Performance Enhancing Drugs

In case you've been sleeping for the last 42 years, this Sunday the sports/media event known as the Super Bowl takes place. This penultimate football event, which might well be called "normal football on steroids," reminds us of all the media attention paid to the use of performance enhancing drugs in professional sports. Recent news reports of performance enhancing drug use have included sports ranging from track and field to cycling to major league baseball. These reports have focused on the transgressions of individual athletes rather than the significance of sports programming in our television culture and its influence on our attitudes concerning drug use.

From a Media Ecology perspective, it is possible to examine television content as a function of the television medium itself. As a "one to many" medium, American television acts to dictate and reinforce acceptable social norms and behavior. The content of television seems to have fallen by accident into three distinct categories : entertainment, news and advertising. In fact, these broad categories of programming each stake out a different level of social behavior to manage and control.

Advertising: TV ads deal with social versus antisocial behavior on a personal level. Television advertisements are full endorsements of performance enhancing drugs, from Pepto Bismol to Claritin to Viagra. Participation in social events and personal relationships is made possible for the individual by the use of the proper product. Sometimes the performance enhancing claim is subtle, as in ads for "smart" cereals, cold medications or vitamin supplements. Sometimes it is overt, as in ads for male and female fragrances, erectile dysfunction medications or body building shampoos.

Entertainment: Television entertainment shows are chiefly concerned with social versus anti-social behavior on an interpersonal level. The archetypal television program sets up one or more characters who exist at the borderline of social acceptance, whether they are juveniles learning the ropes, clown characters who are unaware or otherwise ignore social norms, or villains who attempt to subvert the existing social equilibrium and replace it with one of their own.

In all instances the depiction of rule breaking and resolution acts to reinforce those rules. In terms of drug usage as a breaking of social rules, Showtime's Weeds stands out in particular, though it tends to deal with the supposed social dynamics of the drug trade rather than the psychodynamics of the drug itself. Otherwise, most TV entertainment discussions of drug use and its consequences are relegated to occasional afternoon specials and to all episodes of House.

News: Television infotainment shows (otherwise known as "News Broadcasts") address this social/anti-social opposition at the public level. Public order is disturbed by rogue political activists, events of nature or common criminals. Though the particular infraction may not have been resolved by the time of the newscast, the very act of reporting frames the event in terms of acceptable and unacceptable behavior. In each case there are implicit or explicit rules which have been broken and then are reaffirmed. These programs are also full of reports about the drug or alcohol induced exploits of our celebrities, individuals whose very notariety hinges on reporting of their latest binges.

Sports: Where do sports broadcasts fit into to the structure of television content? Sports, as the WWF demonstrates each week, are mainly entertainment broadcasts. Sports participants are tightly bound by the rules of the particular sport. While any given standard entertainment program is about the breaking of rules, sports events are about abiding by rules. Each sport has a cadre of referees, line judges or umpires whose sole purpose is to make sure that the rules of the game are strictly adhered to.

In that sense, all sports are totally "made up." That is, the parties involved, no matter how adversarial they may seem, all agree to the set of rules of play. Rules determine what is allowed and what isn't, and ultimately who wins and who loses. What is acceptable or unacceptable behavior varies from sport to sport, but some set of rules always applies. At the same time, the outcome of the sporting event is not determined. The playing of a sport may be entertainment, but the result of that play is news.

This is the problem with sports programming. It is both news and entertainment. It crosses established boundaries of television content. It is a "made up" activity, but not in the same way that a comedy or drama is "made up."

So we have a basic opposition within the content structure presented by American television. On the one hand we have advertisements, where the performance enhancing drugs or products must be used, and on the opposite end we have sports where the performance enhancing drug must not be used. In between we have differing interations of this primary opposition, with entertainment and news content reflecting multiple variations of this use/don't use opposition.

The point is that we aren't concerned with the effect of drug use, or the unfair advantages performance enhancing drugs might give to advertising, entertainment or news personalities. We are concerned with the advantages performance enhancing drugs might give to professional atheletes. In their case, the use of any drug is itself a violation of the rules which state that, though any given athelete might already represent an outlier of norms concerning physical strength and ability, they shouldn't do anything "artificial" to enhance their already considerable talents.

