May I (as a literary matter) suggest Cheney?
I admit I worried some when, last month, Lewis H. Lapham wrote what appeared to be an abrupt goodbye. He's been writing Harper's editorial essay "Notebook" for a very long time. I worried that his call to impeach Bush and whatever editorial choices he had made to push the magazine to discuss politics as they are had offended someone with more power than he.
As I read Harper's Senior Editor Ben Metcalf's "Notebook" in the current (June 2006) issue, it became clear I have no reason to worry. We may need to begin collecting a defense fund for Mr. Metcalf however.
Wondering what the common citizen is allowed to write at this moment in history, Metcalf asks ("out of what used to be called simple human decency") whether or not he is
Surprisingly, I've seen no discussion of this piece on the web. This is disheartening, since, for no other reason, we should be discussing whether Metcalf has probed the limits of dissent in the PATRIOT Act era imperial US.
The piece is brilliant political satire. Metcalf argues that the caution of having to ask the question "is despicable." Apologetic, he argues that "If I am to remain at large, then here and there a sentence must be perverted." The essay goes on to play with both the limits of the acceptable and the notion of the perversion of language we have been forced to endure under Bush and Cheney's administration.
In what is arguably the most important use of imagery in the piece, Metcalf writes, "In place of the initial question I might ask instead,"
We must be able to use such imagery if we are to shake US citizens free of their impotence.
Yet, sadly, Metcalf answers his own question negatively: "I am not allowed to write that I would like to hunt down George W. Bush and kill him with my bare hands...[A]ny outright declaration of violent intent could, and perhaps would, be considered a violation of the law."
I am therefore led to wonder, if, as a common citizen, I may comment on Mr. Metcalf's satire. If I were to suggest -- out of literary concern -- that Vice President Dick Cheney would provide a better satirical target, would that be within the bounds of what an ordinary person is allowed to say? May I discuss the characters and narrative tensions in Metcalf's satire? Or is that too, beyond the pale?
Is it still allowable for me to argue that, since Dick Cheney is himself a hunter and is clearly an adversary smarter and more wiley than George W. Bush (if not as hale), he makes a better (literary) target? Assuming, as I do, that Metcalf is "a peaceful man, with no actual wish to exact payment for anyone's continued debasement of humanity by feeling the life drain out of him", would it be within the law for me to suggest a substitution of Dick Cheney as the metaphorical debaser of humanity? He is clearly more dangerous than the "ignorant, cruel, closed-minded, avaricious, sneaky, irresponsible, thieving, brain-damaged frat boy with a drinking problem and a taste for bloodshed" who has, after all, only issued the orders that have put to death 2,376 US soldiers, and 30-some-odd-thousand Iraqi civilains? Cheney would provide a better foil as one of the principal architects of this carnage. Would US secret police appear at my door if I argued that Cheney's economic and political power, his cold-blooded, ruthless pursuit of this power, and his ability to make others pay for his misdeeds would provide more dramatic tension than does a man who barely has a command of (any) language and who cannot fend for himself against such formidable opponents as pretzels or John Kerry?
Perhaps I should make clear that I lack both the desire and the inhumanity to force the current Vice President of the United States to strip down and simulate masturbation while I order poverty-drafted US soldiers to apply electrical current to his testicles. Yet I do believe that the Cheney character would be a more powerful image. A satirical portrayal of the torture and/or death of Dick Cheney is simply more dangerous than one that only tears at the paper tiger that he and his co-conspirators carry in front of them.
Does the state allow me to make these literary suggestions? Does civil society even allow it in these times?
As I read Harper's Senior Editor Ben Metcalf's "Notebook" in the current (June 2006) issue, it became clear I have no reason to worry. We may need to begin collecting a defense fund for Mr. Metcalf however.
Wondering what the common citizen is allowed to write at this moment in history, Metcalf asks ("out of what used to be called simple human decency") whether or not he is
allowed to write that I would like to hunt down George W. Bush, the president of the United States, and kill him with my bare hands?
