As history evolved after the rise of the Enlightenment, a chain reaction of ideas and processes were triggered which eventually led to the rise of world empires, their imperialistic wars, and revolutionized the world in which we live in today. This chain reaction went from the enlightenment, to a social contract between members of the same society. These contracts resulted in the ideas of equality and justice for all members of those societies, causing such political revolutions as what occurred in the U.S. and in France. Revolutions such as these led to Popular Sovereignty, or the people ruling the people. From ruling themselves, people of an area with similar revolutionary backgrounds and history grew together in the form of having a sense of patriotic nationalism. This Collective Identity still remains a significant factor in the different societies of today’s world.
These empires began to be ruled by a nation state’s own government, not that of a private company as was the case via the East India Company. Empires now put boundaries on their territories, officially differentiating between what nation-states owned and controlled different areas of land.
The United State’s Empire began to rise as a world power with the American Revolution. From there the country developed special factors unique to every country and their own empires on the earth. These included national laws, different political parties, and a standardization of monetary units within that country.
What started out as a mere grouping of thirteen British colonies on the east coast of what is today’s United States spread westward. Eventually the empire’s lands reached all the way from its beginnings on the Atlantic Ocean’s shores across to the Pacific Ocean and then even overseas in Cuba. The drive for this territory was cultivated by the idea of Manifest Destiny.
“Rallying to the rhetoric of Manifest Destiny, which maintained that it was God’s will for the United States to ‘overspread’ the North American continent, the most aggressive expansionists sought control of British lands in the northwest (in the Oregon country), and the lands south and west of the Louisiana Territory (in the northern provinces of Mexico). * However greatly this affected the rising sense of nationality within the conquering Americans, the expansive territorial control and violence that accompanied it had a massively negative effect of the native peoples. Indians and their sources were being completely wiped out, or forced from their homelands with the expanding railways connecting the empire throughout. The Second Industrial Revolution took place during this time as well, aiding in the ability for the U.S. to expand and conquer territories. Although trains were still being run by steam, mechanical power was rapidly being replaced with the harnessing of electricity. Manufacturing in factories was on the rise in the united states- mass production of goods helped make goods cheaper and more affordable for the public. This was good because the wages of laborers in these factories were being decreased. Often, the increase in the use of mechanics within manufacturing plants not only decreased people’s wages, but replaced them entirely resulting in mass unemployment issues.
Germany and Italy rose as empires parallel to the U.S. The empire achieved this at first by incorporating smaller neighbors who shared their similar languages.
“Clever strategists, Bismark and Cavour used nationalist feelings and small-scale, limited wars to enlarge their states. Both were determined to build state power and to preserve monarchical and conservative rule. To these ends, they appealed to shared literary traditions and languages to paper over social, economic, political, and religious fault lines.” *
In addition to appealing to their neighbor’s shared cultures and lifestyles, Germany in particularly used their newfound brute force brought to them through the Second Industrial Revolution by means of mass production, metal, and cheap labor.
“In a famous address in 1862, Bismarck bellowed: ‘Not through speeches and majority decisions are the great questions of the day decided- that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849 - but through blood and iron.’ Taking his own advice, he accomplished the unification of the northern German states...with Denmark... Austria...and France.” *
Even in the expansion and unification of these smaller parts of Europe under one Empire, Germany still had to deal with many internal conflicts and complications. Germany, as many other European nations at this time, simply went out in search of new land to conquer and start afresh in rather than work on fixing domestic problems. This was when Germany began its expansion into other areas of the world, such as Africa. Just as the expansion west in the U.S. hurt the native people of North America through their Manifest Destiny, the native in Africa were injured radically by the European conquering of their homelands by declaration of Social Darwinism.
“The consequences of European partition of the continent for Africa were devastating, as the newly drawn borders failed to correspond to older demarcations of ethnicity, language, culture, and commerce.” *
The ideals of Manifest Destiny and Social Darwinism were often propagandized by conquering Empires to justify their actions to their public majorities. This is where the term “the pen in mightier than the sword” came into play so harshly. In this case, the sword was taking over the countries and territories these huge empires were expanding into, but the pen was the weapon convincing the public of the sword’s justification.
The increase in industrialization, although good for companies on an economic perspective, were not ideal for workers. People’s pay being cut began to just upset and restless. Women and children had to begin to work to support family units, just as had happened before in England during the first Industrial Revolution. Women began becoming much more than a family stay-at-home motherly icon figure in the family unit. They were working as the men did now.
“Industrialization also enforced unwelcome changes in how and where people worked and lived. Rural people flocked into the cities, sometimes in response to expanding economic opportunities, but often in a desperate effort to escape widespread poverty. Urbanization tore at communal solidarities...Global economic changes caused profound social and economic transformations in the lives of women.” *
The lack of attention to the internal problems arising on the domestic fronts of these Empires was combined with the increasingly dissatisfied conquered lands overseas. Situations turned sour and anxieties and tempers rose. Not only that, but the countries in Europe were all competing for the same territories worldwide.
“Political and military tension increased among the European states as they competed for raw materials and colonial footholds.” *
All of this was eventually came to a head in the form of “Total War” or WWI.
“The decades leading up to 1914 were a time of unprecedented possibility for some, and social disruption and economic frustration for others...In the decades before WWI, opposition to European colonial rule in Asia and Africa gained strength.” *
WWI brought about changes by means of mass culture, the enhancement of mass production as well as mass consumption.
The war was spawn from the increasingly tense politicized cultures world wide associated with a new mass cultural world. Technologies such as radio and film worked towards propagandizing patriotic feelings in the home front concerning the war. Commercial Advertising was increased dramatically during this period, eventually becoming incorporated into everyday life everywhere. Art and Entertainment were focused at a lower level now, more towards the common man than exclusively towards the elite. All of these aspects helped in the solidification and unification of nationalistic and patriotic feelings on the home fronts.
Mass Production and Consumption were direct results of ideas and technologies trickling down from the Enlightenment period and through the Industrial Revolutions. Although not a plan of the pacifistic ideas of Enlightenment, many technologies were put into use to produce mass weapons and war materials. The industrialized world only helped to provide a fast and efficient way to produce these war materials at a rapid enough speed to meet with its rapid use on the war fronts. Standardization of manufacturing goods increased the production rates dramatically as well. The increase of mass production and consumption carried on into the years after the war- creating both job markets and more affordable goods. (Such as in the case of Ford’s Model T.)
The world virtually expanded and conquered each other in an almost seemingly manic manner between the period of the first Industrial Revolution to the years right before and after WWI. As global Empires sprang forth, so did the colonized and conquered territories. Anxieties and tensions rose along with these Empires. The whole concoction made for a world boiling with nationalism, political and economic struggles which are still affecting us in the world of today, almost one hundred years later.
* Tignor, Robert, Jeremy Adelman, Stephen Aron, Stephen Kotkin, Suzanne Marchand, Gyan Prakash, and Michael Tsin. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart : a History of the Modern World From the Mongol Empire to the Present.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Today's Murrow of Tomorrow
George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck is a historical film depicting the early days of television broadcasting in the 1950s. Starring David Strathaim, Robert Downy, Jr., Ray Wise, George Clooney, and Frank Langella among others, these actors were used in the portrayal of real-life people. The film tells of the true-to-life struggles between Edward R. Murrow’s beliefs in reporting the truth and exposing “the bad guys” and Senator Joseph McCarthy trying to suppress the media through relentless blacklisting and accusations of communist activities by all people involved in the entertainment world.
This movie is very visually striking, whereas most other films in the “journalist genre” of films are very realistic looking. This works well in the film, throwing the audience back into the era from which these problems lay for awhile through the use of black and white film, and then in the very ending as they are left with Murrow’s famous speech, they are left to the realization that the entire film and its messages are certainly applicable to the situations in the United States of today.
