Saturday, November 12, 2011
PBS
Once upon a time I had the impression that PBS was a more or less center-left outfit. Appealing to would-be intellectuals and a cultured citizenry, and whose mandate, I assumed, was to cultivate an aware and educated viewer. I always thought that Robin McNeil set the tone for the thoughtful, humanistic, vaguely "liberal" (as in liberal arts) sentiment that pervaded PBS.
Of course, that was before the CPB was taken over by Republicans during the Buzsh Administration, and PBS was perennially threatened with draconian funding cuts, and when PBS went on the defensive and morphed into, essentially, FOX light. During those dark days when war mongers Donald Rumsfeld and Zbigniew Brzezinski were treated as honored guests, when Bill Moyers was the subject of an inquisition and subsequently canned, I wrote to PBS saying that as a long time contributor, PBS could henceforth count me out; that after some 25 years I no longer cared to watch the News Hour or anything it broadcast except perhaps the occasional "Frontline" (to its credit, I actually received a polite reply). But henceforth the News Hour no longer was must see tv.
And now this Paul Solmon piece that promotes what Jeffrey Brown called a 'contrarian view' to the issues raised by We the 99%ers (i.e., We the People). That Paul Solmon let pass Robert Lerman's specious claim that "inequality creates an incentive..." was bad enough, but to perpetuate a quote that Lerman claims issued from President Lincoln but is entirely specious crossed the line of jounalistic integrity.
Please, do yourself a favor and read the comments at FAIR: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4424 If "The News Hour" has a shred of journalistic decency it will follow the recomendations in this piece and issue a correction, and a disclaimer. That viewers were not informed that "Epstein is also a director at Global Economics Group, a corporate consulting firm that advises on issues like financial regulation and employment law." A minor point, no doubt, unless corporations are precisely what is wrong with America. In which case it presents a fundamental challange.
Should "The News Hour" on PBS permit a long debunked, mis-attributed to Abraham Lincoln quote to be used to justify and/or 'rationalize' a position contrary to that taken by #OWS and We the 99%ers is simply unacceptable.
Indeed; the very idea that Solmon as a PBS investigative reporter would present a spokesman who holds a position contrary to that of We the People as merely the other side in an argument is unacceptable. 99 People versus 1 person is not good odds if you're the one versus all the rest of Us. Seriously, what can 'you' say to justify robbing the Poor to pay the Rich? Indeed, what a corporation says is merely advertizing. What other possible 'avenue' of SPEECH can a corporation pay for?
Oh, dang, totally forgot the SCOTUS decision of
The patent falsehood that the 1%ers are the 'job creators' is a position taken by imbicils such as Paul Ryan and the GOP know-nothings who have signed no tax pledges, believe that Evolution and climate change are myths, and somehow claim to justify the fact that wages for the 99% of Us have stagnated for the past 30 years while the richest have enjoyed unprecedented tax breaks and income growth.
Of course, that was before the CPB was taken over by Republicans during the Buzsh Administration, and PBS was perennially threatened with draconian funding cuts, and when PBS went on the defensive and morphed into, essentially, FOX light. During those dark days when war mongers Donald Rumsfeld and Zbigniew Brzezinski were treated as honored guests, when Bill Moyers was the subject of an inquisition and subsequently canned, I wrote to PBS saying that as a long time contributor, PBS could henceforth count me out; that after some 25 years I no longer cared to watch the News Hour or anything it broadcast except perhaps the occasional "Frontline" (to its credit, I actually received a polite reply). But henceforth the News Hour no longer was must see tv.
And now this Paul Solmon piece that promotes what Jeffrey Brown called a 'contrarian view' to the issues raised by We the 99%ers (i.e., We the People). That Paul Solmon let pass Robert Lerman's specious claim that "inequality creates an incentive..." was bad enough, but to perpetuate a quote that Lerman claims issued from President Lincoln but is entirely specious crossed the line of jounalistic integrity.
Please, do yourself a favor and read the comments at FAIR: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4424 If "The News Hour" has a shred of journalistic decency it will follow the recomendations in this piece and issue a correction, and a disclaimer. That viewers were not informed that "Epstein is also a director at Global Economics Group, a corporate consulting firm that advises on issues like financial regulation and employment law." A minor point, no doubt, unless corporations are precisely what is wrong with America. In which case it presents a fundamental challange.
Should "The News Hour" on PBS permit a long debunked, mis-attributed to Abraham Lincoln quote to be used to justify and/or 'rationalize' a position contrary to that taken by #OWS and We the 99%ers is simply unacceptable.
Indeed; the very idea that Solmon as a PBS investigative reporter would present a spokesman who holds a position contrary to that of We the People as merely the other side in an argument is unacceptable. 99 People versus 1 person is not good odds if you're the one versus all the rest of Us. Seriously, what can 'you' say to justify robbing the Poor to pay the Rich? Indeed, what a corporation says is merely advertizing. What other possible 'avenue' of SPEECH can a corporation pay for?
Oh, dang, totally forgot the SCOTUS decision of
The patent falsehood that the 1%ers are the 'job creators' is a position taken by imbicils such as Paul Ryan and the GOP know-nothings who have signed no tax pledges, believe that Evolution and climate change are myths, and somehow claim to justify the fact that wages for the 99% of Us have stagnated for the past 30 years while the richest have enjoyed unprecedented tax breaks and income growth.
Friday, November 11, 2011
From Baron Mind
Thirty Signs That You're a Teabagger
/> 1. You’re offended at any suggestion that the Tea Party is racist, even though nobody objects when people show up at your rallies with blatantly racist signs and slogans.
2. Ronald Reagan is your hero because he was against raising taxes and big government, even though while in office Ronald Regan raised taxes 11 times, doubled the national debt, and tripled the size of government.
3. You mocked Nancy Pelosi for getting emotional when she reflected on the murder of her friend, Mayor George Mosconi, but you think it’s manly when John Boehner blubbers when he watches reruns of Flipper.
4. You were all in favor of George Bush bringing “Democracy” to Iraq by invading and killing hundreds of thousands of women and children, but you think Obama “blew it” by staying out of it when the people of Tunisia and Egypt toppled their dictators in popular revolts [ditto, now for Libya]
5. You think Climate Change is a big hoax because Senator James Inhofe, who is firmly in the pocket of the oil companies, says it’s bogus.
6. You think president Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery, and that he managed to fool the CIA, FBI, NSA, Secret Service and the entire US government archive of documents with one Photoshopped image.
