Joss Whedon: An Incite into Entertainment

Dushku in Dollhouse, being imprinted

As a fan of Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it’s counterpart Angel, as well as Dollhouse (his most recent television series), I was just musing over the reason for Buffy and Angel’s success — both series’ reached over 100 episodes in seven seasons — versus Dollhouse’s 26 episodes. Of course, their airing night was obviously a factor. Dollhouse was premiered and continued on Friday nights, a highly competitive slot. However, beyond that, I think the content of these shows is comparable but different in an essential way.

My theory, is that Buffy the Vampire Slayer succeeded where Dollhouse did not because of the theme of the plot. Both series are led by strong heroines, women who struggle against forces often stronger than themselves in order to overcome a moral issue [either physical or emotional]. However, the issues confronted in Buffy — questions of self-identity, good v. evil, and morality, were easily hidden behind the fantasy of the series: vampires, demons, witches, and warlocks are easy scapegoats for evil, and although they served a very important purpose as conduits of these moral qualms, they also helped to hide it from viewers who prefer the lighter side of television. People were capable of falling in love with the characters, becoming invested in a single episode’s conflict (a certain demon threat), without facing the overarching themes — military presence, shades of grey of evil, etc. Human flaws could be disregarded as elements of the fantastical — the evil was not human, it was not complex (as long as you chose not too look too close). One of the main characters, Xander Harris, was one of the only completely human characters. He also was the only character that did not make any evil choices, the worst thing he does in the series is leave his fiance at the altar. Whereas his best friend, Willow, murders someone — but, she is a witch and her darkness can be explained by this mystical factor.

Gellar with Master Vampire -- humanity?

However, Dollhouse did not allow this great escape from the human. Although each episode deploys the same techniques for entertainment – violence, sex, characterization — the overall theme hits too close to home. Prostitution through manipulation of human being’s minds and memories is too real. A person cannot watch Dollhouse without wondering, would I be a doll? Would I hire a doll? Would I stop the Dollhouse if it were real? The show exhibits exactly this in the episode “Man on the Street.” These questions are overt, and they are not fantastical. The science used in the show is exactly that — science. Technology. Which we are capable of developing, and can see being developed in the future. The characters, good and bad, are complex — they rationalize their behavior in real and very “gray-area” ways. No demons can hide the conflict from our reality. The average American wants to watch a show that entertains them, but does not make them think about reality.

This is where I sympathize with Whedon, as a writer. It begs the question, do we write for our audience or for ourselves? Do we write because we want people to be entertained, to be taken from reality if even for a moment? Buffy did this, for seven seasons. It allowed its viewers to enter a different existence, where questions of good and evil could be asked and then left behind when the picture box turned off its lights and hung its “no vacancy” sign.

Dollhouse, I believe, served Whedon more than its audience. Entertaining as it was, the series was Whedon’s attempt to incite certain questions he himself had entertained about humanity, about the reality he and his audience really live in. It offered him a chance to provoke thought, to cause hesitation. In a way, this series served a greater purpose for the audience than Buffy — it asked more of them, it encouraged them, it allowed them to grow. The problem is that most audiences don’t want this from their entertainment. Television, movies, and often books are sources of escape for people. They are held as a different atmosphere than study, than learning. These worlds are not the same. Even in school, when a professor or teacher brings in a film for the class, the students see this as an escape from learning — as a free day.

Why is this? Why can we not learn and be entertained at once? Of course, there are exceptions — I am entertained by my education. I indulge in the dark, deep questions that Dollhouse asks, and I am also sucked in by the violence, by the music, by the pretty people.

For the record, I love both shows equally — but, as a writer, I value Dollhouse more. It is intelligent, incisive, and entertaining. Plus, Eliza Dushku is phenomenal in both series.

