February 23, 2003
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Mark Crispin Miller, Author of "The Bush Dyslexicon," Talks With BuzzFlash.Com About the Man Leading Us Toward Armageddon and Miller's One Man Show in NYC
A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW
Mark Crispin Miller, Author of "The Bush Dyslexicon" and a Professor at NYU, has become the unofficial "translator" of THAT impaired man in the White House. But Miller's concern about the horrifying path that the Dim Son is leading us down compelled him to move beyond the written word. As a result, he is ringing a three alarm alert about the demented Bush Cartel in a one-man show, "Bush are 'Us'," which he will perform at the Cherry Lane Theater, 38 Commerce Street, in NYC on March 2, 9, 23 and 30th.
Tickets for the March 2 performance are free but you need to call 212-989-2159 to reserve your seats. Tickets for the March 9, 23 and 30th performances are $20 and can be obtained by calling 212-998-5188.
We are pleased to once again talk with Miller, who has appeared several times on BuzzFlash.com. (BuzzFlash.Com offers "The Bush Dyslexicon" as a Premium at http://www.buzzflash.com/premiums/Bush_Dyslexicon.html.)
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BUZZFLASH: Why did you decide to do a show? What does a live presence add beyond what insights you offer in your writing?
MARK CRISPIN MILLER: I started doing it out of frustration, because I couldn't get any bookstore readings after 9/11. But I suppose I'm really doing it because I crave the company. The premise is that everybody who comes out to hear me feels exactly as I do -- as if they're going crazy.
Life feels ever more surreal in these United States, where the media system trumpets outright lies, hypes endless trivial bullshit-J-Lo's wedding, Michael Jackson's face -- and meanwhile tells us nothing that we really need to know. And the air is always thick with the most hateful vitriol.
Listening to Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly and Ann Coulter, among many other rightist media stars, you feel you've been transported to Berlin in 1938. The cultural atmosphere no longer feels American. In fact, it doesn't feel at all like a democracy -- which it is surely not, now that the Busheviks have taken over.
In the mainstream there is almost no free press. Although our media spectacle is certainly a whole lot livelier than it is in Baghdad, say, or than it was in Moscow under Stalin, it's really no more edifying or credible. Despite the Founders' excellent intentions vis-à-vis the US press, we have a media system that has failed us absolutely. Whereas the US press was meant to help us govern this democracy, it's nothing but a p.a. system for the White House and the Pentagon.
So daily life has taken on the quality of nightmare. We look on at horror after horror; protest en masse, and watch the world protest, to no avail; see utter mediocrity exalted, moral idiocy flaunted, fraud and thievery rewarded; hear black called white and white called black. No one in power says anything that makes a lick of sense. And then you flip on CNN, where everybody's acting like it's normal. Well, it isn't normal. And I think the majority of people in this country know it. They're the majority that voted against Bush -- some 53%. So it's very strange, and painful, to be made to think that you're alone in your perceptions. "Bush Are 'Us'" offers a reflection on this plight, and a bit of solace for those suffering it, as well as some much-needed laughs.
BUZZFLASH: What do you have to say about television news in your live appearance?
MILLER: It's "television news" (an oxymoron in this country) that lets the Busheviks manipulate the truth as if this were a closed society.
If you go on the Internet, or tune in to short-wave radio, or just read lots of newspapers from start to finish, you can find out what's happening. But all the most important stuff is not allowed into the limelight. TV keeps it well outside the frame of what is "real" and "true."
Here we have an electoral system in shambles, with electronic voting machines used increasingly to steal the vote; and, in the fine print of the recent anti-terrorist legislation, an outright blueprint for the devastation of democracy; and a no-fly list, preventing at least a thousand US citizens from boarding airliners -- and on and on, yet none of it gets mentioned on TV. This has the effect of concentrating everyone's attention on what isn't true, just as effectively as in Mao's China or Pol Pot's Cambodia, where there was nothing out there on the margins.
BUZZFLASH: Do you offer any hope that the mainstream media, particularly television, can be turned around? Or is it just hopeless?
MILLER: Things are bleak, but never hopeless. They are as hopeful as we dare to have them be, by standing up and saying "no." As for the media, there are in fact a lot of good reporters out there, some struggling for employment, some at work for dailies, news weeklies, TV stations, even cable networks. More and more of them know very well that what they're forced to do each day is a betrayal of their craft and training. What we need is media reform, as soon as possible.
We also need to vary the monotony of rightist media with strong alternatives. We need Democrats and Greens, socialists and genuine conservatives (the Busheviks are not conservatives), to have their voices heard, not only on the margins but right out in front, so folks can hear some truth for once. The latter change -- the introduction of some ideological diversity -- is on the near horizon. The former change -- true media reform -- will take a lot of work. But it will be a whole lot likelier once we can hear some people speaking honestly about it. It may seem like a long shot, but it had better happen if we want to turn the US into a democracy
BUZZFLASH: Have we reached a point, a perfect storm of propaganda on television news, when corporate ownership and celebrity news/entertainers have combined to be an extension of any Republican administration that encourages the consolidated corporate ownership of the media?