It is not an accident that the way television content is differentiated conforms to Levi-Strauss's Canonical Formula regarding mythology:

fx(a):fy(b)::fx(b):f(a-1)(x)

In this case, the ultimate transformation promoted by corporate television (use our advertisers' products) begins with sports fx(a), the function of which is to avoid performance enhancing drugs, ie, to remain in a "natural" state. Proceeding through analogous functional areas where drug use is largely ignored fy(b) (entertainment) or is a tolerated aberration fx(b)(News), we arrive at the final iteration where the desired state is acceptance of performance enhancing drugs or products as the necessary state of being f(a-1)(x) (advertising).

The uproar created by sport-related drug use is a function of the relative position of sports in the structure of television programming, not the drug use itself.

Spawn of the Terminator

The Terminator franchise finds new worlds to conquer

In the recent TV resurrection of the Terminator trilogy, The Sara Connors Chronicles, we are presented with a new type of Terminator. In the movies we've seen Terminators take the form of muscle-bound body builders, slippery liquid-metal meanies and Fergalicious babes. In the Chronicles the newest terminator comes in the form of a teenage high school waif complete with hall pass. Played by Summer Glau, this pubescent Terminator can kick ass with the best of them, but so far has largely refrained from committing mass slaughter, preferring to slink around the Connors house in the buff (perhaps producing a different kind of mayhem.)

This is the true revelation of this latest attempt to cash in on the Terminator franchise: Terminators can come in any shape or size. In fact, if Chronicles does well in the ratings, we can expect to see the following Terminator spinoffs:

Look Who's Terminating
An infant Terminator appears and no one realizes he's a stone cold killer.

Welcome Back, Terminator
A high school teacher seems too good to be true, and in fact, he is. Gives "Sweat Hogs" a new meaning.

Leave It To Bereaver
Pre-teen high jinx as middle America is infiltrated by a juvenile Terminator. Something really new for Ward and June to worry about each week.

The Beverly Terminators
A group of clueless Terminators moves into a California mansion. First episode: They meet the Governator.

I Love Lucite
Terminators can be solid or liquid, why not plastic? A sort of "I Married a Terminator," as a zany female Terminator performs hilarious slapstick executions with near perfect comedic timing and then has some 'splaining to do.

Of course, none of these scripted shows can begin until the writers strike is settled. In the meantime reality-based Terminator shows will have to fill the gap. Old formats take on new relevance when killer robot-based:

Whose End of the Line Is It Anyway?

Who Wants to be Terminated?

Skynet's Next Top Model

Big Brother

And of course,

Survivor

You get the idea.

On Paul Levinson and the FCC

A contrarian stance on media consolidation points out the failures of our Fourth Estate.

My friend and fellow blog critic Paul Levinson (author of Digital McLuhan, The Soft Edge and more recently The Plot to Save Socrates) has an interesting but seemingly counterintuitive post on his blog, Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress. Under the title “FCC Ends Longstanding Ban on Cross-Ownership: Good!” Levinson applauds the FCC’s recent decision to lift cross ownership rules and allow media companies to own both print and broadcast news outlets in the same market:

So why am I applauding the 3-2 FCC ruling - a great example of even a broken clock being right twice a day?

Two reasons:

1. Media concentration is becoming less of a threat to diversity of communication in the age of the Internet. Plainly, there are many more voices on YouTube and countless other web sites than a decade ago, and the net result is even if every major broadcast medium were owned by the same organization, Americans would still have more variety in communication than ever before. The Obama Girl videos and Ron Paul's candidacy are two examples of profound developments in media that had nothing to do with broadcasting - and, in the case of Ron Paul, was actively opposed by mainstream media.

2. Even more importantly, even were the Web not providing unprecedented diversity in media, the FCC relaxation of ownership standards would be a good thing. The FCC is an affront to the First Amendment, and its injunction that Congress shall make no abridging freedom of speech or press. Much as I dislike media concentration, I see government regulation as a far worse threat to our freedom. You don't bring in a snake (the FCC) to control a rat problem (media concentration) - because, obviously, the snake can then slither around and bite you.

So to summarize Levinson’s argument, the multiplicity of alternate information sources on the internet make cross ownership of traditional media insignificant, and, FCC regulation of media ownership is contrary to the First Amendment anyway.

