THE VALUE OF COUNTER NARRATIVES

STATUES OF SHAME

Maybe what we really have HERE is a lack of civilization, a point made by Gandhi when he was asked what he thought of Western Civilization and replied, "it would be a good idea."

He does have a point about narrative. OUR narrative, or at least the one he thinks is ours, is the point of view we imbibe from our schools, our media and our education. It denies by definition the legitimacy of any one elses narrative.. In yesterday's Times, Brooks, the preppy contrarian conservative voice on the NY Times editorial op-ed page faults just about everyone in the Middle East and the world focused on Israel as the centerpiece of the permanent Middle East crisis and the power of its lobby.

Narratives r'us. The Wikipedia tells us: "A narrative is a story: an interpretation of some aspect of the world that is historically and culturally grounded and shaped by human personality"

Perhaps that's why this blog aspires to offer a day in real time counter-narrative, the news not in the news or other perspectives and ways of looking at the stories of the day. At a time when so many Americans see the world and their politics only though the partisan divide, maybe its helpful to seek out other ways of seeing and thinking and to encourage a deeper and more informed look. So many issues go beyond the he said/they said message points of Dems and Repugs.

One example: The Sunday Times has a front page story about a debate in Baghdad about what to do about all the monuments build by Saddam Husesein. This is especially timely since this is the anniversary of the topping of the Saddam statue in Bargdadbck in 2003. At the time, ir was viewed as an expression of the people's fury with Saddam and desire for the kind of Iraqi "freedom" promised by the Busheviks. All the networks covered it the crowning point—and vindication—of the US invasion. It was only later we learned that a US military psychological warfare unit claimed credit for orchestrating or should I say staging the incident and the support for it among Iraqis already supporting the US war effort.

Fast forward to 2007. Here's the New York Times explaining the issue, in its own inimitable style:

Now the nation is trying to figure out whether to save these objects as memorials to history or wipe them out. The debate goes to the core of a wounded nation's effort to redefine itself and reconcile with its painful past. In recent weeks, the matter has crystallized around Iraq's most famous landmark, the Victory Arch, two sets of gargantuan crossed swords held by giant fists modeled after Mr. Hussein's. The government had begun to tear it down, but an influential lobby, including the American Embassy, has blocked the dismantling for the time being.

Run that by me again: The American Embassy, described in the Times as just one part of an "influential lobby" now wants to keep the landmark up so as not to further upset the Sunnis. How ironic. But is this the full story? Not if you read Agence France Press with the counter-narrative, or maybe the truth. There are apparently Iraqis who now want to build new statues to Saddam and era which despite its many problems and oppression is seen now as better by many.

This article was NOT carried in the NY Times. And note that this report seems to be an example of what Robert Fisk called "hotel journalism. " Note where the sources are. Yet it is probably better than "Green Zone Journalism" which is what we are mostly getting.

"The Americans must leave, they are responsible for the situation today. If they go, the situation will become stable in one or two months," believes Mohamed Ali, another employee of the Palestine Hotel.

Another of the barbers working in the shop, who gives his name only as Qais, says: "Yes, at the beginning, when we saw the statue falling, we were happy. The country was liberated.

"We thought the fall of the regime would bring freedom, reconstruction but as the days passed we saw it was lies. This new statue, is of injustice, inequality. The fall of the statue is now the broken dreams of Iraqis."

Put these two articles side by side and you can see opposing narratives in collision. That's what's missing in our media in addition to the lack of acknowledgement of the underlying ideology that informs so-called "objective" journalism. I try to offer that kind of journalism every day but I am just one person with limited time, and many other pressures. I would have really liked to read what the Iraqi press has no say about this

I end up presenting in print what I used to do on WBCN Radio back in Boston when I started this news dissecting shtick in l970, creating the kind of newscast I would like to hear, trying to make connections that fill in the dots when I can. Sometimes that leaves you with a choppy product, mid-way between a headline hit parade and a more refined commentary/analysis. Its inevitably unsatisfying because its hard to be as thoughtful or analytical in a a blog as you can be in documentary or book. That's why I try that too. I have written 8 books, and contributed to others but I am having trouble these days finding a publisher for a new one.

So instead, let me recommend some others sent my way that are meaty and memorable. They are the kind of books I would have wanted to write and find stimulating to read, or at least browse through

PS: 60 Minutes showed the armada of military support that guarded John McCain in Baghdad. Problem was that he is so mealey-mouthed that he evades all suggestions of the deceptions in his position cataloged by Frank Rich in the NY Times by claiming he misspoke again. Ha Ha. Also, I for one am fed up with all the media nostalgia for his POW status in Vietnam. Yes, he was mistreated as a prisoner but then again he was fighting an illegal war and bombing civilians in Hanoi. Does anyone remember that? He was shot down into a lake in the middle of town. I actually visited it.

 

Dissector's Book Picks for Spring: YouREAD or YouTube

I'll start with the latest: Stephen Marshall's "Wolves in Sheep's Clothing: The New Liberal Menace in America" (DISINFORMATION BOOKS.) I first met Marshall years ago when he was based in Toronto and a TV innovator with a distinctive style, global outlook, rock n' roll sensibility and story telling skills. I envied his energy and impactful presentation which led to the formation years later of the Guerrilla News Network. He has directed documentaries and a feature and is probably one of the more skillful music DJ's I know.

