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Jan 24, 2011

Sight Gag: A War By Any Other Name …

Credit: Mr. Fish

Sight Gags” is our weekly nod to the ironic, satiric, parodic, and carnivalesque performances that are an important part of a vibrant democratic public culture.  These “gags” may not always be funny or represent a familiar point of view, but they attempt to cut through the lies, hypocrisy, shamelessness, stupidity, complacency, and other vices of democratic life.  We typically will not comment beyond offering an identifying label, leaving the images to “speak” for themselves as much as possible.  Of course, we invite you to comment … and to send us images that you think might deserve a laugh or at least a wry and rueful look.

 

 2 Comments

What Are Unions Good For?

There has been a good deal of talk recently about the public value of unions, much of it framed in the euphemistic language of “right to work” laws and the alleged unfairness of “collective bargaining.”  There is probably something to be said about how unions have occasionally exploited the power of collective bargaining in ways that may not always be in the public interest, but as Hariman pointed out recently, corporations are no less collective bargaining agents representing the special interests of owners and shareholders.  And so it hardly seems reasonable to single out unions as singularly or generically problematic in this regard.  But since we are approaching the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, there might be a different point worth making.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory (TSF) was on the 8th-10th floors of the Asch Building near Manhattan’s Washington Square.  The TSF was what we would today call a sweatshop and the working conditions were oppressive.  The vast majority of the 500 employees were teenage girls, most of them recent immigrants who spoke little or no English.  At 4:45 p.m. on March 25th, just short of quitting time, a fire broke out and spread quickly.  There were two descending stairwells, but one was quickly blocked by flames and the second was locked to avoid theft.  Some packed themselves onto the sole working fire escape which quickly collapsed under the extreme weight (and in any case apparently led nowhere), others jumped down an elevator shaft or made their way to the roof of the building only to jump to their death 135 feet below.  When all was said and done 148 people—129 women and 19 men—were dead.  The owners were indicted on charges of manslaughter, but subsequently acquitted.  Two years later they lost a civil suit which compensated each family $75.00 for the loss of their loved one.  The owners were compensated by their insurance company in excess of their reported losses and in the amount of $400 per death.

The final cause of the fire was never determined, but what the photographic record made palpably clear (here, here, and here) was that the health and safety conditions of the TSF were wholly inadequate.  And this was doubly tragic since groups like the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and the Women’s Trade Union League had been advocating for better working conditions and protective safety legislation for several years. Following this tragedy they redoubled their efforts in both lobbying for reforms and monitoring the safety conditions within the garment industry.  Things did not change immediately, as industry leaders continued to argue that stringent safety codes would wipe them out of business—an argument that seems to persist in contemporary times—but it is hard to imagine that without the efforts of union organizations that things would have changed very much … or at all.

As we debate the value of unions in the days and weeks ahead we are well advised to recall the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire and the need that workers have for a collective voice in representing their interests, particularly in the face of efforts to castigate unions as little more than selfish, greedy operations.  And to the extent that any of that interest speaks to questions of health and safety we need to recognize the especially important watchdog, public interest that is being served.

Photo Credit: Brown Brothers/Kheel Center

Update:  The NYT “City Room” is remembering the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire this week.  Thanks to NCN friend Jim Johnson for bringing this to our attention.

Update: Cross-posted at BAGnewsNotes.

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Sight Gag: What Fiscal Responsibility Looks Like

Proposed Republican Budget Cuts (and How to Pay for Them)

Credit: greywolfe359

Sight Gags” is our weekly nod to the ironic, satiric, parodic, and carnivalesque performances that are an important part of a vibrant democratic public culture.  These “gags” may not always be funny or represent a familiar point of view, but they attempt to cut through the lies, hypocrisy, shamelessness, stupidity, complacency, and other vices of democratic life.  We typically will not comment beyond offering an identifying label, leaving the images to “speak” for themselves as much as possible.  Of course, we invite you to comment … and to send us images that you think might deserve a laugh or at least a wry and rueful look.

 

 1 Comment

The Family of Man

The photographs of the devastation wreaked by the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan are, well, simply devastating—aerial views of towns and cities literally flattened beyond recognition, acres upon acres of rubble and debris, and, of course, amidst all the scattered wreckage, dead bodies.  But for the fact that they are in color, many of these photographs could be perfect doubles for photographs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the immediate aftermath of suffering nuclear attack.  It is a haunting reminder of the persistent threat of calamity to human frailty whether wrought by man or nature.