For those of us who are disciples of Laurence Lessig and Robert McChesney, Levinson’s stance is problematic. Clearly, the current concentration of media ownership is a contributing factor to our dysfunctional political system and quite possibly a key enabler in the attempt of the Republican Party to overthrow the Constitution. What good do First Amendment protections do us if the administration blatantly ignores the Constitution anyway? I also worry about the continuing independence of the Internet. The debate over net neutrality underlines fears that major corporations may find ways to choke off the freedom of the internet, rendering internet diversity moot.

While accepting the validity of these concerns, I think that Levinson has identified a significant trend in our information culture. Whether due to media concentration, “Beltway Village” mentality, or just plain laziness, it is apparent that the majority of our Fourth Estate have not been doing their job. As Stephen Colbert pointed out in his now famous White House Correspondence Dinner address, journalism is not stenography. Political blogs have moved in to fill a void left by the non-functioning traditional media press. At the very least, blog writers have required the traditional media to justify their ineptitude.

In addition, blog authors’ willingness to challenge conventional wisdom and deficient journalism practices has had a positive impact on the current election cycle. Though marginalized by the mainstream media, Presidential wannabees like Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich and Chris Dodd have been able to use the internet to their advantage.

So we arrive at a chicken and egg question. Given current and pending concentration of our traditional mass media, if the internet didn’t exist would it have to be created? Paul Levinson would say “yes.” His theory of “media remediation” suggests that no medium impact is inevitable or irreversible. If the internet didn’t exist, the need to fill the journalism void would have precipitated other responses. Given recent United States history, I am not as sanguine.

I believe that America is on the cusp of a transition from a Republic to an Empire. In times of political crisis, some types of temporary intervention in the normal evolution of media ownership may be necessary. For example, the FCC could issue a temporary ruling restraining media consolidation until the net neutrality issue is resolved.

If we, and not our technology, are ultimately responsible for the health of our media ecology, measured interventions are appropriate.

The Bionic Woman Meets James Joyce

I'm taking a brief respite (or am I giving my readers a brief respite?) from my reviews of past postings to ask an important mass cultural question. In considering this question, I don't mean to give the impression that I watch this particular television program, or any television other than public broadcasting for that matter.



On this week's Bionic Woman, Jaime Sommers attended "Stanwich College" in order to track down a dealer in "neuro control" chips. Jaime pretended to be a neuroscience major, because, after all, anyone can fake expertise in a complex field like neuroscience if they just read a book or two. But that’s not really what bothered me, after all, even Jaime pointed out the impossibility of this.

Jaime’s dorm roommate, a "science expert," is having a problem writing a paper about James Joyce's short story "The Dead." "Oh, that's easy," Jaime says. Then, explaining what's going on in the story, Jaime continues, "Joyce was saying that the dead are all around us and we can't escape them. Almost exactly the opposite of his book, Ulysses, which is all about life and sex and humor." Say what?

The girls agreed to swap homework assignments to play to their strengths. This is okay because Jaime works for a top secret government agency that has her do things a lot worse than cheat on college work. What I want to know though is if anyone besides me disturbed by the fact that the bionic woman wants to be a Joyce scholar? (Disclaimer: I majored in English Literature in college with a concentration in Herman Melville and a minor in Joyce. My senior paper, "Melville's Quarrel With God," still has them rolling in the aisles back at my alma mater.)

You don't have to channel surf very far to find dubious mass media takes on political science, physics, and biology on the one hand, and time travel, paranormal, and extraterrestrials on the other. It's not bad enough that television shows have co-opted all the real and imaginary sciences, now they have to assimilate English literature as well?

Let’s not have television characters portray scholarly aspirations unless they are hunting vampires, navigating through star gates, or enabling Lex Luther to kill Superboy. Let’s keep our clear demarcation between high and low cultures and between super heroics and scholars in residence.

By the way, Jaime Sommers got an "A" on her Joyce paper. James Joyce, who will always be with us, has decided to take a long sea voyage with Herman Melville.

Dan Rather: The Six Million Dollar Newsman

A few thoughts about Dan Rather's heroic (Quixotic?) assault on CBS.

