Book Review: His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life by Jonathan Alter

Of all the post-war Presidents, Jimmy Carter was the most enigmatic. Typically relegated to "one-term" purgatory, Carter's tumultuous tenure (1977-1981) was overwhelmed by various crises at home and abroad. In 1980 Ronald Reagan defeated Carter's bid for reelection, inaugurating a conservative cycle in American politics. 

Jonathan Alter, author of books on Franklin Roosevelt and Barack Obama, makes a strong case for a reevaluation of President Carter. Alter provides a panoramic view of Carter's surprising rise to the presidency and the influences on his life. Even handed in tone, Alter is often critical of Carter's stubbornness and aloofness, but also points out the many virtues of his presidency and leadership style.

Carter was elected in 1976 as a welcome outsider in the post-Watergate era. He grew up in rural Georgia in the 1920s and 1930s when Jim Crow Laws and segregation were in full force. Raised in a 19th century style of living in an agrarian setting, values of hard work and honesty were instilled. He attended the Naval Academy and served on one of the first nuclear submarines. After his father passed away, Carter left the Navy to manage his family's farm and entered Georgia politics. 

Considered a liberal on racial issues, Carter rarely spoke out on Civil Rights during the 1960s. He never met Martin Luther King nor marched for Civil Rights, in his campaign for Georgia Governor in 1970, he employed rhetoric to placate segregationists. There are examples of Carter resisting the racism of his environment in daily interactions, he defended a Black naval officer being harassed and stood up to local racists on a few occasions. 

Alter skillfully traces the evolution of Carter's worldview. While silent on Civil Rights during the 1960s, his Presidency broke new ground in advocating for Human Rights at home and abroad. Marking a break from the realism of the Nixon-Kissinger-Ford years, informed by his Christianity, the dignity of the individual shaped his policymaking. The first "born again" President, his religion is one of the keys to understanding Carter. 

Dealing with depression in the late 1960s, Carter found peace in prayer and engaged in missionary work. By all accounts Carter was sincere in his faith and kept himself to a high standard. Although he opposed abortion and the death penalty, he believed it was important not to force his personal views on anyone. He found it especially galling when Jerry Falwell commented that Carter's loss to Reagan meant a "real Christian" was back in the White House. 

Rosalynn Carter, his wife of 77 years, was the most important influence on him. As First Lady, she raised awareness on mental health and disability rights, her campaigns to vaccinate children were also successful. Rosalynn and Jimmy would meet for lunch twice a week and debate policy issues, her tenure as First Lady is now considered modern and innovative.

Alter spends over half the book on the Presidency. The achievements in foreign policy were far reaching. Relations with China were normalized, a move that bolstered China's economic rise in the coming decades. The Panama Canal Treaty prevented a war in Central America, done in the face of fierce opposition from conservatives. The Camp David Accords, the most dramatic chapter in the book, established a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel - the two nations have not gone to war since. Carter's intelligence and tenacity in dealing with Egyptian leader Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Begin remains a marvel of personal diplomacy.

The year 1979 brought about the undoing of the Carter Presidency. The entire saga of the Iranian Revolution and the ensuing Hostage Crisis caught Carter and his advisors by surprise and the miscalculations were multifold.  Americans were bombarded every evening with disheartening images from Iran intensified by the botched rescue attempt by the military (Carter took full responsibility). Relations with the USSR also went downhill, offended by Carter's Human Rights advocacy and his aggressive diplomacy in the Middle East, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and at the end of 1979 brought détente to a halt and led to a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics (a highly unpopular policy).

Despite Carter's defeat in 1980, Alter argues his legislation on energy, the environment, and Civil Rights were all impactful. His famous "crisis of confidence" speech, composed after spending 10 days in isolation speaking to a variety of Americans about the problems of the country, expressed a criticism of consumerism, which many interpreted as a scold. On Democratic party politics he was often oblivious, which opened him to a challenge within from Ted Kennedy. With the ailing economy of the late 1970s, a combination of bad luck and questionable decisions led to his defeat.