While many journalist-genre films tend to bash a journalist, it is not surprising that Americans are biased against journalists. Roger Ebert, in his review on Good Night and Good Luck says “the movie is not really about the abuses of McCarthy, but about the process by which Murrow and his team eventually brought about his downfall (some would say his self-destruction). It is like a morality play, from which we learn how journalists should behave. It shows Murrow as fearless, but not flawless.”(“Good Night, and Good Luck”,Wikipedia). This is both an insult to how journalists of today are perceived as well as a great compliment to Murrow and the film itself.
Murrow began his career in radio broadcasting for CBS in Europe during WWII, which led to his famous live radio broadcast to the United States during the London Blitz. On his return to the states, CBS hosted a “welcome home” dinner of sorts for him with hundreds of guests and an even greater number of people tuning into the dinner via their radios. Tuning in they could hear Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish give an speech in which he said:
“You burned the cit of London in our houses and we felt the flames...You laid the dead of London at our doors and we knew that the dead were our dead...were mankind’s dead without rhetoric, without dramatics, without more emotion than needed be...you have destroyed the superstition that what is done beyond 3,000 miles of water is not really done at all.” (“Edward R. Murrow”).
Less then a week later the US had entered into WWII, Murrow is often given a lot of credit for the US’s involvement in the war.
This series of events eventually launched Murrow into television broadcasting career at CBS. He is most famous for the actions he took against Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950s as depicted in Good Night, and Good Luck. Murrow was constantly working to expose the truth and reveal the injustices in the world.
Joseph M. McCarthy was a Senator from Wisconsin who rose from teenage chicken farmer, to the youngest circuit judge ever elected in Wisconsin, to the Senate (clooney studio). McCarthy addressed the national suspicions of communist infiltration in the United States by feeding off of the public’s fears. He made accusations, without definitive proof, of communist permeation within the government. These accusations eventually spilled from the government into other major areas of social concern in the US, especially the media, i.e. Hollywood and television in particular. From there it ran rampant, blacklisting of any person suspected of any connection whatsoever that may have anything to do the Communist part occurred, ruining the lives and careers of countless of numbers of people involved in entertainment.
Eventually, aided greatly by the exposure of McCarthy and HUAC’s activities aired on CBS’s “See it Now” on March 9, 1954 with Edward Murrow, McCarthy was investigated by the Senate. This resulted in the Senate committee’s report describing the acts of McCarthy as vulgar, insulting, and inexcusable among other things. He remained in the Senate, but his reputation was marred for life. ("Good Night, and Good Luck." George Clooney - Clooney Studio).
The movie’s accuracy in depicting this era in the history of the US is certainly accurate as far as the media history is concerned. The stylization and soundtrack of the film certainly depict a certain “bygone” era which is nostalgic, but too ideal to be an actual accurate depiction of the world back then. At the very least, it must have been a lot noisier then it’s shown as being. The sets and shots are shown as being very sterile and very quiet. The soundtrack consists of Dianne Reeves singing periodically throughout the movie and different intervals, scene changes and time lapses (IMDB). However, the rest of the film is mainly silent, without any kind of background music whatsoever. This provides for great effects in the film as far as looking at the era in which it is set. It gives the audience a strong sense of the “hush-hush” situations these media people found themselves in the light of the times. People were afraid to speak out against McCarthy for fear of being blacklisted themselves. They were forced to sign papers saying they had never had anything to do with the Communist party, regardless of where they actually stood on political matters. They were powerless at the time, it was a choice between their own personal morals and ethics or the demise of their careers and future lives. The quietness of the film also helped in letting the audience focus on the issues and dialogue which were rapidly being thrown around the screen, a lot of mood music would take away from the seriousness of the situation.
The historical characters and situations in which they are involved are very true-to-life. Fred Friendly, the Wershbas, Sig Mickelson, William Paley, and of course Murrow just to name a few of the characters really fought for their careers and against McCarthyism as shown in the film. All of these people, involved in television broadcasting at the time took huge risks in acting out against the Senator’s actions at this time. The heroic steps they took proved themselves as true journalists during that time period. They stood up for the people, the truth, and exposed the wrongdoings and lies of the government in the light all journalists would love to be seen in.
A look at the ending of this film shows lines from the famous speech Murrow made at the RTNDA Convention in Chicago, October 15, 1958. (Murrow):
“To those who say people wouldn't look; they wouldn't be interested; they're too complacent, indifferent and
insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter's opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost. This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. Good night, and good luck.”
This was the actual speech in which Murrow got into quite a bit of trouble late on, but he was still ever the journalist, telling it how it was, always being honest in his reporting and his opinions both.
Going by this quote, if Murrow were alive today I cannot conceive that he would be happy or proud with the way television of today has evolved, and what it has evolved into. Without first looking at the news itself of today, take a look at the pure entertainment that society puts on television of today. Reality T.V. is a prime representation of just how lowly our prime time entertainment has become. We not only struggle to live out our own lives, but at the day’s end we feel the need to derive pleasure from other people’s struggles and misfortunes with no redeeming value whatsoever. These shows have no morals, no values, no educational or even relaxing value to them, so why is the public so fascinated with them? Murrow said the television could teach, illuminate, and inspire. These shows do none of that. We have failed to follow his warnings that television can be used as tool only to the extent which people use it. Such big-time entertainment niches in the television world of today (for example, MTV) are exactly the opposite of what Murrow would have had liked to see television used for.
The news industry of today is an absolute mess as well. Take the Dan Rather scandal, the political divisions excruciatingly apparent in such big-name news networks as Fox, all the “fluffy” news stories the local news channels find so necessary to inform the public of. These are precisely the kinds of shoes Murrow hated, even as he was forced to host them on CBS as made blatant in Good Night and Good Luck.
However historically accurate this film is of the 1950s and the media war with McCarthy at the time, this film is not merely a documentation of the past. It is a statement about our way of life as it presently stands in the US today.
“In the 1950s the right wing attacked liberals as being communists. In 2005 Karl Rove has attacked liberals as being therapists. Thus is born a kinder and gentler form of McCarthyism.....Rove’s instantly famous speech...should be read in light of this history and not be written off as a cheap, one-time partisan attack. On the contrary, the address by Rove, President Bush’s most important adviser, provides the outlines of a sophisticated strategy aimed at making liberals and Democrats all look soft on terrorism.” (Dionne, Jr).
Terrorism has simply taken the place of Communism in the United States of today. If one is against the war in Iraq, you’re unpatriotic, one must be a terrorist sympathizer. In the fifties if one didn’t conform to McCarthy’s ideals than HUAC declared one a communist, blacklisted instantly. Murrow would be terribly disappointed that his work to expose the government in it’s over-obsessive attempts to “cleanse” the US’s society were in vain, only to have them repeated fifty years later. Yet, it’s alright to expose the people of our country to the mindless babel of rotten television, poor morals and ideals strewn across our media as if it were candy for the public to gobble up and digest. Russia was a threat in the fifties, not the entertainment industry. Nowadays, the entertainment industry has found an all-time conglomerate-controlled low, we are attacking all of those overseas who are not a threat whatsoever, and pacifists or liberals (anyone who disagrees with the war or the President) are being attacked and labeled as “unpatriotic” and “terrorists”.
Good Night, and Good Luck strives not only to depict journalists as they should be, as Ebert voiced, but to draw attention to the obviously paralleling issues between our current society and that of our country’s yesterdays. History, although proven to continuously repeat itself, should be learned from in order to act upon mistakes previously made before they even occur. As a legendary broadcast journalist Murrow pushed the truth as he saw it on the American people, before Watergate, before the journalist-school boom. Yet every aspiring journalist should take a look at this film, at Murrow’s work, and compare it to the situations presented in our lives of today. As said best by Murrow:
“We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.”(Clooney Good Night, and Good Luck).
This movie is very visually striking, whereas most other films in the “journalist genre” of films are very realistic looking. This works well in the film, throwing the audience back into the era from which these problems lay for awhile through the use of black and white film, and then in the very ending as they are left with Murrow’s famous speech, they are left to the realization that the entire film and its messages are certainly applicable to the situations in the United States of today.