The recent $70M lawsuit brought by Dan Rather against CBS is being billed as a violation of contractual obligations, but it actually stems from a change in broadcast journalism standards that moves the audience's focus from the news story to the news reporter.

I worked at CBS News in the early 1980s when it was tolerated as a cost center but was still the jewel in the corporation’s crown. More specifically, I worked indirectly for Dan Rather as a budget analyst for CBS Reports before it was axed as a non-revenue producing program by new CBS owner Lawrence Tisch. Prior to 1982, the reportage of CBS News was based on a print model where certain standards of journalism were acknowledged, if not always adhered to. Tisch believed the new information environment of broadcast journalism required a subtle (or perhaps not so subtle) change in journalism practices. This is to say that CBS News, under William Paley, aspired to the print model of journalism, while CBS since Lawrence Tisch has adopted broadcast standards that have more to do with ratings than with writings. Along with Rupert Murdoch and other media moguls, Tisch decided to exploit the gap between what the public wanted to know and what the public needed to know.

My son, a graduate of the New York University Film School (formally known as the Tisch School of the Arts - no kidding), recently pointed out to me the differences in the narrative biases of print vs. broadcast media. Print allows the author to create a scene, to develop a narrative based on complex situations and subtle character interactions. Film and broadcast narratives don’t have time for this. Instead, they focus on creating a hero.

Dan Rather, who once was featured on the cover of Time Magazine as CBS News' "Six-Million-Dollar Man," ascended to the CBS anchor chair during this "print to broadcast" transition period. While he almost always tried to stay true to print journalism standards, the pull of broadcast narrative biases was strong. His early work on CBS Reports adhered to the earlier standards of print journalism. His stint as a highly paid anchorman often descended into personal heroics.

Rather once walked off the news set when his time was pre-empted to carry the end of a sporting event. He thought he was making a stand for journalistic standards, but it was generally interpreted as a celebrity hissy-fit. The stress of working under new broadcast assumptions led Rather to end his nightly broadcasts with the admonition "Courage." Compare that with Edward R. Murrow's "Good night and good luck" or Walter Cronkite's "And that's the way it is."

It is ironic, though not unexpected that, in being pilloried by the CBS brass, Rather has followed the path of the hero (see Joseph Campbell) and now returns to tilt at the corporate windmill.

Comments Re: The Problem of Myths

Some reactions to my recent post concerning the similarities between myth and advertising, with my response below:

Duane writes:

I was with you until you got to the part about advertising. I wouldn't necessarily disagree with the basic facts you present, just the sweeping conclusions. You seem to be elevating modern advertising to a level rivaling the oral storytelling culture of the past. I am much too cynical to buy that.

Advertisers are tasked with tapping the human subconscious at the lowest level. They do not provide us with heroic icons or examples of what is truly "good." They often attempt to exploit various emotional insecurities to make a buck. It is a deliberate attempt on their part to create a sense that we are, in one way or another, deficient, and that by shelling out our pay, our perceived deficiencies can be eliminated, or at least covered over.

Successful advertising appeals either to our vanity or to our proclivity for materialism. Images of happy, successful people are presented, which do indeed constitue a trivial form of mythology -- slim waistlines, wrinkle-free foreheads, sleek autos, perfectly functioning nuclear families, full heads of hair, six-pack abs, and so on. These ads speak to us at the most superficial level. By creating a myth of what is "good," we are left feeling inadequate, and break out the checkbook as a means to procure a fix to our insufficent lives. Cynical? Sure. So, while I might accept your central premise that modern advertising creates and conveys modern myths, it tends to direct itself primarily to the weaker aspects of human nature, unlike the ancient myths, which attempted to cover the entire spectrum of human psychology and behavior.

and Ashtoreth writes:

This was an interesting article - and an interesting comment following. I do not agree either that modern advertising constitutes myth, nor that the ancients were simple, nor that structure is more important than content.

Your assertion that advertising, this pseudo myth you name with no sustenance, enables us to live in 'culture not nature' makes me think of the folly of Aristotle and other philosophers who strove to separate man from nature and thus further from the philosophies that grounded truth in nature arguing that we are an intrinsic part and its cycles and mysteries.

Culture is relative and transparent. It can and is transformed, absorbed and washed away. Archetype is not. Myth helps us to deal with the chthonic, when we are dragged into the underworld. An awareness of myth gives us a guideline through the darkness, to embrace it and honor it as a rite of transformation.

