Is This for Real or for Reel?

One of the questions dogging the Time's Up movement at the Golden Globes last night was whether the movement had the legs to accomplish its goals. Virtually every attendee wore black in solidarity with women who are victims of sexual harassment, assault, or abuse in the workplace. Speeches were made.  Unfortunately, one famous woman who had suffered vicious physical assault and abuse in her workplace  - Nancy Kerrigan - suffered the indignity of Allison Janney's acceptance speech for here supporting role in I, Tonya:

source: variety

“I would just like to thank Tonya for sharing her story,” the actress said while pointing to the Olympic figure skater in the audience. “What this movie did is tell a story about class in America, tell a story about the disenfranchised, tell the story about a woman who was not embraced for her individuality, tell a story about truth and the perception of truth in the media and truths we all tell ourselves. It’s an extraordinary movie, and I’m so proud of it.”

Maybe that's why Janney's gown was not quite as much black as others. Harding's story is well known to anyone over age 40 and is straightforward to many of us. In fact, we have been treated to way too many rehashings and attempts by Harding to cash in on her malfeasance in different ways. Harding was implicated in the attack on Kerrigan by a thug battered her leg with a baton, apparently aiming for her knee to knock her out of the U.S. championships and the Olympics. Her husband arranged the attack. Today we might call this 'collusion' between her, her husband and the attacker.

The muddling of reality by Janney in her speech, showing sympathy for the perpetrator of a violent crime, makes one wonder if Hollywood is really up to cleaning up their act on this important problem that extends through society.

Apologies Now

Once upon a time, there was the apology.
Person A hurt Person B, inadvertently. Maybe A stepped on B's toe in a crowed hallway and said, "Sorry" or "Excuse me".
The genuine apology originated with Person A upon learning of the harm caused by A's own mistake or other inadvertent act. Sometimes Person A would consult with A's associate Person C about the details of the event and Person C would say - "You really should apologize for that" or "No, it's okay. You already said enough." Person C is a friend of Person A, not Person B.
Finally, a real apology is sincere. Sincerity is demonstrated by the motivation for the apology coming from Person A or A's friend. Not Person B or B's friend. And not a demand. There is no such thing as a sincere apology resulting from a demand. As we all know, a sincere apology never starts with "If anyone was hurt by my remarks..."

We have this all backwards now.
Apology demands have become a weapon of choice to weaken a political opponent or to distract from an opponent's message.

The recent Broadway production of Hamilton with Pence in attendance ended with a cast member reading a rather gentle and positive statement to the VP-elect as he was leaving the seats.
DT tweeted "Apologize" and more.

He is forgetting he won the election. Or maybe he does not know any better.

1. Nothing harmful was said. The cast communicated positively with a leader in this democracy with a message of hope and unity which is optimistic given the vitriol of the campaigns that has continued with violence post Nov. 8th.
2. The president-elect is about to become the most powerful person in the world. Why is he trying to weaken ordinary citizens? Is it just to continue to stir up his base? Still? He could focus on bringing the country together. Instead he focuses on tactics that keep people apart.
3. A sincere apology can not be extracted by an associate of the person who is hurt (when there is actual hurt).

And so we are increasingly becoming a post-apology world because the apology-demand is now a weapon, an instrument to weaken a political opponent or to shore up a political base.
First a post-fact world. Then a post-apology world. I am not feeling as hopeful about that post-racial world as, well, that cast of Hamilton.

Advice From A Hit Man

Three Days of the Condor (book and film) is a great example of the classic genre of the talented protagonist who is thrown into an impossible life and death situation and must survive by sheer wit against more powerful, ruthless experts in spycraft. Think Jason Bourne without the physique or training. In the 1975 film, Robert Redford plays the bookish Joe Turner, a low level CIA analyst who returns to the office mid-day to find all of his co-workers have been assassinated. At first Turner contacts headquarters for help, but in the rendezvous barely escapes alive. Realizing he has no place to hide and can not trust anyone, he kidnaps a total stranger, a woman returning to her apartment with groceries, to make her apartment a temporary safe haven for him as he lauches a one-man investigation.
The fascinating element that drives the plot of the film is the series of major adjustments that Turner realizes he must make in order to survive and attempt to bring the killers to justice.
One of the best lines of the film comes when Turner is confronted with the hired hit man Joubert played by Max Van Sydow, who had been after him, but did not have Turner on his hit list that particular day. Joubert tells Turner it is not safe for him to return to his life in New York City:

"It will happen this way. You may be walking. Maybe the first sunny day of the spring. And a car will slow beside you, and a door will open, and someone you know, maybe even trust, will get out of the car. And he will smile, a becoming smile. But he will leave open the door of the car and offer to give you a lift."

In the finale Turner announces to the CIA head of department that he has handed the New York Times the story, presuming they will print it, which will secure his safety and expose the rogue CIA operation. But will the NYT print it?