When considering those who came before and after, Carter's fall appears to be an anomaly. He was neither corrupt nor incompetent. The most well read, intelligent, and pro-Science - his work ethic would be greeted with relief these days. Carter's greatest flaw was his bluntness and dedication to the job. Considered too liberal by conservatives and not liberal enough by the left, Carter tended to exasperate allies and foes.

Alter's prose is engaging, even handed with a good sense of narrative. The portrait is complex and raises important questions about political leadership in a democracy relating to issues of transparency, faith, and loyalty. Hardly any of the details included feel superfluous, anecdotes about Carter praying for peace with his eyes on a globe every morning, hanging out with the Allman Brothers, and winning over no less a cynic than Hunter Thompson all present an engaging tapestry. 

Alter, Jonathan. His Very Best: Jimmy Carter: A Life. New York, Simon & Schuster, 2020.

Book Review: Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Robert F. Kennedy

Published posthumously in 1969, Thirteen Days by Robert F. Kennedy remains an essential text of the Cold War. A firsthand account of the Cuban Missile Crisis by one of the key participants, RFK's memoir presents a sober and eloquent account. Even though he keeps a lot close to his vest, there's enough there for an impression of the decision-making process during the crisis. Devoted to the memory of his brother President Kennedy, the portrait presented here is a model of steady, but cautious leadership, at a moment when history stood at a precipice.

From October 16-29, 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union nearly went to war. After a U-2 reconnaissance plane discovered Soviet missiles were being deployed in Cuba, 90 miles off the coast of Florida, the Kennedy administration faced its greatest test. JFK's inner circle, uncertain of Soviet intentions, were determined to find a way of removing the missiles without resorting to war. Political considerations also factored into their response, knowing if they failed to show resolve it would unravel the administration and embolden its adversaries. 

Thirteen Days presents a taut narrative of crisis management. The informal committee known as "Ex-Comm" consisting of cabinet members and advisors who argued and debated the proper courses of action. RFK describes how the initial talks debated whether to take immediate military action through aerial bombing and eventual ground invasion, or whether to order a blockade to buy time for a diplomatic solution. While the "quarantine" approach opened the administration to accusations of looking weak, it was a middle course between belligerence and appeasement. RFK wrote:

That kind of pressure does strange things to a human being, even to brilliant, self-confident, mature, experienced men. For some it brings out characteristics and strengths that perhaps they never knew they had, and for others the pressure is too overwhelming (35).

RFK deftly evokes the moments of intense uncertainty, allowing the reader space to imagine the weight of making historical decisions. As fatigue sets in, one will change their mind quickly, change their tune in front of the president, or even become fatalistic or depressed. President Kennedy followed a strategy of preparing for the worst, while keeping options open for a solution. In this specific crisis - it worked. The eventual diplomatic solution, a U.S. promise not to invade Cuba and eventual removal of missiles in Turkey in return for the Soviets removing the missiles in Cuba, was handled discreetly by both sides. 

When one considers all the variables that could've gone wrong its head spinning. Thirteen Days only suggests all the factors in play. Military personnel could make mistakes in the heat of the moment or misinterpret orders. For example, the case of the Soviet submarine officer who prevented a nuclear launch. Luck certainly played a huge role, but rational thinking also prevailed.

Yet the Cuban Missile Crisis continues to raise tantalizing questions. Should nuclear brinksmanship be considered a crime against humanity? RFK recounts his brother worrying about all the innocents who would die in a war. A war for what - credibility? I get the sense all the actors involved at least subconsciously grasped the absurdity of it all - it comes through in Khrushchev's letters he sent to Kennedy. 

If there was a takeaway, it was empathy:

The final lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis is the importance of placing ourselves in the other country's shoes. During the crisis, President Kennedy spent more time trying to determine the effect of a particular course of action on Khrushchev or the Russians than on any other phase of what he was doing. What guided all his deliberations was an effort not to disgrace Khrushchev, not to humiliate the Soviet Union, not to have them feel they would have to escalate their response because their national security or national interests so committed them (95).