It rather sickens me that you could imagine let alone postulate that advertising even touches that. When I faced brain surgery several years ago, I steadied and prepared myself by meditating on the myth of the Babylonian goddess Inanna descending into the underworld to gain the knowledge of life and death; her descent and her return. Do you think advertising had any part in this?

To even suggest this is to trivialize life and human existence. It is to suggest a wasteland, an existential nightmare which would be truly meaningless if it were true, but it is not.

Since the dawn of commerce, people have hawked their wares. That does not make it myth.

Advertising has more in common with brain washing than myth. And with the advent of viral marketing and fake advertising, it becomes even more insideous, deceitful and corrupt in its attempts to override our minds and control our impulses in the direction they want. That is like comparing poison with milk.

When I saw the picture of the first person to purchase an I-phone on the Internet, I knew it was a creation for viral transmission and reaction. The image played on the heroic, but was devoid of it. It hinted at achievement, but had nothing to do with it. It suggested reaching for the extraordinary and for a moment possessing it, but instead described the utmost banality.

The lad was set up to look like he was an Olympic runner clearing the finish line at a race, or perhaps the one carrying the torch representing a sacred flame. If it were not so perverse, it would have been funny. Instead, it represented a fellow making a mockery of all this to purchase an over-priced piece of consumer electronics he did not need that is already yesterday's news.

Perhaps people like yourself would seek to use the elements of myth and archetype to trigger reactions in people to make them hunger to spend money they do not have, digging themselves into servitude to billion dollar corporations who then turn around and tell them to dream smaller, want less, and go carbon-free while they fill up their private jets.

Myth opens the door to connection to that which makes us whole, to what is true and sacred, and which allows us to experience the mysteries of life, death and renewal with dignity and inner power.

Advertising does not do this. Advertising is not myth.

Thank you Duana and Ashtoreth for your comments. You both raise valid objections to my assertions and you point out a key problem with the type of analysis I am attempting.

I must admit that I am torn regarding the place of advertising in our culture. On one hand, I do believe that, with all the focus groups, psychological analyses and cultural “thefts” advertisers coopt to use as regular tools of their craft, they are armed with unique tools to penetrate human consciousness and to master the psychic processes that classical mythology has represented.

On the other hand, my personal reaction mirrors yours, Ashtoreth, in abhorrence of the apparent ends of advertising: to make us more pliant; to make us more materialistic; to render us more self-conscious, not about our moral strengths or shortcomings, but about body odor, physical conformity and social acceptance. This is one reason why, when I earned by MBA I chose not to use it to go into advertising.

However, I think you both may be missing a key point that I’m trying to make. Advertising as technique is separate from advertising as content. Classical myths don’t always teach us how to strive for our higher selves. One could imagine a militaristic, totalitarian society where the mythology promotes violence and genocide. Classical mythology can support the egocentric notion that elevates one society above all others and justifies all kinds of atrocities. Read The Iliad carefully and you will see both men and Gods behave in ways antithetical to our modern sensibilities.

My purpose in discussing advertising is not to critique its apparent ends, but to reveal the nature of its scope and power. I am an optimist, and I believe that while advertising on one level is despicable, on another level, in spite of themselves, advertisers are performing a necessary function in our culture. Beyond notions of physical afflictions, social inequities and personal conformity, advertising provides hope. Hope that there are solutions to our problems, hope that there is an underlying logic to the buzzing, blooming chaos of our mass culture, hope that human beings can prevail against inimical forces of nature. That these hopes are expressed in the form of deodorants, household cleansers and body paints is lamentable. That the purpose of advertisers in their own minds is to make us pliable, insecure and acquisitive is repulsive. But advertising wouldn’t be effective at all, wouldn’t sometimes be powerful and moving, wouldn’t strike so often a “responsive chord,” if it didn’t provide a necessary structure and narrative for our culture.

I have also used Joseph Campbell’s notion of the heroic cyclic to understand incidents in my life and put into context my own personal narrative. I am not disputing the brilliance of his analysis, or its usefulness in comprehending the stories we tell ourselves. I think that there is a deeper level to mythology, that for mythic tales to survive at all over time they must correlate to fundamental intellectual processes.

