Right wing nut-job criminal?
WHATEVER IT TAKES – The New Yorker – It seems that many right wingers like Jack Bauer and they way he handles interrogations of suspects.
Each season of “24,” which has been airing on Fox since 2001, depicts a single, panic-laced day in which Jack Bauer—a heroic C.T.U. agent, played by Kiefer Sutherland—must unravel and undermine a conspiracy that imperils the nation.
The twisting story line forces Bauer and his colleagues to make a series of grim choices that pit liberty against security. Frequently, the dilemma is stark: a resistant suspect can either be accorded due process—allowing a terrorist plot to proceed—or be tortured in pursuit of a lead. Bauer invariably chooses coercion.
This past November, U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point, flew to Southern California to meet with the creative team behind “24.”
Finnegan and others had come to voice their concern that the show’s central political premise—that the letter of American law must be sacrificed for the country’s security—was having a toxic effect. In their view, the show promoted unethical and illegal behavior and had adversely affected the training and performance of real American soldiers. “I’d like them to stop,” Finnegan said of the show’s producers. “They should do a show where torture backfires.”
For what its worth I find any type of torture scenes, especially if the violence is directed against women, very upsetting. Shows like ‘LOST’ and ‘Battlestar Galactica’ also fall into this category, depicting ‘heroes’ inflicting torture to get information.
As a side note, it seems that Battlestar Galactica has been renewed for a 13 episode 4th season.
31. “How many times have you seen Jack taking a piss?”
He used to work for NASA. In other words, he wears diapers.
#18 Mr Fusion, You are truly an ass, I was talking about the characters acting the same way as real people do today, with all their faults and doing what has to be done. If you couldn’t see that then you really are a moron. I suspect your not, but just used another chance to take a shot at me. I glad that more people think the way I do and not the way you do.
#31, maybe the transporters filter that stuff out.
anyone else noticed how little play the other posts are getting today? it seems everyone wants to talk about Jack…
That’s not true, there’s quite a lively debate going on at:
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=9752
In regards as to how some men compensate their genitalia deficiencies by buying expensive vehicles.
Riveting stuff 😉
I duno, its only 1/3 of the play here…
What Would Jack Drive?
I think the real lesson of 24 is to be beware of cabinet members trying to overthrow the President. there’s something about President’s named Palmer that causes the Cabinet to stat acting like a third world junta.
The one subject I haven’t seen is whether torture (extreme physical pain, as opposed to ‘minor’ torture such as sleep deprivation during questioning) WORKS. It was months ago on one of the Discovery/History/Nat’Geographic channels that they had a program about torture, and those who had actually interrogated prisoners pointed out that the extreme forms (waterboarding, electric shock) tend to get people to say what the torturer wants to hear. (e.g. in this season’s 24, when Jack’s brother admits to killing the ex-prez)
More effective, apparently, is taking looooong interrogation sessions, which basically makes the suspect tired and begin to drop their guard on what they’re saying. Not unlike ‘truth serum’, which also works by suppressing the higher brain functions.
J/P=?
I dont see how battlestar can be fit into this catagory – sure, the technology exists to induce info/memories without undue bodily stress (aka torture), but its not as flashy, and i bet the test audiences have a hard time relating to it.
Like #1 said, its just tv. And you people shouldnt even be watching tv, it makes you stupid(er), just dl the torrents instead
40. “its just tv”
Thanks, according to WokTiny we’re all too stupid to know the difference between TV and reality, heck, we’re even too stupid to turn the channel. Sometimes I wonder how my TV even gets turned on. It must be magic.
Anyway, that’s for clearing that up.