7. You think President Obama is a socialist, because he wants all Americans to pay their share of taxes, including the rich and the large corporations, and because Obama wants all Americans to enjoy the same benefits of an equitable society, including the same
healthcare that Congress enjoys.
8. You think Glenn Beck’s theory of a Code Pink/Muslim/ Communist alliance conspiracy to take over the world in a 21st Century caliphate makes perfect sense.
9. You believe the Citizens United decision was all about corporate “free speech,” yet you’re against the Fairness Doctrine being reenacted, because you think it’s contrary to “free speech.”
10. You are absolutely pro-life, under all circumstances — except when an abortion doctor is executed in his church, because he asked for it; or when an innocent man is executed by lethal injection because the DNA testing of evidence which would have exonerated him is “too expensive”.
11. You thought it was cool when Sarah Palin “targeted” Democratic seats on her website with crosshairs, including Gaby Giffords; but when Giffords was shot in Arizona, you didn’t see any connection.
12. You think Sarah Palin would make a good president because she’s a feisty conservative, but that Diane Feinstein should be run out of town because she’s a feisty liberal.
13. You think George Soros, a Hungarian born American citizen, is an enemy of freedom because he uses his vast wealth to meddle in foreign affairs; but you think it’s great that Rupert Murdoch, an Australian citizen, uses his vast wealth to meddle in American affairs and it’s even better when the Koch brothers use their billions to swing elections for Tea Partiers.
14. The main reason you despise George Soros, is because he helped bring down three foreign governments; the Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, and Soviet Georgia – three communist regimes. Ronald Reagan on the other hand, took down one democratically- elected socialist regime: Grenada. Reagan: 1, Soros: 3. Ergo, Soros is an un-American commie. Besides, Sean Hannity said so.
15. You think being a Teabagger makes you more patriotic than liberals, because you own more guns than them wussies.
16. You screamed bloody murder when president Obama rescued GM and Chrysler, because they were “going to fail anyway’; but now that both companies are on the road to recovery and are once again profitable, you think George W. Bush deserves most of the credit.
17. When Barack Obama was sworn in, the Dow Jones was at 6500. Today, it’s at 12,400, almost double where it was. At that time Obama was sworn in, the economy was shedding 700,000 jobs per month, a trend that has been arrested and reversed ever since. From that, you deduce Obama’s the one who wrecked the economy.
18. You still believe Saddam had WMDs.
19. You are dead-set against “judicial activist” judges, but you were okay with it when the five conservative justices of the Supreme Court voted in favor of Citizens United, effectively guaranteeing our politicians will be bought by the highest bidder, rather than elected by the people.
20. You’re strongly opposed to gay rights, because you claim it’s not biblical. Except in the case of Ken Mehlman, Mary Cheney, and Ted Haggard, because they still vote “right” on the issues.
21. You want all illegal immigrants rounded up and deported, ASAP, no exceptions, PERIOD; but you don’t want any criminal charges filed against the corporations that have been hiring them en masse in violation of law.
22. One of your stated concerns with Barack Obama’s candidacy, was that he was too inexperienced for the job, yet you want Sarah Palin, a first-time governor who quit halfway through her term, to challenge him next year.
23. You hate tax cheats, and people who abuse their status for personal advancement — but you admire Clarence Thomas, and have no problem with his wife “speaking on behalf of her husband” at the Heritage Foundation, a far right-wing organization.
24. You went ballistic when an illegal immigrant murdered an American in Texas two years ago, and you demanded justice. But when three members connected to the Tea Party murdered nine-year old Brisenia Flores in cold blood, you and your right-wing media barely even mentioned it, nor the conviction.
25. You equate being a “community organizer” to being a Marxist, yet you claim to worship a God whose entire life was being a community organizer.
26. You claim Barack Obama is soft of terrorism and that he’s sympathetic to Muslim extremists; yet during his first two years in office, his administration captured or killed more terrorists than George Bush did in all eight years of his presidency.
27. You cheered as Andrew Breitbart and his faux journalists brought down ACORN. But when Breitbart got caught doctoring footage of Shirley Sherrod, which brought into question his veracity, you accused Shirley Sherrod of waging a “race war.”
28. You support Israel’s policies regarding the West Bank and Gaza, because Israel is a democracy, like us; but when Arabs democratically voted in anti-American and anti-Israeli governments, it bewildered you.
29. Your spiritual hero, the Grande Dame of the conservative movement, is Ayn Rand, the dedicated anti-socialist; yet conveniently overlook the fact that in later years, Ayn Rand had no problem secretly cashing in on social security and Medicare [and was an avowed atheist].
30. You still think fascism and socialism are the same thing, because Glenn Beck has convinced you of that with his magic blackboard. This way, nobody can accuse you of being similar to the Nazis… even though you are.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Tomgram: Bill McKibben, Chamber of Carbon Posted by Bill McKibben at 9:58am, February 22, 2011.
Consider it a tale of two speeches and a grim parable for our American moment.
On March 24, 2010, Treasury Department Deputy Secretary Neil Wolin arrived for his lunchtime speaking slot at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's impressive headquarters, a short walk from the Treasury building and the White House. When his time came, Wolin strode onstage and, before hundreds of its members, tore into the chamber and its policies. As an organization, it was dishonest and "backward," he said. An ongoing three-million-dollar lobbying campaign was not intended to bolster badly needed financial reforms on Wall Street, as claimed, but "designed to defeat them."
A stunned audience mustered only the weakest of applause. At the time, there was no love lost between the White House and the chamber. Later that fall, with the help of a crucial Supreme Court decision, the group would act on that animosity, spending a million in the 2010 midterms and ushering in the biggest Republican landslide in generations.
Fast forward to Barack Obama's address to the chamber earlier this month. The president's appearance was cast as an “olive branch,” an attempt to smooth over a tumultuous relationship. It lived up to the billing. "I’m here in the interest of being more neighborly,” Obama began. “Maybe if we would have brought over a fruit cake when I first moved in, we would have gotten off on a better foot. But I’m going to make up for it.”
The toughest the president got was when he pled with the chamber's corporate membership to "get in the game" and use trillions of dollars of reserves piled up in the worst of times for American workers to create much-needed jobs.
No one should be surprised that the Obama administration is now trying to buddy up with the chamber, not after the Democrats' historic "shellacking" last November and the president’s subsequent mad dash to court corporate America big time. But make no mistake: Even were the White House to get down on its proverbial knees and beg the chamber for mercy, it would only embolden that organization when it comes to its make-life-easy-for-monster-corporations positions on issues like climate change (a figment of the liberal imagination), reforming Wall Street (don’t even think about it), and limiting corporate campaign spending (never!).