Decades later the archives have been opened and all the minute details of the crisis are available. Thirteen Days is now considered more mythmaking than history. No one's going to argue political memoirs are not self-serving, RFK was more hawkish than he led on, but the memoir clearly values diplomacy above brinksmanship, and suggests things were messier than the streamlined narrative presented. Thirteen Days serves as a starting point for studying the crisis (also a quick read), more books on the crisis will be reviewed in the future.

(The 1999 Norton Paperback includes documents and additional historical commentary.)

Book Review: The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes by Zachary D. Carter

As the world stands in the thrall of multiple crises in the first quarter of the 21st Century - "polycrisis" to use a trendy word, it's worthwhile to go back and look at how the governments withstood "the world crisis" of the first half of the 20th Century. Few figures influenced the course of those years more than the British economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946). Zachary D. Carter's 2020 book reevaluates Keynes through a 21st century lens and examines how Keynesian economics continues to provide a guidepost for navigating uncertainty.

Keynes first became known outside academic circles with the publication of his polemic on the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, The Economic Consequences of the Peace. Keynes served as an advisor for the British delegation who joined the other victor nations of the First World War to dictate peace terms to determine the future of Europe. 

The conference convened as the 1918-1919 Spanish influenza was spreading like wildfire, Keynes became stricken with the virus and was bedridden for weeks. With the United States, Great Britain, and France all working to serve their own self-interests, Keynes developed an antipathy towards all the Allied powers, especially the push to punish Germany with heavy war reparations that he believed would ill serve the world economy. He predicted that a Germany paralyzed with war debts would lead to anger among the people who would turn to politicians advocating vengeance. 

History proved Keynes correct on the war debts issue and their tragic ramifications for Europe. Economic chaos plagued Europe during the 1920s as governments dealt with the fallout from unemployment and inflation. Meanwhile, Keynes continued to develop his ideas towards more international cooperation in his journalism and economic treatises. Known for his uncanny ability to find solutions to a financial crisis, Keynes helped save the British Treasury in 1914 on the eve of the war and worked out ingenious solutions during the 1920s to manage the war reparations by negotiating loans to Germany. Yet he found his ideas failing to get traction in his native Great Britain.

Always the insider/outsider, Keynes enjoyed the privileges of the British upper class and moved freely between power brokers and artistic circles. One of the few non-artists among the Bloomsbury Group, a group of creatives who despised Victorian morays including writers Virginia Woolf and Lytton Strachey, they brought a spirit of experimentation to art and life. Beneath all of Keynes's dense treatises on modern economics was a humanism to improve the quality of life for everyone.

For most who've taken a college economics class, one learns about Keynes through charts and graphs. Carter argues that compassion, "the good life" in JMK's words, stood at the core of his economic theories. Through the Depression and world wars that Keynes helped the world to navigate, there was a respect for individual freedom and social justice beneath all theory and policies. He became even more Utopian towards the end of his life. Through his theoretical works, impenetrable to anyone outside the field of economics, he developed stratagems to avoid economic catastrophes. Pamphlets explaining his approach to economics were also made available to the public with great success.

A main insight of Keynesian economics is that governments are the true managers of economies. Leaving market forces alone to repair themselves in the classical economics mode was no longer tenable, government intervention was essential to maintaining the health of a modern financial system. Deficit spending to "prime the pump" would kickstart economies and help maintain full employment and keep inflation in check. Keynes argued this was always the case throughout history, governments always set currencies and managed economic activity.  Keynes advocated that economic policies should expand prosperity and be aimed at enhancing the culture, not the 19th century Darwinian economy of winners and losers. His definitive 1936 work, completed with his staff of students at Cambridge, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money proved a magnum opus in shaping modern economic theory and policy.