We can debate whether advertising is benign or malignant. What I am calling attention to is its deeper structure and offering a possible analysis for why it persists in our culture at all.

Culture vs. Nature: Women and Advertising in the New Media

As the new media liberate traditional advertising, women may want to reevaluate their roles.

It may seem that economic factors and competition from new media are forcing advertisers to reevaluate how to get their messages across; to engage in product placement and other tricks to penetrate the clutter. In fact this is just the tail wagging the dog. It has always been inevitable that the "content" what we call "ads" would move from the confines of the 15 or 30 seconds spaces between the old content presented by traditional electronic media or the column inches of traditional print media to become involved in every aspect of our lives. Advertising in general wrestles with the same types of concerns that structural anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss discerned in the mythology of "primitive" South American Indians. That is, in a context relevant to our modern sensibilities, ads are really dealing with an opposition between nature and culture. In doing so, they provide structure to our lives, disseminate guidelines for how to look and feel, and mandate what rituals to perform to be fully human.

Think about how the average person in Homeric Greece related to The Iliad or The Odyssey. These performance/poems weren't just the "literature" of Greek culture, separate from the general experience. As Eric Havelock, Marshall McLuhan and others have pointed out, The Iliad and The Odyssey constituted cultural how-to manuals, presenting the proper ways for Greek men and women to conduct ceremonies, the proper relationship of Greeks toward their gods and the proper things to believe about just about everything in their world. Claude Lévi-Strauss added that such cultural encyclopedias reconcile or deny the inevitable contradictions within a culture. By doing so, they promote well-being and peace of mind of the members of the culture.

We still can't see that modern advertising, in all its manifestations, performs the same functions in our modern culture that The Iliad and The Odyssey performed in ancient Greece, or that the tales about frogs and honey bees and jaguars performed for native South Americans. In doing so, advertising explains and reconciles the contradictions that must inevitably exist in the lexicon of a complex culture, or deny that those contradictions exist. To help better grasp this concept, I’d like to ask the following question: Why do women in our culture wear makeup?

One response is that our culture still distinguishes men from women along a culture/nature opposition. The religious and scientific stories of our culture tell us that as human beings we are outside or above the constraints of the natural world. At the same time we come into this world through childbirth, we get sick, we age and die, we suffer from various bodily afflictions. How do we reconcile this contradiction?

Lévi-Strauss cites an instance where an anthropological field investigator asks his native informant why his people apply so many tattoos to their bodies. "Because we are not animals" is the reply. They complete the transition from nature to culture, they make themselves cultural beings rather than natural ones, via tattoos and the fact that they are not within nature makes them want to do so. The implication is that they distinguish themselves from the natural order by decorating their skin.

What I am suggesting is that when women apply makeup they are doing the same thing. They are making themselves into cultural beings. By applying a corporate (meaning collective) mask, women tap into a source of collective power. Men don't need to wear makeup because they are, by definition, already cultural. Of course, much advertising operates along this borderline, and because both men and women buy their products, advertisers pitch to both sexes. Ads say “If you have a problem with a bodily function (i.e. nature) we have a cultural product that can help.”

This also applies to sexual attraction. In order to attract a mate both men and women have to look sharp by applying proper grooming aids, and smell sharp by applying proper perfumes, but women must go much further. They must color and condition their hair. They must paint their eyes, their lips and their faces. They must remove hair from inappropriate places on their bodies. Ads never discuss (beyond the obvious sexual claims) why they must do this, only how.

What is an advertisement in a new media web site? Is it presenting a narrative, like television advertising, or is it evoking a response through a still image, like print advertising? The answer is probably both and neither. Banner ads on a web site try to be TV commercials or they try to be print ads and yet they aren’t really either. This is a prime illustration of Marshall McLuhan's assertion that we are numb to the true impact of our media. By shifting the communication paradigm, the new media allow advertising myths to burst out of the confines of the traditional media. While the new media sorts itself out, the advertising of the old media breaks out and becomes the content of our everyday lives. As the mythic avatars of our culture, advertising icons want to insinuate themselves into every aspect of our lives, and we subconsciously want them to do so.