*********************************************
Wow, that final image was truly pathetic. Since when is groveling before a bully the best option? The President groveling at the feet of the Corporatocracy so that they/it would have mercy on him, or some such? Truly disturbing. The President having to ‘court’ Big Business with hat in hand? I don’t remember any other President humbly having to mend fences with the US Chamber of Commerce. Not in my lifetime. Eisenhower, Clinton? The notion is absurd. Who the fuck is in charge here?
Obama is never going to get ‘off on a better foot.’ Hell, he isn’t even on the same side of the Tracks as these masters of the universe. And despite his academic cred no one cares what he has to say. He’s the mistake President who somehow slipped in. That Barack Obama is a ‘colored’ guy is at the very heart of what motivates Birthers and Teabaggers and John Birchers and all the rest. And it is no mere coincidence that the infamous John Birch Society is enjoying a new found acceptance; praise the Lord!!
Fred C. Koch is a Bircher. As a result, “…the John Birch Society is no longer banished; it is listed as one of about 100 co-sponsors of the 2010 CPAC.” [http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2010/02/farright-john-birch-society-2010.html]
I mean, when I was a teenager, these were right wing demented racist hawks. I thought they were as anti-American as the KKK or, later, skinhead neo-Nazis (cf, the 1998 movie, “American History X”). Just ugly, stupid fanatics.
The down and out workers who should have directed their resentments against the boss man, instead lashed out against the niggers and wops and spics and kikes - the only group beneath them in the social and financial order - the racial or ethnic other. Kill ‘em all is their unspoken motto. And short of that, disenfranchise them, marginalize them, oppose them by whatever means.
And these are the knuckleheads now gaining political momentum? Gaining a foothold and moving more broadly into politics to influence our Government? Seriously? And via a John Bircher supported PAC called the Tea Party?
The Republican governor of Wisconsin who takes calls from an avowed member of the John Birch Society as if it were a call from the Pope? The analogy is strained, but, nonetheless, that’s the essence. Why would any government official kowtow to a John Bircher? Or accept the maximum campaign contribution from one? Isn’t it like taking the call from some filthy rich Grand Poobah of the KKK or Aryan Nation who contributed to the election and letting him know how things are going with the unruly parasites that leach off the government?
Crazed insular xenophobic types who belong to the KKK, the John Birch Society, Aryan Nation, Hell’s Angels, whatever, are sociopaths. Probably psychotic to some degree. Certainly filled with hatred. That’s what I always thought.
And this asshole governor takes a call from one of them and updates him on how his standoff against the public employees is progressing.
Unbelievable.
Consider it a tale of two speeches and a grim parable for our American moment.
On March 24, 2010, Treasury Department Deputy Secretary Neil Wolin arrived for his lunchtime speaking slot at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's impressive headquarters, a short walk from the Treasury building and the White House. When his time came, Wolin strode onstage and, before hundreds of its members, tore into the chamber and its policies. As an organization, it was dishonest and "backward," he said. An ongoing three-million-dollar lobbying campaign was not intended to bolster badly needed financial reforms on Wall Street, as claimed, but "designed to defeat them."
A stunned audience mustered only the weakest of applause. At the time, there was no love lost between the White House and the chamber. Later that fall, with the help of a crucial Supreme Court decision, the group would act on that animosity, spending a million in the 2010 midterms and ushering in the biggest Republican landslide in generations.
Fast forward to Barack Obama's address to the chamber earlier this month. The president's appearance was cast as an “olive branch,” an attempt to smooth over a tumultuous relationship. It lived up to the billing. "I’m here in the interest of being more neighborly,” Obama began. “Maybe if we would have brought over a fruit cake when I first moved in, we would have gotten off on a better foot. But I’m going to make up for it.”
The toughest the president got was when he pled with the chamber's corporate membership to "get in the game" and use trillions of dollars of reserves piled up in the worst of times for American workers to create much-needed jobs.
No one should be surprised that the Obama administration is now trying to buddy up with the chamber, not after the Democrats' historic "shellacking" last November and the president’s subsequent mad dash to court corporate America big time. But make no mistake: Even were the White House to get down on its proverbial knees and beg the chamber for mercy, it would only embolden that organization when it comes to its make-life-easy-for-monster-corporations positions on issues like climate change (a figment of the liberal imagination), reforming Wall Street (don’t even think about it), and limiting corporate campaign spending (never!).
*********************************************
Wow, that final image was truly pathetic. Since when is groveling before a bully the best option? The President groveling at the feet of the Corporatocracy so that they/it would have mercy on him, or some such? Truly disturbing. The President having to ‘court’ Big Business with hat in hand? I don’t remember any other President humbly having to mend fences with the US Chamber of Commerce. Not in my lifetime. Eisenhower, Clinton? The notion is absurd. Who the fuck is in charge here?
Obama is never going to get ‘off on a better foot.’ Hell, he isn’t even on the same side of the Tracks as these masters of the universe. And despite his academic cred no one cares what he has to say. He’s the mistake President who somehow slipped in. That Barack Obama is a ‘colored’ guy is at the very heart of what motivates Birthers and Teabaggers and John Birchers and all the rest. And it is no mere coincidence that the infamous John Birch Society is enjoying a new found acceptance; praise the Lord!!
Fred C. Koch is a Bircher. As a result, “…the John Birch Society is no longer banished; it is listed as one of about 100 co-sponsors of the 2010 CPAC.” [http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2010/02/farright-john-birch-society-2010.html]
I mean, when I was a teenager, these were right wing demented racist hawks. I thought they were as anti-American as the KKK or, later, skinhead neo-Nazis (cf, the 1998 movie, “American History X”). Just ugly, stupid fanatics.
The down and out workers who should have directed their resentments against the boss man, instead lashed out against the niggers and wops and spics and kikes - the only group beneath them in the social and financial order - the racial or ethnic other. Kill ‘em all is their unspoken motto. And short of that, disenfranchise them, marginalize them, oppose them by whatever means.
And these are the knuckleheads now gaining political momentum? Gaining a foothold and moving more broadly into politics to influence our Government? Seriously? And via a John Bircher supported PAC called the Tea Party?
