Tonight on 24: The terrorists win. We lose. The end.

The current New Yorker magazine features an article entitled "Whatever it Takes: The Politics of the Man Behind '24'", written by Jane Mayer. The man in question is Joel Surnow, the self-described "right-wing nut-job" who created the Fox-TV series (1), and the issue at hand is '24''s depiction of the War on Terror (and more specifically, the use of state-sanctioned torture to prosecute that war) and how that depiction may or may not be influencing American opinions about said "war."

'24', for those of you who've never seen it, is a deliriously over-the-top thriller that takes place in "real time" – i.e., a one-hour episode equals one hour in the characters' lives, with a full season adding up to one day. It follows the exploits of Jack Bauer, a field agent working for (or with, or against, as events dictate) the fictional Counter Terrorism Unit in Los Angeles. Each season starts with the discovery of a terrorist plot. They've become more elaborate with each passing year, starting with the first season's Manchurian Candidate-style conspiracy to murder a presidential candidate and moving on to season five's Byzantine plot in which the United States president arms Russian separatists with nerve gas in an attempt to secure oil interests in Central Asia on behalf of a shadowy cartel (later revealed to be under the control of Jack Bauer's father). Each episode moves Jack Bauer through various clues (which he usually uncovers through increasingly ingenuous forms of torture) and red herrings, ending at a moment of maximum jeopardy, as the clock clicks down and apocalypse seems all but unavoidable. The show is truly Wagnerian in the scope of its melodrama and violence, and as such it's got the irresistible appeal of a good, trashy soap opera.

Where this becomes a problem is when, as reported in the New Yorker article, people in positions of responsibility start taking this stuff seriously. The article gives several examples of this, including a visit to the set of '24' by Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point. General Finnegan had arranged the visit in an attempt to persuade the producers of '24' to stop portraying torture as an acceptable and productive method of interrogation. The problem, the article explains, is that "…it had become increasingly hard to convince some cadets that America had to respect the rule of law and human rights, when terrorists did not. One reason for the growing resistance, he suggested, was misconceptions spread by '24', which was exceptionally popular with his students." The article goes on to list the many members of the Bush administration who are avowed fans of the show, culminating with this truly mind-boggling quote from Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff: "Frankly, it [the show] reflects real life."

That's almost correct. What '24' does reflect, I think, is the reality that we as a nation believe exists. At this point, the disconnect between what's actually happened to us in the last few years and our collective reaction to it is so severe that it qualifies as a near-psychotic break. '24' offers a window onto the world as distorted by this deeply paranoid and delusional national psyche. Consider:

In the six years since the show's premiere (12 years in show time, adding up the eighteen-month to four-year gaps between "days"), terrorist actions in the United States have included, in '24'-world: at least one bus bombing; one train bombing; the bombing of a Federal anti-terrorism agency's Los Angeles field office; the mass murder of multiple employees of that office via a deadly nerve gas; the execution (under terrorist demands) of a high-ranking official of the same office; the takeover of an airport in Ontario, CA (presumably the parking situation at LAX rendered the preferred target unworkable); the theft of an Air Force stealth fighter; the downing of Air Force One with said stealth fighter; the attempted assassination of one presidential candidate; the attempted assassination of two sitting presidents; the successful assassination of one sitting president and one former president; the release of a deadly nerve gas in a suburban shopping mall; the release of a deadly biological weapon in a Los Angeles hotel; the sabotage and near meltdown of a half-dozen nuclear reactors; the launching of one nuclear missile towards Los Angeles, CA (casualties: zero, but it was touch-and-go for a minute there); the detonation of one nuclear bomb over the Nevada desert (casualties: one, but he was in bad shape anyway); the detonation of another nuclear bomb in Valencia, CA (casualties: 12,000 and counting, plus Six Flags Magic Mountain).

Meanwhile, in the real world, terrorist actions in the United States have included: the 9/11 attacks; the distribution of anthrax through the US postal service (possibly unrelated to Islamic terrorists); one attempted shoe bombing; one alleged "dirty bomb" plot (since discredited); one plot to attack the Sears Tower (foiled by a Federal agent who convinced the Florida-based terrorist masterminds to postpone their plans in favor of first purchasing uniforms and combat boots); one plot to collapse the Holland Tunnel between New York and New Jersey (conceived in Germany by a group of terrorist masterminds who had not yet actually seen the tunnel, nor figured out how they would go about securing the materials for and constructing the bombs, nor even worked out how they would enter the United States sans passports).