It was in the United States where his ideas took hold. President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal policies of increased government intervention in banking, monetary policy regulation, and public works were practical Keynesian solutions to the economic crisis. FDR's administration was filled with acolytes of Keynes during the 1940s, guiding the economy through the Second World War. At the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, Keynes helped shape post-war policies. 

Keynes was not a Marxist, although he took much inspiration from their critiques of capitalism. He wanted to synthesize classical economics with Marxism, "how to make the practical, risk-averse, anti-revolutionary conservatism of Burke for the radical democratic ideals advanced by Rousseau." (55). A tall order, perhaps an impossibility, but his iconoclastic approach attracted many disciples and fierce critics.

Keynesians felt vindicated by America's astounding turnaround in the post-war years. But as his ideas gained ascendency in academia, a counter movement began to take shape. The business class in America generally despised FDR and the New Deal and envisioned a return to unregulated/Gilded Age type capitalism. F.A. Hayek's 1944 book The Road to Serfdom was greeted as the conservative response to Keynes, arguing more government intervention in economic policy led to totalitarianism. In the climate of McCarthyism, Carter documents the widespread efforts to ban Keynes's teachings from colleges - as communist propaganda. William F. Bickley's debut book God and Man at Yale railed against Keynes.

Price of Peace is also a unique biography in that it devotes the last section of the book to the legacy of its subject. Keynes died in 1946 and did not live to see these debates play out. His life reminded me of Hari Seldon from the Isaac Asimov Foundation novels. In the books Seldon was a visionary who plotted a long term strategy for the galaxy to recover from a decline into a dark age. In the generations after his death, disciples debated his legacy. Much of the same thing happened with Keynes in the afterlife of his ideas. John Kenneth Galbraith in many ways took up the mantle of Keynes in American politics with mixed results, the book almost serves as a short biography of Galbraith. 

Different variations of Keynesian policies evolved over the decades. Paul Samuelson wrote the standard economics textbook with a Keynesian approach, but it was highly technical and dry. Many consider the textbook Lorie Tarshis far superior and more accessible. In time American policy drifted. Keynes failed to foresee the Military-Industrial Complex that came to dominate American foreign policy. Eventually, classical capitalism revived and culminated with the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan who set out to gut social services and government spending (only criticism of the book is that Carter tends to move too fast through these sections). 

Carter's chapter on the Bill Clinton (1993-2001) administration is especially scathing. Clinton's embrace of Neo-Liberal policies of lower taxes, balanced budgets, and deregulation were catastrophic for the American economy - culminating in 2008 crash and near demise of the banking system (saved by government bailout). Keynes believed the primary cause of fascism was unemployment. The damaging trade deals of the 90s did not serve America nor the world, a main cause for democracy's decline in recent decades.

The book concludes with:

Keynesianism [in its) simplest form is not so much a school of economic thought as a spirit of radical optimism, unjustified by most of human history and extremely difficult to conjure up precisely when it is most needed: during the depths of depression or amid the fevers of war. (533)

To bring things full circle, in our current moment of spiraling crises ranging from political, economic, to the ecological Keynes offers a model of recovery through defining the problem and finding creative solutions. Boldness of vision and radical intellectual curiosity are perhaps the best prescription. Price of Peace is engaging and well written, a journey through economic history and roads not taken. 

 

Book Review: The Cinematic Connery: The Films of Sean Connery by A.J. Black

A.J. Black, author of Myth-Building in Modern Media and Star Trek, History and Us, has written an engaging critical study on the life and career of Sean Connery in his latest book The Cinematic Connery. A presence in cinema for the entire second half of the 20th Century, Connery's work on the screen is a mirror into a large slice of film history. Readers will be treated to a perceptive account of Connery as one of the last movie stars who continues to captivate audiences.

The passing of Connery on October 31, 2020, felt like the end of an era despite his long absence from public view since his final film appearance in the 2003 comic book adaptation The League of Extraordinary Gentleman. Yet in another sense, he never left the public imagination. As the original actor to play James Bond, by far his most iconic role, his immortal status was assured.