The Republican governor of Wisconsin who takes calls from an avowed member of the John Birch Society as if it were a call from the Pope? The analogy is strained, but, nonetheless, that’s the essence. Why would any government official kowtow to a John Bircher? Or accept the maximum campaign contribution from one? Isn’t it like taking the call from some filthy rich Grand Poobah of the KKK or Aryan Nation who contributed to the election and letting him know how things are going with the unruly parasites that leach off the government?
Crazed insular xenophobic types who belong to the KKK, the John Birch Society, Aryan Nation, Hell’s Angels, whatever, are sociopaths. Probably psychotic to some degree. Certainly filled with hatred. That’s what I always thought.
And this asshole governor takes a call from one of them and updates him on how his standoff against the public employees is progressing.
Unbelievable.
Chris Hedges
Re: Death of the Liberal Class
Researching the word Columbia, I had made my way to the Wikipedia article on a magazine that had its run ended in 1918, “Puck”. So I checked, and there is no reference to it in the Index.
The single most acerbic, satirical, opinionated, muckraking and popular political magazine during its 40 year run.. But by 1918 it was history.
I smell a rat.
I find it no small coincidence that William Randolph Hearst bought the magazine in 1916 and just 2 years later, after 40 successful years, it was dead. Why would he purchase a tormentor of the establishment if not to kill it? Did he save the government the trouble of bringing the Espionage Act of 1917 and other measures to bear on it? Would that have caused something of a reaction among populists and progressives? But with Hearst engineering its demise, it’s just a business decision.
It seems that, given the rising ‘corporatocracy’ and the imperial ambitions of the government, that the clampdown and mass propaganda campaigns might have targeted this magazine. A scathing critic, a scorching journalist writing in a popular magazine that for all its flaws was the horsefly on the State? Intolerable (given your account of the conditions that prevailed during that Era).
I bring this to your attention as a possible occasion when media moguls and the Federal government might have been in collusion to determine and censor what We the People can read. Which would seem to be unconstitutional.
In the vain hope that I am mistaken….I offer “Puck”.
Re: Death of the Liberal Class
Researching the word Columbia, I had made my way to the Wikipedia article on a magazine that had its run ended in 1918, “Puck”. So I checked, and there is no reference to it in the Index.
The single most acerbic, satirical, opinionated, muckraking and popular political magazine during its 40 year run.. But by 1918 it was history.
I smell a rat.
I find it no small coincidence that William Randolph Hearst bought the magazine in 1916 and just 2 years later, after 40 successful years, it was dead. Why would he purchase a tormentor of the establishment if not to kill it? Did he save the government the trouble of bringing the Espionage Act of 1917 and other measures to bear on it? Would that have caused something of a reaction among populists and progressives? But with Hearst engineering its demise, it’s just a business decision.
It seems that, given the rising ‘corporatocracy’ and the imperial ambitions of the government, that the clampdown and mass propaganda campaigns might have targeted this magazine. A scathing critic, a scorching journalist writing in a popular magazine that for all its flaws was the horsefly on the State? Intolerable (given your account of the conditions that prevailed during that Era).
I bring this to your attention as a possible occasion when media moguls and the Federal government might have been in collusion to determine and censor what We the People can read. Which would seem to be unconstitutional.
In the vain hope that I am mistaken….I offer “Puck”.
Friday, April 02, 2010
March 28, 2010 (edited 4/2/10)
This Amazon review is for:
Grant, R. Jeffrey - "Shadow Government" (DVD)
A Mixed Bag
Welcome to the new world order where every internet key stroke….
"Every breath you take
And every move you make...
Every step you take
I'll be watching you"
(Sting)
The Shadow Government is all around if we could but perceive. It's surveillance cameras, implanted microchips, the UN, the NWO and its one world government police state, sinister "new age" forces arrayed against Christians and Jews, a grab-bag of secret and not so secret powerful corporate and government forces determined to erase national borders, decimate economic systems, exterminate 5/6 of all human beings on planet Earth and reduce the remaining population to a state of imbecilic indentured servitude to the global elites. The disclosure of which is, apparently, meant "to shine a light on God's incredible prophecies. It's meant to bring you closer to our eternal savior, Jesus Christ." Some plan.
The real deception in this documentary is that for the first hour (more or less) we hear from university professors and bona bide researchers who delineate the current state of affairs insofar as even the most seemingly innocuous use of plastic cards records our purchases and other transactions, our comings and goings, and our affiliations. They offer astute analysis and speculate on the possible nefarious uses of the data collected every time our cards are swiped, our emails are sent and our internet searches are recorded, etc., etc. All this is well and good.
But then we begin to hear from, shall we say, the outside the academy religious folk who write newsletters or head quasi-religious `foundations'. And at that point the entire program goes off the rails into the bog of biblical end times prophecy.
The shift of focus is subtle at first, a few voices here and there railing against the UN or the persecution of Christians and Jews; eventually an entirely new theme emerges: the Bible. (Of course, I should have paid more attention to the DVD packaging as it is "From the Producers of Left Behind: The Movie". My bad.) At that point, the professors and PhD's are replaced by ‘Foundationalist” Chuck Missler who leads a parade of christian apocylipitc missionaries quoting the Bible.
Instead of sober academic analysis, we now have bible class and its alleged prophecies into the context developed by the scholars. For instance, there is anti-UN, anti-environmentalist Michael Shaw railing against the nwo and who is absolutely freaked out because he believes that the UN Earth Charter is going to replace the 10 Commandments. It's all part of a conspiracy by these blasted Nature worshiping one-worlder environmentalists. But Shaw sees through it all. "The environment is the cover for the real objective of sustainable development which is to change our system of Justice and change our systems of economics to a system of social justice....Our whole foundation of the American experiment is being undermined by this environmental move."
Then a guy named Jack Kinsella chimes in with his excoriation of "anthropomorphic global warming....[because] this is ridiculous to begin with." No, Jack, to begin with, you are ridiculous. (Of course, now we know where Glenn Beck gets his ideas.) Heaven forbid (a metaphor) there should be any sensitivity to the planet's eco/biosystems, or a commitment to social justice as the Catholic Church has been sporadically advocating since Vatican II. But, not for US this seemingly communistic idea of social justice and the socialistic, nwo hoax of climate change.
Of course, to be fair, Kinsella does say that if there is such a thing as global warming, it's the Sun's fault. See, the sun is getting hotter and therefore Earth and Mars are warming. And since there is nothing that can be done about THAT, the best course of action is to do nothing and wait for Jesus to return to rapture up the saved and doom everyone else to, well, Hell on Earth.