While many journalist-genre films tend to bash a journalist, it is not surprising that Americans are biased against journalists. Roger Ebert, in his review on Good Night and Good Luck says “the movie is not really about the abuses of McCarthy, but about the process by which Murrow and his team eventually brought about his downfall (some would say his self-destruction). It is like a morality play, from which we learn how journalists should behave. It shows Murrow as fearless, but not flawless.”(“Good Night, and Good Luck”,Wikipedia). This is both an insult to how journalists of today are perceived as well as a great compliment to Murrow and the film itself.
Murrow began his career in radio broadcasting for CBS in Europe during WWII, which led to his famous live radio broadcast to the United States during the London Blitz. On his return to the states, CBS hosted a “welcome home” dinner of sorts for him with hundreds of guests and an even greater number of people tuning into the dinner via their radios. Tuning in they could hear Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish give an speech in which he said:
“You burned the cit of London in our houses and we felt the flames...You laid the dead of London at our doors and we knew that the dead were our dead...were mankind’s dead without rhetoric, without dramatics, without more emotion than needed be...you have destroyed the superstition that what is done beyond 3,000 miles of water is not really done at all.” (“Edward R. Murrow”).
Less then a week later the US had entered into WWII, Murrow is often given a lot of credit for the US’s involvement in the war.
This series of events eventually launched Murrow into television broadcasting career at CBS. He is most famous for the actions he took against Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950s as depicted in Good Night, and Good Luck. Murrow was constantly working to expose the truth and reveal the injustices in the world.
Joseph M. McCarthy was a Senator from Wisconsin who rose from teenage chicken farmer, to the youngest circuit judge ever elected in Wisconsin, to the Senate (clooney studio). McCarthy addressed the national suspicions of communist infiltration in the United States by feeding off of the public’s fears. He made accusations, without definitive proof, of communist permeation within the government. These accusations eventually spilled from the government into other major areas of social concern in the US, especially the media, i.e. Hollywood and television in particular. From there it ran rampant, blacklisting of any person suspected of any connection whatsoever that may have anything to do the Communist part occurred, ruining the lives and careers of countless of numbers of people involved in entertainment.
Eventually, aided greatly by the exposure of McCarthy and HUAC’s activities aired on CBS’s “See it Now” on March 9, 1954 with Edward Murrow, McCarthy was investigated by the Senate. This resulted in the Senate committee’s report describing the acts of McCarthy as vulgar, insulting, and inexcusable among other things. He remained in the Senate, but his reputation was marred for life. ("Good Night, and Good Luck." George Clooney - Clooney Studio).
The movie’s accuracy in depicting this era in the history of the US is certainly accurate as far as the media history is concerned. The stylization and soundtrack of the film certainly depict a certain “bygone” era which is nostalgic, but too ideal to be an actual accurate depiction of the world back then. At the very least, it must have been a lot noisier then it’s shown as being. The sets and shots are shown as being very sterile and very quiet. The soundtrack consists of Dianne Reeves singing periodically throughout the movie and different intervals, scene changes and time lapses (IMDB). However, the rest of the film is mainly silent, without any kind of background music whatsoever. This provides for great effects in the film as far as looking at the era in which it is set. It gives the audience a strong sense of the “hush-hush” situations these media people found themselves in the light of the times. People were afraid to speak out against McCarthy for fear of being blacklisted themselves. They were forced to sign papers saying they had never had anything to do with the Communist party, regardless of where they actually stood on political matters. They were powerless at the time, it was a choice between their own personal morals and ethics or the demise of their careers and future lives. The quietness of the film also helped in letting the audience focus on the issues and dialogue which were rapidly being thrown around the screen, a lot of mood music would take away from the seriousness of the situation.
The historical characters and situations in which they are involved are very true-to-life. Fred Friendly, the Wershbas, Sig Mickelson, William Paley, and of course Murrow just to name a few of the characters really fought for their careers and against McCarthyism as shown in the film. All of these people, involved in television broadcasting at the time took huge risks in acting out against the Senator’s actions at this time. The heroic steps they took proved themselves as true journalists during that time period. They stood up for the people, the truth, and exposed the wrongdoings and lies of the government in the light all journalists would love to be seen in.
A look at the ending of this film shows lines from the famous speech Murrow made at the RTNDA Convention in Chicago, October 15, 1958. (Murrow):
“To those who say people wouldn't look; they wouldn't be interested; they're too complacent, indifferent and
insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter's opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost. This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. Good night, and good luck.”
This was the actual speech in which Murrow got into quite a bit of trouble late on, but he was still ever the journalist, telling it how it was, always being honest in his reporting and his opinions both.
Going by this quote, if Murrow were alive today I cannot conceive that he would be happy or proud with the way television of today has evolved, and what it has evolved into. Without first looking at the news itself of today, take a look at the pure entertainment that society puts on television of today. Reality T.V. is a prime representation of just how lowly our prime time entertainment has become. We not only struggle to live out our own lives, but at the day’s end we feel the need to derive pleasure from other people’s struggles and misfortunes with no redeeming value whatsoever. These shows have no morals, no values, no educational or even relaxing value to them, so why is the public so fascinated with them? Murrow said the television could teach, illuminate, and inspire. These shows do none of that. We have failed to follow his warnings that television can be used as tool only to the extent which people use it. Such big-time entertainment niches in the television world of today (for example, MTV) are exactly the opposite of what Murrow would have had liked to see television used for.
The news industry of today is an absolute mess as well. Take the Dan Rather scandal, the political divisions excruciatingly apparent in such big-name news networks as Fox, all the “fluffy” news stories the local news channels find so necessary to inform the public of. These are precisely the kinds of shoes Murrow hated, even as he was forced to host them on CBS as made blatant in Good Night and Good Luck.
However historically accurate this film is of the 1950s and the media war with McCarthy at the time, this film is not merely a documentation of the past. It is a statement about our way of life as it presently stands in the US today.
“In the 1950s the right wing attacked liberals as being communists. In 2005 Karl Rove has attacked liberals as being therapists. Thus is born a kinder and gentler form of McCarthyism.....Rove’s instantly famous speech...should be read in light of this history and not be written off as a cheap, one-time partisan attack. On the contrary, the address by Rove, President Bush’s most important adviser, provides the outlines of a sophisticated strategy aimed at making liberals and Democrats all look soft on terrorism.” (Dionne, Jr).
Terrorism has simply taken the place of Communism in the United States of today. If one is against the war in Iraq, you’re unpatriotic, one must be a terrorist sympathizer. In the fifties if one didn’t conform to McCarthy’s ideals than HUAC declared one a communist, blacklisted instantly. Murrow would be terribly disappointed that his work to expose the government in it’s over-obsessive attempts to “cleanse” the US’s society were in vain, only to have them repeated fifty years later. Yet, it’s alright to expose the people of our country to the mindless babel of rotten television, poor morals and ideals strewn across our media as if it were candy for the public to gobble up and digest. Russia was a threat in the fifties, not the entertainment industry. Nowadays, the entertainment industry has found an all-time conglomerate-controlled low, we are attacking all of those overseas who are not a threat whatsoever, and pacifists or liberals (anyone who disagrees with the war or the President) are being attacked and labeled as “unpatriotic” and “terrorists”.
Good Night, and Good Luck strives not only to depict journalists as they should be, as Ebert voiced, but to draw attention to the obviously paralleling issues between our current society and that of our country’s yesterdays. History, although proven to continuously repeat itself, should be learned from in order to act upon mistakes previously made before they even occur. As a legendary broadcast journalist Murrow pushed the truth as he saw it on the American people, before Watergate, before the journalist-school boom. Yet every aspiring journalist should take a look at this film, at Murrow’s work, and compare it to the situations presented in our lives of today. As said best by Murrow:
“We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.”(Clooney Good Night, and Good Luck).
The Killing Fields
In Roland Joffe’s The Killing Fields, reporters take many different roles. From the role of the foreign correspondent as both concerned and out for a good story, to the local people (and local reporters) left behind to fend for themselves, this film sends mixed messages but somewhat true-to-life emotions concerning very real situations which are still occurring in our world today.