A Matter of Seconds

I had a dream last night that, when I woke up, was surprised to find myself in bed, to find that I had been sleeping at all — it was one of the most vivid dreams I’ve ever had. As most dreams, it was completely unrealistic, things happened which could not possibly happen in reality, or at least, the one we live in here on earth.
I also found that I could remember it, which is unusual for dreams as complex as this. I find it fascinating that most of this dream likely happened within moments of my waking up — what seemed like an entire novel, my mind was able to think of in great detail in a matter of seconds. So, I couldn’t wait to write it all down — as I showered and made breakfast I was terrified to forget it, so I just repeated it over and over in my mind, trying to remind myself of exactly how it looked. If only we could record our dreams and play them back later… Someday.

—

Epilogue: In a dream before this one, I was on the streets of an African city (a city which I have never been to, and did not remind me of the ones I had), but as it happens in dreams, I knew in my mind I was on the continent, presumably in the area of Kenya. In this other dream, which I can hardly recall, many people died. One girl and her friend survived, they discovered a committee of men, white men, sitting at a conference table discussing the event. Whatever they discussed led them to believe the murders were plotted.

—

A girl is running. She is running backward at first, watching her parents (one of whom is wearing a bright green t-shirt, and the other orange) as they chase after her shouting for her to stop, to wait. She doesn’t stop, she is wearing red cotton shorts and a tan t-shirt, her hair is braided in cornrows back over her head — she is beautiful, thin, but she is not smiling. She’s running to escape, running over dense, red-orange clay. Not to escape her parents, whom I can tell she loves very much, but to escape something else entirely. To the sides of the road there is tall, green grass and green trees in the distance. When she reaches train tracks she pauses, turns for one more look at her distant parents who are screaming now, and then grabs onto a metal car that is painted dark green mixed with orange, scratchy rust and the brown metal revealed below. The jolt is painful, she is afraid of losing grip, but she swings herself up and over the edge. For some reason, this moment feels like an accident — as if she never intended to jump on the train, but had no other choice. I have no other explanation for this.

The train takes her to an airport, although she didn’t know that was where it was headed. When she arrives there, she somehow acquires a computerized ticket. Instead of a paper plane ticket, she has stolen a small hand-held computer, which is dark blue and looks like a thick, scientific calculator, which she hands to a person behind a ticket booth (like they have at the movie theater), and the white woman with blond curly hair hands it back telling her that she is scheduled for the next plane to the United States, with some kind of conference. The girl’s face lights up, she finds herself excited more than afraid. “America?!” she asks, before realizing that she is supposed to know whats on her own ticket. Her surprise and excitement feels disturbing, and I don’t like it.

She takes the computer ticket into a room that looks like a classroom and it has rows of light wooden benches, like pews, and all these American kids are sitting there listening to four teachers at the front of the room. She recognizes one of them, who is my English Professor Ian (in reality, the nicest most kind-hearted person you’d ever meet), and she is terrified of him, and I know she is because I can feel it too. And they’re all sitting around in a lazy way, with their legs slung over benches. She sits next to some of them and listens to what they’re saying and she notices their long, soft, blond or brown hair slung over their shoulders. She listens to the way they talk about boys and is sort of offended, and sort of intrigued. Suddenly, she sees someone she knows — her closest friend in the world. He sneaks over to her, looking around as if he is going to be murdered just for being there, and he sits next to her but doesn’t say anything. When everyone else gets up to leave to get ready for the flight, they talk. He tries to convince her to stay and go home with him but she insists that she has to go, that she wants to see the United States and he is so upset with her. She gives him a sloppy, clumsy goodbye kiss and then goes to the part of the airport where he can’t follow.

In the airport, she is suddenly uglier. I know this because of the way everyone is looking at her, at the way her bottom lip is sort of larger and her cheekbones exaggerated. I know she can’t actually be uglier, but somehow she is. She watches as three teenage girls make a video diary with a tiny hand-held camera among the tourist shops near a spinning shelf of African postcards. They’re making it for a project, but all they’re recording is themselves talking about themselves and each other. It seems as though they never even left the airport, their shoes have no signs of clay, they are in pristine condition with no indication of humidity or sweat on their skin or curling their hair.

