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I know things have leaned too much toward the political here recently but my recent comment about the O.J. Simpson book and the marketplace of ideas and events transpiring since then got me in a philosophic mode. It’s something I’ve contemplated before but I am becoming more and more convinced that one of the political concepts to which I have clung most firmly since first learning of it grows weaker and weaker.
For those who don’t know, the marketplace of ideas concept in First Amendment jurisprudence stems from the dissenting opinion of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in Abrams v. U.S. There, he wrote that the one of the theories of our Constitution is that “the ultimate good” comes from a “free trade in ideas” and that “the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.” In other words, we should encourage the free exchange and expression of opinions and ideas. They will succeed, be refined or even fail by competing against other ideas, a competition in which what it may take decades for an idea to prove its worth or garner public acceptance.
Holmes certainly was not the first to propound a theory of the value of open debate of ideas. But it seems that as time progresses, the marketplace concept is withering. Setting aside philosophical discussions of “truth,” the question is, What dominates the marketplace today? It seems to be the trials and tribulations of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and their ilk and what can be called, at best, “infotainment.” Even in the political system itself, where ideas are perhaps most relevant, buzz words and spin take precedence over actual ideas.
As the Supreme Court has recognized, it probably makes no sense to speak of a single marketplace. There’s broadcasting, academic environments, and now the internet, to name a few. All have differing levels of access, content, distribution and regulation. But what strikes me is that so many of these marketplaces seem to be subsumed by items I see in the print or broadcast media and wonder, “Who cares?”
I’ll admit it isn’t totally broken. Perhaps the fact the O.J. book already is going into a second printing demonstrates that it still works and my thoughts are just sour grapes over the fact I don’t like what’s prevailing. Additionally, as my recent post on perspective of 9/11 indicates, some views that are actually pertinent to our lives and the things in them do occasionally get public exposure and debate. The same can probably be said for the traction the 9/11 conspiracy movement has gained nationally and internationally. There’s no doubt that ideas can and do get debated in one or two marketplaces. Still, it too often seems that such discussions are drowned out by a cacophony of celebrity gossip and other irrelevancies or a debate that seems to miss the subject.
As The Daily Show noted last week, O.J.’s recent arrest (which probably didn’t hurt book sales) seemed to get more attention than a presidential candidate announcing her so-called universal health care proposal. And rather than showing a willingness to listen to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, we’ve spent as much ink and air time over whether he should be allowed to speak in the first place. We should not be afraid of any wrongheaded ideas he has when we have we have the opportunity to compete with those ideas in the marketplace. Yet by seeking to exclude him we not only perhaps ignore legitimate ideas he may possess, we handicap our ability to present an alternative in the marketplace of world opinion.
I know this is a pessimistic assessment of modern America arising from my longstanding disgust with a continuing and increasing fascination with minutiae and celebrity. Nor do I have a solution. It is simply difficult to realize with each passing week that more and more rot infests one of the principles you hold most dearly. It may be easy to say that, unlike some other countries, we at least have marketplaces. But shouldn’t we all expect more of our society, our country and ourselves?
I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Abrams v. U.S.
I’ll admit I don’t have a solution. But there’s got to be a better way of handling ticket sales for both concerts and sporting events.
My frustration stems in part from not getting Springsteen tickets. The Xcel Energy Center should hold probably 15,000 for the concert. But only a few hundred tickets remained for the Nov. 2 show after just 10 minutes of sales. This is an even quicker pace than the 7,000 tickets that sold in about 18 minutes for the Elton John concert here in Sioux Falls.
It’s great to see shows selling out — but it would be even better if the tickets were going to people who planned to attend the concert. When you take a look at the number of tickets showing up on eBay or online ticket brokerages there’s little doubt that people across the country are buying tickets for the sole purpose of reselling them at a profit. Thus, people standing in line outside the Sioux Falls Arena didn’t get tickets for a show they want to attend because someone on the east or west coast bought them online so they could make some money off them.
The problem isn’t unique to the Midwest or concerts. The NHL’s Buffalo Sabres and Pittsburgh Penugins are playing outdoors in Buffalo on January 1. It took less than an hour to sell 74,000 tickets. And, within minutes, they were showing up on eBay at multiples of face value.
The internet is a wonderful tool for people to get tickets to shows in nearby metro areas, such as the Twin Cities, Omaha and the like. It’s also far better than traipsing down to stand in line at some Ticketmaster outlet. Limiting the number of tickets one person can buy — as is done with most concerts — helps but is far from a solution. Whether it’s by IP address or whatever, it would be nice if sales could be restricted to specific geographic areas for the first 30 minutes or so. I seem to recall that when you had to buy tickets in person, Ticketmaster outlets outside Minnesota, for example, were not able to sell tickets for events in the Twin Cities for the first 30 minutes on the on-sale date. That also isn’t a good solution and is indicative of the host of problems that would be created in defining the geographic area for IP addresses, if that can even be done.
Right now, concert goers are not only getting held up, the money they’re paying on the secondary market isn’t even going to the artists. There’s simply got to be a something better than all the money flowing into the pockets of those who could care less about the performance or event.
I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.
Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Tickets for Springsteen’s Nov. 2 appearance at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul went on sale at 10 a.m. today. Knowing I have a mind like a sieve that’s rusted enough it’s got more holes in it, I put it on my electronic calendar for work, marked it a “High Priority” item and double-checked that it would start giving me reminders of the “appointment” starting 10 minutes beforehand.