International reporting in hot spots such as this is intimidating at best, and deadly at its worst. The Committee to Protect Journalists puts out a report each year, stating the world’s most dangerous places to be a journalist based on the number killed, missing, kidnapped and tortured over the past year. Currently, the most dangerous place is Iraq. Other areas include countries with recent histories of civil unrest, government oppression, high drug-trafficking, and wartime (The Committee to Protect Journalists). The experiences of the journalists depicted in The Killing Fields were true to life, the Vietnam War spilling over into Cambodia and the civil unrest which ensued, resulting in the governmental takeover of the Communist Khmer Rouge Regime.
Unlike other films covering foreign correspondents, this film splits into two separate stories mid-way, focusing more on the genocidal situation in Cambodia and the survival and escape of a local reporter, Dith Pran, in order to let the world know his people’s story of oppression and struggle. Parallel to this, but less focused on, is the story of Sydney Schanberg’s return to America, his Pulitzer Prize for work done in Cambodia, and his search for Dith Pran.
The events of the fall of Cambodia and the rise of the Khmer Rouge as depicted in the first part of the film were fairly accurate, although unclear at times. For example, there is a part in the film, right when the Khmer Rouge has taken over the city of Phnom Penh, in which the reporters are arrested and Dith Pran saves them by convincing their captors that they are in reality French correspondents and therefore neutral in the situation. As a result, they are released to the French Embassy and eventually evacuated out of the country. Although this situation actually happened, in the film it is rather unclear of what exactly is happening. The audience is unsure if the regime is holding them to scare them, what Dith Pran actually convinces them of, and why exactly they’re at the French Embassy. However, this may in fact be how the situation was in Cambodia at that time, very confusing, and it is very possible that the reporters weren’t even sure of the situation or what was happening at the time.
At this same point in the film in which the reporters are arrested and released, Pol Pot was forcing the evacuation of all people from the city to the countryside. Anyone with any kind of education, any elite societal people, foreigners, anyone who spoke a foreign language, and even those who had bodily defects (such as wearing glasses) were systematically slaughtered; everybody left was to start a new life at “year zero” (LoBaido). Although the events were somewhat downplayed and a bit unclear as to what was truly happening, the film held onto its accuracy of the grave situation. In 1997, during an interview with Elizabeth Farnsworth, she asked Schanberg what it was like in Cambodia in 1975 when Phnom Penh was being emptied out into the countryside:
“It was like something obviously none of us had every seen–two million people being forced to leave their homes and marched into the countryside, hospitals emptied, patients severly wounded being pushed up the avenues on their beds with serum bottles dripping into their arms. I was truly a mad sight.”. ("Online NewsHour: Pot Pot's Legacy- June 18, 1997")
The American Press in the case of what happened in this film, had little or no influence on what was occurring around them. Largely hidden by the Vietnam War, the U.S. was taking military action in Cambodia which involved secret bombing raids on suspected Viet Cong bases within Cambodia’s borders ("Cambodia"). These acts of war continued unknown to the people in the U.S., and was touched on in the beginning of the film by the investigative efforts of Schanberg. The U.S. government was actually depicted in no better light than that of the Communistic Khmer Rouge takeover. The U.S. was secretly attacking Cambodia, killing innocent civilians, and when it all ultimately fell apart they ran like puppies with their tails between their legs. Nixon was even quoted in the film as saying that the U.S. may have already lost Cambodia. In fact, as the film shows, the U.S. didn’t really make an effort to save Cambodia from the holocaustal fate which it fell into. In fact, all these reporters could do was take in the events and try their best to stay out of the way, especially in the wake of the United States’ military actions and the tension that existed between the two countries at the time.
After leaving Cambodia and receiving the 1976 Pulitzer Prize (which he accepted on behalf of Dith Pran as well), Sydney Schanberg wrote The Death and Life of Dith Pran, which the movie The Killing Fields was based on. He continued on at the New York times and as a journalist, but also spoke out against the murderous acts which happened in Cambodia. His mission to let the world know about this genocide began with his reporting on the events as depicted in the film, and has continued on throughout his life.
Dith Pran, after escaping the Killing Fields into Thailand in 1979, has spent his life expanding the world’s knowledge of the past events of his homeland. In this manner, he has continued on with the mission of a truly dedicated journalists: making people of the world aware of global events and issues.
As Dith Pran said, “Part of my life is saving life. I don’t consider myself a politician or a hero. I’m a messenger. If Cambodia is to survive, she needs many voices.” ("Cambodian Holocaust Survivor"). This theme of journalists being messengers is very prominent throughout the entire film. Sending messages back to the U.S. about the war, sending messages to get family members out of the country, sending messages to save Dith Pran’s life, sending messages to his members taking refuge in the U.S., and the ultimate message of the atrocious holocaust which cost the lives of millions of Cambodians.
Another interesting aspect of this film is the actor, Dr. Haing S. Ngor, who played the part of Dith Pran in the film. Not only did he win the 1985 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in this film, but his story was very similar to that of Dith Pran’s as well. Although not a reporter, Ngor also was forced to hide his identity as an educated doctor during the Khmer Rogue’s rule and his time spent in the exhile of the forced labor camps. He too escaped to Thailand from which he was eventually able to leave for the United States. Unlike Pran however, Ngor was in the camps right up until the collapse of the regime in 1979. He spent the rest of his life, much like Schanberg and Pran, informing the world about the genocide of the Killing Fields and putting forth efforts to help the people of Cambodia. In a sudden turn of events, however, Ngor was shot to death outside of his home in Los Angelos by gang members. Although never proven, suspicions exist that these gang members were in fact Khmer Rogue sympathizers ("Haing S. Ngor").
Influence from the press concerning American Foreign policies came about as a direct result of the news reporting and journalism conducted by Pran and Schanberg in Cambodia during the revolution and afterwards. Among the efforts made by these journalists were meetings with the Red Cross in Geneva to promote safe passage internationally for victims of war, they testified before the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the Senate and House about to discuss the situation in Cambodia, and founded The Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project, Inc. ("Cambodian Holocaust Survivor"). This film, however, does not really touch on the effects the journalists have on American Foreign policies because all the actions to improve situations for the people of Cambodia and the efforts made for refugee help were provoked and initiated on a very large scale by Dith Pran. The movie ends with Dith Pran escaping the Khmer Rouge and the killing fields, he hasn’t even reached America yet. The only bit of the film which even alluded to efforts which were going to be made by the Americans were voiced by Schanberg in his Pulitzer Prize speech.
In the film, the American Press takes the side of the people of Cambodia, the innocent bystanders and citizens, such as Pran and his family. The Press doesn’t necessarily stand by the side of the U.S., or have the government’s support at all, considering that the Press started out the film investigating secret raids the U.S. army was performing within the Cambodian borders. The Press is also, however, against the Communist Khmer Rouge takeover. Really, the film stands on a middle ground between the two governments, objectively reporting on the situation. Later on in the film, and after the conflict has ended, is when the Press began to take sides with the ordinary people of Cambodia, but really didn’t show much involvement before hand other than managing to get Pran’s family out of the collapsing government.
A movie like this certainly has an emotional impact, if anything, on American popular opinion of overseas conflicts. The genocide as portrayed in the film hits close to home for many Americans, depicting situations very similar to that of the Jewish Holocaust in WWII. Whenever the can depict a true-to-life situation in a popular media form, such as a film, it tends to have a big impact on the population. This film had an even greater impact considering that it was up for several Academy Awards and in fact winning three, including Ngor winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, it was truly a mainstream film which attracted a lot of attention to itself, and therefore to the situation in Cambodia.