Then, a young man approaches her, he has long brown hair that sort of sits over his face, a strong chin and cheekbones and blue eyes. He is attractive, but not in the way that most girls would find attractive right away — his face is too square. He invites her over to a table of people who are all somewhat strange. One girl sits at the small, round high-top table leaning far back and sucking on her hair. They all sit down and they’re talking, and she can tell they’re friends but the way they talk to each other isn’t friendly. A girl walks up and pulls up a chair and for some reason the guy gets very angry — something about taking someone else’s seat. He grabs her arms and is yelling at her, pressing her against a heater. The African girl (who, if she has a name, I do not remember it), breaks them up because she is afraid he’s hurting her.

When they get to America she ends up with an African American family, how or why I don’t know — they’re in their fifties, the man has wrinkles in his face and darkness in his eyes, his hair is grey. The woman is round, with short hair, and in a floral dress. Their house has brown shag carpeting and old, recliners in front of an old television set — it is dark, though there are lamps on that glow orangish yellow. They don’t care what she does and don’t pretend to. She goes out with her friends after school, and still she is ugly. Maybe uglier still than she was before, although she isn’t really ugly at all (you know how dreams are, when you can see something one way but know it to be another, like a friend who doesn’t look like them self but you know that’s who they are). One night, she gets home late from hanging out with her friends, whom she assured that her parents didn’t care, she refers to them as her parents as if shes forgotten they don’t belong to her at all, and finds that she is in trouble. They lock her in a tiny closet space with a tiny window carved into it. Through the window they pass her little scraps of food, but mostly they just stare at her — with their eyes pressed against the hole or their lips talking into them and I feel terrified, so I know she is too. She catalogs everything she eats, and tries to convince them to give her more but they think she has eaten enough.

Suddenly, I hear a sound to my left. My left, not hers, and this is when I realize that I even exist at all. When I look toward the sound I find that I’m looking into a hallway, and my boss is walking between a bedroom and a bathroom wearing tuxedo pants and shirt. When I look back, I find that I had been watching the girl on TV the whole time, I’ve been staring at the TV with my head in my hands and my mouth hanging open. I can feel my elbows against the glass table for the first time, and the chair beneath me. I look around and realize I’m in a tacky bachelor pad full of black leather sofas and metal and everything else. I’m somewhat embarrassed to have been so engrossed in the TV, because I’m supposed to be house-sitting for my boss, and he is getting ready to leave. Somehow, I know this. When I look behind me, I find four other men all dressed in tuxedos. They’re cracking jokes about my love for TV, and they perceive the show I was watching to be one of those soaps for teenagers full of drama and silliness. When I look back at the screen its not on anymore. I find myself forgetting about the girl on the tv, and point out to one of the men that there is a kool-aid stain on his shirt, which I know to be from another night of their drinking escapades. He laughs and hides the stain under a cumber-bun.

When my boss comes out, he puts on his tux jacket and it looks as though it were designed specifically for him — it appears black at first, and then when he moves you can see that there are slits in the top layer that reveal a white satin fabric underneath and it appears striped. I say, “You look really good,” earnestly. He answers, “Amber!” and I wait for him to say something sarcastic as he normally would, but instead he says, “Thank you,” with a broad smile on his face. He takes a moment to consider me, which I find strange. Then he says, “You should come with us.” I laugh and shake my head and pour every excuse I can think of — I don’t have any clothes, I’m supposed to be house sitting, I don’t think its a good idea — but he goes into a room and brings out a dress — its beautiful, and even I think its beautiful, and I hate dresses and dressing up. So, I take it and go in the bathroom and he shouts behind me “You have fifteen minutes” and they’re all laughing about something and I know it concerns me but I don’t care. I put on the dress and it is gorgeous. Its black and long, and in the center there is a bundle of white fabric that drapes down and then divides into two pieces that hang around the sides of the dress like parted curtains. I fuss with my hair and somehow it ends up looking great — even though I have no comb or hairspray or anything but a hair tie and two banana clips. Suddenly, I realize I have no shoes, so I shout to my boss.