All through 2016 we have been receiving warnings about threats to democracy, threats to the republic, but we are not used to this. The American political system has been experiencing a slow motion crash for many years now, but the immediate effects have been accelerating this year with the Trump candidacy and the suspension of hearings on the Supreme Court nomination. Clueless pundits have described this as a "not normal" year of campaigning.  Other pundits have been more perceptive, describing the Trump candidacy as a normal extension of GOP campaign strategy going back decades. But few if any pundits are describing the only two possible outcomes: Either the Republican Party splits into two parties, or the democratic underpinning of our system collapses.

"It will happen this way. A candidate who knows nothing about policy will focus the debate on attacking personalities and will make wild claims about his own capabilities. He will belittle opponents and offer simple solutions to complex problems as he appeals to hate, fear, and resentment. He may even call for his followers to take matters into their own hands if he does not win the election. Moderate people will wait for other moderate people to take necessary action, but no one will."

We are a nation with many Joe Turners. Each day feels like the day before, but one day you wake up and everything has changed. Only terrible choices remain. Republicans who stick to the party no matter what happens in the Congress or the campaigns or who, like Paul Ryan try to have it both ways, placing short term perceived gain above long term impact.  Journalists who wake up every day trying to be objective, who define objectivity as maintaining balance, no matter what they observe. Eventually someday comes, and if you receive advice from a hit man, you need to take it.

When Comedy is King

Great post at Washington Monthly (Title) by Nancy LeTourneau with a shout out to Samantha Bee and quotes from notables Jonathan Chait and Josh Marshall.

When political comedy works so well. The greatest insights come from looking at the world through a slightly different lens or from a different angle to reveal a truth that was hiding in plain sight. There is an economy of language in comedy that makes us laugh when the truth suddenly hits us - Colbert's reference to "the White House stenographers" at the 2006 correspondents dinner, for example, a simple truth made funnier because he said it to their faces.

When political comedy does not work. Foxnews attempts at comedy shows like The 1/2 Hour News Hour have consistently failed to make people laugh.  As a propaganda machine, Fox starts the narrative with the conclusions that they wish to be true and seek the facts to support those conclusions, while ignoring other facts. Propaganda statements are not always false, but the framework of propaganda is essentially a lie because the goal is to affirm belief rather than seek the truth in context, that is, the truth in the sense of underlying meaning - reality. Successful comedy, on the other hand,  hits you with the truth in context in a way that makes you laugh. When Fox tries to be funny, they come perilously close to giving away the ruse, what they are really all about. Why can't they be funny? You have to be committed to the truth to be funny. When you are constantly looking for facts or lies or distortions to support your conclusions, and not really caring which, that means you are also avoiding unpleasant truths that go against your beliefs.

Comedy Central is the real anti-Fox in this world, not MSNBC, not the NYT. Fox hits viewers with with conclusions, immediately stoking anger and resentment or hate and fear. Comedy Central hits you with the context right away, which makes you laugh when you recognize it. In each case the quick hits are effective and keep the audience engaged. MSNBC slowly dissects the narrative and eventually explains the context. MSNBC maintains a contrived balance of guests, which is fine for those who stay with it, a lot of chaff comes with the wheat. The NYT employs the weakest model for political news reporting - when you rely on fact-checking for fair reporting, you have already missed the point - letting the context be defined by someone else who may be a propagandist.

Comedy succeeds by observations of real life with interpretations of just what is going on. The NYT fair and balanced he said/she said reporting standard lacks any frame of reference other than of two sides fighting each other, presumed to be equal in all ways as a starting point. The fact that young people have regarded Comedy Central as a primary source of news has often been reported as a disappointment, but this is good news because it means that young people seek the proper context for news that NYT fails to provide and understand where to find it.  Just watch comedian Jim Jefferies on Gun Control. for an example of context in comedy. His sketch is much more effective as an argument for gun control than an essay could be.

It's not just a coincidence that the Foxnews narrative leads to so many angry people. Propaganda is most successful when it taps into hate, fear, and prejudice. Strong negative emotions help push rational thinking aside. As for comedy, you can't be an angry citizen who sees yourself as a victim at the same moment you are a detached observer who can laugh at the confounding state of the universe.

In a real sense, Foxnews masquerades as news and, if the effects on society were not so dire because people take them seriously, would succeed as a parody of themselves. The most telling example of this type of self-parody was the Saturday Night Live sketch of Tina Fey as Sarah Palin with a lengthy (nearly) direct quote from the candidate. There is nothing comparable on the "other side." Comedy Central is the anti-Fox because they do the opposite by providing immediate context for the news.

The Fifth Dimension

As a teenager in the 1960s, I was at one point confined to bed convalescing from an illness during the summer and needed to keep myself occupied. We had a shortwave radio, so I roamed the airwaves to find broadcasts from different countries in Europe and Asia.

I especially enjoyed  listening to Radio Moscow, which was beamed to the U.S.  The endless stream of propaganda was fascinating. Russia had their own inventors of the light bulb and other modern devices. In fact, the Soviet Union was apparently superior in all respects. How did I recognize the propaganda? After all, I could not prove who invented the lightbulb and I was not in a position to observe the Soviet Union directly. But I did know I lived in an open society that really did have freedom of speech and of the press where I was told the truth about the Soviet Union. After all, the U.S. and World War II allies had withdrawn from German occupation while the Soviet Union had maintained control of their occupied territories throughout Central and Eastern Europe. So there was asymmetry between  U.S. and NATO allies vs. the Soviets, not two equal and opposite opponents who were just two sides of the same coin.

