BuzzMachine

The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.

So much for democracy

20 comments on So much for democracy

So much for democracy

: Last night on my new satellite radio (more on that later), I heard the most obnoxious interview with author Willilam T. Vollman on Chicago Public Radio’s Worldview. He doesn’t like Bush and that’d be fine; hey, it’s a democracy. But he doesn’t like democracy, either:

He called Bush “an idiot” who “can’t read” and is “a foolish, wicked person.” He said that Bush should be brought up before the world court on war crimes charges. The interviewer (finally) asked, “If he’s such an idiot, what does that make the American people?… They reelected him.”

Vollman replies: “I think that half of Americans are very uneducated as well.” He says he tells people in the rest of the world that “Amreican people aren’t educated… they don’t have the education or the mental tools to judge other cultures…. I blame the self-referentiality and the shallowness of the education system and the mass media.”

I wonder if I can get a refund for that hour.

20 responses to “So much for democracy”

  1. Rachel Cohen Avatar
    Rachel Cohen

    He’s an ass. Why did they book him? His books vacilate between unreadable and just dull.

  2. -asx- Avatar
    -asx-

    Ummm….. Maybe you left it out of your summary, but there doesn’t seem to be anything he said that indicates dislike for democracy. Where exactly is the problem we’re supposed to see with his remarks?
    Bush is an idiot, and many Americans are woefully uninformed.
    Have you seen the movie Control Room? Or Outfoxed? How about the BBC’s outstanding series, The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear? All are superb and go a long way to demonstrate the massive disconnect between reality and what is reported in American media.

  3. wag Avatar
    wag

    Bush HAS broken international law with the invasion of Iraq – its a war of aggression under well-established international law. Even noted leftist Richard Perle has admitted as much.

  4. brad Avatar
    brad

    Huh? My take would be that somebody who HATES GWB and all he “stands for” probably is in LOVE with democracy. A high per centage of Americans would agree with every one of those comments. You need to slow down for all that media spotlight you puff all the time and spend time with some REAL FOLKS!

  5. J. Peden Avatar
    J. Peden

    wag, Please substantiate your claim with the relevant Treaty laws and articles, including the agreements pertaining to any country which signs on which prevent it from exercising its vital national interest rights.

  6. thom Avatar
    thom

    the american people aren’t dumb. the american people are starved of real politics. south park put it well when they said “what’s the choice between a giant douche and a turd sandwich?”. kerry was lame, but bush is evil. (actually, rumsfeld and cheney are evil and he is their avatar).

  7. WJA Avatar
    WJA

    If Vollman isn’t an idiot himself, why did he offer all these wildly wrong predictions and analyses, a few weeks after 9/11? And why does his own appraisal of Bush’s actions at the time still seem like the most accurate thing in this whole interview?
    http://archive.salon.com/books/int/2001/09/27/vollman/index.html
    Salon: How do you see this [invasion of Afghanistan] playing out?
    WV: It really depends on how much knowledge of Afghanistan the Bush administration sees fit to pick up. If we want to launch a frontal assault on Afghanistan, then we’ll have to be prepared for lots and lots of genocide. Maybe the only way to accomplish our aims is some kind of nuclear bomb, because everyone would fight, as they like to say, until the last drop of blood…
    The Taliban controls 90 percent of the country. The Northern Alliance controls 10 percent. If you want to go and arm the 10 percent against the 90 percent, you’re going to cause untold misery. And who is to say the Northern Alliance won’t turn on us? To me it seems like a fairly pointless strategy. All it will succeed in doing is to piss everyone off…
    If we target any cities, I imagine we will kill lots and lots of innocent people. One aspect of their culture that made them so effective against the Soviet Union is they believe in blood feuds. I think it’s very, very easy by killing one Osama to make 10 more, and by killing 10 to make 100 more. Unless we lay out our case and let them know that justice is being done, we can expect a big blood feud…
    One reason that the Taliban [among the Afghan people] is quite popular is they took everyone’s weapons away. They said from now on we’re not going to follow my law or your law, we’re going to follow the law as laid down in the Quran. Their interpretation of the Quran is very harsh. They are very, very strict. Maybe they are fanatics, but they are doing the best that they can…
    I don’t want to sound like I’m completely negative about everything the government is doing. I didn’t vote for Bush, and I’m not happy particularly that he’s president. But I will say I’m impressed that he didn’t start bombing Afghanistan the day after Sept. 11. The more time that passes without him bombing Afghanistan, the more I respect him.

  8. pele Avatar
    pele

    “vital national interest rights” = Oil.