International reporting in hot spots such as this is intimidating at best, and deadly at its worst. The Committee to Protect Journalists puts out a report each year, stating the world’s most dangerous places to be a journalist based on the number killed, missing, kidnapped and tortured over the past year. Currently, the most dangerous place is Iraq. Other areas include countries with recent histories of civil unrest, government oppression, high drug-trafficking, and wartime (The Committee to Protect Journalists). The experiences of the journalists depicted in The Killing Fields were true to life, the Vietnam War spilling over into Cambodia and the civil unrest which ensued, resulting in the governmental takeover of the Communist Khmer Rouge Regime.
Unlike other films covering foreign correspondents, this film splits into two separate stories mid-way, focusing more on the genocidal situation in Cambodia and the survival and escape of a local reporter, Dith Pran, in order to let the world know his people’s story of oppression and struggle. Parallel to this, but less focused on, is the story of Sydney Schanberg’s return to America, his Pulitzer Prize for work done in Cambodia, and his search for Dith Pran.
The events of the fall of Cambodia and the rise of the Khmer Rouge as depicted in the first part of the film were fairly accurate, although unclear at times. For example, there is a part in the film, right when the Khmer Rouge has taken over the city of Phnom Penh, in which the reporters are arrested and Dith Pran saves them by convincing their captors that they are in reality French correspondents and therefore neutral in the situation. As a result, they are released to the French Embassy and eventually evacuated out of the country. Although this situation actually happened, in the film it is rather unclear of what exactly is happening. The audience is unsure if the regime is holding them to scare them, what Dith Pran actually convinces them of, and why exactly they’re at the French Embassy. However, this may in fact be how the situation was in Cambodia at that time, very confusing, and it is very possible that the reporters weren’t even sure of the situation or what was happening at the time.
At this same point in the film in which the reporters are arrested and released, Pol Pot was forcing the evacuation of all people from the city to the countryside. Anyone with any kind of education, any elite societal people, foreigners, anyone who spoke a foreign language, and even those who had bodily defects (such as wearing glasses) were systematically slaughtered; everybody left was to start a new life at “year zero” (LoBaido). Although the events were somewhat downplayed and a bit unclear as to what was truly happening, the film held onto its accuracy of the grave situation. In 1997, during an interview with Elizabeth Farnsworth, she asked Schanberg what it was like in Cambodia in 1975 when Phnom Penh was being emptied out into the countryside:
“It was like something obviously none of us had every seen–two million people being forced to leave their homes and marched into the countryside, hospitals emptied, patients severly wounded being pushed up the avenues on their beds with serum bottles dripping into their arms. I was truly a mad sight.”. ("Online NewsHour: Pot Pot's Legacy- June 18, 1997")
The American Press in the case of what happened in this film, had little or no influence on what was occurring around them. Largely hidden by the Vietnam War, the U.S. was taking military action in Cambodia which involved secret bombing raids on suspected Viet Cong bases within Cambodia’s borders ("Cambodia"). These acts of war continued unknown to the people in the U.S., and was touched on in the beginning of the film by the investigative efforts of Schanberg. The U.S. government was actually depicted in no better light than that of the Communistic Khmer Rouge takeover. The U.S. was secretly attacking Cambodia, killing innocent civilians, and when it all ultimately fell apart they ran like puppies with their tails between their legs. Nixon was even quoted in the film as saying that the U.S. may have already lost Cambodia. In fact, as the film shows, the U.S. didn’t really make an effort to save Cambodia from the holocaustal fate which it fell into. In fact, all these reporters could do was take in the events and try their best to stay out of the way, especially in the wake of the United States’ military actions and the tension that existed between the two countries at the time.
After leaving Cambodia and receiving the 1976 Pulitzer Prize (which he accepted on behalf of Dith Pran as well), Sydney Schanberg wrote The Death and Life of Dith Pran, which the movie The Killing Fields was based on. He continued on at the New York times and as a journalist, but also spoke out against the murderous acts which happened in Cambodia. His mission to let the world know about this genocide began with his reporting on the events as depicted in the film, and has continued on throughout his life.
Dith Pran, after escaping the Killing Fields into Thailand in 1979, has spent his life expanding the world’s knowledge of the past events of his homeland. In this manner, he has continued on with the mission of a truly dedicated journalists: making people of the world aware of global events and issues.
As Dith Pran said, “Part of my life is saving life. I don’t consider myself a politician or a hero. I’m a messenger. If Cambodia is to survive, she needs many voices.” ("Cambodian Holocaust Survivor"). This theme of journalists being messengers is very prominent throughout the entire film. Sending messages back to the U.S. about the war, sending messages to get family members out of the country, sending messages to save Dith Pran’s life, sending messages to his members taking refuge in the U.S., and the ultimate message of the atrocious holocaust which cost the lives of millions of Cambodians.
Another interesting aspect of this film is the actor, Dr. Haing S. Ngor, who played the part of Dith Pran in the film. Not only did he win the 1985 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in this film, but his story was very similar to that of Dith Pran’s as well. Although not a reporter, Ngor also was forced to hide his identity as an educated doctor during the Khmer Rogue’s rule and his time spent in the exhile of the forced labor camps. He too escaped to Thailand from which he was eventually able to leave for the United States. Unlike Pran however, Ngor was in the camps right up until the collapse of the regime in 1979. He spent the rest of his life, much like Schanberg and Pran, informing the world about the genocide of the Killing Fields and putting forth efforts to help the people of Cambodia. In a sudden turn of events, however, Ngor was shot to death outside of his home in Los Angelos by gang members. Although never proven, suspicions exist that these gang members were in fact Khmer Rogue sympathizers ("Haing S. Ngor").
Influence from the press concerning American Foreign policies came about as a direct result of the news reporting and journalism conducted by Pran and Schanberg in Cambodia during the revolution and afterwards. Among the efforts made by these journalists were meetings with the Red Cross in Geneva to promote safe passage internationally for victims of war, they testified before the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the Senate and House about to discuss the situation in Cambodia, and founded The Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project, Inc. ("Cambodian Holocaust Survivor"). This film, however, does not really touch on the effects the journalists have on American Foreign policies because all the actions to improve situations for the people of Cambodia and the efforts made for refugee help were provoked and initiated on a very large scale by Dith Pran. The movie ends with Dith Pran escaping the Khmer Rouge and the killing fields, he hasn’t even reached America yet. The only bit of the film which even alluded to efforts which were going to be made by the Americans were voiced by Schanberg in his Pulitzer Prize speech.
In the film, the American Press takes the side of the people of Cambodia, the innocent bystanders and citizens, such as Pran and his family. The Press doesn’t necessarily stand by the side of the U.S., or have the government’s support at all, considering that the Press started out the film investigating secret raids the U.S. army was performing within the Cambodian borders. The Press is also, however, against the Communist Khmer Rouge takeover. Really, the film stands on a middle ground between the two governments, objectively reporting on the situation. Later on in the film, and after the conflict has ended, is when the Press began to take sides with the ordinary people of Cambodia, but really didn’t show much involvement before hand other than managing to get Pran’s family out of the collapsing government.
A movie like this certainly has an emotional impact, if anything, on American popular opinion of overseas conflicts. The genocide as portrayed in the film hits close to home for many Americans, depicting situations very similar to that of the Jewish Holocaust in WWII. Whenever the can depict a true-to-life situation in a popular media form, such as a film, it tends to have a big impact on the population. This film had an even greater impact considering that it was up for several Academy Awards and in fact winning three, including Ngor winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, it was truly a mainstream film which attracted a lot of attention to itself, and therefore to the situation in Cambodia.
Mizzou not the only Tigers around
College sports fans and Alumni of the University of Missouri Columbia know that Missouri is no stranger to tigers. Although Mizzou lays claim to Tiger fame, a far-lesser known kind of hotspot is developing in Missouri for true tiger fans. Against the backdrop of the state's rolling hills is the home of five real live tigers - and I don't mean the "Rah" type.
The National Tiger Sanctuary located just north of Ste Genevieve, MO was started by husband and wife duo Keith Kinkade and Judy McGee. They proudly house five Siberian tigers, Dee, Vincent, TJ, Max, and Paul, who they raised from cubs. The non-for-profit organization has faced many challenges since its establishment in 2000 to become the environmental awareness center it is now.
