Has The American Story Jumped The Shark?

Once upon a time we all gathered around to watch the American Story play out on TV. It was THE show to watch. It was a simpler time back then, with fewer channels to chose from. And while many of our televisions were unable to show color, still, it was wholesome broadcasting where nobody spoke too cruelly or acted too violently. Good guys were good because they did good things and bad guys were bad because they were mean. Donald Trump would have been a bad guy back then.

Families from the Cleavers to the Bunkers only needed one bread-winner to support the family. Sure, there was a division of expectations among the sexes, but a family only needed one bread winner! Heck, it wasn’t even that sexist. Irene Lorenzo was Archie Bunker’s next-door neighbor and she was the bread winner, allowing her husband to stay at home. Because the expectation was you didn’t need two people working to support a family. And the conservative Archie Bunker never laughed at the idea of an uneducated laborer earning a living wage because HE WAS an uneducated laborer earning a living wage as a forklift operator.

Sometimes the America Show was awful but sometimes it was miraculous. We were so disgusted with such plot twists as the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy that many of us vowed to stop watching, only to be sucked back in by the amazing sight of a man setting foot upon the moon. As hard as it was to watch sometimes, it was seldom tawdry and often epic. The narrative, as I first came to know it in the early 70's, was that of a flawed character with a troubled past who showed a desire for redemption and was making many of the right moves to atone for past misdeeds.

But I can’t help feeling the series has jumped the shark in the last couple of years. Big time. I mean, look at who they have as the leading characters these days, utterly laughable in a not funny sort of way. There’s not a one of them who has any depth of character or any real likeability factor. How many of them would you want to have to work with or live next to? The Kardashians? Please. The Clintons? I wouldn’t trust them around my daughter or my wallet. The Trumps? They’re just a retread of The Beverly Hillbillies, what The Flintstones were to The Honeymooners. Plus they’re a lot less likeable. Hell, I’d take Grannie over Donald any day and as for the rest, well there’s no contest. At least Jed had some downhome wisdom to him.

And the same plotlines are constantly being rehashed, in Libya as it was in Iraq, in Syria as it was in Libya, with the same situation on the horizon in Iran. “Evil regime oppresses its own people and America must go make everything right.” God that one’s gotten old. They don’t even bother to set up the scene any longer, they just jump right into the violence. No real explanation for it, no build-up with credible characters holding vials full of anthrax, just gratuitous violence. It is spectacle over substance, and it just smacks of desperation. No different from professional wrestling or sleezy daytime soap operas, yesterday’s trusted friend becomes today’s villain, becomes an ally again tomorrow.

And, oh God, please let them come up with some new villains. Sure, Russia was an intriguing antagonist in the 80’s, when you had Sylvester Stallone battling Ivan Drago and fighting in Afghanistan as Rambo, but it hasn’t stood the test of time very well. And Russia is not the same (alleged) existential threat as it once was. The storyline has lost all its snap.

It’s not just Russia, It’s Russia Russia Russia. And the plotline is all over the place. One day the Russians are hacking the French election and the Vermont power grid and the next day that’s not a thing. Don’t they have anyone working in continuity?

The resolution to every episode is a Deus Ex Machina rather than flowing logically from what we the audience have come to understand. The free market comes down from a cloud to rescue us, or a new hi-tech weapon magically zaps the bad guy or a new miracle drug solves our most pressing problems. In the end, the only solution to any problem is to privatize it, medicate it, or bomb it.

In fact, the entire writing staff seems like they’re just going through the paces. They’re working for a paycheck rather than a passion for what the show has meant to so many of us viewers for so long. They’re shoveling slop in a trough for us and they’re getting paid outrageous sums of money to do it. They seem to have very little connection to the history of the show and the characters and ideas that we came to know and love. Rather than do a little research or grapple on how they can make new events fit in with the history of the show, they simply retcon things or not even bother to reconcile what is happening now to what has gone before.