He says that I should go barefoot, and I laugh but that’s exactly what I do. We go to leave the apartment and I don’t look back at the TV, and then I wake up.

And all this had to have happened in less than an hour and twenty-two minutes because that is how long I had been asleep since my alarm went off. And when I told my roommate what happened in the dream, she didn’t really believe me, or the detail with which I remembered each scene — the colors, the sounds, the size of the furniture… How vivid it all was! And still is! Although it would take me an entire novel to describe it exactly as I imagine it.

The truth is, I haven’t thought about Cameroon, or Uganda in a long time. In passing, sure. In conversations with friends who had been there, in e-mail updates I read from organizations I’ve worked with, in the Presiden’ts statement after signing the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act a few days ago, a bill I worked hard to see passed but feel I had nothing to do with in the long run.

Why did I dream about this now? What brought that girl into my mind, someone I never met. Why did I have a dream not from my own perspective and not from hers — as a third party looking in on someone else. This also, I’ve never had happen before. I could feel the sloppy wetness of her kiss on her friends lips, though. I also watched it happen. I could feel her terror watching those bulging white eyes stare in at her as she was trapped in a tiny closet with darkness and crumbs, but also watched her from the outside looking in.

My mind is a dark, and terrifying place sometimes. I think I’m afraid to delve into the deeper meanings of this dream. What does it say about me? About the way I think and feel about people? Maybe I don’t want to know.

Shout Out:

Check out this new blog my friend just started: heykmarie.wordpress.com — she’s trying to get young(ish) people to think outside of the classroom, and beyond the ‘I just ate lunch’ status messages of Facebook. It only works if you read it, make comments, and start some general disagreements. 🙂 Hope to read you there.

Facebook: It was all a façade, and I believed it.

Terrifying Fact: In one day all facebook users combined are spending over 5,703 years (3 billion minutes) on the site. Imagine what else we could accomplish with that time.

Some of you are asking why I deleted my facebook account (or will do so soon). There are a lot of reasons, all of them social and political and probably much too serious for the reality of the situation, but the first reason is the most personal and most important.

First, I got sucked in. Despite all the reasons I’ll list below, I was absorbed by facebook and everything it had to offer. Every time I turned on my computer Facebook was the second website I went to. Out of some misplaced desire to connect with the world outside my apartment I went to Facebook and saw a list of everyone I know, knew, or never even met and what they were doing/watching/reading/thinking/believing/whining about. Without any real effort on my part, I could get a glimpse of my friends’ lives without the need to go out of my home, out of my way, or out of my pajamas. I became absorbed by this cyber-cafe of social interaction that seemed legitimate; I could know what my friends were up to when I couldn’t see them or be with them (what could be wrong with that?).

But, what I realize now is that I wasn’t seeing/reading the person I know, but rather that person as they want the whole world to see them. I was reading what my friends wanted everyone and their distant cousin to read — the intimate details of their lives were still a mystery to me and, worst of all, I hadn’t even wondered about those details. Because of this dramatic illusion of communication I didn’t take the time to think about how my friends really ARE, what they’re really worrying about or thinking about. Everything I knew of my friends’ lives was superficial, and everything they were hearing from me was too.

Many of you will say, “Amber, you’re taking this too seriously!” But, that’s who I’ve always been so don’t be surprised.