Our collective body of advertising defines what is cultural and what is natural, and offers concise advice on how we can best exist in culture rather than nature. This collective resource, acting as a sort of cultural encyclopedia, performs the same function in our age that the Homeric epics performed in classical Greece. The new media are taking our existing cultural encyclopedia and transforming it into a wikipedia. How this transformation affects our social institutions, our belief structures and our notions concerning gender remains to be seen.

Rise and Fall of a Constitutional Democracy: The United States

The United States can't be conquered by military invasion or technological devastation. It can be conquered by an idea.

While it may be true that the United States can never be defeated by an external foe, the neo-con Republicans have demonstrated how it can be conquered internally. These Republicans are truly radicals, not conservatives, who favor a unitary executive over checks and balances. The current administration's neo-cons seem to have failed in their attempts to subvert the United States Constitution and institute a 1000 year reign. Next time they may succeed.

How to overthrow the Republic

Neo-cons have demonstrated the several areas that must be controlled in order to take over our Constitutional government. Among these are:

1. Subvert the news media: It is clear that the major media outlets, and their journalists and editors, have been compromised in various ways. Not only have they become self-editing, but also the administration is adept at playing the news cycles. News organizations focused on the bottom line have closed overseas bureaus, cut experienced staff, depleted research resources and pandered to the gossip mongers. Without a truly adversarial Fourth Estate, this administration has led us into war, politicized public agencies, committed any number of felonies and thumbed their noses at the other branches of government.

2. Stack the courts with anti-Constitutional judges: This is not an issue of left or right or conservative or progressive. This is an issue of upholding and defending the Constitution, as it was intended by the Founding Fathers. Republican appointees who put party above the Constitution allow the Republic to fail.

3. Distract the public: This may be contingent on #1. The main stream media fill their airwaves and pages with non-news trivia. These modern bread and circus pageants distract the population from understanding and pursuing the own best interests.

4. Cripple the military: The Iraq adventure has accomplished two key things. It has severely stretched our professional military and it has depleted our national guard resources, both in manpower and material. It has also allowed the creation of a large private army that is loyal to their corporations ahead of their country. The Romans had their Praetorian Guards. We have Blackwater.

Another unintended consequence of the occupation in Iraq is the filtering of any senior military opposition to the administration's agenda. Military yes-men have risen to the top, the naysayers have taken early retirement.

5. Weaken the middle class: With more of us scrambling to meet our financial obligations, fewer of us have sufficient time to devote to investigating political wrongdoing and participating in its correction.

6. Game the political process: Republicans have been adept at filling local election positions with those key players who can help stack the deck in their favor. Control of local election oversight positions has been used to influence election rules, purge voter lists and swing close contests to their party. Districts have been gerrymandered to ensure reelection of the incumbent.

The current takeover attempt has failed due to corruption and incompetence spread throughout all three branches of our government. It isn't too hard to imagine a future in which a more competent, less corrupt cabal of political radicals succeeds where their predecessors failed. The blueprint for a future successful takeover of the United States has already been created for them.

Our contemporary neo-cons have succeeded in introducing the idea that the our Constitutional form of government can be subverted from within. When future historians attempt to pinpoint exactly when the United States ceased being a constitutional democracy, they could do no better than to choose 2007. This is when the seeds were planted that led to the end of the American Republic and the beginning of the American empire.

You heard it here first.

On Jay Rosen's "A Blog is a Little First Amendment Machine"

Main stream media journalists are about to be blogged to death.

I would like to call attention to a piece written by New York University professor Jay Rosen in today's Huffington Post, "A Blog is a Little First Amendment Machine," where he discusses the impact that journalistic blogging has had on the main stream media, and the potential it has to set a new agenda for newsgathering in the future. Rosen writes:

The most famous words ever written about freedom of the press are in the U.S. Constitution: "Congress shall make no law..." But the second most famous words come from the critic A.J. Liebling: "freedom of the press belongs to those who own one." Well, freedom of the press still belongs to those who own one, and blogging means practically anyone can own one. That is the Number One reason why blogs--and this discussion--matter.

With blogging, an awkward term, we designate a fairly beautiful thing: the extension to many more people of a free press franchise, the right to publish your thoughts to the world. Wherever blogging spreads the dramas of free expression follow. A blog, you see, is a little First Amendment machine.