In short, in the five and a half years since the attacks of September 11, 2001, there has been not one single terrorist attack in the United States. Which, of course, leads many to say, "see, all those heightened security measures, those new exemptions to Constitutional protections – they're working." Maybe. You can't disprove it. But isn't it at least possible that the threat is nowhere near as dire as we've convinced ourselves it is?

I mean, if draconian legal and military measures guarantee safety, how do you explain the continuing suicide bombings in Israel? The Israelis certainly haven't been using kid gloves. Nor did the British when fighting the IRA in the 80s. Terrorism is an extremely effective tactic because, short of a total, society-wide lockdown, there's no way to stop it. No way.

You want to know what makes me feel safe? The fact that no one's bombed the New Jersey PATH trains or the New York subway system. Because it would be so, so easy. I travel one or both of these train systems five times a week with a heavy bag slung over my shoulder, nary a Port Authority or NYPD officer in sight. If that bag contained a bomb, setting it off at rush hour would be the simplest thing in the world. You wouldn't even have to be a suicide bomber. Just switch on a time-delayed trigger, jump off the train, and it goes off before anyone has a chance to alert the proper authorities. And my point is, the fact that no one's done this – in five and a half years of our War on Terror – says to me that there can't possibly be that many of these people in the US.

Even the 9/11 attacks have taken on mythic proportions that are totally out of synch with reality. The plot is seen as so massive, so complex, so evilly brilliant that only a '24'-level terrorist genius or – in the other popular delusion – the US government could possibly have pulled it off. Which is so exactly wrong it's comical. The most striking thing about the 9/11 attacks is their – for lack of a better word – brilliant simplicity. They were an exercise in resourcefulness. I mean, consider that these men didn't even have to break any laws until the moment they took over the planes:

Entering the US on a student or visitor's visa: legal. Attending flight school: legal. Studying building schematics, researching structural weaknesses, determining the heat generated by burning jet fuel: legal. Purchasing airline tickets: legal. Carrying box cutters onto an airplane: legal before 9/11. Empowering nineteen dedicated fanatics to dictate the agenda of the world's sole superpower for more than half a decade: priceless. It's the most American story of all: the lone Idealist taking on the System – and winning. Anyone remember Knight Rider? "One man can make a difference."

Or at least, nineteen men can.

So then, the argument goes, if these men were able to pull off such a destructive attack without any overt lawbreaking, doesn't that just point out the necessity of new laws to deal with the threat? No. As has been pointed out ad nauseum over the past five years, various elements of this plot were detected by local and Federal law enforcement officials. Our intelligence and law enforcement agencies did have the information to uncover the one crime that was being committed before the attacks: conspiracy. Hell, a number of the hijackers were on terrorist watch-lists the morning they boarded those planes. The fact that it was a complex and obscure puzzle to piece together does not change the fact that our security and intelligence capabilities pre-9/11 were sufficient to prevent the attacks. We simply lacked the dedication and focus to implement them. The 9/ll hijackers, faced with (given their lack of resources) an even more complicated puzzle, were not so lacking. They win, we lose. Simple as that.

So listen up, America, because I'm calling you out. Rational argument is clearly useless, so I'm going to appeal to good old-fashioned American machismo: are you going to let nineteen guys from some crappy, backwards-ass country in the middle of the desert tell you how to feel? Are you such a pussy that one punch in the face is going to send you running behind the couch and begging daddy to protect you, "whatever it takes"? Is that how America rolls?

(1) And also the creator of Fox News' horrifically unfunny new comedy show, "The Half-Hour News Hour," created as a right-wing counterpart to "The Daily Show."

Review: Graphic Bio of Malcolm X

Book Review

Hi all.

The following is the full text of a book review I wrote that will be appearing shortly at www.kgbbar.com/lit in vastly truncated form (i.e., about 500 words vs. the 2500 or so below). Smarmy footnotes are included as well, with full apologies to David Foster Wallace.