At about 10:55 this morning, I got this sick feeling. I glance at the clock on my desk and the time sunk in with the realization I didn’t get any reminder of the on-sale time. I went to the Ticketmaster site and, of course, all that is left is obstructed view seats behind the stage. Of course, even GA tickets ($95 face value) are now running well over $125 apiece on eBay with reserved seats running at twice or more their $65 to $95 face value. My bid on a couple at just slightly more than face lasted less than 10 minutes on eBay. At at least one ticket brokerage site, virtually all the tickets are in excess of $300 each.
As I already have a hotel reservation across from the Xcel that night, the question becomes whether we simply go and see if “drop” tickets are released shortly before the show or if there’s any decent prices from local “ticket vendors” outside the site? Or do I just hope Omaha and/or Fargo and potentially another Twin Cities stop will be on the schedule when the band resumes U.S. touring after the first of the year?
I want a thousand guitars
I want pounding drums
I want a million different voices speaking in tongues
“Radio Nowhere,” Bruce Springsteen, Magic
As I’ve previously lamented, America seems to take an almost chauvinistic approach to literature, displaying little or no interest in works originally written in another language and then translated into English. The potential disconnect with Malvinas Requiem will probably start with the title. Regardless, those who have called it Argentina’s Catch-22 just may be justified in doing so.
The Falklands War may ring a bell with most Americans. Very few, though, probably know that in Spanish, Argentina’s official language, the Falkland Islands were las Malvinas. Thus, from the outset the book reflects the perspective Rodolfo Fogwill takes on the conflict — the viewpoint of about two dozen deserters from the Argentinian army who are hiding out underground.
With the focus on characters hiding underground and generally emerging only at night, the book was titled Los Pichiciegos when first published in Argentina. Pichiciegos is a small armadillo native to central Argentina that is considered an endangered species. Accordingly, the novel called the men in the hideout “pichis.” While the title changed in the English version, the translation remains true to the original as it refers to them as “dillos.” (Although the book could have been helped provide greater context with notes or other explanatory material for items related to Argentina’s history with which many English-speaking readers may be unfamiliar.)
Life as a “dillo” is far from exciting. Most of the time is spent sleeping, smoking, talking or just thinking. The boredom is outweighed only by the ramifications of leaving their shelter, something only a few designated ones do at night to gather supplies and even trade with nearby British soldiers. Fogwill helps reflect the feeling by there being little sense in conversations of who among the men is saying what. At times, the reader might even wonder which of the various characters is actually the narrator.
Malvinas Requiem also expresses the attitude and at times dry humor of the soldiers toward the war itself. On the first sunny day in three weeks, one decides that, as far as he is concerned, the British could keep the islands. “You had to be British, or like the British, to want to come and freeze your arse off here, when over there lay Argentina, so fine and wide and with the sun shining down on it.”
It is in such fashion that the slim volume strikes the reader as if Fogwill were actually there. Not only was he not on the scene, the book was completed before the surrender of Argentina less than 10 weeks after the conflict began. Yet what perhaps makes Malvinas Requiem most notable is that just as mundane daily events and the soldiers’ feelings reflect the real, Fogwill combines it with the surreal. One of the best examples of his ability to do so is demonstrated in the course of just three pages. In those pages, Fogwill first describes training versus reality:
The army takes good soldiers, more or less trains them to shoot, run, clean their equipment and, with a bit of luck, how to stick a bayonet into a body. Then war comes along and you discover you have to fight at night, using radios, radar, infrared sights all in the dark, and you can’t do the only thing you really know how to do, which is run, because behind you the engineers in your own regiment have been laying mines as you advanced. And mines are the worst of all.
Fogwill then describes an ewe stepping on a mine. Reminiscent of Wile E. Coyote in a Roadrunner cartoon, the ewe is “suspended in mid-air. She pulls in her legs, turns her head, and looks backwards, twisting her head as if she had the neck of a giraffe.” Fogwill slowly transmutes this image into the real, describing the disintegration of the ewe from the explosion and the rest of its herd moving like a pinball amidst the landmines they are setting off. The conclusion of the passage brings home the grittiest reality: “The stench of sheep blown apart by a land mine is similar to that of a human being blown apart by a landmine: the smell of a slaughterhouse[.]”
Here, the original language of the work is irrelevant. In exploring how the events of war range — and change rapidly — from the mundane to the horrific, Malvinas Requiem speaks the universal language of soldiers in an armed conflict.
Let them kill each other, so they all fuck off and leave us in peace.
Rodolfo Fogwill, Malvinas Requiem
Tim Johnson’s return to the U.S. Senate gave him a chance to perhaps undo what I consider one of his worst votes. He took advantage of that chance, at least on the surface.
In 2006, Johnson voted for the Military Commissions Act (and Rep. Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin was one of only 32 House Democrats to vote for the legislation). One of the provisions of the act eliminated federal court jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus applications filed by aliens detained as by the United States as enemy combatants. I questioned Johnson directly about that vote shortly after it was taken.
Today, the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act, sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), chairman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee respectively, was subject to a cloture vote on the Senate floor as an amendment to the defense appropriations bill. The act would repeal the provisions of the Military Commissions Act that eliminated the habeas corpus jurisdiction. To succeed, the motion needed 60 votes. It fell short 56-43.
While this wasn’t an ultimate vote on the merits of the bill, I’m pleased to see Johnson at least supported consideration of the measure moving forward. As might be expected, Sen. Thune voted the Bush line as the White House reportedly threatened to veto the defense bill if it contained the habeas amendment.
The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.
U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 9
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