As Black presents throughout, Connery was much more than Bond. Outside of the original run of five Bond films he made (Dr. No (1962), From Russia With Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), and brief reprises in 1971 (Diamonds Are Forever) and 1983 (Never Say Never Again), he left behind a wide and diverse body of work that explored many aspects of his persona. Whether it be the vengeful detective in the 1973 film The Offence, the cold-blooded manipulator in Marnie (1964), or the tough Chicago cop in Brian De Palma's 1987 film The Untouchables, he always showed an impressive range and a willingness to take chances. 

A proud native of Edinburgh, Scotland, Connery's working-class youth was marked by the Global Depression of the 1930s and the privations brought on by the Second World War. He pursued body building and football (soccer) but found his true calling in acting. He began performing on the stage, worked on television productions, all of which led to meaty roles in feature films. 

Fate and his own determination led Connery to starring in the first James Bond film Dr. No, the movie that made him an international star. Black traces Connery's early career in which he took on a variety of different guises on film from comedic sidekicks, small time hoods, and romantic leads. His work had caught the attention of producers Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman who were developing a feature film based on the spy novels of Ian Fleming. When they requested that Connery take a screen test for the part, he refused, his bull headedness convinced them he was their Bond.

Connery's newfound superstardom left him with a lifelong ambivalence about the role. In time he soured on the physical and psychological toll of the big budget productions, especially the loss of privacy that came along with it. He also got into public feuds with the producers over his salary. On a more positive note, playing Bond allowed Connery to raise his profile in the film industry. He actively sought to establish himself outside of the 007 genre, working with Alfred Hitchcock on Marnie and Sidney Lumet on the 1965 military prison drama The Hill, a movie he often declared his favorite:

Lumet's picture is the first film in Connery's resume which truly distinguishes him from the role of Bond. Despite how intense, loud and expressly colonial it frequently becomes, Lumet's picture is an exercised in contained tension, repression, fury, and failure. (59)

Connery made five films with Lumet, a director who tapped into the darker corners of his personality. 

As Black argues, the murky cultural milieu of the 1970s was mirrored in Connery's post-Bond roles such as the primitive future man in John Boorman's 1974 film Zardoz, an aging Robin Hood in Robin and Marian (1976), and even being game for the campy 1979 disaster movie Meteor. Some of his most popular work from the decade were old fashioned Kipling inspired colonial adventures like The Wind and the Lion and The Man Who Would Be King, both from 1975, films that would be received much differently today. 

In his early 50s, Connery reprised Bond for the 1983 film Never Say Never Again in a strategic choice to revive his career which was stagnating by the early 1980s. Although the film was a mixed bag (considered non-canon), the world welcomed Connery back as a more seasoned 007. Things picked up from then on, culminating with his Oscar winning performance in The Untouchables. His comedic turn as Dr. Henry Jones in Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade delighted audiences and introduced him to a new generation. 

Connery remained an A-lister through the 1990s, playing off his 007 persona in Michael Bay's 1996 blockbuster The Rock. He often took on the role of mentor in films like Finding Forrester (2000) and the two Highlander movies (1986,1991) in which he appeared. In 1990 he starred in two highly acclaimed films about the end of the Cold War: A defecting Soviet submarine commander in The Hunt for Red October and a dissident writer in The Russia House. In 1999, approaching 70, few batted an eye when Connery was paired with much younger female co-star Catherin Zeta-Jones in the heist film Entrapment.

Black avoids Connery's personal life for the most part because it's been covered elsewhere and primarily approaches him as a cultural figure. Neither does the book shy away from the darker aspects of Connery's personality such as problematic statements about women, including accusations of abusive behavior from female co-stars and former partners that would undoubtedly imperil his star status in the current climate. Black writes: 

something about Connery the actor and the man, appealed in an era just before the internet, of social media, of the rapid cultural and political change it would render, and the swift advance of gender identity and women's rights that were never going to square with Connery's image, singed into the minds of multiple generations since Dr. No, of powerful, unashamed alpha maleness (256).