Quite the oversimplification there SN, makes me wonder…
http://lonefry.com/dilbert2006114659027.gif
Its not that people think 24 is non-fiction, its that when 24 presents a fictional idea that people don’t know the truth of, or have no opinion of, their brains sometimes fill in that gap with the only information available, in this case, 24. This does not yield midget CTU agents, but people (perhaps you’d say neo-cons, who cares?) who think Muslims are all terrorists and torture is both normal and acceptable. Yet, at the same time, know 24 is fiction. A kind of contradiction that requires some intelligence to maintain, but a certain dumbness not to challenge. Its not stupidity, its thoughtlessness, not having one’s own well formed cognitions, or voice, to be mute, or dumb.
“If it takes torture to retrieve information from a terrorist and their ilk, I’ll hand over the pliers myself.”
And what if it is just some random person with the wrong name?
That is the problem with Jack on TV – he is never wrong. But how about the CIA who recently kidnapped a German citizen, had him tortured for a few months and then quietly let him go in Albania? (link to one story about the subject http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/06/cia.rendition/index.html)
We have due process for a reason – to help weed out mistakes. On TV no one is wrong to it is much more entertaining – and FAKE- than real life.
#42 – Exactly. ‘Buzz’ tells us that something has arrived in(or in this case is returning to)society and gets us used to it. ‘Buzz’ tells us there is a debate going on. I despair to God that this subject could ever be debatable. Didn’t we lose XXXX millions of people in the last century fighting this s**t? Did we mislay that particular memo?
42. “Its not that people think 24 is non-fiction …. Its not stupidity, its thoughtlessness, not having one’s own well formed cognitions, or voice, to be mute, or dumb.”
So where are the studies to prove any of this? I asked for names, and you gave me none. Thus, it appears you have not even met one of these idiots yet. I’d hate to think that you’re just pulling crap out of your ass.
#42 – Good points. People brains take in information and if it settles into the “filters” by which we interpret reality – perhaps by way of sheer repetition – the source of the input is irrelevant. That’s the basis of the repeated Big Lie in propaganda. Say it often enough, people think it’s true, and it doesn’t matter if where youy say it is a TV drama. It doesn’t make people stupid, it just makes them vulnerable.
Anyone who believes what we watch on TV does not affect our perception of reality should read some of the posts here defending Fox “News” or advocating torture despite the certain knowledge (known at least since the Inquisition) that torture does NOT produce reliable information on which to act. The military types know this and that’s why they visited 24, no doubt. All torture does is degrade the victims and make other people fearful – which is its true intent. It is a form of terrorism. Any talk about saving five-year-olds by torturing suspects either is dishonest or represents stunning lack of contact with reality.
Like others, I’d like to thank Martin for his calm contributions here.
#45 – Newsweek ran a decent discussion of torture’s effectiveness last September ( http://tinyurl.com/edfrz ) – it opens with the remark that what most Americans know about torture they learned on “24.” If there are real studies showing that TV affects people’s perception of reality, I don’t know about it. But there have been innumerable comments by police and prosecutors that CSI has made juries hesitant to bring in convictions unless the prosecution brings in DNA evidence – even in cases where DNA evidence could not or would not make any difference. I’d say that’s a view from the field supporting TV fiction’s effects on people’s perceptions of reality.
Did anyone see the main bad guy take a cordless drill to the shoulder of the CTU agent/programmer last night? Yeoutch! Yeah, they’ve gone too far, IMO.
Clancy wrote about a russian sensory deprivation chamber; a saline tank at body temp, earplugs and goggles, and waking up from a sedative-based sleep with someone whispering in your head. In an hour or so the whispering and suggestions made the bad guy nuts enough to talk…then they put him back to sleep, cleaned him up and left him somewhere to wake up and wonder about that “dream.” No bodily harm whatsoever, and maybe complete fiction. But it sounds like it would work.
47. “Newsweek ran a decent discussion of torture’s effectiveness last September”
Oh, I completely agree that torture is ineffective.
“I’d say that’s a view from the field supporting TV fiction’s effects on people’s perceptions of reality.”
WokTiny made two assertions. One that people don’t know how to change their channels. And two, that people cannot distinguish between reality and TV.
I’ve seen no proof of the former.