  9. Jack Mehoffer Avatar
    Jack Mehoffer

    A large percentage of the American people are uneducated buffoons, dolts, and miscreants. Vollman was correct. And he was right about Bush, too. Bush is an idiot, and everything that Bush touches turns to shit. While America should be doing everything it can to help out with the Tsunami relief efforts, our government only donates a paltry $350 million (and only after intense pressure and embarrassment) while we continue to pump billions into this war effort.
    Screw Bush. And screw the American people too. Let them buy their little “Support Our Troops” ribbons so they can plaster them all over the backs of their gas-guzzling SUVs. Hey, I’ve got an idea … why don’t your support the troops by enlisting your children in the Army? Send them over to Iraq to fight for my “freedoms”. You know, “freedoms”. Like my freedom to sit here on my dead ass behind a keyboard and spout vitriol about what idiots you all are. First ammendment and all that. Thanks patriots……

  10. Kevin Gregory Avatar
    Kevin Gregory

    Jeff – that is just another example of the mental illness which now afflicts many in today’s Democratic Party. (just look at come of the posts above mine for more examples.)

  11. Doug Avatar
    Doug

    I guess it’s safe to assume you got Sirius? How do you like it? I love my XM, but am considering getting Sirius as well, for it’s superior talk lineup.

  12. David Avatar
    David

    “Please substantiate your claim with the relevant Treaty laws and articles, including the agreements pertaining to any country which signs on which prevent it from exercising its vital national interest rights.”
    From “WAR CRIMES LAW APPLIES TO U.S. TOO” By Walter J. Rockler Chicago Tribune May 23, 1999
    re: Clinton’s illegal bombing of Serbia, but equally applicable to Bush’s illegal war.
    http://www.zmag.org/crisescurevts/nurletter.htm
    “As a primary source of international law, the judgment of the Nuremberg Tribunal in the 1945-1946 case of the major Nazi war criminals is plain and clear. Our leaders often invoke and praise that judgment, but obviously have not read it. The International Court declared:
    To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”
    …and…
    “The United Nations Charter views aggression similarly. Articles 2(4) and (7) prohibit interventions in the domestic jurisdiction of any country and threats of force or the use of force by one state against another. The General Assembly of the UN in Resolution 2131, “Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention,” reinforced the view that a forceful military intervention in any country is aggression and a crime without justification.”

  13. MD Avatar
    MD

    I think that when people say Americans are not educated, they are using the term “not educated” to mean “not critical thinkers”. And I agree with that sentiment. We simply do not base many important decisions (politics, health, environment) on evidence, but rather on what feels right. This is certainly true as far as the US voting public is concerned. I would also point out that we Americans are woefully unaware of history and current events – the world’s and even our own.
    I think our attention spans have shortened to the point of judging political candidates based on appearance. It is what Neil Postman outlined and it is alluded to in Jon Stewart’s America the Book. I see no way out of this without training massive amounts of people in critical thinking and I simply don’t see how that could ever happen.

  14. MD (not MD above) Avatar
    MD (not MD above)

    Well, if Americans are misinformed, so are most people around the globe, if you look at polls (the Pew kind, not those super-duper internet polls).
    Anyway, I’ve never understood why anyone would think insulting vast numbers of people (or even one or two) would make them more likely to listen to your arguments. It’s almost as if it’s not about having a dialogue, it’s more about striking a pose.

  15. dries Avatar
    dries

    with thinking like vollman’s & many posters above, congressional democratic party representation will shrink to a token DC representative within a few election cycles.
    what an arrogance from people who keep losing nearly each time they run.

  16. MD (critical thinking post) Avatar
    MD (critical thinking post)

    I agree with many of you – the vitriol is unneeded and counterproductive. Facts -clear and simply-worded- are what we need, not vitriol from any of the sides of the argument, but I guess facts aren’t entertaining or cathartic.

  17. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    Lets Blame the Readers (my comments in brackets)

    At one session the APME attendees and those of the affiliated meeting of the Associated Press Photo Managers were asked to say whether they would have published certain grisly photographs on page one

  18. Lindon Avatar
    Lindon

    Well, here’s a set of depressing posts…Surely the issue here isn’t whether the american public is dumb or not, but the global perception formed when the american people voted for GWB a 2nd time?
    The world, Volman suggests, is being told the american people are dumb, and in truth most people round here asked at the time: “Grief how dumb are they?” (or variants on it).
    None of the posts above do anything but defend/attack the proposition. I think it might be more valuable to ask “How do the American people engage with the rest of the world to prove themselves not-dumb / compassionate / open-minded / whatever?” I guess “Only give less than two days war budget to Tsunami relief” wont show up as one of the credible answers..

  19. cj Avatar
    cj

    “How do the American people engage with the rest of the world to prove themselves not-dumb / compassionate / open-minded / whatever?” I guess “Only give less than two days war budget to Tsunami relief” wont show up as one of the credible answers..”
    You’re assuming that only “non-thinking persons” could believe that garnering a toe-hold for democracy in the ME is a worthwhile cause.
    Note the word “toe-hold” — NOT, 2004-US-Style-Democracy.
    I think the ME needs some radical changes introduced — and that those changes will have global repercussions.
    Why does that make me an idiot?

  20. Steve Rhodes Avatar
    Steve Rhodes

    People can listen to the interview about Rising Up and Rising Down, his book on violence, and decide for themselves.
    Or perhaps read Letter from Afghanistan from the May 2000, New Yorker. I think a longer version is in Rising Up.