Aside from my textbook knowledge of world history, I also observed patterns of behavior of the radio personalities. The Soviet Union was always so wonderful. Never a discouraging word. Bursting with national pride. And never mistaken. Never in doubt.  I could not imagine that the Soviet propaganda machine was fooling anyone and wondered why they kept trying with these transmissions.

Today's New York Times opinion piece The Age of Post-Truth Politics made me think of that Soviet era propaganda. The article argues, vaguely, that there is too much data to sift through these days, too many facts available and therefore people can choose themselves what they wish to believe, which encourages conspiracy theories.

Any consumer of news programming can discern the style and behavior patterns of a reporter who is searching for truth from someone who is searching for “facts” to support their ready-made conclusions. And if that behavior includes ever-changing lines of attack against a political opponent without evidence, maybe serious skepticism is in order. The problem today is too many viewers who are happy to be fooled, not too much data or too many news sources. The willing believer will not be persuaded by better communications as the NYT piece suggests with Brexit politics as the example. The author seems to regard our current state as a confusing universe, similar to the alternate realities where ordinary folks found themselves in the 1960s TV mystery "The Twilight Zone."

Count me unconvinced.

Brexit Bremorse

When we say "when tactics become policy" it sounds like a classification error, like saying "when an adverb becomes a horse". What we mean is that the machinery of democracy can be pushed by the use of tactical maneuvers including the failure to compromise and inaction to the point of policy results that no one really wants.

Something like this just happened with Brexit in the U.K., except that instead of inaction, the result was action. Or is it? More on that later.

David Cameron decided that his best move to keep his post and hold his coalition together for last year's parliamentary elections was to promise to hold the EU exit/remain referendum that just took place, but then to work in favor of the U.K. remaining in the EU. So a tactical move for political advantage has plunged Europe into unnecessary chaos. Or should that be "the U.K. and Europe". Or "the U.K. ex Scotland plus Europe with Scotland" in chaos? Anyway, chaos for sure.

Source: huffingtonpost.com

On a small scale, we recently saw a similar tactic fail in the U.S. on the issue of women registering for the draft - a person calling for a vote in a situation where that person's preferred outcome, the status quo, would have prevailed without having any vote, but the voting proceeds with the opposite result.

As reported April 28th in the Washington Post,

 ‘Right now the draft is sexist,” said Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-Calif.), who filed an amendment to the House’s annual defense authorization bill to require women between the ages of 18 and 26 to register for the Selective Service, the government agency that keeps records of who is eligible to be conscripted.

Hunter, who is against the Obama administration’s recent policy change allowing women to serve in all combat roles, said he proposed the measure only to start a discussion about the draft. He voted against his amendment, arguing that anyone who favored it would be siding with the administration.
But Hunter’s gamble that committee members would shy away from forcing women into the draft backfired when a slim majority — including five Republicans — opted to endorse the measure by a vote of 32 to 30.
“We have a standards-based force now, and we don’t have a standards-based Selective Service,” Rep. Christopher P. Gibson (R-N.Y.) argued, joining Democrats, all but one of whom also supported the measure.”

The obvious lesson is to be a bit more careful forcing a vote on an issue where you are happy with the outcome that would prevail if no vote is held.

The jockeying for position of British politicians in the aftermath of the referendum will be fascinating. Legally it was a nonbinding referendum, but the outcome of the vote was accepted as determinative as if it were binding. Is there no way out? European politicians will keep pushing the British to move forward quickly to eliminate the uncertainty on the Continent. Watch over the next week or two for British politicians who start to argue that the result was never to be considered a binding result  --all in the heat of the campaign!!-- but rather should be taken as a strong showing of discontent that must be addressed. David Cameron has washed his hands of it and nobody else will want to own it.

The one great hope is that behind all that apparent chaos, there could emerge a method to the madness from behind the scenes.

Source:pastemagazine.com

Framing to Win vs. Framing for Understanding

"Hamilton continues Broadway dominance with 11 Tonys" read today's headline in the Washington Post, along with the subheading "The blockbuster musical about the Founding Fathers fell short of the record for most Tony Awards held by "The Producers".



(Source: USAToday)
OK, so it is an awards show and therefore a competition among this year's nominees, which never feels quite right in the creative arts as opposed to athletic competition. Still, in this 2015-2016 Broadway season , best described as the blowout year of Hamilton, for the headline to say that Hamilton in any way"falls short" seems like a failure of framing. Even "second only to The Producers all-time" would have been more accurate, but still not quite faithfully represent the completely positive night and year for Hamilton.

So why does that matter? Seems like a small quibble, but it illustrates the problem of framing in the news media - the gravitation toward the horse race in the elections as well as the most tantalizing tidbit,  which can mean setting records or not, or a candidate making the most outrageous statements with not enough treatment of the issue "What is really going on here?" More to come on this framing topic in the next post.