And all of the main characters, the ones we loved, the ones we were willing to tune in for week after week because they exhibited so many fine and noble and endearing qualities, have been killed off pointlessly in order to make a simplistic and ugly narrative work. And those who haven’t been killed have either been marginalized or written out all-together as if they never existed, people like Ralph Nader and Chris Hedges. Sure, they weren’t the flashy characters you see nowadays, but they added depth and emotional resonance to the drama. They took a little while to understand, but you loved them the more the more you understood them.

Let’s face it, the writers of the script have lost touch with what made the original story so compelling in the first place. They’ve lost respect for the viewers, the ones who really matter. Instead, they work for the advertisers, slipping in product placement and selling every sort of merchandise they can imagine with the show’s logo on it.

We’ve seen it happen to our some of our favorite shows before, and we know that when it gets to this point it won’t be long before the show gets cancelled, and fittingly so. It’s best we remember it for what it was in its prime rather than allow poor production to tarnish our memories.

This is not to say that there is no way of retrieving it from imminent cancellation. This series can still be saved, in fact it can be made better than it ever was. But to do that, we’ve got to bring in new script writers, people who are knowledgeable about and reverent of what the show is all about at its core. They’re out there. So many dedicated fans of The America Show have been writing their own fan fiction on fan-sites where true aficionados of the show meet and discuss what made it great and what could make it great again. Their work is done not for money but for love. These types of writers would quickly write out the ridiculous cast of characters now dominating center stage, these clowns and floozies who parade in front of the camera oblivious to how sleezy they really are. We’ve got to bring in compelling actors with integrity, intelligence and character. They’re out there, we’ve got a stack of spec scripts awaiting implementation. We’ve got a ton of actors’ resumes of fresh new faces willing to do daring and edgy work, willing to break new dramatic ground. We’re sick of the thin facades and the painted masks that attempt to provide entertainment for us. It is a play designed for children, a ruse meant to dull our senses rather than give us something of substance.

Give us back the story we knew and loved.

The Indie Revolution

Though it may sound somewhat paradoxical, “Indies of the world unite!”

It occurred to me recently just how much I have dropped out of mainstream society. The music I listen to is of the independent variety, bands you have never heard of and yet ones that are capable of producing brilliant music without the assistance of the corporate machinery. The authors I know are indie authors, the news I consume comes from non-establishment sources, the movies I watch are increasingly indie films. I have joined a food co-op in order to support local farmers, and try to buy as much as possible from local and small businesses. I try to avoid chain restaurants and support the mom and pop eateries. I am trying really hard to build an indie career.

In short, I have become an indie. The corporate world has little appeal to me anymore. When I was younger I wanted nothing more than a Quarter Pounder and Fries, was content with viewing whatever sequel was playing at the multiplex. I walked down the path of least resistance and didn’t contemplate much where it was leading me.

But in the back of my mind, the pit of my stomach, or perhaps in the depths of my soul, there was a voice telling me that the path of least resistance was not leading to a very healthy place. As I learned and grew, I began to realize that McDonald’s cheeseburgers were not very good for me, the environment, the local community, or the animals that gave their lives to up my calorie count. But for years, even after realizing it was not the best thing to do, I couldn’t seem to keep away. Even today I am not completely safe from the occasional Big Mac attack.

McDonald’s is no different than any powerful corporate entity. They appeal to the weaker aspects of our humanity, lull our adult capacities to sleep while preying upon our more childish desires and fears. Corporations are like that, because they don’t care about people but profits. If they do profess to care about people it is only so that they may increase profits. Corporations are means by which normal human moral concerns are stripped away in order to reduce human interactions into economic transactions. If you belong to a corporation and suggest that moral considerations be placed above economic ones, you will be punished for it.

So being a human being, I have rejected the corporate mentality that says everything can be reduced down to financial transactions that are to the benefit of corporations. That the only goal in life is to be of worth to the corporation and the corporate society so that you will be richly rewarded for your strengthening of it. I am attempting to reclaim my humanity from the corporate paradigm just as our forefathers sought to reclaim their humanity from the influence of their rulers across the ocean. And like our founding fathers, we will need to work together in order to accomplish our independence. We must define ourselves as a group so that the corporate media must recognize and react to us rather than ignore us and our argument.