The Cinematic Connery is a valuable contribution to film and cultural studies. In crisp and engaging prose Black offers fresh insights on Connery's most famous roles, but also provides an equal amount of attention to the lesser-known parts and more obscure films. As a symbol of 20th Century masculinity with all its appeal and faults, Connery the movie star will forever be a lens through which to comprehend the era's cinema and culture. Black's thoughtful and well- balanced analysis of Connery will be an excellent resource for fans and film scholars alike. 

Link to the Publisher:

https://www.polarispublishing.com/book/the-cinematic-connery

Where is the Media Revolution Going?

The ways we interact with media has changed considerably the past 70 years and much of it depends on when we were born. Not an original insight, but it does raise a few questions on my mind lately. How do mediums influence the movies/television to come? How do mediums shape one's perception of a good movie or TV show?

Boomers had to work with slim pickings in comparison to the generations to come. Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, a trip to the theater was a major event. And for good reason, missing a theatrical run meant it could be several years before you got the chance to see the movie again. Boomers were also the first to be weaned and shaped by television shows. It was also where many came to know film. Late night broadcasts of classic films or the occasional airing of a classic like The Wizard of Oz on network television. 

While the theatrical experience remained sacrosanct and there were plenty of venues including drive-ins, repertory houses, second run theaters, and in urban centers an endless variety of theaters. Future directors like Spielberg, Lucas, Scorsese have all spoke of formative movie theater experiences and the influence of television on their approach to filmmaking. 

By the end of the 1970s, technology was starting to revolutionize home media viewing. As televisions and sound systems improved in quality, the home experience was enhanced. Betamax and VHS allowed boomers to revisit classics and keep up with the new releases. More importantly, their Gen X children had access to a gigantic slice of film history. Gen X got the best of both worlds: The age of the Blockbuster was in full force alongside malls and roller-skating rinks, while indulging in the VHS bonanza (although viewed in the inferior pan and scan.).

Quentin Tarantino was on the vanguard of the new generation of VHS obsessives working in the video stores with dreams of making movies of their own. On his new podcast The Video Archives he continues to champion the age of VHS by indulging in his eccentric taste in movies. Film twitter often likes to mock what Tarantino considers great cinema, but I think this could speak to age gaps more than anything else. Part of the appeal of VHS was having easy access to exploitation, cult classics, and adult films. The more obscure and strange - the better. That world has vanished. 

Home media innovation continued into the 1990s continues to enhance the home viewing experience. High quality Laserdiscs peaked and paved the way for DVDs, which were smaller and cheaper. The innovation of DVDs brought improved quality and seeing movies in their proper aspect ratio, including extra features like commentary tracks. The rise of the internet would bring with it a brave new world of interacting with media we're still trying to understand. 

You Tube launched in 2005 which made videos easy to access online, while Netflix began offering a streaming service in 2007. In a short time, streaming services branched into creating original programming of their own, ending the era of network programming for good. No longer must one be at home during a certain time to catch a show, empowering the consumer of media.

Having so much access to movies offered on streaming services can create the illusion of endless possibilities. But there is yet no "cloud" where "everything ever made" is available. Far from it. It is likely less films are available to see now than during the height of the VHS era. Movies come and go on streaming services, disappearing into the ether without warning. Consumers have no power on what stays and disappears. 

Another offshoot of streaming is the increasingly niche audience for movies. Any young cinephile can access the Criterion Channel and develop their appreciation of cinema (I once overheard High School kid at bookstore saying Criterion were the only films worth watching) As for myself, a VHS kid, to paraphrase podcaster Lex G, Die Hard and Lethal Weapon 2 were the height of cinema to 11-year old me. Today any 15-year old can be well versed in in Fellini and Bergman or foster any niche entertainment that suits them.