Secondly, propaganda was slithering across my computer screen at every moment and largely going unnoticed. Facebook is littered with suggestions about who we should be, what we should wear and look like, what we should be doing and who we want people to THINK we are. Facebook is exactly what the name implies, a cyber-magazine of faces, not people. It is about presenting yourself as you want to be seen, and that image is derived from social cues in your news feed, friend’s profile photos, wall posts, and the ads on the sides of your screen. The site even tells me who to talk to, who hasn’t gotten much visitation recently, and how many of my friends “like” something (maybe I should like it too…). The standard rules of representation apply:
Your profile photo should be attractive, and reveal the part of your personality you most want to illustrate (are you: sexy, funny, social, a good friend, etc.).
Your status updates may be created in moments of passion (“Fuck!”), or can be used to confront a situation mentally that you aren’t prepared to confront physically (“Dear next door neighbor: please stop playing bad dance music with the exact same beat in every song.”) Or, your status can say what you did that day, so that people know what you do with your time (“DO NOT want to work tonight, 6 days in a row of closing and I have had enough”). The most important thing is that your status not reveal too much, only as much as will seem acceptable to your peers and result in the most possible responses (empathy).
Who you are on facebook may not be who you REALLY are, but if it’s what people see of you, what’s the difference? We are becoming the product, we’re selling the ‘myspace scene photo’ to ourselves and our friends, we’re posing with our best clothes, we’re writing about our latest purchases, and from time-to-time sharing an insight into a good book or an interesting article without the essential conversation that makes it meaningful.

Essentially, our social pool is shallowing as we have a round-about conversation with ourselves. We’re writing what we think or do at the most impersonal level. We’re accessing our thoughts just long enough to publish them to a virtual audience and not taking the time to consider them, not opening them up for a discussion, but rather offering a chance for others to respond but also allowing an equal chance that no one will. The arguments we have are passionless, with enough drive to express our own opinions but without the effort required to teach, question, or inspire. We’re submitting an idea and detaching ourselves from that idea at the same time. There are no hand gestures or facial expressions (emoticons don’t count) online, only one-dimensional imprints of our thoughts and emotions. We even remove grammar, punctuation, and capitalization from our expression — without the emphasis of sentence structure our opinions lay flat and are more open to interpretation so that whatever part of us was in that thought is erased when another person reads it.

Furthermore — its a waste of time! How much time do we (did I) spend on facebook reading these shallow facts, looking at other people’s photos that they didn’t offer to me personally, finding out who is dating who, and who broke up. Reading and re-reading the newsfeed looking for some connection to someone, when I could have been connecting to a real person somehow, or producing some piece of writing, painting, photography, whatever it may be.

Maybe in deleting my facebook I’ll lose any connection at all to some of the people I read about daily, but that isn’t what I want. What I want is to be able to connect with people on a real level, to see them face-to-face and know them for who they are. I don’t want to receive a virtual hug, I want you to come in for the real thing. I want to have coffee with you and discuss politics, or the opposite sex, or work or nothing at all. Thoreau once wrote, “I wanted to live deep… and if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.”

So, the countdown begins. I’ll leave just enough time to gather some contact information and then my participation in this global social experiment will end. I’m gonna go build something.

The past 11 days.

My return to the United States has been tumultuous to say the least. I returned 11 days ago, but my life is completely different than it was on day one of my return to the red, white and blue country of consumer culture, heated politics, and apathy (don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to be home.) I came back to the U.S. and got to see my two nieces (ages 18 months and 7 yrs.), the youngest is walking and saying some words — I missed a lot.

The second day I was back I went to a job interview for a start-up coffee business and looked at apartments with my friend. The same day we signed a sub-lease agreement for a great place, with the lease ending in August. Two hours after signing the agreement I received an offer from Teach for America to teach high school English in the Mississippi Delta — the position would start in three weeks.

Seeing as Teach for America was my goal since my first-year of college, offering an amazing opportunity to teach in lower-income communities in the US and help close the achievement gap, the decision to accept or decline was extremely difficult. I had to weigh the benefits of having a stable career doing something I love, against going to the deep south and leaving everyone I had just arrived home to. I had 48 hours to decide.

I moved into my new apartment still not knowing what I was going to do. Four days after I came back, I officially declined the position with Teach for America, not wanting to move to Mississippi so soon after returning home. The next day I went on a job search in the college town in which I now reside. I also went to a job interview at a local music venue and bar.

Early friday morning I drove the four hours to Chicago to go to two interviews with public policy research and advocacy groups that would begin in the fall. Afterward I stayed with a friend who lives just outside the city who I hadn’t seen in months. The next day I drove the four hours back home and went to a show at a local bar that night. Sunday was spent turning in several job applications, job hunting online, doing pilates and hoping that someone would call and offer me employment.