What is more egregious, though, is the peddling of the insidious myth that christers might be persecuted right here in America.
As if.
Some 76% of Americans identify themselves as christians (down from 86% in 1990, but who’s counting? It’s still a vast majority by any standard.). Who is going to persecute christians? The Pentagon? The local police? [I especially like the military option to exterminate christers because during the past decade the Pentagon has followed the lead of the Republican Party and gotten fundamentalist religion; a fact convincingly documented by Jeff Sharlet.
The pernicious implication is that just as the Jews were rounded up and sent to `death camps' by Hitler and the SS, so too in America christers will be persecuted, rounded up and sent to FEMA `detention centers'. It's as if the entire nation will turn into one big Waco or Ruby Ridge. To drive the point home, there is a lame ‘dramatic” scenario involving an office drone/fundamentalist christer who is interrogated by Homeland Security to drive home the point that christers are the one group that needs to be wary of governmental information gathering capabilities and policies.
Consistent with their persecution fantasy, these christers anticipate an End Time and welcome the Day of Judgment when they will be shepherded to Heaven's Gate by Jesus with their free passes. It's a mad fantasy, but they take themselves seriously. And that is precisely where the possible danger lies. Because then you get Sarah Palin (though, regretably, she wasn’t interviewed for this dvd).
Then there is Gary Kah, a first class know-nothing Manichean (though he’s not alone in subscribing to this ancient fanciful belief) who actually claims that "Pantheism leads to Satan worship." A risibly ignorant and preposterous remark. But certainly in keeping with the blinkered devotion he and all these christers have to distorting reality to fit their beliefs.
One of the difficulties of watching this film is that while on the one hand it seems to be an indictment of the neo-con Bush administration and it’s PNAC global hegemonic military mandate, and the Bilderbergers, and the UN World Government, etc. (cf, G. Edward Griffin, Daniel Estulin), on the other hand it also seems to endorse the weird extreme right wing Republicanism of the teabaggers (cf, Shaw etal). That is to say, there seems to be an undercurrent that is against the Patriot Acts (the infringement of liberty), yet that also promotes an anti-Progressive “biblical” view that History is predetermined according to some “divine plan”. Very jarring.
What's even more surprising is that after the scholars established the context, I don't recall any sustained discussion of the NSA, the Pentagon (and its intelligence gathering capabilities), the CIA, etc, etc. whose powers increased dramatically after 9/11 by the christers. It was just biblical quotations and how they “forcast” current events.
So, while the presentation was ‘balanced’, it fails to sustain itself. Using scholars to set the stage for Jesus freaks and bible literalists does not create balance, it creates confusion.
And finally, the DVD does contain a bonus feature called "Still Not Convinced?" This is additional interview footage that essentially follows the same format as the feature. To wit, commentary by academics followed by commentary by christers. Reasonable sounding scholars followed up by "church lady" spin meisters. If only Mr. Grant had made two documentaries: one with scholars and independent researchers and the other with christian fundamentalists one might have balance. As it is, it’one half verifyable knowledge, one half religious propoganda.
Ah….”My sweet Lord…”
This Amazon review is for:
Grant, R. Jeffrey - "Shadow Government" (DVD)
A Mixed Bag
Welcome to the new world order where every internet key stroke….
"Every breath you take
And every move you make...
Every step you take
I'll be watching you"
(Sting)
The Shadow Government is all around if we could but perceive. It's surveillance cameras, implanted microchips, the UN, the NWO and its one world government police state, sinister "new age" forces arrayed against Christians and Jews, a grab-bag of secret and not so secret powerful corporate and government forces determined to erase national borders, decimate economic systems, exterminate 5/6 of all human beings on planet Earth and reduce the remaining population to a state of imbecilic indentured servitude to the global elites. The disclosure of which is, apparently, meant "to shine a light on God's incredible prophecies. It's meant to bring you closer to our eternal savior, Jesus Christ." Some plan.
The real deception in this documentary is that for the first hour (more or less) we hear from university professors and bona bide researchers who delineate the current state of affairs insofar as even the most seemingly innocuous use of plastic cards records our purchases and other transactions, our comings and goings, and our affiliations. They offer astute analysis and speculate on the possible nefarious uses of the data collected every time our cards are swiped, our emails are sent and our internet searches are recorded, etc., etc. All this is well and good.
But then we begin to hear from, shall we say, the outside the academy religious folk who write newsletters or head quasi-religious `foundations'. And at that point the entire program goes off the rails into the bog of biblical end times prophecy.
The shift of focus is subtle at first, a few voices here and there railing against the UN or the persecution of Christians and Jews; eventually an entirely new theme emerges: the Bible. (Of course, I should have paid more attention to the DVD packaging as it is "From the Producers of Left Behind: The Movie". My bad.) At that point, the professors and PhD's are replaced by ‘Foundationalist” Chuck Missler who leads a parade of christian apocylipitc missionaries quoting the Bible.
Instead of sober academic analysis, we now have bible class and its alleged prophecies into the context developed by the scholars. For instance, there is anti-UN, anti-environmentalist Michael Shaw railing against the nwo and who is absolutely freaked out because he believes that the UN Earth Charter is going to replace the 10 Commandments. It's all part of a conspiracy by these blasted Nature worshiping one-worlder environmentalists. But Shaw sees through it all. "The environment is the cover for the real objective of sustainable development which is to change our system of Justice and change our systems of economics to a system of social justice....Our whole foundation of the American experiment is being undermined by this environmental move."
Then a guy named Jack Kinsella chimes in with his excoriation of "anthropomorphic global warming....[because] this is ridiculous to begin with." No, Jack, to begin with, you are ridiculous. (Of course, now we know where Glenn Beck gets his ideas.) Heaven forbid (a metaphor) there should be any sensitivity to the planet's eco/biosystems, or a commitment to social justice as the Catholic Church has been sporadically advocating since Vatican II. But, not for US this seemingly communistic idea of social justice and the socialistic, nwo hoax of climate change.
Of course, to be fair, Kinsella does say that if there is such a thing as global warming, it's the Sun's fault. See, the sun is getting hotter and therefore Earth and Mars are warming. And since there is nothing that can be done about THAT, the best course of action is to do nothing and wait for Jesus to return to rapture up the saved and doom everyone else to, well, Hell on Earth.
What is more egregious, though, is the peddling of the insidious myth that christers might be persecuted right here in America.
As if.