It's become a social media sport to needle boomers (I've done some myself I confess) for many things. Many around my age or younger will scoff at boomers for pushing their culture on the next generation - Rock and Roll is the usual culprit. I never felt that personally. Nostalgia for the '60s did hit a peak during the 1980s and 1990s. From epic and adoring documentaries on rock icons to Oliver Stone's amphetamine fueled historical screeds, the shadow of Vietnam and JFK continued to haunt the culture.

Part of boomer backlash is due to envy. Yes, boomers were born into a period of unprecedented prosperity, college was super cheap, and pandemics were the stuff of Sci-Fi. The sense of accomplishment that comes from a monolithic culture or at least the illusion of it, I think is something that left a void for future generations. Gen Xers could connect through schoolhouse rock references, while Millennials had Harry Potter. But the sense of collective accomplishment seemed elusive. 

Pop Culture is always wedged between embracing the future, while also trying to reclaim the past. Streaming allows anyone with access to create their own media ecosystem. If you wish it were still 1985, you can create the illusion of it. If you're excited about the prospect of a world dragons and fairies, you got it. Creating one's own media ecosystem, a process accelerated by the pandemic, is now a tangible reality. 

Pondering what sorts of movies will come from the streaming generation has enormous potential and drawbacks. A climate of everything being niche may foster a debilitating fragmentation, or a niche movement could become something else entirely. After all, comics and Sci-Fi were viewed as fringe entertainment at one time, but now permeates the culture. Or will it lead to an exhaustion? A baroque parade of Xerox copies of everything that came before. 

Pop culture of the '90s foresaw a 21st Century of virtual reality/interactive media on shows like Wild Palms and movies like The Lawnmower Man. I think in some ways these predictions were not all wrong, we may be halfway there, and streaming has helped it along. Defying reality is a human need (and fatal flaw?), escapism allows the imagination to grow. Many would prefer to be in a different reality and new media experiences may be able to provide it. The social consequences beyond that point become even more speculative. 

Many have written lately about everything being boring - TV, pop music, movies, fashion, cars - something feels off. Coming out of the pandemic and facing a daunting future of political strife and global warming, looking ahead can induce a retreat to escapism for any thinking person. Yet during the Cold War and the threat of nuclear war, low and high art rose to the occasion, looking defiantly into the future in an existential fait accompli. 

One could pick any iconic artist from the cold war era, yes many were flush with privileges and money, unlike today's debt-ridden generation. That's a very real thing not to be dismissed. But neither were they doomscrolling all day or desperately trying to build an instagram following for profit. Social media and influencer culture is a climate ripe for scammers and charlatans, yet at the same time a new zone for creativity and innovation exists in the media landscape. So, the future is unwritten and even as possibilities and expectations feel limited, it's important not to act like it in a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

My Appearance On PARTISAN: Politics & History In Film To Discuss Steven Spielberg's 2005 Film Munich

Recently I appeared on the podcast Partisan: Politics & History in Film hosted by A.J. Black to discuss Steven Spielberg's 2005 film Munich. It was a wide ranging discussion on Spielberg and modern history. Hope you enjoy!

Book Review: Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump by Spencer Ackerman

Spencer Ackerman covered the War on Terror over the past 20 years for The Guardian and other outlets. In Reign of Terror, he argues the post 9/11 era accelerated America's descent into political chaos. The forces of xenophobia and white supremacy reared their head and were mainstreamed into the popular discourse. The aftermath of 9/11 fomented a blowback first felt though interventions abroad and eventually into a deeper reckoning on the home front (or "homeland" to cite the era's rhetorical changes). Reign of Terror is consistently grim but well argued.

