Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Words: 0
Since experiencing a bit of conflict over the London bombings, I've mostly found myself wittering solely about my own inconsequentialities. This is partly because it seems more natural in this blog's context, and partly because other people blog about world events so much better. Despite writing about the news for money, here on the blog-sofa I find that I rarely have much I'd consider worth saying. This thing seems to have moulded itself around me in such a way that doesn't allow for it, somehow. I can't grapple with these things from this slumpy position - softened up and relaxed as I am here, taking a break from trying to break everything open with my brain, the only words that come forward are the inadequate ones about how sad and how awful, because that's how I feel about them. I can't get out the sharp tools here - I'm just left with a basic sense of tragedy, with all the arguments and blame and implication screaming away in the background.
I watched a thing last night about Rick Rescorla, security manager of Morgan Stanley who died in the south tower on September 11th having evacuated all but six of the 2000+ employees. He was a Vietnam vet, a lieutenant who hardly lost any of his platoon, but was completely broken up about every soldier who did die under his command. He was a Cornish kid who seemed to be obsessed with becoming an American - he changed his name (from Cyril, so perhaps he might have fancied doing that anyway), took on the accent, eventually went and fought as an American and then lived as one in New York.
It was oddly upsetting to me (American parentage and all) to see how he'd bought so completely into the idea of America, ended up looking like he'd died for it, hailed as an all-American hero. Of course it was what he wanted, and he saved the lives of hundreds of people, and nothing else is of consequence. But it was uncomfortable viewing - it seemed like such a betrayal. He suffered a lot for America by his own choice, participating in its most futile war, and eventually becoming a victim of what he knew damn well was its filthy foreign policy. Just seemed to me that America didn't deserve that kind of adopted loyalty.
I can't say 'America' in that way, though, it isn't literal and it means nothing. It's more than the administration but less than the people, if it's anything, but the ones who suffer for that shorthand perception are the people, which is shit. At least at the moment the delineation between the government and the citizens is clear to the world - the country seems to be united in its condemnation of Bush. He's been neglecting his own people for years, but it's taken the sight of them drowning and starving and shouting for help - and his spectacular failure to give a rat's ass, either in practical or PR terms - to flag that up. I'm too appalled by the situation to do much but gaze and sigh whenever I see the news.
I don't appreciate the way it's being reported, either - the news here is suffering a serious attack of Day Todayism, with all the journalists booming in apocalyptic tones and forming the most embarrassing and inappropriate soundbites. Go on, sink your teeth into the juicy fruitcake of tragedy. "The only survivor of this family - a classically creepy-sad and heartrendingly cheap and perfectly slightly-mangled doll. See how its eyes stare, empty of all hope, like the eyes of the thousands of people here whose lives have literally exploded in a bloody watery mess of tears. Tears - and looting." Bloody news-porn. Making some billowing Lloyd-Webber musical out of it. It's too familiar now, this kind of dramatisation, and too normalised and it intensifies my nagging feeling that news is just more entertainment, just like anything else on TV.
Having said that, it matters rather less how this is reported - the images are speaking for themselves, and people are getting very angry - and rather more how it is dealt with. I'm not anticipating great things. I just hope people are going to be alright, and that Bush is hauled over every coal there is. The despicable cunt.
Lionel Shriver wrote something good in today's Grauniad. I'm reading 'We Need To Talk About Kevin'. It's very good.
I watched a thing last night about Rick Rescorla, security manager of Morgan Stanley who died in the south tower on September 11th having evacuated all but six of the 2000+ employees. He was a Vietnam vet, a lieutenant who hardly lost any of his platoon, but was completely broken up about every soldier who did die under his command. He was a Cornish kid who seemed to be obsessed with becoming an American - he changed his name (from Cyril, so perhaps he might have fancied doing that anyway), took on the accent, eventually went and fought as an American and then lived as one in New York.
It was oddly upsetting to me (American parentage and all) to see how he'd bought so completely into the idea of America, ended up looking like he'd died for it, hailed as an all-American hero. Of course it was what he wanted, and he saved the lives of hundreds of people, and nothing else is of consequence. But it was uncomfortable viewing - it seemed like such a betrayal. He suffered a lot for America by his own choice, participating in its most futile war, and eventually becoming a victim of what he knew damn well was its filthy foreign policy. Just seemed to me that America didn't deserve that kind of adopted loyalty.
I can't say 'America' in that way, though, it isn't literal and it means nothing. It's more than the administration but less than the people, if it's anything, but the ones who suffer for that shorthand perception are the people, which is shit. At least at the moment the delineation between the government and the citizens is clear to the world - the country seems to be united in its condemnation of Bush. He's been neglecting his own people for years, but it's taken the sight of them drowning and starving and shouting for help - and his spectacular failure to give a rat's ass, either in practical or PR terms - to flag that up. I'm too appalled by the situation to do much but gaze and sigh whenever I see the news.
I don't appreciate the way it's being reported, either - the news here is suffering a serious attack of Day Todayism, with all the journalists booming in apocalyptic tones and forming the most embarrassing and inappropriate soundbites. Go on, sink your teeth into the juicy fruitcake of tragedy. "The only survivor of this family - a classically creepy-sad and heartrendingly cheap and perfectly slightly-mangled doll. See how its eyes stare, empty of all hope, like the eyes of the thousands of people here whose lives have literally exploded in a bloody watery mess of tears. Tears - and looting." Bloody news-porn. Making some billowing Lloyd-Webber musical out of it. It's too familiar now, this kind of dramatisation, and too normalised and it intensifies my nagging feeling that news is just more entertainment, just like anything else on TV.
Having said that, it matters rather less how this is reported - the images are speaking for themselves, and people are getting very angry - and rather more how it is dealt with. I'm not anticipating great things. I just hope people are going to be alright, and that Bush is hauled over every coal there is. The despicable cunt.
Lionel Shriver wrote something good in today's Grauniad. I'm reading 'We Need To Talk About Kevin'. It's very good.