His new book, beautifully written, attentive to detail and driven by a personal investigation into the belly of today's liberal beast takes on some of the biggest names in liberal thought and leaves them bleeding from their own contradictions and posturing.

Greg Palast calls it a "guidebook" on "who to trust who to trash." But its more than that…..it is a thoughtful encounter to liberals who have burned out and given up and now rationalize the war and market values. What's great about the book is that it doesn't lecture to us, but engages us in the search for truth. With Wolves, Stephen has established himself as a thought leader as well as a take no prisoner's producer.

If Marshall goes after an elite that has betrayed its values, Michael Albert's memoir "Remembering Tomorrow" (7 Stories Press) takes though his personal and political learning curve from SDS in the 60's when we first met in Boston to his thoughts on life after Capitalism.

With his partner Lydia Sargent, Michael made institutions like South End Press and Z Mazgaine (and ZNET) happen with a bottom up, non-pretentious, participatory approach that has many lessons for a Left that often imitates the worst features of Capitalist hierarchy and organizational models. For those that don't know, he is one of Noam Chomsky's closest collaborators, a scholar of making change, and thinking about alternative solutions. He remains skeptical and committed and knows how to ask the right questions.

Even as his book looks at his own life and times he raises key issues about developments in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. He also has many stories about his personal life, love affairs, and even delves in a subject I could relate to: why getting old sucks. Despite his status now as an ageing elder of the New Left, he is still active in reaching out to, and educating the young. I was thrilled to be invited to teach at his Z Media Institutes in bucolic Woods Hole Mass. What's great about this memoir is that his story is not over yet and unlike the people Stephen Marshall confronted, he's still loyal to his radical values and profound hopes.

As long as we are in the "hope department,'" check out Jeff Kisselhoff's Generation on Fire: Voices of Portest from the l960's (University of Kentucky Press. As a child of the sixties, I know how hard it is to transmit the spirit of one age to another, and even to get younger people to learn from our mistakes and achievements. This book offers testimonies from people I knew and stuggle alongside of including SNCC's Bob Zellner, Paul Krassner, Marylyn Salzman Webb and the poet Verandah Porche. And of course many others including martyrs and visionaries.

What's important here is that these people tell their own stories, often with a sense of humor and total recall as living witnesses and changemakers, not as relics of a distant past. This is a book about activism and rebellion and the price we pay for fighting for a vigorous democracy.

From the past, we plunge into the present through the brilliant scrutiny of Benjamin Barber, whose book Jihad Vs McWorld foresaw the clash that erupted on September llth. His new book CONSUMER: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize adults and Swallow Citizens Whole (Norton) looks at our economy and culture and how it deforms democracy.

Having just made a film on the ravages of debt driven Capitalism and how our country has been transformed from a society built on Production to one engineered around consumption, I was fascinated by Barber's way of showing the consequences and costs of this transition especially as it involves colonization of children as consumers and the infantiliztion of the rest of us. As someone who had railed against the dumbing down of the news and media, this book has now helped me better see how deliberate the process is as an extension of the values of targeted marketing and demographic branding.

There have been many books written about the manipulations of advertising but few within a framework of how it erodes our democracy. Ben Barber is not a passive analyst. He is a passionate advocate of understanding these processes so we can do something about it. He's a scholar who may not be at his best trading one-liners with Stephen Colbert, but his book is original thinking, five years in the making, provocative intellectually and challenging politically.His "Consumed" consumed me.

Barber's media section is especially insightful. So is the work of Caryl Rivers, a journalist turned educator whose SELLING ANXIETY (University Press of New England) exposes how the news media distorts stories about women. Carryl has been doing this a long time with 13 books to her credit and know of what she speaks when it comes to bullying successful women. "Selling anxiety to women can have real consequences for real womens's lives," she writes. "It can dim their dram, hobble their ambition and blunt their courage."

And now, to two new exposes. First there's Jeremy Scahill's expertly reported examination of the privatization of our military with a book-length look at "Blackwater:
The Rise of The World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Scahill shows the mix of right wing evangelical Christianity and role played by Blackwater in Iraq and New Orleans. This is very scary and very well documented. (Nation Books.)

Another muckraking exercise is COLLUSION (Melville House Publishing) by the Woodward and Bernstein of Italy, Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe D'Avanzo who Sy Hersh calls "truth seekers." It was this team that first expoed "Nigergate, the Uranium in Africa story that led to the Valerie Plame affair and, eventually, the conviction of Scooter Libby.

Americans don't often realize that some of the best investigative work on the crimes of the "War on Terror' is being done by journalists overseas. This book shows how the Niger forgery was constructed but then goes beyond that to examine "competitive intelligence" a practice that creates facts rather than uncovers them, another weapon of mass deception.

Finally for fun, erudition and bathroom reading, I am in love with a beautifully illustrated and hip large-sized paper back for kids that came out last year called PICK THIS UP: Stuff You Need To Know. (DK) This books is an illustrated and fun wikipedia for children of every age. Every page has something new and something you probably didn't know about

You can check out all of these books at online book stores and through search engines.