Monday, July 31, 2006

Power Without, Rot Within, is Without Power

It will not be a longue duree, at all, this time MFT.
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4 comments:

Tecumseh said...

If you watch the grisly U.S. network coverage of any global sporting event, you've no doubt who your team's meant to be: If there are plucky Belgian hurdlers or Fijian shotputters in the Olympics, you never hear a word of them on ABC and NBC; it's all heartwarming soft-focus profiles of athletes from Indiana and Nebraska. The American media have no problem being ferociously jingoistic when it comes to the two-man luge.

Yes, this is all true -- and that's why I stopped watching, a long time ago (certainly by the Los Angeles Olympics, in 1984) such events on TV.

Yet, when it's a war, there is no "our" team, not on American TV. Like snotty French ice-dancing judges, the media watch the U.S. skate across the rink and then hand out a succession of snippy 4.3s -- for lack of Miranda rights in Fallujah, insufficient menu options at Gitmo.

Again, all true -- and that's why I stopped watching, a long time ago such events on TV, with just a few exceptions.

7/31/2006 9:17 AM
Arelcao Akleos said...

So true, AI....and I have followed you off of the Olympic games. As for war, my brief access to telly has come to an end, and so could not help but follow you--as regards tv. Of course, today, there is the internet, and with it no need to be a prisoner of the stupidities of the MSM.

7/31/2006 3:49 PM
Tecumseh said...

Yes. But you know how human nature is -- one still remembers fondly the good old days. I watched my first Olympics on a black-and-white, dinky little TV -- the year was 1960, the place was Rome. There were some amazing moments -- Bikila Abebe, Iolanda Balas, Cassius Clay -- and absolutely no commercials, just the sports, ma'am. We've come a long way, baby.

As for wars, I don't think it's a good idea to watch them, at least not in real time. This is no spectator sport -- rather, war is hell, as the man said. But I must confess I did watch on TV the push up from Kuwait all the way to Baghdad in March-April 2003. But pretty much no more TV since then.

7/31/2006 5:26 PM
My Frontier Thesis said...

AA, the longue duree has been going, as I said, since 635. It hasn't stopped. There's continuity throughout, with Jihad spanning from then to now. Saying that "it will not be a longue duree...this time" is an impossible statement. Unless you're going Foucault on me?

8/02/2006 4:17 PM

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