Why should anyone mourn the death of a probably grumpy 87-year old who bears the Howard Zinn name-tag at these difficult times, unless he is your grandpa? If anything, such senior-citizen deaths have become commonplace that they have almost earned their acceptance into the American fabric of virtue – thanks to a careless healthcare program and an economy on its head! But, such a death would worry you if you’re Bob Herbert, sitting on a couch and gazing at the world just to locate what would space in on your NYT column.
For starters, like me, Zinn was an American historian who died this week and whose contribution to a progressive America, had faded with him into his sunset years, that only Herbert, writing in his Times’ column on Saturday January 30, could recall. Herbert eulogized Zinn, a man who spent his days writing and rallying progressive voices against discrimination of many forms, in a slap to the media for failing to tell the “true” American stories. He took a swipe at the kind of attention the media allocate to say, the “sex addiction” of Tiger Woods, or the fireside prattles around Hollywood at the behest of an American populace starving for meaningful journalism.
“Our tendency is to give these true American heroes short shrift, just as we gave Howard Zinn short shrift. In the nitwit era that we’re living through now, it’s fashionable, for example, to bad-mouth labor unions and feminists even as workers throughout the land are treated like so much trash and the culture is so riddled with sexism that most people don’t even notice it,” Herbert shrugged. But, who doesn’t know this? Or rather, who gives a heck over how the media makes its decisions? It’s the absurdity that confirms how vested interests have stolen the thunder from the motivation of yesteryears that gave birth to this vibrant society we see today. The scandal, that is the media’s honeymoon with vested interests, I will agree has hijacked the titanic of nationhood to a wild sea-route of uncertainty and private hounding.
But, so, with this broken mirror (the media), where else will society cast its eyes to take a pot shot at its looks? This question, will certainly lead to a floodgate of queries of whether the media has abdicated its vanguard role over society and what interests journalists now serve. From a broken Washinton to a crime-infested main-street the citizen has been left to himself; to the vulnerability of a scavenging bourgeois tossing at the incorporation of the media to its exclusive members’ club. Just look who owns the media, so you may know.
I guess we need more debate on this. It’s way more than Herbert’s sobs in his NYT column. The whole world is a voctim and it’s way worse in repressive regimes in the developing world or in the Maoist legacy, where the government holds the keys to everyone’s opinion. Adios!
-Benson
Greetings, Benson (a late addition to our capstone who is taking an accelerated course in Ricci so as to graduate in December). Welcome to Obamadogs!
ReplyDeleteI am a fan of the late Howard Zinn, and I liked Bob Herbert's remembrance very much, and while I might, as usual, be wrong here, I'm inclined to think Herbert's eulogy of Zinn makes your larger point about the media, but in a different way than I think your comments suggest.
First, for those unaware of Zinn, his major work was _A People's History of the United States_. It's a tough read, tougher than Ricci in some ways, but for different reasons. He tells American history from the other side of the coin. Columbus's "discovery" is told from the standpoint of the Indians that were subjected to genocidal treatment, for example. It's required reading for all who have big black holes in their understanding of American history, which is just about all of us who learned our history as a succession of official leaders like presidents or robber barons. I'll finish in a separate post, no room to do it as a comment in this space.