And the final two ads

 So the ad campaign I ran last week went well. At left, there are two more images, as I switched the ad content out every 24 hours. Ultimately, I had over 100 click-throughs to the Literary Outlaw website, which means there must have been something compelling enough in either the text or the image to make someone click to read more. And that is somewhat gratifying.

"Conceived in the New Liberty" was, as I suspected, rejected by the group that invited me to submit my work. While an invitation sounds hopeful, it was merely a pro-forma note sent to previous contributors. They said "Conceived..." "did not resonate with them." I find this a funny sort of reaction, since some of what is currently happening in Washington, D.C. and New York City is fairly similar to what appears in the story, which is actually set in Washington, D.C. and has a band of proselytizing anarchists (a group I read is also attending the real life demonstrations). Of course, the Occupy Wall Street protesters are not burning facscimiles of The Constitution. The reason I included this in the story and made it such a narrative cornerstone is not because I condone it or seek to incite this kind of behavior. I included it because I can see it actually happening. Let me explain.

Yesterday, in a class I teach--a college-level course--I asked the students if they had heard of Ernest Hemingway. I received blank stares from my mid-day class. To have graduated from high school and not heard of Ernest Hemingway indicates to me that something is wrong with our educational system. Of course, there is a far stretch between knowing about Ernest Hemingway and understanding our nation's founding doctrines. I'll admit that. However, I'll bet if you asked many high school graduates what the 6th Amendment guarantees, they wouldn't be able to tell you. This is frightening. Why? Because if its existence and function are not understood, how easily can we be persuaded that they are no longer relevant?  With the triumph of uninformed opinion over fact in many so-called news programs, with the rise of uncivil discourse, with the proliferation of media by which untruths can be propagated and history rewritten, will students fight the removal of these rights? Maybe. But not until it's too late, until these rights are already rescinded. So this is what I was getting at with the story.

I see what's coming out of high schools, out of GED programs, and I'll admit, I'm afraid. We've got an entire generation lured by technology, entirely without curiosity, unwilling to learn, bored to death by a lecture on critical thinking, logical fallacies, and propaganda. Often, they collect their Pell Grant money and disappear, never to be seen again after the first four weeks of classes. There are exceptions to this behavior, but they are few. So, how easily will they be persuaded to undo the foundation of our nation, to walk apathetically or with misplaced anger into a new era of martial law before realizing they've made a terrible mistake? And maybe they will never realize it.

I've decided that submitting to journals is like spitting into the wind. My words come back to me, usually with a curt or snarky response. And so the last of my works, submitted at the beginning of the year and up until July, have finally returned, all of them rejected. I am a writer without a  traditional audience. And I say traditional because I know, based on the ad campaign, that I gained at least a few readers, even if this contact was fleeting. The fact that my words have met with someone else's eyes is a very good thing.

Last week, I found this fantastic quote by George Orwell. It comes from a preface to Animal Farm, and discusses his difficulties in getting the text published. The preface is apparently rare in reprints of the book, but it is reproduced in its entirety here: "The Freedom of the Press". The quote that I find especially powerful opens paragraph five: "Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban."

I would go so far as to say that even in the independent writing world, which by its early definition championed the bold idea and served as the author's Salon des Refuses, has its own insular system in place, whereby only certain styles, certain ideas, and certain writers are elevated, while others are marginalized, ignored, and devalued. How can a writer combat this? It's pretty thorny problem, and one with no easy resolution, other than to go off on your own to trumpet your message yourself. At least there is that potential. It's quite a comfort.

In the Spirit of Healthy Dissent

Michael in front of the House of Burgesses,
Williamsburg, VA, mid-September 2011.

A few weeks ago, when Michael and I were in Williamsburg, I picked up a few pamphlets, one of which was printed on the Foundation's colonial-era, moveable-type printing presses. One of the hand-stitched booklets I purchased was Common Sense by Thomas Paine. Another was Poor Richard's Pamphlet No. 11: An Anonymous Account of the Boston Massacre. And finally, I also bought the slender, Williamsburg-printed Summary View of the Rights of British America Set Forth in Some Resolutions Intended for the Inspection of the Present Delegates of the People of Virginia Now in Convention, written by a "native member of the House of Burgesses". What's the House of Burgesses, you ask? It was Williamsburg's (and by extension, Virginia's, governing body, where elected officials presided for a greater part of each year). It is bicameral, with two parliamentary chambers, one dealing with British colonial concerns and the other with Virginia's localized conerns). I include a picture of Michael, standing in front of one side of the House of Burgesses. The circular window indicates that it was a governmental building.