The line that divides the two differing narratives—the indies and the corporatists—is quite evident, though corporate media, propaganda, and marketing have done all in their power to blur and obscure that line. On one side of the line is art for art’s sake, the other, art for profit’s sake. On one side is food for humans, the other, profit and dominance for Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland. On one side is…well, you get the idea.

I am well aware that corporations deliver necessary goods and services to people, and that I myself am far from being independent of them. I type these words on a Hewlett Packard laptop using Microsoft Word, use AT&T, Facebook, and other corporations as means to share this message with others. Corporations are necessary to us in so many ways, at least in the world as it now is.

But they have become the master rather than the servant to humanity. Let not their necessity convince us that we are hypocrites for suggesting they have become too powerful. This situation must be dealt with, human beings must find within them the desire and the power to reclaim from corporate entities and a corporate mindset their own destiny. Corporate-produced material goods, food, and media, are not always possible to avoid, but we need to become conscious of our relationship with them and reduce our dependence as much as possible. We need to go about the business of creating an environment that puts human rights and interests above corporate ones. And that is what I refer to as an indie revolution.

We need to, as much as possible, become independent of the corporate entities that seek to own us as they own any other commodity. The very notion of “indie” is a call for independence, for freedom, for autonomy. Go see a local musician perform live, buy local art, read that which is written by indie authors and journalists. Buy from local farmers and shop at local stores. Once you begin looking at life through an indie lens you will see all the decisions you can make and the power you have to alter the world in which we live.

The line that is blurred must be made clear. The corporate media must react to the reality of the indie revolution. And we must define the terms, must not allow the corporate media to shape the debate. We must not react but instead demand they react to what it is we, real live human beings in the pursuit of human values, see as the way forward to a better world.

To this end, it must be made clear that corporate media is no longer the voice of authority, that their very corporate values disqualify them from being allowed to shape our view of the world, because the only view of the world they can give us is a corporate one. Let the line be drawn quite clearly and always remind corporate interests that they are not on humanity’s side of it.

To this end, we must view corporate politicians as what they are, employees of a corporate system that places profit above human wellbeing and the planet that allows for our existence. I will not tell you never to vote for a corporate politician, though I personally find it foolish, but if you do so without making it clear that you and not they are the master in the relationship, you have given away everything that is important to you for the promises of liars.

To this end we must embrace an indie lifestyle and build an indie movement that places human values and human perspectives above corporate profit and growth. If corporations say they wish to serve us, then let them serve us, but no longer should we allow them to be our masters.

A Letter To Mark Zuckerberg

Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

     Thank you for giving me an update on the upcoming changes for Facebook. Like 99% of Facebook users, I never made it past the first couple paragraphs, but I’m sure it’s all good. I know our well-being is your primary concern so I have no need to read the fine print.

Just curious, though. How did you know what changes we wanted without asking us? I don’t recall ever seeing any of my Facebook friends making a suggestion and you commenting, “Ooh, good idea.” Where then did your ideas for changes come from?

Surely they were not made out of financial interests. I mean, you’ve already made more than enough out of this business venture than you ever dreamed possible, right? After all, the idea wasn’t yours and the necessary algorithm wasn’t yours, so I’d say you’ve done very well for yourself, far better than the people who had the idea for Facebook and the initial formula. You wouldn’t be that greedy or self-centered, would you? Oh, I know your personal net worth has fallen $11 billion since the news of Cambridge Analytica broke, but that is a mere blip on the screen. People have short memories and the fact that you’ve been using users’ data in ways they never imagined won’t stick in anyone’s mind for too long. Technology such as Facebook has wiped out any sort of long term memory or capacity for sustained action.

