Batman and the Islamic State, Red and Blue Networks, Afghanistan plus a "Patriotic" Poem

                                                  

Should We Burn Down the Forest?

Thomas L. Friedman, in a recent New York Times column, references “Batman: the Dark Knight,” a movie I did not see, as offering a tactic for dealing with some of our problems in the Middle East.  Friedman disagrees and comes up with a more realistic, but time-consuming, strategy.  Here’s the column:

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Rules Don't Apply to These Guys

What’s the right strategy for dealing with a world increasingly divided between zones of order and disorder? For starters, you’d better understand the forces of disorder, like Boko Haram or the Islamic State. These are gangs of young men who are telling us in every way possible that our rules no longer apply. Reason cannot touch them, because rationalism never drove them. Their barbarism comes from a dark place, where radical Islam gives a sense of community to humiliated, drifting young men. 

   Batman vs. the Enemy

It’s why Orit Perlov, an Israeli expert on Arab social networks, keeps telling me that since I can’t visit the Islamic State, the next best thing would be to see “Batman: The Dark Knight.” In particular, she drew my attention to this dialogue between Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth:

   Bruce Wayne: “I knew the mob wouldn’t go down without a fight, but this is different. They crossed the line.”

   Alfred Pennyworth: “You crossed the line first, sir. You squeezed them. You hammered them to the point of desperation. And, in their desperation, they turned to a man they didn’t fully understand.”

   Bruce Wayne: “Criminals aren’t complicated, Alfred. Just have to figure out what he’s after.”

   Alfred Pennyworth:   “With respect, Master Wayne, perhaps this is a man that you don’t fully understand, either. A long time ago, I was in Burma. My friends and I were working for the local government. They were trying to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders by bribing them with precious stones. But their caravans were being raided in a forest north of Rangoon by a bandit. So we went looking for the stones ... One day, I saw a child playing with a ruby the size of a tangerine. The bandit had been throwing them away.”

   Bruce Wayne: “So why steal them?”

   Alfred Pennyworth: “Well, because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with...”

   Bruce Wayne: “The bandit, in the forest in Burma, did you catch him?”

   Alfred Pennyworth: “Yes.”

   Bruce Wayne: “How?”

   Alfred Pennyworth: “We burned the forest down.”

We can’t just burn down Syria or Iraq or Nigeria. But there is a strategy for dealing with the world of disorder:    
Where there is disorder — think Libya, Iraq, Syria, Mali, Chad, Somalia — collaborate with every source of local, regional and international order to contain the virus until the barbarism burns itself out. These groups can’t govern, so ultimately locals will seek alternatives.    
Where there is top-down order — think Egypt or Saudi Arabia — try to make it more decent and inclusive. 
Where there is order plus decency — think Jordan, Morocco, Kurdistan, the United Arab Emirates — try to make it more consensual and effective.    
Where there is order plus democracy — think Tunisia — do all you can to preserve and strengthen it with financial and security assistance.    We don’t have the wisdom or staying power to do anything more than contain these organisms, until the natural antibodies from within emerge.

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Some good ideas in there, friends, but note that Friedman (whom I have always considered to be a "generalist" in a world seeking "specific" answers) offers a strategy keyed to very indefinite words like "collaborate," "try," "preserve" and "strengthen" which are open to varying interpretations, not only among our allies, but among our own elected leaders as well.   When patience is exhausted waiting for Friedman's ideas to come to fruition, do we resort to Alfred Pennyworth's solution?
Jack Lippman
                                                         


Herman Melville Knew about Afghanistan

Some of you may be aware that my favorite novel is Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” which I make a habit of re-reading every few years, at which time I always manage to find something new to admire in this great work. 

 

Here’s something I just came across in the very first of its 135 chapters.  Ishmael, who is telling the story, is day-dreaming that his plan to sign on to a whaling vessel might just be part of some pre-ordained program of great worldly events, and that an imaginary advertising billboard might include it among other great events of the day (the 1840's).  Melville describes the “bill” as reading:

“Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States”

“Whaling Voyage by One Ishmael”

“Bloody Battle in Afghanistan”

Let’s ignore the election and Ishmael’s voyage for a second and realize that at the time this book was written, just before the middle of the nineteenth century, Afghanistan was even then presenting problems not unlike those it has presented to us in this century.  It was the British who were then trying to defeat Afghan tribal leaders, which they finally accomplished, but only after great losses, including the 1842 massacre of many of their troops in what has become known as the Battle of Kabul.  They didn't have IEDs then, but they had other stuff.  Things don’t change much.

JL

                                                               



The Red Network and the Blue Network

National Public Television recently featured a seven part series dealing with the Roosevelts: Theodore, Franklin and Eleanor.  It was a fascinating fourteen hours of history.  One little item in the series tickled my memories and prompted this line of thought.

 

Often, when President Roosevelt was speaking on the radio, there was a desktop filled with microphones before him.   Conspicuous among them was one labeled “Blue.”  That reminded me that the National Broadcasting Company, NBC, once owned two separate networks.  They called one the “Red” network and the other, the “Blue” network.  The latter’s microphones were clearly labeled “Blue” but the Red network’s mikes were labeled “NBC,” possibly to avoid an association with communism.  In any event, by the mid-1940s, after years of litigation, NBC was forced to divest itself of one of the networks for anti-trust reasons.  At that point the “Blue” network became independent of NBC and that’s where the fun started, at least in the New York metropolitan area.

There, in New York, the “Red” network’s flagship radio outlet was  station WEAF.  The “Blue” network’s flagship station there was WJZ.  Well, the National Broadcasting Company was quickly able to change the name of WEAF to WNBC.  The station continued to use that name (except for a period in the 1950s when it was called WRCA) until 1988 when it ceased operations.  But things were not so easy for the former "Blue" network.

The “Blue” network took on the name of the American Broadcasting Company, and wanted to change WJZ to WABC.  That wasn’t so simple, however, because at that point, the flagship radio station in New York for the Columbia Broadcasting System’s competing network used those WABC call letters.  This was ultimately cleared up when Columbia changed WABC’s call letters to WCBS, enabling the American Broadcasting Company to claim WABC as the new call letters for WJZ. These call letters continue in use today in these companies’ TV operations, as well as in their limited continued participation in radio.  

(The same thing happened on the West Coast in regard to stations KNBC, KABC and KCBS.  Station call letters in the East usually start with the letter "W" while stations in the West have call letters prefaced with a "K.")

I still recall the singing commercial the Columbia Broadcasting System used to let its listeners in the New York area know about the change in their station’s call letters.  The jingle went something like this: “Here’s a rhyme with reason, with a point we’d like to stress, WABC’s been changed to WCBS.”  And all this was brought back to me by that image of FDR before a battery of microphones.

JL

                                                                       
                                                           

How do You Feel about Your Country?  

Sir Walter Scott

In his work, "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," Sir Walter Scott included the following poem which you may remember from your secondary school days ... where it might have been entitled "Love of Country."  Although it was written in 1805, the language in the poem has stood the test of time rather well.  You don't see the word "pelf" very often, but it means "riches" and "concentered" was spelled a little differently then.  This is the way Scott felt about Scotland two centuries ago.  Many Scots still do, although in a recent vote, they chose to remain part of the United Kingdom.  Do we feel the same pride in being Americans today?

JL

"Breathes there the man with soul so dead…”

Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored , and unsung.

                                                           

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