Regarding the latter, I grew up watching Batman, all the way through Batman Beyond, but at no point did I ever wear tights and spend time with a 14 year old ward. I have also watched every Bond movie ever made. But yet I’ve never slept with a Russian double agent. And I’ve watched every single Speedy Gonzales but have never stolen cheese.
And by the way, real studies have shown that the “magnitude of any “CSI” effect is likely to be quite small” if it exists at all. The only “proof” of the CSI effect is from prosecutors who are trying to come up with excuses as to why they lost a particular case. Not exactly an unbiased source.
It is better to suffer wrong than do wrong.
ffs, it’s just a television show.
i grew up on the bugs bunny/road runner hour..
-i’ve yet to drop an anvil on someones head..
lighten up people.
“So Brain, what are we going to write about this month?”
“Same thing we write every month, Pinky. Something that attacks those evil, horrible right wingers.”
If we extend this piece’s logic, all violent, adrenaline-dependent counter-or-anti-hero action pieces came about after the rise of today;s Republican party, no? So, Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” is often touted as the beginning of the current regime’s rise. When was that again?
And no man-centric, non-plausible action show and/or film where the hero does whatever he wants as long as he wins the day, none of those have EVER been popular before? Also, there are NO Democrats who watch 24?
Is there a purpose to this article other than to further label and divide people, or to confirm the suspicions of those who cannot accept anyone with a differing political opinion?
Damn. I have. I BLAME SPEEDY. It;s the system, man. How’s a reasonably intelligent white guy supposed to get ahead when we’re spoon-fed these images of a semi-racist Mexican mouse stealing CHEESE? I mean, IT’S CHEESE! We deserve that cheese and we’re gonna get it by any means necessary.
#51 – I don’t think the intention of Road Runner was to reflect society. The shows we’re talking about here boast of, and rely upon, realism as their selling-point. If we don’t recognise the society we’re living in in a show like CSI or 24, they don’t make it past the pilot stage. The same even applies to Battlestar Galactica, since -sadly- it pretty much eschews the challenge and fun of writing science-fiction and just takes contemporary issues into space. Well, the original Star Trek did that (better), and gave us the first ever interracial kiss on network television, which was pretty political at the time, and had a lot of influence on what came after.
It’s inane to say that you don’t like spinach just because Popeye did, or that you never imitated cartoon violence. Now that we are not children anymore, It’s not a question of what we imitate, but of what we find acceptable from our protagonists. If our hero is reconciled to torture and that’s okay with us in the general narrative, flow, something horrific is happening to us.
SN, I think its funny you ask for names, as though it would make a difference. How many names would be convincing? How would you verify them? Perhaps I should publish some Social Security Numbers, too.
What I’m talking about is subtle. Its not that I think people are incapable of changing a channel, just that they don’t typically recognize when they should; such judgments being subjective, we cannot debate this to fruition. Its not that watching batman makes you wear tights and keep a ward, but merely that in the absence of better knowledge, people will believe whatever they have, and that might have come from TV. Like #46 mentioned, if you hear it enough, you’ll believe it, Hitler demonstrated this very well. This is why we have biased news networks, and educational TV, such as sesame street, and dora the explorer… (or… whatever)… because people do learn from TV, and to get something out of it, beyond mere entertainment. TV is an extension of literature, literature by definition, teaches. Sometimes the lesson is intended, sometimes it is incidental.
Even your insistence that everything must be so bold and clear cut, your apparent inability to recognize that something might be subtle or slight, is reminiscent to the never-wrong hero type solving all problems in one (half) hour. There’s a good guy and a bad guy, you always know who they are, if the good guy wins you cheer, if the bad guy wins you don’t, now be a good little citizen and watch your movie.
Maybe, just maybe, everything is not so black&white, and my expressions can’t be forced to say one extreme or the other, but something subtly near the middle, but not quite.
note that I don’t exclude myself from the generalizations I make about people at large.