Andrew Helfer and Randy DuBurke's MALCOM X: A GRAPHIC BIOGRAPHY
By Kevin Adkins

There was a time, way back in the early 90s, when Malcolm X was the radical icon du jour of young, socially conscious white hipsters (roughly the same position that Che Guevera holds today) (1). Primed by the late-80s rise of politically oriented hip-hop groups like Public Enemy (2) and brought to its apogee with Spike Lee's 1992 film biography X (3), Malcolm fever was best recognized by the black baseball cap emblazoned with a stark white "X," which could be spotted atop Caucasian craniums everywhere from Los Angeles "Rave" parties (4) to NYU-occupied Greenwich Village. Exactly how many of Malcolm's actual ideas were absorbed by these X-hatters is a detail long since lost to history. But sometime after the release of Lee's film – and the pronounced absence of the predicted race riots in its wake – the hats started slowly disappearing from the streets, and are no doubt resurfacing today at rummage sales across the nation.

So it is perhaps in an effort to bring Malcolm X back into the hipster limelight that the Hill & Wang publishing imprint has brought us Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography, written by Andrew Helfer and illustrated by Randy DuBurke, the second in its recently launched Novel Graphics series (The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation, released in August 2006, was the first). The stamp on the back cover designates it as a Serious Comic, which we can presumably take to mean that its aspirations are in some way literary, as opposed to being mere "kids stuff." And indeed, Publisher's Weekly hails the new series as "the latest sign that comics have found a home at traditional book publishers."

The road to respectability for the Literary Graphic Novel was more or less paved in 1992 by Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer-winning Maus. Speigelman's artistic style falls somewhere in the vicinity of R Crumb, and in Maus he employed it to great effect, dramatizing his father's memories of Nazi Germany through a clever visual metaphor: the Nazis as cats, the Jews as mice. Since then, the genre has grown modestly, with Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (2003) one of the more notable recent examples. Like Maus, Persepolis offers a personal account of sweeping political and social events, in this case the Islamic Revolution in Iran. The crude, almost childish drawings of Persepolis serve to humanize a culture that is – to Western eyes – frighteningly alien. In both cases, the artwork and the prose work in harmony, each augmenting and enhancing the other.

In contrast, Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography suffers from a fairly severe disconnect in quality between word and image. Mr. DuBurke employs a style that might be described as a kind of Gothic hyper-realism – if you've ever opened up an informational pamphlet published by the fire-and-brimstone contingent of evangelical Christianity, you'll recognize the approach. From a visual-arts perspective, it's quite striking: the stark black-and-white drawings hew closely to photorealism (though it should be noted that the book's depictions of young Malcolm vary widely from panel to panel, presumably due to a lack of photographic references from that stage of his life) while employing a film noir-ish use of contrast and shadow that lends an unsettling overtone to the proceedings.

This style works to some advantage when depicting the more sinister figures in Malcolm's life, or when dealing with more abstract concepts, such as the Nation of Islam's truly bizarre creation myth of the White Man.(5) But when married to Mr. Helfer's words, the overall effect is simply alienating. Because there are so few actual "scenes" in the book (most interactions between characters are depicted through narration rather than dialogue) the reader is left with the sensation of watching a silent movie featuring dramatically lit figures yelling, arguing, and so forth, while a fairly articulate but not particularly interesting film-studies major summarizes the plot from the back row.

And the book's flaws run deeper than its narrative approach. This allegedly Serious Comic seems to assume that its readership is largely ignorant and not particularly bright (the fact that the authors feel the need to exposit about the very existence of slavery in America speaks volumes). Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography is not so much a Literary Graphic Novel as it is a kind of Wikipedia Graphic Novel, bringing together a collection of basic facts and presenting them in roughly chronological order (complete with the occasional gaping holes and ideologically motivated addendums that Wikipedia is famous for). The prose is relentlessly competent in the same way a Freshman Composition student's "A" paper is extremely competent – the voice is third-person and distant, thoroughly Objective in the most uninspiring sense of the word, dutifully repeating what it has learned from (primarily) Alex Haley's Autobiography of Malcolm X.(6) If it shares with Lee's X the fundamental limitations of the bio-pic format (such as the condensation of huge chunks of the subject's life into a single, representative scene (7), it lacks completely that film's righteous passion, or even any discernable point of view – with one telling exception (addressed below).