"Our two goals are number one, educating the public to the tigers themselves, and number two, encouraging the public to become more aware of the environment,” Kinkade said, “The extinction of tigers in the wild is only one piece of the big world picture.”
The sanctuary consists of a large, impressive lodge which serves as both the office for the facility, the starting point for tours, and the living quarters of Kinkade and McGee. Their home is filled with smaller cats and dogs that have free-reign of the grounds. An expansive deck juts out the rear overlooking the giant wired cages where the tigers roam against the woodland backdrop. Down the path away from the deck visitors are separated from the wired cages by a fence only three feet away from the enormous cats. This sanctuary is the only USDA approved facility in the country that allows the public to be able to feed the tigers.
Kinkade and McGee were originally self-employed business owners in Kansas City, MO and upon retirement began to volunteer for different animal sanctuaries. Their volunteer experiences included working with big cats which developed into their current day passion for tigers.
The tigers all came from the same litter born at the Riverglen Tiger Sanctuary in Arkansas in 2001. Four males and one female, the litter was both usually large and unique in that it produced a rare white tiger. Only one in one thousand white Siberian tigers are born in the wild and there hasn't been one spotted for over fifty years.
"Most of the white tigers you see in circuses and shows today are hybrids, a cross between Bengal and Siberians, not true white tigers. They are bred only for money, which is terrible and we try to teach people about that,” McGee said, “Real white tigers haven't been spotted in wild for so long not because of natural selection, but because of us. Humans are their only threat.”
Because a usual litter consists of two to three cubs this litter was an enormous stress on the mother. The cubs were taken away for fear that the mother would kill them.
Their natural diet of mother's milk was substituted with kitten milk replacement which is a successful diet in 80 to 90% of cats. Two to three weeks later a noticeable difference in the cubs was taking place. Vincent and Max both began to drag their hind legs, unable to absorb calcium from the replacement milk. Paul had developed juvenile cataracts.
Kinkade and McGee took the cubs in to provide them with the specialized diet and attention they needed to heal. Before these cubs the couple had nurtured sick cats back to health and then returned them back to the zoos or facilities they had originally come from. This time, however, they were working with De Paul University on their Environmental Learning Campus in Bloomsdale, MO and were asked to keep the cats on for university purposes.
Once the university changed hands in the administration, the land was sold off to a local winery. The winery agreed to allow the tigers to stay as long as the sanctuary provided 50-75% of its incoming profits for use of the land. Because the National Tiger Sanctuary is a non-for-profit organization most of its funding comes from donations and ten dollar per-person tour fees which made the winery's demands an impossibility.
With nowhere to go and unable to pay the winery the percentage it demanded the sanctuary faced a real challenge. At that point of time Kinkade and McGee didn't even attempt to do any fundraising or accept donations for their facility.
"We didn't want people to get confused, thinking they'd give money to take care of the tigers and then end up taking care of some guy's tennis courts or swimming pool. Once people get the wrong idea - and it doesn't matter whether its right or wrong - you just can't get it out of their head,” said Kinkade, “So we thought it was better to struggle and not do anything and just try to get along."
A blessing came when Clint Statman, owner of 450 acres of land right down the road offered up a chunk of his own property for the sanctuary's use.
"He divided land up into four different sections and told us that as we got on our feet and got going he'd give us the option to buy a piece at a time. He's really just been our biggest donor you'd say. We're not paying any rent or anything right now. That's just really made a world of difference in what we can do," said Kinkade.
With the help of Statman and money from Kinkade and McGee's own pockets, the National Tiger Sanctuary was officially moved to its current location in February 2006.
Kinkade and McGee have big plans for their sanctuary, planning to eventually expand the cages out into the woods to let the tigers roam around a more natural habitat. A pool is being installed within the cages to help the cats keep cool this summer. Underneath the lodge, a heavy storm shelter used to house the cats during bad weather is being converted for the dual purpose of a surgical center for the tigers as well as a recovery area. This area will not only provide convenient medical access for the tigers currently housed here but for cats in the future who may need rescue and surgical care.
The Sanctuary can be found at 10019 State Route Y, Bloomsdale, MO and is open 10 am to 5 pm on the weekends for walk-in and on the weekdays by reservation only. They offer a variety of tours: a thirty-minute long "discovery" tour for $10 per adult, $5 per child and a "behind the scenes feeding tour" for $75 per person. Group and school tours are also available.
The National Tiger Sanctuary located just north of Ste Genevieve, MO was started by husband and wife duo Keith Kinkade and Judy McGee. They proudly house five Siberian tigers, Dee, Vincent, TJ, Max, and Paul, who they raised from cubs. The non-for-profit organization has faced many challenges since its establishment in 2000 to become the environmental awareness center it is now.
"Our two goals are number one, educating the public to the tigers themselves, and number two, encouraging the public to become more aware of the environment,” Kinkade said, “The extinction of tigers in the wild is only one piece of the big world picture.”
The sanctuary consists of a large, impressive lodge which serves as both the office for the facility, the starting point for tours, and the living quarters of Kinkade and McGee. Their home is filled with smaller cats and dogs that have free-reign of the grounds. An expansive deck juts out the rear overlooking the giant wired cages where the tigers roam against the woodland backdrop. Down the path away from the deck visitors are separated from the wired cages by a fence only three feet away from the enormous cats. This sanctuary is the only USDA approved facility in the country that allows the public to be able to feed the tigers.
Kinkade and McGee were originally self-employed business owners in Kansas City, MO and upon retirement began to volunteer for different animal sanctuaries. Their volunteer experiences included working with big cats which developed into their current day passion for tigers.
The tigers all came from the same litter born at the Riverglen Tiger Sanctuary in Arkansas in 2001. Four males and one female, the litter was both usually large and unique in that it produced a rare white tiger. Only one in one thousand white Siberian tigers are born in the wild and there hasn't been one spotted for over fifty years.
"Most of the white tigers you see in circuses and shows today are hybrids, a cross between Bengal and Siberians, not true white tigers. They are bred only for money, which is terrible and we try to teach people about that,” McGee said, “Real white tigers haven't been spotted in wild for so long not because of natural selection, but because of us. Humans are their only threat.”
Because a usual litter consists of two to three cubs this litter was an enormous stress on the mother. The cubs were taken away for fear that the mother would kill them.
Their natural diet of mother's milk was substituted with kitten milk replacement which is a successful diet in 80 to 90% of cats. Two to three weeks later a noticeable difference in the cubs was taking place. Vincent and Max both began to drag their hind legs, unable to absorb calcium from the replacement milk. Paul had developed juvenile cataracts.
Kinkade and McGee took the cubs in to provide them with the specialized diet and attention they needed to heal. Before these cubs the couple had nurtured sick cats back to health and then returned them back to the zoos or facilities they had originally come from. This time, however, they were working with De Paul University on their Environmental Learning Campus in Bloomsdale, MO and were asked to keep the cats on for university purposes.
Once the university changed hands in the administration, the land was sold off to a local winery. The winery agreed to allow the tigers to stay as long as the sanctuary provided 50-75% of its incoming profits for use of the land. Because the National Tiger Sanctuary is a non-for-profit organization most of its funding comes from donations and ten dollar per-person tour fees which made the winery's demands an impossibility.
With nowhere to go and unable to pay the winery the percentage it demanded the sanctuary faced a real challenge. At that point of time Kinkade and McGee didn't even attempt to do any fundraising or accept donations for their facility.
"We didn't want people to get confused, thinking they'd give money to take care of the tigers and then end up taking care of some guy's tennis courts or swimming pool. Once people get the wrong idea - and it doesn't matter whether its right or wrong - you just can't get it out of their head,” said Kinkade, “So we thought it was better to struggle and not do anything and just try to get along."
A blessing came when Clint Statman, owner of 450 acres of land right down the road offered up a chunk of his own property for the sanctuary's use.
"He divided land up into four different sections and told us that as we got on our feet and got going he'd give us the option to buy a piece at a time. He's really just been our biggest donor you'd say. We're not paying any rent or anything right now. That's just really made a world of difference in what we can do," said Kinkade.