Some 76% of Americans identify themselves as christians (down from 86% in 1990, but who’s counting? It’s still a vast majority by any standard.). Who is going to persecute christians? The Pentagon? The local police? [I especially like the military option to exterminate christers because during the past decade the Pentagon has followed the lead of the Republican Party and gotten fundamentalist religion; a fact convincingly documented by Jeff Sharlet.
The pernicious implication is that just as the Jews were rounded up and sent to `death camps' by Hitler and the SS, so too in America christers will be persecuted, rounded up and sent to FEMA `detention centers'. It's as if the entire nation will turn into one big Waco or Ruby Ridge. To drive the point home, there is a lame ‘dramatic” scenario involving an office drone/fundamentalist christer who is interrogated by Homeland Security to drive home the point that christers are the one group that needs to be wary of governmental information gathering capabilities and policies.
Consistent with their persecution fantasy, these christers anticipate an End Time and welcome the Day of Judgment when they will be shepherded to Heaven's Gate by Jesus with their free passes. It's a mad fantasy, but they take themselves seriously. And that is precisely where the possible danger lies. Because then you get Sarah Palin (though, regretably, she wasn’t interviewed for this dvd).
Then there is Gary Kah, a first class know-nothing Manichean (though he’s not alone in subscribing to this ancient fanciful belief) who actually claims that "Pantheism leads to Satan worship." A risibly ignorant and preposterous remark. But certainly in keeping with the blinkered devotion he and all these christers have to distorting reality to fit their beliefs.
One of the difficulties of watching this film is that while on the one hand it seems to be an indictment of the neo-con Bush administration and it’s PNAC global hegemonic military mandate, and the Bilderbergers, and the UN World Government, etc. (cf, G. Edward Griffin, Daniel Estulin), on the other hand it also seems to endorse the weird extreme right wing Republicanism of the teabaggers (cf, Shaw etal). That is to say, there seems to be an undercurrent that is against the Patriot Acts (the infringement of liberty), yet that also promotes an anti-Progressive “biblical” view that History is predetermined according to some “divine plan”. Very jarring.
What's even more surprising is that after the scholars established the context, I don't recall any sustained discussion of the NSA, the Pentagon (and its intelligence gathering capabilities), the CIA, etc, etc. whose powers increased dramatically after 9/11 by the christers. It was just biblical quotations and how they “forcast” current events.
So, while the presentation was ‘balanced’, it fails to sustain itself. Using scholars to set the stage for Jesus freaks and bible literalists does not create balance, it creates confusion.
And finally, the DVD does contain a bonus feature called "Still Not Convinced?" This is additional interview footage that essentially follows the same format as the feature. To wit, commentary by academics followed by commentary by christers. Reasonable sounding scholars followed up by "church lady" spin meisters. If only Mr. Grant had made two documentaries: one with scholars and independent researchers and the other with christian fundamentalists one might have balance. As it is, it’one half verifyable knowledge, one half religious propoganda.
Ah….”My sweet Lord…”
Wednesday, August 07, 2002
March 4, 2002
Editor, Harper’s Magazine
666 Broadway,
New York, New York
To the Editor,
Every so often a self-appointed guardian of the literary gates is called to arms to take pot shots at the literary genre called science fiction, or what is more appropriately termed speculative fiction (SF). For some reason, it is the special prerogative of SF to be infantalized by so-called mainstream critics. It is odd, but I never read mainstream critics trashing mystery or crime novels, or suspense thrillers, or cold war fiction. Of all genre fiction, only SF is repeatedly kicked in the head by literary bullies. Science fiction holds a special place for ax-grinders who for some reason simply don’t “get” imaginative literature and so must vent their frustration and spleen in presumptuous condescending “critiques” of the genre.
The latest diatribe is by L.J. Davis (“Worlds Enough: Travels in an Adolescent Genre,” Jan. 2002). "Worlds Enough" pretends to be a critical overview of the history of a genre whose status is disclosed in the subtitle. An avowed outsider, Davis pretends to a kind of glib dismissal of the historical antecedents of the modern genre, but misses the point. In order to enjoy the fantastical tales of Lucian, de Bergerac, Swift, Poe and others, one must, as Keats noted, suspend one’s belief (and disbelief) and simply enjoy the ride. I doubt very much whether Cyrano de Bergerac actually believed that faint wisps of evaporating dew would lift a man into space. His fanciful and impractical method of travel is, as any astute SF reader knows, a “gimme” - something that one must simply accept in order to proceed with the story. Whether it is dew collectors, a time machine, or faster than light travel, the “gimme” is the stock and trade of the science fiction story. It allows the writer to get to the place where the story takes place, and one either suspends one’s disbelief or one should read Raymond Carver and forget speculative fiction. The fact that de Bergerac, Kepler and others imagined going to the moon and conceived of adventures in the unknown is what distinguishes them as fabulists. That they actually created imaginative fiction is the significance of their legacy.
Davis, who by his own count has read only three living SF writers (Robinson, Stephenson and Bear - I discount Vonnegut as he more or less divorced himself from the genre forty years ago), has the temerity to claim that “something that a lot of science fiction types don’t do very well “ is write. Apparently, the aforementioned authors are emblematic of the “current sad decline” of this once “delightful” genre (though readers of Mr. Davis’s article would be hard pressed to infer that he is delighted about anything in it). To trash the history of a literary genre without the slightest familiarity of its recent history both here and abroad is disingenuous at best and pedantic at worse. Actually, its presumptuous dilettantism that doesn’t even rise to the level of pedantry.
I wonder, though, why Mr. Davis never mentions SF literary stylists such as Gene Wolfe, Dan Simmons, Ursula K. LeGuin or Paul Park? Or the group of young British writers including Iain M. Banks, Ken McLeod, Ian McDonald, Stephen Baxter, Paul McAuley and Peter Hamilton. It must be because when one is conducting a hatchet job one only attacks targets of opportunity. Which is why he singles out Robert Heinlein’s "Stranger in a Strange Land" for special approbation. To pillory this novel, now 41 years old, is, of course, to flog a dead horse. Except for love-beaded adolescents in the late 1960’s for whom it was a kind of manifesto of the possibilities of expanded consciousness, who reads it? Very few, that’s who. It ranks 7,734 on Amazon.com’s sales list. So why beat up on a book that virtually no one cares about? Why? Because it has in fact sold millions of copies and was a crossover mainstream bestseller and represents everything that Davis despises about the genre. It is sexist, “goofy,” quasi-messianic, and “terminally stupid.” The novel offends Davis “personally.” I suggest he get over it and move on.