And surely the Facebook changes are not occurring because of government pressure. I know you’re better than that. Facebook was your creation (sort of), and I know you hold it to be a sacred responsibility to insure that it is used for the betterment of humanity. That is, after all, why you (sort of) created it, isn’t it? Oh, I know it was originally envisioned to be a hookup site for coeds, but it has matured since then, just as you have. It has become far more than its originators intended, and is now a platform where people from all over the world can share ideas and information in order to make the world a better place. Oh, initially we didn’t know what to make of it and got in a lot of fights with relatives and total strangers over politics, but most of us have grown in our understanding of internet etiquette since then. We, the myriad users of your (sort of) creation, have made Facebook something far beyond what it was originally intended. Surely you must see how cool that is. Surely you must have a glimpse of its potential in making the average person more engaged and empowered. And surely you must see that as a good thing, right?

I have faith in you, Mr. Zuckerberg. I have faith that you are not in this just for money or prestige. I believe you will accept responsibility for your (sort of) creation just as you accepted $75 billion for its success. Such a brilliant man as you must be humbled by the good fortune and the position you have found yourself in. So, confident that you wish to serve Facebook users as they would wish to be served, I offer you a few suggestions:

1. If someone likes a page I create, they should be able to see all of my posts, not just random ones. This is very confusing and inconvenient for both the follower and the followed. It’s like sending things in the mail with no idea if they will ever get to the addressee. For someone who liked a page, it’s like subscribing to a magazine and only getting a couple of issues. This is a direct communication between two parties, there is no need for you to get in the middle.

2. It is not your job to decide what news or posts I am permitted to see. Your job is more that of a postal worker than a censor, a really, really really well-paid postal worker. A postal worker does not rifle through my mail and throw away what he deems inappropriate.

3. I would like to know how others see my posts. I notice sometimes on my feed I get to see conversations between a Facebook friend and an utter stranger. I also notice sometimes that a friend will end up responding to something I wrote on someone’s post who is a complete stranger to the other friend. Why does this occur? It has the effect of dampening discussion because we can never assume who is reading what we write, and I can’t help thinking this might be intended. Please assuage my perhaps irrational concerns by making things more clear.

4. Make Facebook users feel they can trust you. This goes way beyond branding and marketing. Such things are superficial and, quite frankly, are means to manipulate consumers. We see through your behavior the person you really are rather than the image you seek to present to us. We know in our guts even if not on a conscious level. And quite frankly, anyone who has earned over $50 billion from selling our data and subjecting us to advertising and manipulation isn’t someone I want to put my trust in. You have profited obscenely handsomely from your relationship with us, and so long as you do not give back in a very real and meaningful way, you have no cred with us.

Another way to earn our trust is to stand up to the powers that be who seek to tell you how to run your business. When you sit in front of congress and they are telling you what to do, you should make it clear that you are not a government agent and it is not your job nor your inclination to impose censorship. Instead, what we saw was a man who was willing to go along with anything in order to maintain and grow his already obscene personal wealth. No amount of marketing and “average Joe” posts are ever going to wipe that image out of my mind.

I want to believe, Mr. Zuckerberg, I want to think that there is something more to you than a person who is willing to do whatever it takes to make as much money as he possibly can. But you have to show me a sign, a very real and palpable sign. It will have to cost you, not only in dollars but in the smooth and cozy relationship you have with the powers that be who also put their own interests above the rest of society. This is how trust is built, Mr. Zuckerberg. It costs. At quite a young age, you’ve already won the game of making money. It is time to move onto a more meaningful existence.

Jack London Quotes On The Press

American journalism has its moments of fantastic hysteria, and when it is on the rampage the only thing for a rational man to do is to climb a tree and let the cataclysm go by.

London, Jack. The Other Animals

"I spoke of the professional men and the artists as villeins. What else are they? One and all, the professors, the preachers, and the editors, hold their jobs by serving the Plutocracy, and their service consists of propagating only such ideas as are either harmless to or commendatory of the Plutocracy. Whenever they propagate ideas that menace the Plutocracy, they lose their jobs, in which case, if they have not provided for the rainy day, they descend into the proletariat and either perish or become working-class agitators. And don't forget that it is the press, the pulpit, and the university that mould public opinion, set the thought-pace of the nation.