#49 – I tried to read the article, but you have to be a subscriber. I’d love to learn authoritatively that the “CSI Effect” is about as real as the belief that full moons bring out the criminals. So my background information still tells me there is a CSI influence on juries, because that’s what people in the field have told me.
That doesn’t make me stupid, it just makes me vulnerable to using the information I’ve got to filter my perceptions. That information or misinformation used to come from newspapers (think Hearst and the Spanish-American War). Now it comes more from TV or the Internet.
I never stole cheese because of Speedy Gonzales either, nor did I attack people with swords because I played D&D as a story-telling exercise with my then 10-year-old son.
But I believed (and don’t yet disbelieve) the CSI Effect was real – becuase that’s what I had heard from prosecutors. It’s the best information I have, unless I can find a bootleg copy of the New Republic article.
But doesn’t that simply illustrate WokTiny’s point?
Apparently the New Yorker writers haven’t watched a lot of 24. I’m no fan of torture and think anyone who believes it’s a good thing ought to spend a weekend experiencing what even light (that is to say, what our military considers “humane”) real torture is like, not as punishment but to educate themselves about the realities. But on 24, yes, Jack resorts to intimidation and torture to quickly derive answers, but if you pay attention you’ll notice the torture almost never produces any information of value. Not that I think this is the “message” the producers and staff are trying to get across, it just makes for better fiction to have Jack thwarted at moments of potential fulfillment. Likewise, the heroes are tortured just as often, and those moments really make torture look unpleasant. (Witness Morris being coerced via baseball bat and power drill last night.)
Torture has never proven to be particularly effective in the real world; it’s main function isn’t the extraction of useful information but humiliation and the establishment of dominance over the tortured, which was its main function at Abu Ghraib. Partly because there are no “controls”; what basis is there in most cases for judging the veracity of what the tortured says? If I were a terrorist mastermind – and ain’t they all, if you believe the papers? – I’d train my crew in multitiered lying, so if they’re caught and tortured they can produce various cover lies for the “interrogators” to obtain and dismiss, building up to The damning Big Lie to misdirect the enemy by making them think they’ve stumbled on a major breakthrough. Basic spy movie stuff.
#52 – “So Brain, what are we going to write about this month?”
“Same thing we write every month, Pinky. Something that sneers at anyone being thoughtful at DU.”
#54, well said.
I would add there there are many situations that have been blamed on TV. Such as a Florida 12 yr old who used wrestling moves that killed a seven yr old. Or the number of kids injured imitating Jackass. Or kids thinking they could be like Superman and henceforth jumped out of windows.
Geeze, when I was a kid we watched Batman. We also went through our BAM, POW, SLUG heard every week. We also played cowboys and were each shot hundreds of times with toy pistols and even fingers. Yet NEVER did we bleed, just like on TV.
No, we never imitated the Road Runner or Bugs Bunny. The difference between cartoon characters and real actors is too obvious to play imitate.
No I don’t have any studies and won’t waste my time searching. My own anecdotal experience from talking to law enforcement personnel is that citizens expect every crime to be treated as if CSI was investigating.
#49 The error with the modern liberal ideology is that they believe that reason is the cure for all social ills. This weakness can, will and has been exploited by the enemies of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
The Founding Fathers gave us a Republic, we now have a Fascist regime (thanks to the liberals) which utilizes the weaknesses of liberal and conservative mindsets as a fulcrum to further their agenda.
Liberals will tell you that there are no absolutes, yet they are absolutely against torture. How ironic.
Well color me surprised.
*cough*
#61…. huh?
Mullah Cimoc say too much jack bauer tv show make ameriki so stupid for hate the muslim, loving the torture, bow down for masters in tel aviv.
this all rupert murdoch tv show man mind control this way.
This evil doing for usa media , now control so few company. Benjamin Frankling not like this not free press now in usa amerika.
for please now google: mighty wurlitzer +cia
then aemriki people know not free press in usa now. just keep the ameriki so stupid for serve the master in tel aviv.