With the help of Statman and money from Kinkade and McGee's own pockets, the National Tiger Sanctuary was officially moved to its current location in February 2006.
Kinkade and McGee have big plans for their sanctuary, planning to eventually expand the cages out into the woods to let the tigers roam around a more natural habitat. A pool is being installed within the cages to help the cats keep cool this summer. Underneath the lodge, a heavy storm shelter used to house the cats during bad weather is being converted for the dual purpose of a surgical center for the tigers as well as a recovery area. This area will not only provide convenient medical access for the tigers currently housed here but for cats in the future who may need rescue and surgical care.
The Sanctuary can be found at 10019 State Route Y, Bloomsdale, MO and is open 10 am to 5 pm on the weekends for walk-in and on the weekdays by reservation only. They offer a variety of tours: a thirty-minute long "discovery" tour for $10 per adult, $5 per child and a "behind the scenes feeding tour" for $75 per person. Group and school tours are also available.
History of the Origins of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of Congo has always had a tumultuous history.The Congo was officially colonized by Belgium under the rule of King Leopold II during the Berlin Conferences of European Powers from 1884-1885.
The King created a personal economical enterprise out of the country, forcing the native people into the production of exported goods - rubber latex in particular. Atrocities were committed against the people who did not meet their assigned quotas. They were whipped, tortured, mutilated and beaten. Villages were burned, pillaged, and women were taken hostage until the goods they sought were produced to the ruling’s satisfaction.
Leopold dubbed the country the “Congo Free State”- a falsely used name for the indigenous people. When news of these atrocities reached Europe, King Leopold was forced into submission. He gave Congo up as his own private domain and handed it over to Belgium as a colony.
This switch of power only signaled a new phase in Congo’s violent past. Belgium, much like its King, saw Congo as containing many resources to turn over a profit yet was a bit more humane in its actions. They enacted a colonial trinity over the land: the state, the missions, and the big companies.
The big companies served as a means of capitalistic gain, but also had a mandate from the colonial state to build roads, railways, and to aid in the policing of the native people. Although this was seemingly a public service, take this into consideration: the transportation systems in the Congo were developed for the single purpose of shipping raw materials and goods out of the colony. The missionaries created administrative networking through the land which aided in political control. However, the Belgian colonial government itself seemed to have little interest in the social infrastructure and quality of life for the native Congolese population.
Regardless of the Belgium’s views, the trinity developed the Congo into a model colony. The native language, Bantu, was even being taught in primary schools. This is a rare occasion for any colony under European rule. Yet, the Congolese people had virtually no say in their government. They were at the mercy of the Belgian Colony-secretary and the Governor-general had absolute power over the land.
Living in a kind of apartheid, the people of Congo grew restless and the resistence to their lack of say in their own government continued to augment. The upper Congolese class began the campaign to end the inequality within their homeland in 1955.
The Belgian-run colony gained its independence under the new name “Republic of the Congo” on June 30, 1960. It’s neighbor, the French colony of Middle Congo, chose the same name on its independence. Therefore, they were known for their capital cities, “Congo-Leopoldville” and “Congo-Brazzaville”. It has changed names twice since then, known as the “Democratic Republic of the Congo” in 1966, and the “Republic of Zaire” in 1971.
The King created a personal economical enterprise out of the country, forcing the native people into the production of exported goods - rubber latex in particular. Atrocities were committed against the people who did not meet their assigned quotas. They were whipped, tortured, mutilated and beaten. Villages were burned, pillaged, and women were taken hostage until the goods they sought were produced to the ruling’s satisfaction.
Leopold dubbed the country the “Congo Free State”- a falsely used name for the indigenous people. When news of these atrocities reached Europe, King Leopold was forced into submission. He gave Congo up as his own private domain and handed it over to Belgium as a colony.
This switch of power only signaled a new phase in Congo’s violent past. Belgium, much like its King, saw Congo as containing many resources to turn over a profit yet was a bit more humane in its actions. They enacted a colonial trinity over the land: the state, the missions, and the big companies.
The big companies served as a means of capitalistic gain, but also had a mandate from the colonial state to build roads, railways, and to aid in the policing of the native people. Although this was seemingly a public service, take this into consideration: the transportation systems in the Congo were developed for the single purpose of shipping raw materials and goods out of the colony. The missionaries created administrative networking through the land which aided in political control. However, the Belgian colonial government itself seemed to have little interest in the social infrastructure and quality of life for the native Congolese population.
Regardless of the Belgium’s views, the trinity developed the Congo into a model colony. The native language, Bantu, was even being taught in primary schools. This is a rare occasion for any colony under European rule. Yet, the Congolese people had virtually no say in their government. They were at the mercy of the Belgian Colony-secretary and the Governor-general had absolute power over the land.
Living in a kind of apartheid, the people of Congo grew restless and the resistence to their lack of say in their own government continued to augment. The upper Congolese class began the campaign to end the inequality within their homeland in 1955.
The Belgian-run colony gained its independence under the new name “Republic of the Congo” on June 30, 1960. It’s neighbor, the French colony of Middle Congo, chose the same name on its independence. Therefore, they were known for their capital cities, “Congo-Leopoldville” and “Congo-Brazzaville”. It has changed names twice since then, known as the “Democratic Republic of the Congo” in 1966, and the “Republic of Zaire” in 1971.
Driving Away Jobs
Fareed Zakaria’s “How We Drive Our Jobs Away” in the April 18, 2005 edition of Newsweek brings up several different points about the problems with the healthcare system in the United States. He does this through the narrow perspective of one industry’s economical woes and the necessary steps they have taken to save money by taking their business to foreign countries.
Because of the massive health-care costs of its workers, such companies as General Motors, Ford, and Daimler-Chrysler are taking their factories elsewhere. Zakaria uses General Motors as an example, citing that they spend $5.2 billion every year on healthcare coverage for both their active and retired workers. The cost of this comes back to the consumers in the form of an additional $1500 to every GM car sold.
Companies who produce their vehicles outside of the U.S. have a much lower additional rate added to their cars to cover the health costs for their employees. Toyota’s grand total is $186 per car, and he states that when China and India begin making cars for the U.S. and Europe that the additional cost will be less than $50 per car.
This is a reoccuring financial crisis across many companies in the U.S., not just car manufacturers. One solution is for companies to stop covering healthcare for their employees. Still, someone’s got to pay for that... and we’re straining our messed up governmental Medicare and Medicaid systems as they are.
Some say, that if people were paying for their own healthcare they would be more reserved with how they use it and therefore cut back on its costs. Still, the American healthcare is not a “free market”, but is supported through government funding - which is not guaranteed to continue to be there with the way things are going around here.
Canada’s “single-payer” healthcare program costs $209 billion less than the U.S. spends on its administrative costs for their health system..
My opinion still stands: socialized medicine,
Because of the massive health-care costs of its workers, such companies as General Motors, Ford, and Daimler-Chrysler are taking their factories elsewhere. Zakaria uses General Motors as an example, citing that they spend $5.2 billion every year on healthcare coverage for both their active and retired workers. The cost of this comes back to the consumers in the form of an additional $1500 to every GM car sold.
Companies who produce their vehicles outside of the U.S. have a much lower additional rate added to their cars to cover the health costs for their employees. Toyota’s grand total is $186 per car, and he states that when China and India begin making cars for the U.S. and Europe that the additional cost will be less than $50 per car.
This is a reoccuring financial crisis across many companies in the U.S., not just car manufacturers. One solution is for companies to stop covering healthcare for their employees. Still, someone’s got to pay for that... and we’re straining our messed up governmental Medicare and Medicaid systems as they are.
Some say, that if people were paying for their own healthcare they would be more reserved with how they use it and therefore cut back on its costs. Still, the American healthcare is not a “free market”, but is supported through government funding - which is not guaranteed to continue to be there with the way things are going around here.
