American Broadside

Set the Fuse, Mr. Moore!

Fahrenheit 9/11

Becky and I went to see Michael Moore's new film Fahrenheit 9/11 last night. Being the biased left-winger that I am, I think that the criticism leveled against it is crap. In addition, considering that much of the criticism is coming from the media, most of which is owned by 8 mega-companies, I'm not surprised that it is shallow and predictable. They've forgotten their own history and, unfortunately, their responsibility to the people of the Republic.

In the 15th Century the introduction of the printing press made possible the mass production of the Bible and other liturgical works. As a result, literacy exploded across Europe, the use of Latin-the official liturgical language of the Church Universal-was undermined by the growing demand of Bibles printed in local vernacular, and ideas flowed like water across the continent. By the 16th Century it was possible to produce and distribute information and commentary via inexpensive flyers called broadsides: large single sheets of paper printed on one side.

Broadsides were inexpensive and easy to produce and they gave voice to many who until then had been silent. These frequently anonymous and undated, broadsides often contained opinionated political or social content. They were the literary equivalent of the naval broadside: where a warship would pull alongside another ship and fire a withering cannonade trying to knock down its masts and, literally, the wind out of its sails.

Broadsides were also a tool of well known writers and thinkers to sidestep censors and quickly get their ideas into the public debate. Anonymity protecting them from persecution.

Stephen Daye, perhaps the first printer in the English North American Colonies, brought his family and a press to Massachusetts in 1638. In 1639 he printed the broadside, Freeman's Oath and in 1640, he printed the first book in the colonies, the Bay Psalm Book,. Daye's printing house, Cambridge Press, remained the primary press in the colonies until 1674.

In 1761 the poem, An Evening Thought, Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries, was published in a broadside. Written by Jupiter Hammond, a slave of the Lloyd family on Long Island, it is the first known published literature of an African American. Hammond followed with three more poems and sermons.

During the American Revolution, the presses of both sides delivered blistering salvos.

The Abolitionist press, both nationally known newspapers and small presses, stoked the debate about slavery for at least 15 years before the Civil War with Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin most remembered, although in fact there were a number of authentic slave autobiographies that were printed and distributed. The fame of the great Fredrick Douglass, self-emancipated slave, author, and one of America's most eloquent orators, was due in-part to the printing of his autobiography and his speeches.

By the late 19th century, newspapers had grown in such power that they were commonly used to direct public sentiment in any direction that the publishers wanted: sometimes for the good, as in the case of social reforms against the use of child labor, and other times on Jingoist adventures such as the Spanish American War

In the 20th century the media has been a formidable force in all societies of the world. I won't even bother going over the Cold War, Vietnam, and Gulf Wars 1 and 2.

American culture is based on the First Amendment that insures freedom of religion and the press. These freedoms are joined at the hip and can not be separated without killing both of them.

Michael Moore is the one who is following the American tradition of free speech. It is he who, unlike the braying asses of the right wing (Limbaugh, Hanity, and the rest), makes assertions that can be verified from a variety of public sources. You may not agree with his conclusions but you know where he got is information.

As has become the case over the past 12 years, the media has chosen to fall into its comfortable role as the reactionary and anti-democratic chorus.

Les

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
1st Amendment, U.S. Bill of Rights

posted by Les @ 1:49 PM