London, Jack. The Iron Heel (p. 112).  . Kindle Edition.


This behavior, on the part of the capitalist press, was nothing new, Ernest told us. It was the custom, he said, to send reporters to all the socialist meetings for the express purpose of misreporting and distorting what was said, in order to frighten the middle class away from any possible affiliation with the proletariat.

London, Jack. The Iron Heel (p. 119).  . Kindle Edition.


 "It will make a sensation," I asserted. "Didn't you see the reporters scribbling like mad while he was speaking?" "Not a line of which will appear in to-morrow's papers." "I can't believe it," I cried. "Just wait and see," was the answer. "Not a line, not a thought that he uttered. The daily press? The daily suppressage!" "But the reporters," I objected. "I saw them." "Not a word that he uttered will see print. You have forgotten the editors. They draw their salaries for the policy they maintain. Their policy is to print nothing that is a vital menace to the established. The Bishop's utterance was a violent assault upon the established morality. It was heresy. They led him from the platform to prevent him from uttering more heresy. The newspapers will purge his heresy in the oblivion of silence. The press of the United States? It is a parasitic growth that battens on the capitalist class. Its function is to serve the established by moulding public opinion, and right well it serves it.

London, Jack. The Iron Heel


Look up the reporters that kept Jackson's case out of the papers, and the editors that run the papers. You will find them all slaves of the machine."

London, Jack. The Iron Heel (p. 43).  . Kindle Edition.


I got hold of Percy Layton. He was a graduate of the university, had gone in for journalism, and was then serving his apprenticeship as reporter on the most influential of the three newspapers. He smiled when I asked him the reason the newspapers suppressed all mention of Jackson or his case. "Editorial policy," he said. "We have nothing to do with that. It's up to the editors." "But why is it policy?" I asked. "We're all solid with the corporations," he answered. "If you paid advertising rates, you couldn't get any such matter into the papers. A man who tried to smuggle it in would lose his job. You couldn't get it in if you paid ten times the regular advertising rates." "How about your own policy?" I questioned. "It would seem your function is to twist truth at the command of your employers, who, in turn, obey the behests of the corporations." "I haven't anything to do with that." He looked uncomfortable for the moment, then brightened as he saw his way out. "I, myself, do not write untruthful things. I keep square all right with my own conscience. Of course, there's lots that's repugnant in the course of the day's work. But then, you see, that's all part of the day's work," he wound up boyishly. "Yet you expect to sit at an editor's desk some day and conduct a policy." "I'll be case-hardened by that time," was his reply. "Since you are not yet case-hardened, tell me what you think right now about the general editorial policy." "I don't think," he answered quickly. "One can't kick over the ropes if he's going to succeed in journalism. I've learned that much, at any rate."
And he nodded his young head sagely. "But the right?" I persisted. "You don't understand the game. Of course it's all right, because it comes out all right, don't you see?" "Delightfully vague," I murmured; but my heart was aching for the youth of him, and I felt that I must either scream or burst into tears.

London, Jack. The Iron Heel (p. 49).  . Kindle Edition.


The papers made no mention of the book, but they misreported him beautifully. They twisted his words and phrases away from the context, and turned his subdued and controlled remarks into a howling anarchistic speech. It was done artfully. One instance, in particular, I remember. He had used the phrase "social revolution." The reporter merely dropped out "social." This was sent out all over the country in an Associated Press despatch, and from all over the country arose a cry of alarm. Father was branded as a nihilist and an anarchist, and in one cartoon that was copied widely he was portrayed waving a red flag at the head of a mob of long-haired, wild-eyed men who bore in their hands torches, knives, and dynamite bombs.

London, Jack. The Iron Heel (pp. 118-119).  . Kindle Edition.