Lacking a compelling voice of its own, one might expect the book to let Malcolm himself do the heavy lifting. But you'll find precious few of his public statements reproduced here. Malcolm could certainly turn a phrase: "We didn't land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on us"; "A junky only has a little monkey on his back – you're running around with a big white ape named Uncle Sam on your back"(8); and so on. Considering that the subject at hand is a man whose fame and infamy was based in large part on his undeniable rhetorical power, it seems absurd that an introductory text would offer so little of it. We get a few tastes – his description of JFK's assassination as "chickens coming home to roost," his ultimatum of "the ballot or the bullet" – but these are offered without much in the way of context, analysis, or any real point of view.

In fact, the only thing resembling an editorial viewpoint in the book is one so subtle you'd be excused for missing it. The incident occurs near the end of the story, during Malcolm's pilgrimage to Mecca and subsequent abandonment of the Nation of Islam in favor of the "true" Islam of the Middle East. This was a hugely pivotal event in Malcolm's life. He spoke rapturously of the racial harmony he witnessed on his pilgrimage, and for the first time began to speak of racism as an American social problem, as opposed to an inherent quality of white-skinned peoples. And the solution to America's racial problems, he believed, could only be found though the abandonment of Christianity and the embrace of Islam.

The book repeats all of this, as it should. But then comes a curious panel, in which we find a pair of Middle Eastern men shaking their fists at one another, surrounded by the image of a turbaned Muslim cleric in mid-invective and a grotesque close-up of a veiled Arab woman. The text box accompanying this panel reads: "But as Malcolm's own notes emphasize, his inability to speak the languages of the majority of his Muslim brothers meant he was on the outside looking in. From the inside, his vision of unified humanity was something much more complicated."

Now, for a book that has thus far hewed religiously to the official record on Malcolm X, what is the justification for this passage? Certainly, Malcolm's feelings about Middle Eastern and African Islam were anything but mixed. While he does write of his frustration with being unable to speak Arabic, there's no indication that he was aware of a "more complicated" vision than the one he was seeing. So it's hard to shake the feeling that this passage is intended as some kind of editorial apology: Sadly, the language barrier prevented Malcolm from realizing that Arab Muslims are violent and evil. It smacks of ideological correctness, as if no description of Islam as a religion of brotherhood and peace can be allowed to stand unchallenged.

But it does pose an interesting question: If Malcolm were alive today, would the events of the last few years have turned him against Islam entirely? It's quite possible. In fact, a more astute biographical treatment of Malcolm's life might have seized on his experience in the Middle East as an opportunity to explore the man's admirable ability to reject even his most deeply held beliefs in the face of new evidence.

But it's also possible – especially considering Malcolm's growing focus, in his final years, on economics as the engine of social oppression – that a 76-year-old Malcolm X would have watched those steel birds flying into the World Trade Center and seen nothing more than another flock of chickens coming home to roost. In terms of rhetorical approach, Malcolm X and Osama Bin Laden are of a kind (9) – with the proviso that it's hard to imagine Malcolm advocating violence against anyone not posing an immediate threat to life or limb. Here's one line, out of context, from Haley's Autobiography: "Only one religion – Islam – had the power to stand and fight the white man's Christianity for a thousand years." Sound familiar?

It's not hard to understand why white America felt so threatened by Malcolm. He was not a terrorist, but he did speak the language of revolution: "I am for violence if non-violence means we continue postponing a solution to the American black man's problem…To me a delayed solution is a non-solution" (also from the Biography). But in truth, the essence of his philosophy is simple and undeniable: self-defense is a fundamental human right. All of his actions flowed from this assumption, and it's hard to imagine any rational, sensitive person taking issue with this central thesis. Where the issues arise is in not hearing his argument in its fullness, in not understanding the cause-and-effect that led to this worldview. The events of Malcolm's life are essential, but his own analysis of those events is just as crucial, and any biography seeking to give a full picture of the man has to fully present both. Thankfully, Alex Haley already wrote that book four decades ago. So if you're inclined to learn about Malcolm X, his life, and his ideas, skip the graphic novel and go pick up The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

Footnotes:

1. This observation is totally anecdotal and based on nothing more than my own personal experience and observations. Re: the comparative popularity of Che Guevera vs. Malcolm X, the results of a rigorously unscientific survey of New York booksellers (conducted in the Union Square area) revealed the following: Strand Book Store: Che books, 0; Malcom books, 0 (seemingly – see (a)); Virgin Megastore: Che books, 1; Malcom books, 0; Barnes & Noble: Che books, 3; Malcom books, 1.

a. While we're on the subject, I've got a question for the Strand Book Store: What's up with your organizational structure (i)? By which I mean: What, specifically, is "Literary Non-Fiction"? How does "Americana" differ from "American History" or "Cultural Studies"? Why does "Biography," as a category, exist only as a sub-category of the "Art" section? And where, if not in any of these sections, would one expect to find The Autobiography of Malcolm X?

i. And I ask this as the son of a librarian, who, as such, knows a thing or two about the Dewey Decimal system…

2. Here's a question: Given the revolutionary fervor of the "politically conscious" hip-hop movement of the late 80s -- and of Public Enemy in particular -- doesn't Flavor Flav's decade-long de-evolution into today's reigning pop-culture clown -- as solidified by his current "reality" show Flavor of Love -- represent something more than just your run-of-the-mill downward spiral from artistic relevance to self-parody? The word I'm looking for here is "treason" -- call Ann Coulter for notes on how to proceed.

3. At least that's what I think they settled on calling it. This was right around the time when it became tres hip to convert movie titles into acronyms, a trend that started with T2 -- aka Terminator 2 -- and then infiltrated the culture over the next decade to the point that now every damn thing (the WB, PSP, Y2K, etc.) just has to have its own oh-so-cool shorthand title. But anyway, at some point during the pre-release media storm, "Spike Lee's controversial new film Malcolm X (a)" started being referred to simply as X. Which gives rise to some confusion: for example, we can only assume that the recent X2 and X3 are not intended as direct sequels.

1. I mean, do people remember the epic hissy-fit that this film stirred up "back in the day"? Armed guards at the movie theaters and such? This was right after the LA riots/uprising, of course, and Spike Lee -- as was his way -- just kept throwing more fuel onto the media fire, doing a last-minute re-edit to include footage of the Rodney King beating, refusing to be interviewed by white reporters, etc. It was all great fun. The movie itself was, I thought, kind of meh. But then again, I've got a thing against bio-pics.

4. And here's where my little dig at "socially conscious white hipsters" may be wholly inaccurate: It has to be noted that the popularity of the Malcolm X baseball cap coincided almost precisely with the rise of "rave" culture (at least in Southern California), a culture driven in large part by the "love drug" MDMA -- aka Ecstasy, aka (at the time) X (a). So it's entirely possible that the social consciousness of the white hipsters in question had absolutely no bearing on the popularity of the cap as fashion symbol. My sincerest apologies to all whom I have so misdiagnosed.

1. Though even back then, a fair number of people had taken to referring to the drug by the now-standard "E."
   

5. Short version: 6600 years ago, a man named Yacub -- one of the "original," black humans -- discovered the secrets of genetics and learned how to breed new races. After being exiled to the island of Patmos with 59,999 of his followers, Yacub initiated a generations-long breeding program to create "a devil race -- a bleached out, white race of people," which would then return to the mainland and subjugate the "true humans" for some 6,000 years, thus securing Yacub's revenge. And yeah, that's some crazy shit, but the fact that someone of Malcolm's evident rationality found the story eminently credible (at first -- see (a)) speaks volumes about just how deep the sense of oppression by white America goes for some African-Americans.

1. By the time Malcolm returned from Mecca in 1964, he'd come to view this story as one of the Nation of Islam's many perversions of "true" Islam.

6. A book which, in stark contrast to the work at hand, is -- in my experience, anyway -- near impossible to put down.
   

7. And the difference between a motion picture and this sort of "realistic" comic book is a slight one, narratively speaking. Compare Frank Miller's Sin City graphic novels to Robert Rodriguez's frame-by-frame film adaptation and you'll see what I'm talking about.

8. And how totally great and subtle is that phrasing, turning the tired old racist depiction of black-man-as-ape back on the (allegedly) racist country itself?

9. Go to http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/malcolm-x/index.htm and take a listen to his speech "The Black Revolution Requires Bloodshed." Then go to http://www.outpost-of-freedom.com/opf980830a.htm and read Osama Bin Laden's "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places." Compare and contrast.