Monday my mom came to visit, and took me and my apartment mate to Chinese. Since then, my life has been made up of doing online applications, getting internet and cable set up in the apartment, and waiting for someone to call. I find out about the fall jobs in a week — in the mean time I’ve been watching DVDs of my favorite tv show, doing pilates and reading. I seriously need a job.

So, the reason its been so long since I last posted is because I didn’t have internet until yesterday. One of these days, I’ll use my vacant hours to write politically controversial posts for everyone to peruse — until then, I am out!

The world today —

What I’ve read of the world today has been disheartening, as usual. A man was arrested in Guatemala for writing a tweet asking people to withdraw funds from a bank possibly involved in the Rosenberg assassination — Freedom of speech may not be considered a civil right everywhere, but the fact that twitter can be used to ‘insight financial panic’ and be considered a threat to governments is interesting. Are social networking sites also revolutionary tools? We saw that they could be used that way during Invisible Children’s rescue event. I wonder if this kind of activism will begin to change social apathy — or, perhaps it will alter the role of civil society. Whether for better or worse, I can’t say.

Apparently there is a growing question in the US about whether or not torture is okay. It astounds me that this is a question — what about the word ‘torture’ suggests that it should be a policy in a so called free nation? Some may argue that ‘responsible torture’ saves lives by getting information about attacks. Consider this: A country tortures people possibly involved in terrorist activities, obtains information that prevents one or two suicide bombers. Perhaps a win. But, the family members of those tortured for that information now resent that government for their actions, as do the families of dozens others who had to be tortured in the same case. Now, these family members are strapping on bombs themselves, in the names of the family members whose lives were destroyed.

Violence begets violence; “there is no such thing as responsible torture.”

Related — here are some of the ridiculous things said in the media this past week:

About my own life:

Yesterday, I returned to the U.S. via two bus rides, three airplanes, two international airports, two metro systems, and several security checks. I left my apartment in Athens at 4:45 am Greek time (9:45 pm EST 5/15) and arrived in Detroit Metro at 7:00 pm EST 5/16. Needless to say, it was a long day.

So far the highlights of returning to the US have been drinking real coffee (as in coffee grounds filtered through steaming hot water into a Mr. Coffee pot) as opposed to instant Nescafe; and having multiple pillows.

It looks like I’ll be moving to an apartment later this week which I’m subletting for the summer; which means I’m in desperate need of employment. Two interviews for summer jobs lined up already, and two for  more permanent positions scheduled for Friday in Chicago. Should be an interesting week.

Alberto Vollmer uses his powers for good, with the Alcatraz Project

Alberto Vollmer owns his own rum distillery, from which he makes his living in Venezuela. In addition to this, he created an inspiring program called “The Alcatraz Project” rehabilitating young gang members through hard work, and rugby.

I love it when business leaders and prominent members of society use their power for good. Read about the Alcatraz Project here.

Also inspiring — there is a 150 mile race through the 120 degree Namibian dessert. For six days these accountants, CEOs, engineers, teachers, personal trainers, etc. run, walk or hobble through the desert with no bathroom, no bed, and rationed water supplies, most raising money for charity. The oldest participant is 68-years-old!  Combined, racers raised $500,000 for medical care in Egypt last year. Unbelievable. Click here to read more.

Richard Dawkins does not represent me

Apparently the world has nothing uplifting to report today. I would like everyone to know that articles like this and the people represented therein are the reason the world is afraid of Atheists. I would like to point out, as an Atheist myself, that Richard Dawkins in no way represents my voice. Every article that I read about Atheism quotes him as if he were the pope of the Atheist community — as if he were the expert or the voice of all non-believers. I did not elect him, and if given the chance I would not do so. Richard Dawkins is waging a crusade against Christianity (and Christianity alone), which I find offensive and irresponsible.