Canada’s “single-payer” healthcare program costs $209 billion less than the U.S. spends on its administrative costs for their health system..
My opinion still stands: socialized medicine,
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Bigfoot
In the United States it’s called Bigfoot, in Canada it’s called Sasquatch, the Yowie in Australia, and in Tibet and Nepal the arctic version is called the Yeti or Meh-Teh. No matter what the name or location for this mythical creature, people around the globe are continually fascinated with the idea of a large hairy abominable snowman roaming in the wilderness.
The creature has had sightings not only in North America, but the people of Tibet are convinced that an abnormally large human-like figure roams the Himalayas. They instill their faith in his existence and insist that he comes to the aid of those in need.
Reportedly, Bigfoot’s prints have been measured up to 18 inches from toe to heel. This would put his height at anywhere from seven to ten feet tall. It’s said to look like a huge anthropoid ape.
Mainstream scientists and experts have concluded the evidence of the animal’s existence to be weak at best. They explain his traits as simply as a legendary misidentification of currently known species (much like mariner’s tales of “mermaids” who were eventually identified as manatees) or as a mere hoax. Such animals known to the region to be considered responsible for the Yeti’s myth are the Langur monkey, the Tibetan Blue Bear, the Dzu-Teh (Himalayan Red Bear) or the Himalayan Brown Bear.
It is no surprise that these bears are often mistaken for the roaming ape-like creature. Consider the etymology for the Yeti : Yeh = “rocky”, Teh = “bear”
Or
Meh = “man”, Teh = “bear”
The name “Abominable Snowman” was first used in 1921 when Lt. Colonel Charles Howard-Bury led the Royal Geographical Society’s “Everest Reconnaissance Expedition”. He wrote about the expedition in “Money Everest The Reconnaissance” where he wrote about finding footprints he believed were made by a large wolf running. The doubled-up footprints in the snow looked as if a they were made by a barefooted man. His Sherpa guides insisted they were made by someone they called “metoh-kangmi” Metoh = “man-bear”, Kang-mi = “snowman”. When Henry Newman, a contributor to The Statesman in Calcutta interviewed the returning adventurers he mistranslated the word “metoh” to mean “filthy” and substituted the word “abominable” for his writing purposes. Hence the Bumble’s been bouncing ever since.
The myth continues to unravel as we look further back into the history of this animal. In 1832, B.H. Hodgson from The Journal of the Asiatic Society, reported his native guides as spotting a tall bipedal creature with long, dark hair. He concluded the animal to be an orangutan.
In 1889, L.A. Waddell’s “Among the Himalayas” reported his guide describing an apelike creature leaving large prints behind. Waddell concluded the prints to be made by a bear. He questioned many or these “witnesses” and never turned up with any genuinely believable recounts of the sighthings. In each case, it was always resolved to be some other kind of previously known creature.
In the early 20th century reports of the odd creatures and strange tracks began to increase as more Westerners began to scale the mountains. Despite rising reports and mounting so-called evidence from well-financed expeditions, scientists have concluded that the Yeti reports have just been misidentifications of identifiable indigenous creatures.
The Yeti’s cousin in the west, Bigfoot, was first reported in 1924. Bigfoot is theorized to be related to the Yeti through a creature called Gigantopithecus. Most fossils of these ancient creatures were found in China, whose forests can be very similar to those in north-western North America. Because it is known that many species migrated across the Bering Strait, it is argued that a relic population of these creatures would explain the Bigfoot reports as well as that of the Yeti. However, it is widely believed that the creatures were quadrupedal and since they were so huge, it is very unlikey that they would ever have adapted to being bipedal.
Just as in the case of the Yeti, mainstream scientists once again shoot down the idea of Bigfoot’s existence. The probability of a creature that large, and with the described characteristics existing in the North American habitant in slim to none. Based on temperatures and latitudes, and the fact that all other nonhuman apes don’t exist in regions such as these, it is highly unlikely for a Bigfoot creature to have the survival abilities needed to roam these territories.
In a pop-culture sense, these giant ape-like creatures are fun at the least. From “Harry and the Hendersons” to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” to Walth Disney World roller coaster attractions to the actual indigenous people of the regions in which this giants are supposed to inhabit, people love the idea of this legendary creature. Whether myth, man, or monster, people want to believe - despite all contrary evidence.
The creature has had sightings not only in North America, but the people of Tibet are convinced that an abnormally large human-like figure roams the Himalayas. They instill their faith in his existence and insist that he comes to the aid of those in need.
Reportedly, Bigfoot’s prints have been measured up to 18 inches from toe to heel. This would put his height at anywhere from seven to ten feet tall. It’s said to look like a huge anthropoid ape.
Mainstream scientists and experts have concluded the evidence of the animal’s existence to be weak at best. They explain his traits as simply as a legendary misidentification of currently known species (much like mariner’s tales of “mermaids” who were eventually identified as manatees) or as a mere hoax. Such animals known to the region to be considered responsible for the Yeti’s myth are the Langur monkey, the Tibetan Blue Bear, the Dzu-Teh (Himalayan Red Bear) or the Himalayan Brown Bear.
It is no surprise that these bears are often mistaken for the roaming ape-like creature. Consider the etymology for the Yeti : Yeh = “rocky”, Teh = “bear”
Or
Meh = “man”, Teh = “bear”
The name “Abominable Snowman” was first used in 1921 when Lt. Colonel Charles Howard-Bury led the Royal Geographical Society’s “Everest Reconnaissance Expedition”. He wrote about the expedition in “Money Everest The Reconnaissance” where he wrote about finding footprints he believed were made by a large wolf running. The doubled-up footprints in the snow looked as if a they were made by a barefooted man. His Sherpa guides insisted they were made by someone they called “metoh-kangmi” Metoh = “man-bear”, Kang-mi = “snowman”. When Henry Newman, a contributor to The Statesman in Calcutta interviewed the returning adventurers he mistranslated the word “metoh” to mean “filthy” and substituted the word “abominable” for his writing purposes. Hence the Bumble’s been bouncing ever since.
The myth continues to unravel as we look further back into the history of this animal. In 1832, B.H. Hodgson from The Journal of the Asiatic Society, reported his native guides as spotting a tall bipedal creature with long, dark hair. He concluded the animal to be an orangutan.
In 1889, L.A. Waddell’s “Among the Himalayas” reported his guide describing an apelike creature leaving large prints behind. Waddell concluded the prints to be made by a bear. He questioned many or these “witnesses” and never turned up with any genuinely believable recounts of the sighthings. In each case, it was always resolved to be some other kind of previously known creature.
In the early 20th century reports of the odd creatures and strange tracks began to increase as more Westerners began to scale the mountains. Despite rising reports and mounting so-called evidence from well-financed expeditions, scientists have concluded that the Yeti reports have just been misidentifications of identifiable indigenous creatures.
The Yeti’s cousin in the west, Bigfoot, was first reported in 1924. Bigfoot is theorized to be related to the Yeti through a creature called Gigantopithecus. Most fossils of these ancient creatures were found in China, whose forests can be very similar to those in north-western North America. Because it is known that many species migrated across the Bering Strait, it is argued that a relic population of these creatures would explain the Bigfoot reports as well as that of the Yeti. However, it is widely believed that the creatures were quadrupedal and since they were so huge, it is very unlikey that they would ever have adapted to being bipedal.
Just as in the case of the Yeti, mainstream scientists once again shoot down the idea of Bigfoot’s existence. The probability of a creature that large, and with the described characteristics existing in the North American habitant in slim to none. Based on temperatures and latitudes, and the fact that all other nonhuman apes don’t exist in regions such as these, it is highly unlikely for a Bigfoot creature to have the survival abilities needed to roam these territories.
In a pop-culture sense, these giant ape-like creatures are fun at the least. From “Harry and the Hendersons” to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” to Walth Disney World roller coaster attractions to the actual indigenous people of the regions in which this giants are supposed to inhabit, people love the idea of this legendary creature. Whether myth, man, or monster, people want to believe - despite all contrary evidence.
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