Possibly one of the most amusing spectacles of to-day is the attitude of the American press toward the revolution.  It is also a pathetic spectacle.  It compels the onlooker to be aware of a distinct loss of pride in his species.  Dogmatic utterance from the mouth of ignorance may make gods laugh, but it should make men weep.  And the American editors (in the general instance) are so impressive about it!  The old “divide-up,” “men-are-not-born-free-and-equal,” propositions are enunciated gravely and sagely, as things white-hot and new from the forge of human wisdom.  Their feeble vapourings show no more than a schoolboy’s comprehension of the nature of the revolution.  Parasites themselves on the capitalist class, serving the capitalist class by moulding public opinion, they, too, cluster drunkenly about the honey vats. Of course, this is true only of the large majority of American editors.  To say that it is true of all of them would be to cast too great obloquy upon the human race.  Also, it would be untrue, for here and there an occasional editor does see clearly—and in his case, ruled by stomach-incentive, is usually afraid to say what he thinks about it.  So far as the science and the sociology of the revolution are concerned, the average editor is a generation or so behind the facts.  He is intellectually slothful, accepts no facts until they are accepted by the majority, and prides himself upon his conservatism.  He is an instinctive optimist, prone to believe that what ought to be, is.  The revolutionist gave this up long ago, and believes not that what ought to be, is, but what is, is, and that it may not be what it ought to be at all.

Revolution and Other Essays


It chanced that a cub reporter sat in the audience, detailed there on a day dull of news and impressed by the urgent need of journalism for sensation.   He was not a bright cub reporter.   He was merely facile and glib.   He was too dense to follow the discussion.   In fact, he had a comfortable feeling that he was vastly superior to these wordy maniacs of the working class.   Also, he had a great respect for those who sat in the high places and dictated the policies of nations and newspapers.   Further, he had an ideal, namely, of achieving that excellence of the perfect reporter who is able to make something— even a great deal— out of nothing. He did not know what all the talk was about.   It was not necessary.   Words like revolution gave him his cue.   Like a paleontologist, able to reconstruct an entire skeleton from one fossil bone, he was able to reconstruct a whole speech from the one word revolution.   He did it that night, and he did it well; and since Martin had made the biggest stir, he put it all into his mouth and made him the arch-anarch of the show, transforming his reactionary individualism into the most lurid, red-shirt socialist utterance.   The cub reporter was an artist, and it was a large brush with which he laid on the local color— wild-eyed long-haired men, neurasthenia and degenerate types of men, voices shaken with passion,

London, Jack. Martin Eden (pp. 380-381).  . Kindle Edition.

“That is sufficient for me.”   The cub was trying not to look worried.   “No decent reporter needs to bother with notes.” “That was sufficient— for last night.”   But Brissenden was not a disciple of quietism, and he changed his attitude abruptly.   “Martin, if you don’t poke him, I’ll do it myself, if I fall dead on the floor the next moment.” “How will a spanking do?” Martin asked. Brissenden considered judicially, and nodded his head. The next instant Martin was seated on the edge of the bed with the cub face downward across his knees. “Now don’t bite,” Martin warned, “or else I’ll have to punch your face.   It would be a pity, for it is such a pretty face.” His uplifted hand descended, and thereafter rose and fell in a swift and steady rhythm.   The cub struggled and cursed and squirmed, but did not offer to bite. “Sorry my hand played out,” Martin said, when at last he desisted.   “It is quite numb.” He uprighted the cub and perched him on the bed. “I’ll have you arrested for this,” he snarled, tears of boyish indignation running down his flushed cheeks.   “I’ll make you sweat for this.   You’ll see.” “The pretty thing,” Martin remarked.   “He doesn’t realize that he has entered upon the downward path.   It is not honest, it is not square, it is not manly, to tell lies about one’s fellow-creatures the way he has done, and he doesn’t know it.” The worst of it is that the poor boy will keep on this way until he deteriorates into a first-class newspaper man and also a first-class scoundrel.”

London, Jack. Martin Eden (p. 385).  . Kindle Edition.

“I’m afraid I’ve numbed my hand in vain.   The young man cannot reform.   He will become eventually a very great and successful newspaper man.   He has no conscience.   That alone will make him great.”

London, Jack. Martin Eden (p. 386).  . Kindle Edition.