Many of the images of rubble and wreckage show oddities such as boats teetering perilously atop buildings or hundreds of cars and trucks piled upon one another in a city street as if rather in a junkyard.  But equally prominent, and far more poignant, are photographs such as the one above of family photo albums that managed to survive the catastrophe only to come to rest among the detritus.

The family photo album is a modern affectation, of course, but within liberal, late modern cultures its presence is ubiquitous to the point of being almost universal.  And its value in this context is pronounced as a central marker of time and identity, of where “we” have been and who “we” are, as well as a family relic to be passed down from one generation to the next. Just as the photograph is an index of the thing photographed, indicating that “this” once was here, so too is the family photo album an index of the family it records.  It is not clear if these particular photo albums will ever find their rightful owners, if the mud and dirt will ever be cleared away, or if the images contained within them will live on in specific family memories—or if they will live on at all.  What is clear, and perhaps what is most important, is our willingness to recognize them among the rubble as important symbols of a common humanity that invites us to activate a powerful stranger relationality.

There but for the grace of god …

Photo Credit:  Damir Sagolj/Reuters

 

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Sight Gag: “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been … a Muslim?”

Credit: John Sherffius

Sight Gags” is our weekly nod to the ironic, satiric, parodic, and carnivalesque performances that are an important part of a vibrant democratic public culture.  These “gags” may not always be funny or represent a familiar point of view, but they attempt to cut through the lies, hypocrisy, shamelessness, stupidity, complacency, and other vices of democratic life.  We typically will not comment beyond offering an identifying label, leaving the images to “speak” for themselves as much as possible.  Of course, we invite you to comment … and to send us images that you think might deserve a laugh or at least a wry and rueful look.

 

 4 Comments

Fort Taliban

It could almost be a scene from a 1950s John Ford western.  The big sky, simultaneously inviting and foreboding, dominates a sprawling and deserted frontier plain. A small detachment of soldiers emerge out of the dark shadows, returning from the day’s patrol scouting renegade Indians.  A distant fort is cast in the sun’s bright light, a small preserve of civilization and safety caught between the dark shadows in the foreground and the foreboding clouds approaching in the background.  Only John Wayne and the horses are missing.

Of course, this is not a scene from a 1950s movie, but it does call attention to one narrative subtly (or not) implied  by past and present administrations for framing the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.  Then we were taming the U.S. frontier to enable westward expansion, now we tame the Middle East in order to facilitate the demands of globalization; Apaches or Taliban, one “terrorist” is no different than the other, or at least so it would appear.

I don’t want to seem unduly cynical here.  There were arguably good reasons for us to invade Afghanistan when we did in 2001 in search of Osama bin Laden whose involvement in the 9/11 attacks warranted a militant response designed to bring him to justice.  But that was ten years ago.  Bin Laden still remains at-large and it is highly unlikely that he is in Afghanistan, a point muted by the fact that the U.S. mission seems to have taken on the attitude of a “manifest destiny.”

President Obama has promised that we will begin to draw down our presence in Afghanistan in the summer of 2011, but Sect. of Defense Gates notes that it will be “minimal” and that we will continue to have a “security” presence past 2014.  Fort Taliban, it seems, will replace Fort Apache.  “Manifest destiny” was not an unproblematic rationale for westward expansion in the 19th century and it seems all the more problematic here, not least because it seems to operate as a deeply seeded and unstated assumption making it difficult to challenge.

An alternate frame for thinking about the U.S. presence in Afghanistan might be suggested by this photograph from the Helmand Province.

A single, unrecognizable soldier trudges along a sun baked, mud soaked road leaving boot prints in the sand. Past and future, left and right, are virtually indistinguishable from one another, and in any case neither seems to beckon the attention of the soldier, whose forward progress out of the top of the frame is single-mindedly directional.  Where he is headed and where he has come from is unclear.  What is clear is that sooner or later his boot prints will have been erased, perhaps to be replaced by another set, but maybe not.  One other thing is clear as well.  Once the soldier is gone, the sun baked, mud soaked road will remain.

Yes, only John Wayne and the horses are missing.  And the happy ending.