MILLER: Absolutely. The media cartel is on its knees for Bush, delivering him an endless blow job far more scandalous and dangerous than anything that ever happened between Bill and Monica. The parent companies will give Bush what he wants for many reasons -- because he's giving them big-time "de-regulation," and because of the successful propaganda drive against "the liberal media," and because the media stars themselves make too much money to be good reporters, and because the White House goons are very, very good at muscling journalists. Not that the media system was any great shakes under Clinton. If Gore had been allowed to serve, he also surely would have had to cater to the likes of Murdoch. Clinton's record on the media system was as bad as Reagan's -- a reflection on the deep corruption of both parties. But while the media cartel would not have had much reason to complain if there were Democrats in charge, the fact is that the GOP is even better for them -- and, therefore, even worse for all the rest of us.
BUZZFLASH: In an age of pervasive visual media, can we ever restore politics to being about substance over image? Or are we condemned to forever be ruled by "image" presidencies with color-coordinated backdrops and messaging?
MILLER: That's a tough one. On the one hand, TV lies more easily than print, because the image often lies without the viewer quite knowing it. And yet television also tells some truths that print cannot convey. Certainly the truth about George W. Bush is readily apparent on TV -- his short fuse, his pathological rigidity, his lunatic self-righteousness, his boundless ignorance. Every medium can tell us something, if it's honest with us. Although TV will always take us in, the audience can also learn to watch it with a certain healthy skepticism. This tends to happen when there is a great disorienting gap between the world around us and the world as televised. Which is to say that it is happening now. Fewer and fewer people buy this president, or what TV has to say about him.
BUZZFLASH: Does the show vary from evening to evening?
MILLER: Yes, it varies. I don't work from a script, but with an outline in my head, and I do try to keep it topical.
BUZZFLASH: We need to sneak in one question about Bush? BuzzFlash recently penned a commentary in which we wrote, "So the next time you hear George talking about God being behind his little war, just remember that Bush hijacked the government -- and now he's hijacking God." (See: http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/02/21.html) Bush tends to speak pretty clearly when he's quoting the Bible and the like. You have indicated he speaks fairly normally when he talks about things he believes in. Do you believe that he is a sincere fundamentalist? Does he believe that if Armageddon is coming, it is the Lord's will?
MILLER: Like many sociopathic leaders, Bush is both sincere and calculating.
On the one hand, he has used religion very cannily to get himself installed as president. He was smart enough to get himself re-born at just the moment when his father had to make connections with the Christian right, and he's always been expert at pushing all the right-wing Christian buttons. On the other hand, he does believe that God has chosen him to be His instrument against "the evil one."
In short, he's dangerously grandiose -- more so since 9/11. Being a man of shabby character, like Nixon, he appears to have gone mad from having all that power. And as he's dragged us all toward war, he has sounded more and more apocalyptic and fanatical. He uses all the buzzwords of "the End Times," so it's likely that he sees it as his mission to bring human history to an end, so that his buddy Jesus can come down and run the show for a millennium. Reagan had some of the same delusions, but he was also well-protected from himself in that regard.
Few in Reagan's court -- and no one in his family -- encouraged his eschatological imaginings. With Bush we're not so lucky.
We can only hope that God will find a way to stop him. After all, he is no more a Christian, really, than he is a Democrat or a conservative; Jesus certainly would not approve of him. Bush is himself a swaggering contradiction of the Sermon on the Mount.
BUZZFLASH: How have you found the audience reaction to your program?
MILLER: The response has been terrific. Full houses, excellent vibe.
BUZZFLASH: Tell us more about the NYU controversy surrounding Bloomberg and comments you made about him?
MILLER: It's utterly absurd. This guy Matt Winkler, CEO of Bloomberg LP, got all heated up because of comments that I made about a year ago, in the pages of the NEW YORK OBSERVER. I was asked to comment on the mayor-elect's decision to hire Tom Goldstein, dean of the Columbia j-school, as an "ombudsman" to help the company negotiate conflicts of interest.
I said I doubted that any one employee could do that job without finally pissing off his bosses, since such conflicts of interest are inevitable. I also noted a recent media tour of the mayor's new offices, where there were brand-new Bloomberg computer terminals sitting on all the desks. I called that "improper," called it a form of "product placement."
So a year later, Winkler suddenly refuses to continue giving NYU an annual grant of $26,000, for fellowships in the business journalism program. He cites my comments as the reason.
It was ridiculous -- I don't even teach in that particular program -- and the university made an earnest effort to persuade him not to be so punitive. He refused, insisting that the university repudiate me publicly.
To their credit, NYU regarded his demands as foolish and repressive, and apparently decided they'd be better off not dealing with him. Why did this come out now, after all this time? If you were paranoid, you'd think the White House was behind it! People have been writing Winkler in protest, and he's answered with a lot of lies. To get that story, go to http://theanticmuse.blogspot.com.
BUZZFLASH: Mark, thank you for your time. Break a leg with your show.
A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW
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The Cherry Lane Theater: http://www.cherrylanetheatre.com/
