Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 11:57:16 -0800
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Gift Economy


I won't comment on the gift economy, enthough I would like to.
But I will comment on the use of PUPPETS in Political Satire.
And I think as long as this Puppetline stays passionate and honest then I
welcome
these peripheral thoughts and opinions about "what makes us do what we do".
Please don't allow this Line to become void of these healthy Rants. It is
why I read it all the time.
I have very much enjoyed the reading about FDR... but I wanted to note that
there is a primetime TV show that has been running 19 years called Les
Guignols de L'info. (I worked on the first season). They boast over 50% of
French people watch it almost daily. It's on 5 min. everyday before the 8pm
news. This show is still amazingly popular because of its equal use of humor
(left and right) about just about everything. The mix of celebrities from
the world of politics and film or art makes this the kind of humor that can
transcend a days bad news.
There is no other motor behind the content than to make "the people" laugh.
It is funnier than Jon Steward. And the collective healing that comes with
laughter shared by half a country is only a good thing.
cheers,
Steven Barr

On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 11:29 AM, William E. Elston <william-e-AT-elston.net>wrote:

> I've read your "thoughts" on the matter. The CIA was created with the
> National Security Act of 1947. How were they then operating in Asia in
> 1941? Or am I nitpicking?
>
> Aside from that, you miss what was perhaps the real meaning of
> Stinnett's allegations. From Wikipedia:
>
> > Stinnett wrote:
> > Opinion polls in the summer of 1940 indicated that a majority of
> > Americans did not want the country involved in Europe's war. Yet
> > FDR's military and State Department leaders agreed that a victorious
> > Nazi Germany would threaten the national security of the United
> > States. They felt that Americans needed a call to action [=85]
> > Roosevelt believed that his countrymen would rally only to oppose an
> > overt act of war on the United States. The decision he made, in
> > concert with his advisors, was to provoke Japan through a series of
> > actions into an overt act: the Pearl Harbor attack.
> > Himself a Navy veteran of the Pacific war drawn in by Pearl Harbor,
> > Stinnett's overarching message was that engineering the attack was,
> > at least arguably, a grim necessity. The American public was
> > complacent in the face of Nazi aggression in Europe, but Roosevelt
> > saw the bigger picture and felt that the United States had to get
> > involved to save Britain and the world from Nazi aggression. The
> > provocation policy Roosevelt adopted was based on an October 1940
> > memo written up by Arthur McCollum at the Office of Naval
> > Intelligence that promoted eight actions to elicit a Japanese
> > "mistake". One of these, point "F" recommended: "keep the main
> > strength of the US Fleet [=85] in the vicinity of the Hawaiian
> > islands". Stinnett was assisted greatly in his research by the
> > Freedom of Information Act (explicitly thanking the act's author,
> > Rep. John Moss, D-CA) and by Oliver Stone's film, JFK, which had put
> > public pressure on President Clinton to declassify sheaves of secret
> > files in the mid-1990s. McCollum's memo was apparently among those
> > files.
>
>
> Far from proving that FDR pushed us into WWII to polish his legacy, it
> seems Stinnett believed that FDR and others engineered our entry into
> the war because no one else in the country was farsighted enough to
> see the consequences of Nazi conquest and rule. If true, I'd have to
> side with FDR on this one. None of your grab-bag of thoughts refutes
> this.
>
> Aside from that the Stinnett book is problematic with regards to the
> interpretation of FOIA materials. Many of the intercepted Japanese
> bulletins leading up to the Pearl Harbor were not decrypted until
> after the attack, a fact which Stinnett fails to mention.
>
> I repeat what I said. The Germans and Japanese started WWII. I don't
> believe (nor did Robert Stinnett believe) that FDR entered the war to
> save our economy.
>
> That being said, I agree that the topic is getting a bit far afield
> from puppetry, unless you agree that heads of state, along with popes
> and other figures are often satirized as puppets. This is my last post
> on the subjects of "gift economy" and WWII.
>
> -Bill Elston
>
> On Nov 19, 2008, at 9:46 AM, Michael Moynihan wrote:
>
> > In regard to the WWII, the facts do not support Mr. Elson's thoughts.
> > My thoughts:
> > http://how-of-why.blogspot.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
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>



-- 
FAUST PuppenFilm by Steven Ritz-Barr
"This is a fascinating piece which uses the visual-music aspect of puppetry
to make images as puppet theatre can at it's best."
-Dr. Kathie Folie, Univ. of Cal, Santa Cruz Theatre Chair and Professor

"A beautifully paradoxical work which has its beauty in the complexity of
its apparent simplicity!"
Beate Allert,  Purdue University
Assoc. Professor of German & Comparative Literature; Dept. of Foreign
Language & Lit.


Classics in Miniature, LLC
Metropolitan Puppet Authority, Non-profit
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