Revolutionary pamphlets with hand-sewn quires, no bindings

I find a great deal of inspiration in these old printing processes and incendiary pamphlets, compositions that fuelled the Revolution. It's also compelling evidence that language is truly an agent of change. Yet now, things have altered so radically within the last fifteen years, that it seems print is completely obsolete. How do you distribute revolutinary material now? Of course, via the internet. Not only do you have a greater broadcasting capacity, but the cost is minimal. And yet, yet...there are so many people distributing "revolutionary" (the air quotes appear around revolutionary on purpose) material that it's difficult to be heard at all. The sheer number of voices undercuts almost every message but those voiced by the loudest or most popular figures. Of course, the internet promotes democratic expression of ideas, and this is wonderful. At the same time, however, voices that have genuinely compelling and thoughtful messages are often lost in a cacophony of pseudo-intellectual noise and other totally opinionated garbage.



Inside the printer's shop, Williamsburg, VA
mid-September 2011.

A few years ago, for ZMagazine, I wrote a review of Signs of Change, an exhibition charting the modern history of international revolutionary paraphenalia. You can read the review here. I started the essay with a quote by George Grosz, a quote that I pulled from his 1925 essay "Art is in Danger". Grosz wrote, "...come out of your seclusion, let the ideas of the working people take hold of you and help them fight this rotten society." Here, Grosz was telling the intellectuals to come down from their ivory towers and get involved in a progressive movement to effect positive social change. He wrote this shortly after the rampant inflation that crippled much of Germany. Perhaps more significant is that he wrote it after he had been to Russia, saw the impact of Communism on the people, and had begun to stray from its ideology. 

I still find Grosz's quote to be significant, particularly as a writer. Do I believe in art for art's sake? Without question. But I feel that at least some artists and writers have a responsibility to engage in a kind of political warning system...that is, extrapolate from the data we have--in this case, particular elements of the status quo--and determine where these current variables might lead us should they persist. For example, (these are, of course, very specific and narrow variables) if students continue not to care about their studies, if they continue to collect their Pell grants and government funds without investing the time necessary to earning degrees, if they are never taught (or never absorb and understand) the fundaments of our political system, if they continue to cling to restrictive labels that facilitate their movement through the education system without truly working for what they receive, what will happen to us as a nation? How easily can we be conquered by savvy (even not so savvy) manipulators, who tell us what we want to hear? Is this what the men writing revolutionary pamphlets--including The Declaration of Independence--had in mind? Did they expect that we would be come a nation of slackers, surly and opinionated but unable to produce any factual details to substantiate them, even though they are often expressed with both middle fingers raised?  



Moveable type printing press, Williamsburg, VA
mid-September 2011.

 It's this realization that makes me want to write. I imagine where these variables, if unchanged, will lead us. As I mentioned in the previous post, this is why I wrote "Conceived in the New Liberty", where people actually burn copies of The Constitution because they are manipulated into believing it no longer works for the nation (and because burning the facscimiles gets the attention of television crews, who offer a kind of fleeting celebrity). This becomes the point at which the country descends into martial law. I myself see this descent coming, and in some ways, it's already here. Other writers have seen this potential, too. Take Vonnegut's Player Piano for example, or better yet, Orwell's Animal Farm. I wonder, are students even required to read this book anymore? And if they are, would they understand its implications or would they simply accept it at face value, as a story about talking animals in a farm yard? I truly wonder about this, given my own experiences in the classroom.

In the spirit of revolutionary pamphlets and dispersing views that counter popular notions, I've just purchased some ad space for Literary Outlaw on both Scholars and Rogues and Liberty News Forum. I've done this before, specifically for American Soma, which helped me sell two copies (one of which went to England) and landed me an interview with Jeff Farias on his radio show. At the time, I advertised on Truthdig, but their rates have gone up exponentially. What had, in 2009, cost $50, now costs $400. So I opted for something more economically viable for my piggy bank. We'll see if these two blogs accept the ad, first of all (for ads must be approved before running), and what traffic it might generate. We shall see....

Two Minutes Hate

A still from the movie based on George Orwell's dystopic novel,

1984. Depicted here is the daily two minutes, during which citizens

of Oceania rail against images representing enemies of the state.