Surprisingly, I've seen no discussion of this piece on the web. This is disheartening, since, for no other reason, we should be discussing whether Metcalf has probed the limits of dissent in the PATRIOT Act era imperial US.
The piece is brilliant political satire. Metcalf argues that the caution of having to ask the question "is despicable." Apologetic, he argues that "If I am to remain at large, then here and there a sentence must be perverted." The essay goes on to play with both the limits of the acceptable and the notion of the perversion of language we have been forced to endure under Bush and Cheney's administration.
In what is arguably the most important use of imagery in the piece, Metcalf writes, "In place of the initial question I might ask instead,"
Am I allowed to write that I would like to kidnap George W. Bush and fly him to a prison in some far-away land where his 'rights' are no longer an issue, there to put a bag over his head and make him stand for hours on one leg while I defecate on his New Testament before chaining his arms to the ceiling until he dies of a heart attack, after which I will claim that he never existed?
We must be able to use such imagery if we are to shake US citizens free of their impotence.
Yet, sadly, Metcalf answers his own question negatively: "I am not allowed to write that I would like to hunt down George W. Bush and kill him with my bare hands...[A]ny outright declaration of violent intent could, and perhaps would, be considered a violation of the law."
I am therefore led to wonder, if, as a common citizen, I may comment on Mr. Metcalf's satire. If I were to suggest -- out of literary concern -- that Vice President Dick Cheney would provide a better satirical target, would that be within the bounds of what an ordinary person is allowed to say? May I discuss the characters and narrative tensions in Metcalf's satire? Or is that too, beyond the pale?
Is it still allowable for me to argue that, since Dick Cheney is himself a hunter and is clearly an adversary smarter and more wiley than George W. Bush (if not as hale), he makes a better (literary) target? Assuming, as I do, that Metcalf is "a peaceful man, with no actual wish to exact payment for anyone's continued debasement of humanity by feeling the life drain out of him", would it be within the law for me to suggest a substitution of Dick Cheney as the metaphorical debaser of humanity? He is clearly more dangerous than the "ignorant, cruel, closed-minded, avaricious, sneaky, irresponsible, thieving, brain-damaged frat boy with a drinking problem and a taste for bloodshed" who has, after all, only issued the orders that have put to death 2,376 US soldiers, and 30-some-odd-thousand Iraqi civilains? Cheney would provide a better foil as one of the principal architects of this carnage. Would US secret police appear at my door if I argued that Cheney's economic and political power, his cold-blooded, ruthless pursuit of this power, and his ability to make others pay for his misdeeds would provide more dramatic tension than does a man who barely has a command of (any) language and who cannot fend for himself against such formidable opponents as pretzels or John Kerry?
Perhaps I should make clear that I lack both the desire and the inhumanity to force the current Vice President of the United States to strip down and simulate masturbation while I order poverty-drafted US soldiers to apply electrical current to his testicles. Yet I do believe that the Cheney character would be a more powerful image. A satirical portrayal of the torture and/or death of Dick Cheney is simply more dangerous than one that only tears at the paper tiger that he and his co-conspirators carry in front of them.
Does the state allow me to make these literary suggestions? Does civil society even allow it in these times?
posted by Robert T. O'Brien at 12:21 PM
3 Comments:
if posed in the form of a question, can you make any castrating, testicle electrocuting comment you like? and if you have the balls to strangle innocent creatures, then why the fuck not bite the hand that feeds you bullshit?
According to Metcalf, one cannot make any comment you like when it comes to the President of the United States.
I think the reason there's been no discussion on the web is because it's apparently impossible to find the full text to link to, and I, for one, am too lazy to type out the entire thing. It'll be on the Harper's site eventually, but it isn't there yet. Anyway, in my endless search for the essay, I found your blog. Thanks.
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