LOST Thoughts

As I write this to you from a phone bank for one of the world’s most established financial institutions (which is about as thrilling as you might think), my mind wanders in between rings to last nights season premier of LOST. As television shows go, this one is really good. Like, the only other show I have been this jazzed about was Twin Peaks. That is saying something. But the question is: Why?

LOST presents to its audience a really stimulating, broad polarity for a viewing experience. On the one hand you have an incredibly obtuse story with many ambiguous threats that seem to defy explanation. Then on the other hand, you have an abundance of extremely minute detail that, upon first glance seems inane, but after time you realize that resonates an insane amount through every show. Many times it is not even discussed. For instance, these numbers: 4, 8,15,16,23 and 42 keep popping up everywhere. Seat assignments, departure gates, prize money amounts, as serial numbers on hatches, times of death, dates of birth… It is crazy (which is good).

Then there is the obvious. The people are pretty. Fit women, strong men and everyone seems to be perpetually well groomed (for as much as they can be on a desert island) and sweaty at the same time. The island landscape is both equally and/or more beautiful and just as much a character as any of the people. There is a core group of players that move the story along; however, they are not the only survivors of Oceanic flight 815. There are a host of others that go unnamed and are fertile ground for development. The network has announced that they will be adding in a few more big TV names (i.e. Katie Segal, among others). So if the show starts to lag, just swap in a celebrity. I wonder how long it will be before we see Heather Locklear.

These afore mentioned factors by themselves are cool and make for good viewing, but there is more at play here. Without intending to sound grandiose, I would like to put fourth the idea that some of the themes within LOST are resonating in the American zeitgeist. For example lets look at the idea of uncertainty. The LOST crew is on a strange island with a lot of strange stuff going on around them. They aren’t even sure how they survived the crash. The last time I checked, the American public is pretty darned uncertain about a whole host of stuff such as economy, war, environment, federal government. All these things are pretty important and central to the American life right now, and none can be lightly overlooked. So, we, like the LOST crew, aren’t sure how thick the ice is right now.

Fear is another key player in the LOST and American experience. One could argue this goes hand in hand with uncertainty, but they are not exclusive partners. The LOST island is pretty spooky. There is a monster, for lack of a better term, that roams about and rips trees off their roots, opens gaping chasms for people to fall into and makes some god awful noise (both animal and machine in nature). And it is invisible. The only trace of it aside from its footprint is some blurry smoke. One could reasonably argue that this horrible thing without form could be construed as the viewing publics' fear of terrorism made visual metaphor. Think about it. What do we, Joe Public know about the terrorist threat to our nation? Well, we know what it is capable of. We know how it does the things that it does, in principle. But we have no idea as to the size, breadth and intention of it. Well, actually we do, but again, only in the abstract. The LOST folks are trying to get their head around this demon just like the American public is trying to get its collective psyche around terrorism.

Maybe this is a poor comparison, but it seems to make sense to me. Again, sometimes it is difficult to articulate why we like something or why it touches us in some way. But when it does, we know it. I think these reasons I have discussed may be a fair start to this exploration. It would be great to know what you think. Plus, ain't it fun to talk about?

Who has learned from Menachem Begin?

These guys are a LOT more alike than you think.

Could Osama bin Laden be a covert student of history?

I learned something on Tuesday. Israel, as a country, owes a substantial portion of its independence and statehood to terrorism. Israeli history is not something I am too versed in, but I read an article by Mark Danner in the New York Times Magazine last weekend that had a small portion of it devoted to an historical analysis of the history and origins of terrorism. He sites Menachem Begin, a Prime Minister of Israel:

"History and our observation persuaded us… that if we could succeed in destroying the government's prestige in Eretz Israel, the removal of its rule would follow automatically. Thenceforward, we gave no peace to this weak spot. Throughout all the years of our uprising, we hit at the British government's prestige, deliberately, tirelessly, unceasingly." In its most spectacular act, in July 1946, the Irgun guerrilla forces led by Begin bombed the King David Hotel, killing 91 people, most of them civilians.(NYT)

Before you get all up in a bundle, know that I am not trying to make an anti-Semitic point. Don't care about ethnicity. People are people and I judge by actions. I do have my political bones to pick with Israel’s behavior and the lopsided US alliance with it, but that is for another post. I may have even written about it. I’ll check. But for now, let us stick to what history and Mark Danner are telling us.

Though it has been slowly fading for the last 30 to 40 years or so, the United States has always had this idealized image abroad of being powerful, fertile and golden. We are the land of opportunity and the breadbasket of the world. We toppled Soviet Russia and saved the world from the spread of Communism. (This is actually false. The USSR pretty much did itself in. We just threw a little fuel on that fire to make it happen sooner) Begin alludes to Britain in the 1940’s similarly as Danner equates the US having this image of all-powerfulness. It is this that is an equal target being attacked in addition to our troops and interests. My father said that you are only as good as your word, and if you don’t have that, you don’t have much at all. Well, America’s word value is dropping faster than the dollar.

Have you noticed the regular shafting al Queda gives us and our allies with systematic regularity? (9/11, Spain’s train bombings, London’s sub and bus bombings to mention a few) Danner says, in no uncertain terms, that America is losing the war on terror. I have no reason to doubt him. No amount of disinformation the Federal Government puts out can change this. We are losing the war on the ground and we are losing the PR war all because bin Laden-ism is more effective, more potent than US leaders are capable of giving credit for. The individuals calling the shots for us are, perhaps, doing their best but what they don’t realize is that we really can’t have guns and butter. Winning and losing isn’t about body counts to these people. Its about idealism and territory. You can’t kill an idea with a gun and bullets will disappear into sand without a trace.

Where are our students of history? Is the dumbing down of America so manifest that it has penetrated the highest levels of government? This pattern has happened before! Begin and Israel vs. Great Britain, the US in Vietnam (and the French there too), Russia in Chechnya. Its all just so plain to see when you aren’t in the fog of war. Somebody please turn on a fan in the White House to clear the air.

As long as you have somebody willing to die for a cause, you have the most powerful weapon there is. Osama bin Laden knows this and clearly took the history lesson from Israel. (Does anyone else see the multiple layers of irony in this?) It begs the question: Why haven’t our leaders seen this? Is it arrogance and hubris? Is it the fog of war? Or, is it the sun setting on our nations reputation? Time will tell and history will be our judge.

P.S. Again, I don’t know the full history, but it seems that Israel at least partially attained its sovereignty through terrorist methods. Those very same methods were, in turn, turned against them. What does this tell us about karma? How does Begin’s legacy fit into the relativism of history? Truly, what you reap is what you sow.