George Orwell's concept of Two Minutes Hate is an effective propaganda tool, with ingenious psychological effect. On the surface it reinforces recognition of ackowledged state threats. Yet, it is an opportunity for Party members to exorcise their fear and anger in a way that reinforces the state's purpose. In fact, it is the only accepted period throughout the day, when emotion of any kind can be expressed. Here, the frustrations borne of personal privation and grim existence are diverted away from the state, which determines these bitter realities, and onto figures who are not responsible but still pose a threat--even in theory--to the state's power. After Party members have exhausted themselves hurling their pent up emotion at the screen, an image of Big Brother appears, intended to instill a reassuring calm to their weary spirits. Someone capable is in control, even if (we, the readers, suspect) he is actually a political concoction by the party rather than a figure truly at the helm.

During one of the Two Minute Hate rituals, the character Julia, with whom protagonist Winston Smith eventually becomes involved, even goes so far as to attack the screen onto which the state enemy, Emmanuel Goldstein (whom critics believe to be modeled on Leon Trotsky), is projected. And apparently, as Orwell indicates, this type of attack is not uncommon. Yet it is here that Orwell's plot device points up the ways in which our culture is prone (or perhaps we will one day learn, our political system has facilitated) the creation of public villians, against which citizens--feeling similarly burdened by unemployment, their own inauspicious life choices, and narrowing personal options--can vent their frustrations.

Consider this: why offer 24-hour coverage and perpetual analysis of the Casey Anthony trial, other than to divert attention away from people's individual woes? What value does repeatedly showing Anthony's picture, or focusing on her impasssive face during the trial, have other than to inspire a deep-seated hatred that leads away from constructive activity or focus on one's own concerns? She becomes a flashpoint, an object of derision that channels disgust away from personal circumstances created by troubled economic and political issues.



24 Hours Hate: the impassive face of Casey Anthony on trial.

 Another example is Ruppert Murdoch. Regardless of my feelings about what he may or may not have done, I realize the constant media coverage has made him into an enemy of the state, and not just one state, multiple states. In the image below, taken during the parliamentary probe in the UK today, he was assaulted with a shaving cream pie by an angry protester, later determined to be a comedian. Here, the Two Minute Hate had its inevitable consequences: attacking the reviled figure. Yet it was the 80 year-old man, not the telescreen, the symbol, or the intangible idea that was attacked.

Ruppert Murdoch, assaulted with a pie by a protester,
during a parliamentary probe.

Certainly, we want to know what's going on in the world. But vilification and doom appear everywhere in the media. Hasn't then the news actually become the outlet for setting up the political pariahs, against whom we citizens can vent our disgust with our social and economic circumstances? Of course, I've compared the media to Rome's bread and circuses (all circus, no bread, of course) before. But is the way topics are covered actually designed to divert attention from real isseus or, alternately, ignite public outrage against figures, whom various governments no longer find politically expedient? What does this remind us of? And shouldn't we be incredibly scared of the consequences of these patterns of thinking?

Germany's Dolchstoßlegende, circa 1919

The Balance of Power appears at SWI

I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday. Before we continue with this post, please enjoy Foster Brooks slowly drinking himself into a stupor with the gifts given to him by his "true love" over the
course of 12 days. What partridge? Why, it's always been a duck.



I have a new post at Speak Without Interruption (SWI). It is a work of fiction, titled "The Balance of Power," which I've posted at SWI--a venue that champions free speech. Truth be told, I've had a difficult time getting a journal to accept it. Here's an excerpt. You can decide its value or lack thereof for yourself now that it's out there for consumption. Perhaps they will add another few pages to my government dossier over it (Yes, I suspect I might actually have one somewhere, thanks to the popularity and subversive nature of this story, "December 15, 2012"). First, an excerpt from "The Balance of Power":

"Inside the hanger was a large cinder block partition, and around it were low-hanging lights that illuminated the hanger with bluish pools of fluorescence. These drop lights were covered by saucer-shaped shades that resembled tin pie pans. They reminded him of the poultry farm he had been to on the campaign trail. “You raising chickens in here?” He laughed, making a showy display of teeth and looking at the guard next to him. The guard did not respond, even, to the president’s surprise, out of deference. The guard’s face, which was blonde, freckled, and the color of boiled ham, remained rigid with purpose and pointed straight ahead. The president looked at the other guard and saw his reaction was equally stern. He then cleared his throat, smiled reflexively, and causally felt at the knot in his tie. Their lack of humor confirmed his sense that he was among zealots. A sudden sense of fear rose in him, making his neck tingle and goose flesh appear under his shirt, where it could not be seen. This should be shut down, he thought, instinctively. We don’t need this place. We’ll open up the flats to tourists."
Read the whole story here.

And while we're at it, check out Chris Hedges' fascinating relationship of both Huxley's and Orwell's visions of dystopia to contemporary culture posted at Truthdig. Check it out here: "A Brave New Dystopia". Excellent, interesting commentary.