Last Thursday, I trekked an hour to a local theater to see the new Martin Scorsese movie Silence which overall, I thought was pretty decent. Silence depicts the persecution and execution of Christians by Japanese country warlords during 17th century Japan. It was a nearly three hour, sometimes sluggish, muddy, rainy, dreary film that featured no female characters and starred the two actors who played Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). Also, Liam Neeson plays a priest who Spidey and Kylo are sent to rescue from Japanese captivity. Neeson of course played Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars Episode I and it was pretty dispiriting to me that not even the supreme tag-team pairing of Spider-Man and two Jedi knights were still no match for Japanese anti-Christian tyrants.
But a weird revelation entered my mind during the halfway point of Silence. After a Japanese guard suddenly and without warning, beheaded a Christian villager with his sharp as hell sword, then dragged the headless body across the sand, leaving behind a long trail of blood, I thought, "This is probably what Donald Trump wants to do with the world's journalists this week," and the scary thing is, we're probably on our way there.
Journalists of course have been subject to torture and unspeakable acts of brutality in recent years so relatively speaking, being threatened by a tiny-fingered orange version of Shrek is quite mild. Back In 2014, a video of American journalist James Foley beheaded by ISIS was released and another journalist was threatened with the same fate unless then-president Barack Obama ceased military operations in Iraq. Americans were stunned and saddened. Journalists mourned the loss of one of their own. Everybody shared their sadness and anger. Today, many of the same Americans who were outraged by the brutal killing of an American journalist back in 2014, just elected a man who, during the campaign trail, remained silent when supporters turned up at his rallies wearing...this,
What changed? Where were the crusading journalists willing to stand up to Trump's supporters? For that matter, where was journalism crusader Julian Assange to stand up and speak out for online journalism (and journalism in general) during this time? Worrying over Hillary's emails? Why? Did he not see that just possibly we might be living through a new golden age of reporting due to online journalism? This is apparently the view of The Nations Tom Englehardt who argues this,
"In terms of journalism, of expression, of voice, of fine reporting and
superb writing, of a range of news, thoughts, views, perspectives, and
opinions about places, worlds, and phenomena that I wouldn’t otherwise
have known about, there has never been an experimental moment like
this. I’m in awe. Despite everything, despite every malign purpose to
which the Internet is being put, I consider it a wonder of our age."
So while Julian Assange was appearing on HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher, defending himself in his crusade against Hillary Clinton, he also tried to have it both ways by dangling the transparent dangling carrot (Thank U, Alanis Morrisette) regarding the issue of Trump's taxes to Bill's audience of Anti-Trumpers. Hey, Julian, we're still waiting for that. As we are waiting for you to stand with us and have our backs, because buddy, we now need you more than ever.
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