Rosen notes that the blog "Firedoglake" showed up the MSM at the Scooter Libbey trial, and showed everyone else how real journalism is done:

Firedoglake got handed a golden opportunity by the reluctance of big news organizations to spend money on the information commons. At the Libby trial, there was no broadcast, no taping allowed. No posted transcript for anyone to consult. Thus the most basic kind of news there is--what was said in court today--was missing.

Converging on Washington, the team from Firedoglake felt they represented people back home who wanted to know everything. And so they decided to live blog the trial. Typing at fast as they could, they produced the only blow-by-blow account of the trial available to the public. They also provided expert interpretation because they knew more about the case than most of those being paid to cover it. In fact journalists covering the trial began to rely on Firedoglake's accounts because it had the most complete coverage.

Although I have used the blog format to publish rich media-based papers (See "The Savage Mind on Madison Avenue" and "The Heart of the Matter" through the links above), blogging, so far, is largely an analog for text-based print media. Many bloggists, like Joshua Micah Marshall over at Talking Points Memo, have experimented with reporting via video inserts in their blogs. While interesting in its attempt to incorporate rich media, the blog remains largely print-oriented. I can imagine a new type of blog coming along at some point in the near future that combines the best parts of traditional blogging with YouTube and Facebook.

A number of years ago Apple Computer produced a think piece about what the computing experience of the future might be like. A man enters an office that contains a leather-bound book on a desk. There are no wires, no keyboard or monitor. The man opens the book to reveal a fully interactive touch screen. A small "personal assistant" (I think he was called an “avatar”) appears on the screen to inform him that he has messages and to assist with whatever tasks he needs to perform. Though obviously animated, the avatar represents a realistic CGI depiction of a small human being. All interaction initially is through speech, although the man is able to call up a chart and change its contents, both by spoken words and by touching the screen. The personal assistant could also call any real person the man wanted to talk to, and he or she would appear, in video, on his book-screen. I don't know if this short film has found its way to YouTube. If anyone has seen it, please let me know.

I think the future of blogging lies along a similar path. Most blogs are conveyed by writing now, but blogging will be delivered by speech and pictures in the future. The cost barriers to producing video continue to fall, and the capability to produce professional quality work is being honed on YouTube as we speak.

If my vision of the blogging future is correct, it suggests certain dangers. As Neil Postman noted, it is the nature of television (that is, image and sound communication as opposed to print communication) to degrade news reporting and political discourse to the point that we are "amusing ourselves to death." For example, it is the height of irony that critics of Al Gore’s Assault on Reason still focus on his manner and appearance rather than his argument. If increased bandwidth and transmission speeds allow bloggists to emulate the output of the broadcast media, what will prevent them from following the same path?

Rosen notes that in blogging there is strength in numbers:

On March 20th of this year, the Justice Department released 3,000 pages of documents to the House Judiciary Committee, which was investigating why a group of seven federal prosecutors were fired last year, a scandal that continues to make headlines today. Over at TPM Muckraker.com, a investigative site started by the political blogger Josh Marshall, the guys who work for Marshall were wondering how they were going to sort through those 3,000 pages to see if any clues turned up. And then they realized: "We don't have to. Our readers can help."

The Judiciary Committee had put the document dump online in the form of PDF files. And so Marshall's guys asked readers to pick a PDF and read through the documents. "If you find something interesting (or damning), then tell us about it in the comment thread below," they wrote. Readers finished in a day or two and made some intriguing finds. The significance is obvious: potentially hundreds or thousands of hands available to work on a single story.

This is the “open source” approach to journalism research. Blogging reverses the media flow from "one to many" into "many to one." Blogging in the future may also incorporate aspects of video conferencing, with real time content delivery and response. This ability will allow the blogging information commons to emulate the give-and-take environment that Postman lauds in the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Conversations won’t be limited to 30 or 60 minute timeslots, and all participants will have the ability to post questions and get responses. Instant recall of any video or audio piece from the internet "memory well" will hold speakers accountable for what they say and do and what they have said and have done.

As a bloggist myself, I heartily agree with Rosen's assessment. The main stream media doesn't know what's hitting them and when their reading and viewing public disappears almost entirely, they will still be scratching their heads in consternation and wonder.