Maybe I should sue Marie Cocco for plagiarism. She says what I said on May 19 about Michael Moore --- that he's a filmmaker, not a journalist:
"Moore has never claimed to be a journalist. He's a filmmaker and political satirist with a point of view, and a provocative one that rarely gets an airing in the mainstream media. Maybe that's why Moore makes documentaries - so that those who want something stronger than political pabulum can go out and buy it."
She's right of course, but so was I.
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William Manchester, the much adulated historian /biographer, is dead. Manchester brought history to life with his extraordinary narrative skills, and, as exemplified in his personal memoir of World War II, Goodbye Darkness, with brutal honesty. His description of his reaction to killing a Japanese soldier should be required reading for all those who glorify war:
"I began to tremble, and next to shake all over. I sobbed, in a voice still grainy with fear, 'Im sorry.' Then I threw up all over myself...At the same time I noticed another odour; I had urinated in my skivvies... I remember wondering dumbly: Is this what they mean by 'conspicuous gallantry?' "
But Manchester was also a snob of sorts, a cultural elitist, which colored his take on popular, or social, history. In The Glory and the Dream, he excoriates early TV fare as "trite" (Hopalong Cassidy) or "inane" (Ozzie and Harriet). The good stuff on TV was "televised operas outstanding by any standard", news doumentaries, "serious dramas", Edward R. Murrow, and Alistair Cooke (Omnibus). The $50,000 CBS paid Elvis Presley to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show "would have bought a lot of" those dramas and documentaries. Presley's appeal, Manchester claims, was that he was "lewd".
I'm no philistine, but I would rather listen to Elvis (great voice) than to opera, with its (mostly) silly stories and its outrageously artificial voices. Times change, and so does culture. Whoever said that TV is a "vast wasteland" is mostly right. But maybe that just reflects the commercial cultural wasteland that has always pretty much defined the American experience.
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Which brings to the bigger point of cultural and economic apartheid. Al Franken quoted a survey the other day that 19% of Americans believe they're in the top 1% of income earners. That may seem odd, but the truth is that Ameicans tend to hang out with people of similar economic status. Most of the people that I know and socialize with, for example, are in the top 20% of income earners, maybe even in the top 10%. Here are the tables from OMB Watcher:
Household income thresholds, by quintiles (20% blocks):
--Bottom Quintile: Income Range: $0 - 17,970; Share of Total Income: 3.5%
--Second Quintile: Income Range: $17,970 - $33,314; Share of Total Income: 8.7%
--Middle Quintile: Income Range: $33,314 - $53,000; Share of Total Income: 14.6%
--Fourth Quintile: Income Range: $53,000 - $83,500; Share of Total Income: 23.0%
--Top Quintile: Income Range: $83,500 and up; Share of Total Income: 50.2%
Well maybe some of my neighbors and associates fall into the fourth quintile, but mainly I don't have much contact with those who are, culturally and economically speaking, greatly different from me. And that's true of most Americans. We live in a stratified society. And according to the OMB Watcher article, the trend toward isolation by class and income is growing as the rich get richer and the poor, relatively speaking, get poorer.
I don't think that's a good trend. To paraphrase what I said about Neil Goldschmidt , associating exclusively with people of similar background and economic status, rich or poor, warps one's perspective. Which again is why I'm such an ardent supporter of public schools and the democratizing and unifying influence they exert on a society trending toward separatism.
I don't believe "apartheid" and democracy can coexist.
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