Photo Credits:  Finbarr O’Reilly/Reuters; Adek Berry/AFP/Getty

 2 Comments

Sight Gag: It’s a Mad-, Mad-, Mad-, Mad- World

Credit: Jack Ohman/The Oregoniana

Sight Gags” is our weekly nod to the ironic, satiric, parodic, and carnivalesque performances that are an important part of a vibrant democratic public culture.  These “gags” may not always be funny or represent a familiar point of view, but they attempt to cut through the lies, hypocrisy, shamelessness, stupidity, complacency, and other vices of democratic life.  We typically will not comment beyond offering an identifying label, leaving the images to “speak” for themselves as much as possible.  Of course, we invite you to comment … and to send us images that you think might deserve a laugh or at least a wry and rueful look.

 0 Comments

Announcement: Seminar on Visual Rhetoric and Public Culture

VISUAL RHETORIC AND PUBLIC CULTURE

June 12-15, 2011/Wayne State University

with Professor John Louis Lucaites

Studies in visual rhetoric have rapidly expanded into a significant portion of rhetorical, critical, and cultural studies. The critique of visual texts – films, photographs, tattoos, bodies – has become a new focus for rhetorical analysis. This seminar will examine  various forms and theories of visual rhetoric in the context of public culture, ideology, and civic participation. How does “seeing” reflect and promote rhetorical practice and systems? How do images and iconic photographs teach ways to “see” and “be seen” as citizens in our liberal-democratic public culture? How do we negotiate power through performance of display, observation, and vision?

Application Deadline is March 15, 2011

All PhD students interested in being exposed to leading communication research and theory are encouraged to apply. Most expenses for accepted candidates will be paid by the Department of Communication at Wayne State University. Covered expenses include airfare, lodging & meals, and course materials. A welcoming reception and social events will give participants time to get to know each other and to discuss and exchange ideas. A small group of doctoral students from throughout the nation will be selected to join this unique program. Download the application form at www.comm.wayne.edu/summerseminar.php.

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Watching Over the Protestors

The protests against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s effort to eliminate collective bargaining for state employees is moving into its third week.  Nearly 100,000 protestors have amassed outside of the Capitol building, the vast majority in opposition to the Governor’s bill.  On Sunday the Governor ordered the Capitol locked down for “safety reasons.”  The police initially indicated that the building would be cleared, but for reasons that are not entirely clear decided to leave those camped out in the rotunda alone even as they closed the doors to the entrance and refused to let anyone without a state issued ID to enter.

By some accounts the Governor’s order to keep “the people” out of the State Capitol is a violation of the State Constitution and one District Court has already issued a restraining order that of this writing has yet to be acted upon, but constitutional or not, it is hardly a wise move to try to silence the voice of the people with such transparently authoritarian methods. According to some reports the Governor has lost significant symbolic capital in his abject refusal to negotiate with the unions, as well as with his more recent efforts to quell all dissent.  But as the photograph above—and many others like it—envision, there is a different and more important point to be made about the ways in which this political contest appears to be unfolding.

The caption to this photograph reads, “Police watch over the small number of protestors that remain in the Capitol rotunda.”  And so they do, quite literally, as they are separated from the protestors in the well of the rotunda by a full story and thus look down upon them.  Notice in this regard too how casual they are, clearly attentive to what is going on below them and yet not threateningly so.  While they carry side arms, no weapons are drawn or at the ready; the riot gear so common in protest imagery in general is noticeably absent.

Of course, the police serve a dual role as both protectors of the public and enforcers of the law, but what is important here is that they look to be more the protector than the enforcer.  Indeed, there is a sense in which the police are the primary focus of the photograph even as they frame the margins of the scene otherwise centered on the protestors, a point underscored by the high and long angle that puts the viewer above and remote from the action below.  Rather than to stand in opposition to the protestors, the police appear to be something of an extension of them, as is common with the center-margin scheme.  And more, while one might ordinarily imagine such a line of sight as distancing the viewer from the scene as a more or less passive (if not also omniscient) observer, here, perhaps because of the location in the State House, it seems to animate a more active, democratic spectatorship: As the police watch over the protestors, so the viewer—now identified with “the people” in the manner of a vox populi, vox dei consciousness—watches over the police.

Notice finally, and perhaps most importantly, that the photograph effectively distances the police from the Governor of Wisconsin. While they have not entirely turned their back on his orders, neither have they completely enacted his will by completely evacuating the rotunda.  And so what the viewer is given to see, perhaps, are the true, legitimate arbiters of state power and authority standing their watch in the way that a democratic government was intended to do, serving as a visible buffer between tyranny and liberty.

Credit:  Scott Olson/Getty Images

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