is because it is the largest country and so can do what it likes. If the UK or France were at the top then I think we would be focussing on them instead (imagine the British Empire
if it was here today ). I also think that the rest of the West is complicit in what the US is doing, and probably so are alot of other nations. That's why I see the US as being the biggest threat, but it is not solely responsible for the mess we are all in.

Having said that there do seem to be particular reasons why the US has ended up in this situation. I still don't totally get this but it does seem cultural and specific to the US.

>>The American perception of Freedom as an absolute value actually stems from the European perception that individual freedom is a cherished concept. The French and British had both legislated that concept over the course of their history and, considering that they were the two nations who had the most to say about the development of the original 13 colonies it's hardly surprising that those tenets of belief might have become a rallying cry for the USA.

Look at how the country started out, and why. Look at what Britain tried to do to the rights of colonists to trade; where they bought and sold goods, who to and for how much. Look at the taxes they were expected to pay and how little say they had in the matter.
It's not surprising that they feel the need to hold the idea of

Freedom as the most important thing their nation represents.<<

The problem with that argument is that many other countries today were originally British or French colonies too, and they didn't develop the same notions of freedom, nor did they develop the same degrees of religious and political fundamentalism.

Possibly the British and French learnt their lesson in the US and so by the time they got to the rest of us they decided to do it differently. Certainly the British policy towards indigenous peoples was very different by the time that NZ was colonised, but that was several hundred years later.

That doesn't explain why Canada ended up so culturally different from the US though as it was at the same time.

Michael Moore of course points to slavery as the significant issue in establishing American identity (in Bowling for Columbine). Strange and appropriate for a country so focussed on freedom

"It's not the idea of Freedom, it's THEIR idea of Freedom"

Yes, but, as I said

"The American perception of Freedom as an absolute value actually stems from the European perception that individual freedom is a cherished concept"

Those would include The Magna Carta, which says:

"We have also granted to all freemen of our kingdom, for us and our heirs forever, all the underwritten liberties, to be had and held by them and their heirs, of us and our heirs forever"

Those things may be found here: http://www.cs.indiana.edu/statecraft/magna-carta.html

The French Revolution threw up another document, 'Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, 26 August 1789'

and that can be found here: http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/searchfr.php?function=find&keyword=Liberty&topPopular=1&sourceText=1#

You might want to compare those documents with this one:
http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html

which is, of course, the Constitution
and this one: http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_experience/charters/bill_of_rights.html

These are the ideas and ideals which America set for itself to live up to.

Are they doing it? Well, at least we now have a definition of what Americans see as 'Freedom'.

So what about the countries that were colonised by the same British and French but didn't end up like the US?



Will have a look at the documents later on.

That would be Canada, I think.
I'm not sure that Britain and France got their respective colonial claws into any other nation together.

Canada has a Prime Minister, which at least echoes the UK system.

But why would any other nation be relevant? We're talking about America. Unless you can point to a nation that was colonised and fought over by Britain and France leading to the French being more or less ejected and an unfair system of Trade, Tax and a lack of representation in the English parliament being set up, you can't really compare.

Oh.
Bill of Rights - first ten ammendments to the Constitution that were ratified by the required majority: September 1789.

The French were supporters of the American Revolution, partly due to the efforts of Ben Franklin who was ambassador to France at the time and partly due to the French wanting to irritate and annoy the Brits. There might have been some very direct cross pollination of ideas.