The narrative begins with the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the day a white supremacist blew up the city's Federal Building with a truck bomb. In the immediate aftermath the media suspected Middle Eastern terrorists, but when the bomber turned out to be an average looking white guy Gulf War veteran with ties to the militia movements, indicating dark forces alive and well in the heartland. White supremacy fueled the militia movement, and the bombing was an attempt to make their fantasy of igniting a civil war come to pass. The bomber was allowed to stand trial and enjoy his time in prison with full privileges. Non-white terror suspects would receive far different treatment from the authorities (with the exception of Obama era whistle blower Chelsea Manning)

In the post-9/11 era suspected terrorists were rounded up and sent to Guantanamo Bay, held as enemy combatants, and often denied basic human rights. Torture became standard policy and Ackmerman describes in graphic detail the methods pursued by the CIA and the military. While President Bush was careful (except for a few thinking out loud moments) not to implicate all Muslims as jihadists, the era fueled anti-Islamic attitudes of an increasingly xenophobic voting bloc already enraged over the Mexican border and changing demographics in America. Islamophobia would manifest itself in accusations President Obama was an imposter born in Kenya.

No one gets off free. Conservatives quickly figured out how the war could be used to further their political agendas. Liberals barely put up a defense to the new militarism. Out of fear from looking weak in the face of existential threats, most Democrats supported the Iraq War. The author also criticizes President Obama for missing valuable opportunities to reshape foreign policy and end the War on Terror, but the machinery set by the Bush administration was too entrenched for substantial change. Instead, Obama streamlined and widened the war by stepping up surveillance and the use of drones.

In 2016, candidate Trump condemned America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even prompting some gullible pundits to declare him the "peace candidate" opposite Hillary Clinton (generally considered a hawkish liberal). Trump reveled in violent rhetoric and implied the War on Terror needed to be waged with no constraints whatsoever. He spoke of "secret plans" to defeat Isis and labeled all Muslims as the enemy by calling for a ban on all from entering the country. Even more predictable and disturbing was the new populist talking point: liberals must be considered just as dangerous as Isis, or even worse. 

I recall the unrest in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri in response to the police killing Michael Brown. It was an early example of a militarized police force being unleashed on protestors who were demanding racial justice. It was the first sign the War on Terror tactics would be waged on American citizens. During the 2020 protests after of George Floyd's murder, Trump and many Republicans wanted to use the military to jail and brutalize protestors. Homeland Security and ICE agents made their presence known and showed little restraint despite being filmed on I-Phones. Meanwhile, the War on Terror rolled on endlessly.

Reign of Terror is bleak, but well-argued and impassioned. The key to Ackerman's main argument goes back to Susan Sontag's reflection on 9/11 that was published in the New Yorker the week after. Instead of calling for retribution and offering banal statements about American perseverance during challenging times, she called out the country's foreign policy in the Middle East as the main cause of the attacks. Pundits on the left and right denounced Sontag. The Bush administration, with bi-partisan and popular support, chose to pursue vengeance and conflict on the Middle East. Any hint of soul searching or a reconsideration of America's relationship with the world that Sontag advocated for were either ignored or silenced. 

Ackerman offers no alternate paths or solutions, and while I try to avoid criticizing a book for what it's not, considering alternate paths or counterfactuals have their use. No one escapes unscathed. Dissenters to the War on Terror are portrayed as ineffectual. The acidic critique of Obama may be warranted at times, but the political realities the administration faced in 2009 made a total halt to all conflicts untenable. As Obama advisor Ben Rhodes pointed out to Ackerman, what if Obama had ended the War on Terror and it was followed by a cataclysmic terror attack - and then what?

Ackerman's also in the complicated place of being critical towards the National Security State and the populist forces Trump unleashed, who see themselves in opposition to the nefarious "deep state."  The subtext was they wished to take over the deep state and install their own loyalists - and according to a recent article they have a plan in place. The distinction should be spelled out more clearly: one is a dangerous, violent, antidemocratic political movement - the other needs institutional reform and more accountability. 

Ultimately, Reign of Terror provides a coherent and passionate perspective on how the War on Terror damaged the world. The level of destruction wrought by American military power wrought on Asia and Africa left a trail of death and suffering in the millions. The militarization of the police and armed insurgency movements pose serious existential threats to democracy's survival. I would recommend Reign of Terror as a must read for some critical insight on the past 20 years.