In my day to day life, I don’t tell people I’m an atheist until they know enough about me that it won’t matter to them. I don’t feel particularly safe walking into a room full of people who I know to be a “certain type of Christian” because I have been proselytized by friends in the past. I know how it feels to feel uncomfortable sharing what you believe. But, that does not make it okay for atheists to do the same thing to Christians.

The group of students discussed in the article make me hope that no one will read that article, because it terrifies me to think that Atheists are capable of making the same mistakes that many religions have made in the past — to find themselves superior to those around them.

To call someone else’s beliefs ‘silly’ or to suggest to children that their religion is morally bankrupt is only promoting intolerance. If you believe that someone is spreading hate by saying that homosexuality is a sin, then speak out about gay rights or freedom of religion — do not condemn their beliefs because your beliefs don’t fit with theirs. This group is only making the same mistakes that they are arguing against.

This world would be a much better place if the members of any world view would simply practice their faith on their own terms, and allow others to do the same. That includes atheists, who are at no risk of being ‘wiped out’ if we keep to ourselves and fight for causes worth fighting for — not putting down other faiths. And Richard Dawkins has been specifically targeting Christians his entire career — he does not talk about other religions, but only concerns himself with making all Christians to appear similarly evil.

Richard Dawkins is wrong. Some of my closest friends are Christians, Jews, and Muslims — and they show more love and humanity than he seems to be capable of. They have accepted me with open arms, and the rest of the world is capable of that too.

What War Makes

I was reading this article on CNN about former U.S. soldier Steven Green. The article is titled, Defense: Military missed soldier’s symptoms before rape, killings. I don’t know if you all have been following Steven Green’s story at home — I haven’t. I only heard about his case a couple of days ago in an article about a possible death penalty sentence for war crimes on  U.S. soldier.

According to the articles I’ve read, Green executed a pre-meditated attack on a specific Iraqi family with fellow soldiers, and proceeded to rape the families’ 14-year-old daughter and murder the remaining members of the family. Not surprisingly, Green was posted in “an area known as the “Triangle of Death,” one of the bloodiest areas of the Sunni-led insurgency.”  Despite trips to the military psychologist, who believed Green and other  members of his troop were in a dangerous mental state, Green was returned to duty several times. Why? “…it was important for soldiers to return to duty, not only to keep up troop numbers, but also because “soldiers evacuated prematurely have a hard time fitting in.” Steven Green was certainly fitting in; making friends, making plans, making mistakes that have placed him and his fellow soldiers on trial.

This is what war makes: situations in which the number of troops stationed at checkpoints is more important than the safety of the civilian population, or for that matter, the psychological and physical safety of his fellow soldiers. Despite complete acknowledgment that this soldier and others were in no state to be carrying weapons among a population that they deeply resent, they were stationed in a position which made everyone involved most vulnerable.

There are many who believe that American military presence in places around the world is ‘keeping peace’ or seeing to the ‘establishment of democracy.’ But the murder of an innocent family at the hands of highly disturbed soldiers is the opposite of peace in every definition of the word. What good is democracy when the supposed ‘city on a hill’ is forcing its soldiers into an environment that eats away their mental capacity to separate right from wrong?

Perhaps Steven Green would have had the mentality to commit these crimes before he ever entered the military. Perhaps he was simply with the wrong group of people, in the wrong situation, which gave him ample opportunity to commit a heinous crime. But, all that means is that we are so desperate to supply bodies to this war that we are willing to overlook the personality traits which compromise the safety of those we are supposedly trying to protect.

Steven Green is one case, possibly the first American soldier to be sentenced to death for war crimes. Another death to add to the pile of bodies this war has made.

But is war itself not the crime? Who should be punished for that?