And while I would certainly agree that Heinlein’s most famous novel is not a great book, we read it in the ‘60’s because it offered a possibility for expanded consciousness, and because “grokking” seemed to tie in to Aldous Huxley’s "Doors of Perception" and Carlos Casteneda’s "The Teachings of Don Juan." It was a novel read for the ideas it contained, not for its literary qualities which were minimal.
And this is the very point about SF that Davis refuses to get past: that until the 1960's SF was read solely for the ideas the authors developed, not for whatever literary attributes the writer might have exhibited. Indeed, literary style was considered suspect and pretentious. Sf was about Ideas, not literary craftsmanship. And the history that Davis neglects to mention is that the man who reprinted stories by Poe, Wells, Burroughs and Verne as “scientific romances” and first published a new crop of “scientifiction” writers in “Amazing Stories” in 1926, Hugo Gernsback, wanted, as an inventor himself, above all, unwavering fidelity to the possibilities inherent in science and technology in the stories he published. His aim was to attract young boy scouts to the study of electricity and the as yet unknown field of electronics with tales of scientific derring-do.
By 1932 John Campbell had graduated from MIT with a degree in physics and began writing SF stories. By 1938 he was the editor of “Astounding Stories.” He recruited a stable of writers including Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clark, Robert Heinlein and the so-called “golden age” of SF was born. Campbell insisted that stories published in “Astounding” be not only logically rigorous, but that the ideas explored be technically feasible, and scientifically accurate. Eventually, magazines such as “Galaxy” and “The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction” broadened the scope to include more sociological, psychological and literary aspects. The possibilities were, as theysay,endless. And that is just the tip of the iceberg hidden from Davis’s myopic purview.
Had Davis chose to indulge in more than a cursory overview of the genre he would have learned that since the time of the British New Wave of the 1960’s (led by editor Michael Moorcock's "New Worlds" magazine and writers such as Brian Aldiss, J.G. Ballard, John Brunner et.al., and Stanislaw Lem, a Polish writer), a new writerly sensibility has in fact influenced the last thirty years of SF writing. And while it is still the Idea that is of primary importance in, for example, Hard Science Fiction, many writers have turned their talents to the development of an ecological or sociological or psychological idea, and to unleash a literary prose style that unsettled the old guard technophiles. That C.S. Lewis penned his Space Trilogy and Kingsly Amis defended the genre in a series of lectures given at Princeton University ("New Maps of Hell") all undermine the mistaken notion that SF is a subgenre unworthy of adult considerations. Dan Simmons’s "Hyperion", for example, is cast in the mold of "The Canterbury Tales" and is infused with the spirit of John Keats (indeed, a cybrid of Keats is the protagonist of the sequel, "The Fall of Hyperion.") That Doris Lessing turned out "The Canopus in Argos" sequence of 5 SF novels, that Walter Mosely, Russell Hoban, T.C. Boyle, Margaret Atwood and Italo Calvino, et. al. have each tried their hand at speculative fiction bespeaks the fact that it is a serious genre that examines issues and ideas that cannot be presented as effectively in mundane terms.
Perhaps the most galling thing about Davis’s excoriation of SF is his descent into Paul Collins’s "Banvard’s Folly", an account of the disinterring of a chain of surrealistic coincidences that would make Oliver Stone blush. Discounting the deserved obscurity of fringe author Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Davis then summarizes the passing of the so-called “hollow earth theory” torch from one Cleve Symmes to Jeremiah Reynolds to Henry Allen to Edgar Allan Poe to Bulwer-Lytton to Tesla to Marconi to Hitler. Whew! What any of this has to do with SF, however, is beyond my conceiving. Why this absurdist dead end of wackiness should be included in any discussion of the literary history of SF only goes to show to what lengths Davis will go to discredit the genre. Off on this wild goose chase, Davis actually missed the story, which is not about Poe, but one Richard Shaver who captured the attention of SF fandom from 1945-47 when he wrote a series of fantastic tales about an ancient underground civilization called Lemuria. Stories so provocative and resonant that they elicited some 2500 letters to the editor at “Amazing Stories.” (cf., John Clute "The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction") The so called Shaver Mysteries were the apotheosis of the hollow earth theory in pulp fiction and it is they and not some obscure crackpot, and certainly not Adolph Hitler, who properly belong in the history of that one rather quaint (i.e., Jules Verne) SF idea, the hollow earth.
Mr. Davis’s hastily researched and digressionary dead end “critique” of the progenitors of SF masquerades as an authoritative dismissal, but it is little more than a misinformed and misguided attempt to discredit a genre that is not only vibrant and intellectually stimulating, but is, as a literary genre, the definitive glimpse into the future in which we live.
Editor, Harper’s Magazine
666 Broadway,
New York, New York
To the Editor,
Every so often a self-appointed guardian of the literary gates is called to arms to take pot shots at the literary genre called science fiction, or what is more appropriately termed speculative fiction (SF). For some reason, it is the special prerogative of SF to be infantalized by so-called mainstream critics. It is odd, but I never read mainstream critics trashing mystery or crime novels, or suspense thrillers, or cold war fiction. Of all genre fiction, only SF is repeatedly kicked in the head by literary bullies. Science fiction holds a special place for ax-grinders who for some reason simply don’t “get” imaginative literature and so must vent their frustration and spleen in presumptuous condescending “critiques” of the genre.
The latest diatribe is by L.J. Davis (“Worlds Enough: Travels in an Adolescent Genre,” Jan. 2002). "Worlds Enough" pretends to be a critical overview of the history of a genre whose status is disclosed in the subtitle. An avowed outsider, Davis pretends to a kind of glib dismissal of the historical antecedents of the modern genre, but misses the point. In order to enjoy the fantastical tales of Lucian, de Bergerac, Swift, Poe and others, one must, as Keats noted, suspend one’s belief (and disbelief) and simply enjoy the ride. I doubt very much whether Cyrano de Bergerac actually believed that faint wisps of evaporating dew would lift a man into space. His fanciful and impractical method of travel is, as any astute SF reader knows, a “gimme” - something that one must simply accept in order to proceed with the story. Whether it is dew collectors, a time machine, or faster than light travel, the “gimme” is the stock and trade of the science fiction story. It allows the writer to get to the place where the story takes place, and one either suspends one’s disbelief or one should read Raymond Carver and forget speculative fiction. The fact that de Bergerac, Kepler and others imagined going to the moon and conceived of adventures in the unknown is what distinguishes them as fabulists. That they actually created imaginative fiction is the significance of their legacy.