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him? – Blaise Pascal

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations. – David Friedman

Migrants to Greece face the Golden Dawn

Maybe he is coming from Sudan, Somalia, Morocco, Afghanistan, the Phillipenes, or somewhere else where work is hard to come by, the family is struggling to survive and there are threats of violence at every turn. He decides to try to get to Europe, where he might find a job and could send remittances home. He pays someone thousands of his currency [what  he can spare] to be escorted across the ocean. The man escorting him pushes him off the boat hoping he’ll drown and not be ale to tell the police who helped him. Or, maybe he tries to cross the continental border, where there is 113 miles of fence to cross, a large portion of which is electric fence labeled only in Greek, and is also lined with mine fields which have been known to tear away limbs as if they were paper cranes.

Maybe this migrant man will make it to the shoreline of Greece, without losing a limb or his life (maybe he won’t). Unfortunately, he didn’t realize that he was entering a country where immigration policy, when it exists at all, is a labyrinth of paperwork and fees and qualifications that even the most legitimate traveller could not complete. He doesn’t realize that the cost of a temporary residence permit is 900 euros and proof in writing that his country is too violent for him to live in — and saying “Well, would I have come here if it wasn’t?” doesn’t mean anything — because who wouldn’t risk their life just for the sake of being a Greek.

So he finds a job selling high-end brand knock-offs on the street — where he has to run if the police are headed his way, but the tourists who buy from him are unafraid to be seen buying these black market items in the open. Or he works for a construction company that will look the other way when he can’t provide ID, but pays him half the wages of a Greek for the favor. He hunkers down in an abandoned building or in an apartment overflowing from the other migrants from his country or another — and he tries to save just enough to send home to his sisters or brothers or children.He hopes that someday he can make it out of Greece and into a country that allows asylum, allows citizenship, allows him to get a decent job and live like a human being.

He asks himself, who is a Greek anyway? — Citizenship in Greece is based on the jus sanguinis system, in which citizenship and the rights that go along with it (access to public services such as health care and education) are passed along by blood. Even more than that, “Greekness” is defined by a common history of very specific political experiences, a tie to a glorified ancient culture which is preserved only in its exclusivity (case in point: FYROM), and finally by religion which has defined Greek identity since the Ottoman occupation and remains a strong factor of Greek hegemony. Not only do immigrants face the impossibility of integrating into “Greekness” but their children, second generation immigrants, are not given the opportunity to become nominal, let alone cultural, citizens.

And then this happens. a group like The Golden Dawn arrives at his doorstep. A neo-nazi group, claiming that communism and globalism are destroying the world — that he and his “kind” don’t belong in Greece or perhaps anywhere else. He waits in a tiny room “…amid piles of fetid rubbish and human waste without electricity or running water” as “Dozens of protesters hurled stones and fireworks at the eight-storey building on Saturday night.”

This is the ‘freedom’ he risked his life for. The ‘liberty’ he hoped would bring food to the table of his family, and rest to his tired eyes. Everything he has seen of the world has been a violation of human rights. The moments of laughter, the stolen smiles, are tiny flecks of time scattered among days of hatred and violence. When will the world discover his worth?

In 1999, 146/1528 asylum seekers were approved, of those who even attempted the application process, which includes a list of evidence and documents nearly impossible to attain.  In the 1990’s 1/6 of the menial labor force in Greece was made up of migrants who are largely exploited because they are dependent on their employers to ‘look the other way’. Immigrants provide a large pool of cheap labor which politicians admit is “vital” to the Greek economy. Within the ‘guestworker’ model, these residents are a temporary part of the labor force and therefore do not require the same protection as citizens – in addition, they are accommodated informally (by being hired privately) which leaves them open to continuous exploitation, violations of their basic human rights, and instability. The U.S. faces similar controversy with a large population of workers arriving from Mexico, and the resulting resentment is also paralleled in Greece.

Greeks resent immigrants because they are occupying positions in the work force despite a large unemployed population. However, most Greeks would never take these lower class, laborious, subordinate positions themselves.

As a result, racism is prevalent toward immigrant populations — and is harshest against Albanian and “gypsy” populations who are perceived as Muslim or “godless” and therefore ‘lawless’ and unpredictable.

How can these issues be overcome when the human rights violations that occur are due to deeply rooted issues of identity?