Davis, who by his own count has read only three living SF writers (Robinson, Stephenson and Bear - I discount Vonnegut as he more or less divorced himself from the genre forty years ago), has the temerity to claim that “something that a lot of science fiction types don’t do very well “ is write. Apparently, the aforementioned authors are emblematic of the “current sad decline” of this once “delightful” genre (though readers of Mr. Davis’s article would be hard pressed to infer that he is delighted about anything in it). To trash the history of a literary genre without the slightest familiarity of its recent history both here and abroad is disingenuous at best and pedantic at worse. Actually, its presumptuous dilettantism that doesn’t even rise to the level of pedantry.
I wonder, though, why Mr. Davis never mentions SF literary stylists such as Gene Wolfe, Dan Simmons, Ursula K. LeGuin or Paul Park? Or the group of young British writers including Iain M. Banks, Ken McLeod, Ian McDonald, Stephen Baxter, Paul McAuley and Peter Hamilton. It must be because when one is conducting a hatchet job one only attacks targets of opportunity. Which is why he singles out Robert Heinlein’s "Stranger in a Strange Land" for special approbation. To pillory this novel, now 41 years old, is, of course, to flog a dead horse. Except for love-beaded adolescents in the late 1960’s for whom it was a kind of manifesto of the possibilities of expanded consciousness, who reads it? Very few, that’s who. It ranks 7,734 on Amazon.com’s sales list. So why beat up on a book that virtually no one cares about? Why? Because it has in fact sold millions of copies and was a crossover mainstream bestseller and represents everything that Davis despises about the genre. It is sexist, “goofy,” quasi-messianic, and “terminally stupid.” The novel offends Davis “personally.” I suggest he get over it and move on.
And while I would certainly agree that Heinlein’s most famous novel is not a great book, we read it in the ‘60’s because it offered a possibility for expanded consciousness, and because “grokking” seemed to tie in to Aldous Huxley’s "Doors of Perception" and Carlos Casteneda’s "The Teachings of Don Juan." It was a novel read for the ideas it contained, not for its literary qualities which were minimal.
And this is the very point about SF that Davis refuses to get past: that until the 1960's SF was read solely for the ideas the authors developed, not for whatever literary attributes the writer might have exhibited. Indeed, literary style was considered suspect and pretentious. Sf was about Ideas, not literary craftsmanship. And the history that Davis neglects to mention is that the man who reprinted stories by Poe, Wells, Burroughs and Verne as “scientific romances” and first published a new crop of “scientifiction” writers in “Amazing Stories” in 1926, Hugo Gernsback, wanted, as an inventor himself, above all, unwavering fidelity to the possibilities inherent in science and technology in the stories he published. His aim was to attract young boy scouts to the study of electricity and the as yet unknown field of electronics with tales of scientific derring-do.
By 1932 John Campbell had graduated from MIT with a degree in physics and began writing SF stories. By 1938 he was the editor of “Astounding Stories.” He recruited a stable of writers including Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clark, Robert Heinlein and the so-called “golden age” of SF was born. Campbell insisted that stories published in “Astounding” be not only logically rigorous, but that the ideas explored be technically feasible, and scientifically accurate. Eventually, magazines such as “Galaxy” and “The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction” broadened the scope to include more sociological, psychological and literary aspects. The possibilities were, as theysay,endless. And that is just the tip of the iceberg hidden from Davis’s myopic purview.
Had Davis chose to indulge in more than a cursory overview of the genre he would have learned that since the time of the British New Wave of the 1960’s (led by editor Michael Moorcock's "New Worlds" magazine and writers such as Brian Aldiss, J.G. Ballard, John Brunner et.al., and Stanislaw Lem, a Polish writer), a new writerly sensibility has in fact influenced the last thirty years of SF writing. And while it is still the Idea that is of primary importance in, for example, Hard Science Fiction, many writers have turned their talents to the development of an ecological or sociological or psychological idea, and to unleash a literary prose style that unsettled the old guard technophiles. That C.S. Lewis penned his Space Trilogy and Kingsly Amis defended the genre in a series of lectures given at Princeton University ("New Maps of Hell") all undermine the mistaken notion that SF is a subgenre unworthy of adult considerations. Dan Simmons’s "Hyperion", for example, is cast in the mold of "The Canterbury Tales" and is infused with the spirit of John Keats (indeed, a cybrid of Keats is the protagonist of the sequel, "The Fall of Hyperion.") That Doris Lessing turned out "The Canopus in Argos" sequence of 5 SF novels, that Walter Mosely, Russell Hoban, T.C. Boyle, Margaret Atwood and Italo Calvino, et. al. have each tried their hand at speculative fiction bespeaks the fact that it is a serious genre that examines issues and ideas that cannot be presented as effectively in mundane terms.
Perhaps the most galling thing about Davis’s excoriation of SF is his descent into Paul Collins’s "Banvard’s Folly", an account of the disinterring of a chain of surrealistic coincidences that would make Oliver Stone blush. Discounting the deserved obscurity of fringe author Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Davis then summarizes the passing of the so-called “hollow earth theory” torch from one Cleve Symmes to Jeremiah Reynolds to Henry Allen to Edgar Allan Poe to Bulwer-Lytton to Tesla to Marconi to Hitler. Whew! What any of this has to do with SF, however, is beyond my conceiving. Why this absurdist dead end of wackiness should be included in any discussion of the literary history of SF only goes to show to what lengths Davis will go to discredit the genre. Off on this wild goose chase, Davis actually missed the story, which is not about Poe, but one Richard Shaver who captured the attention of SF fandom from 1945-47 when he wrote a series of fantastic tales about an ancient underground civilization called Lemuria. Stories so provocative and resonant that they elicited some 2500 letters to the editor at “Amazing Stories.” (cf., John Clute "The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction") The so called Shaver Mysteries were the apotheosis of the hollow earth theory in pulp fiction and it is they and not some obscure crackpot, and certainly not Adolph Hitler, who properly belong in the history of that one rather quaint (i.e., Jules Verne) SF idea, the hollow earth.
Mr. Davis’s hastily researched and digressionary dead end “critique” of the progenitors of SF masquerades as an authoritative dismissal, but it is little more than a misinformed and misguided attempt to discredit a genre that is not only vibrant and intellectually stimulating, but is, as a literary genre, the definitive glimpse into the future in which we live.
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