Screenwriting as Dramatic Sense-Making or Ideological Subterfuge?

Howard (p. 165) claims that the screenwriters of Witness (1985) were “wise enough not to attempt to coerce an answer out of the material, to make this an indictment or a thesis instead of an exploration. If they had the definite answer to force and violence in society, they shouldn’t [have made] a film but should [have gone] directly to the United Nations with it. What they have created is an exploration of a complex and troubling issue. Modern urban society isn’t depicted as all bad and the Amish aren’t all good; there are forms of force in both societies, just as there are admirable things about them both. While, in the end, one use of force triumphs over another, that can hardly be a universally applicable solution. Rather, what the filmmakers have done is to make the audience confront its own feelings about violence and the use of force, to see that it is complicated and there are no pat answers, but, most important, to explore how each of us feels about the various faces of force we come to know in the story.”

Analysis is at "Screenwriting as Dramatic Sense-Making."

Sources:

David Howard and Edward Mabley, The Tools of Screenwriting: A Writer’s Guide to the Craft and Elements of a Screenplay. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993).

Bill Johnson, Essays on the Craft of Dramatic Writing. http://home.teleport.com/~bjscript/index.htm  See also Charles Deemer, Screenwright: The Craft of Screenwriting (Xlibris, 1998), pp. 117-19.

Federalizing the Criminal Code: Racial Opportunity Costs

On December 13, 2011, a bipartisan group of legal experts told a panel of lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives that the federal criminal code had grown so large that U.S. citizens could not possibly keep up with it. “We ought to get rid of the old myth that you’re presumed to know the law,” Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) said. About 4,500 criminal statutes exist, according to Ed Meese, a former U.S. Attorney General under President Reagan. “This is in addition to over 300,000 other regulations that don’t appear in the federal code but nevertheless carry essentially criminal penalties including prison,” he said. “So the vast array of traps for the unwary that lurks out there in federal criminal law is more extensive than most people realize.” The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts figures some 80,000 defendants are sentenced in federal court each year.

The full essay is at "Federalizing Everything."

A Dysfunctional Trajectory of U.S. Presidential Debates: The Case of 2012

Just weeks before the 2012 elections in the U.S., the New York Times observed, “In 1960, John F. Kennedy was trailing Richard Nixon as they stepped into the crucible of the first nationally televised debate. While Kennedy soared, Nixon stumbled and never recovered. Network television played a definitive role, but those were very different times. There were three networks, not 500 channels, and the consumer Internet was still very much on the drawing board of the future. Half a century later, televised debates remain relevant, but the ritual is up against an always-on informational stream that surges with political messages.

The full essay is at "A Dysfunctional Trajectory of Presidential Debates." 

Russia's Putin and Big Tobacco

In political economy theory, democracy is said to have the drawback of excessive consumption of public revenues at the expense of investment, such as in infrastructure relevant to foreign direct investment. Latin American countries were contrasted negatively with the Asian newly industrialized economies, whose relatively strong states could buffer popular calls for more in entitlements so that more could be invested in infrastructure attractive to foreign multinational companies. The implication is that a trade-off exists between democracy and economic development.

Apart from the economic aspects, the question may be whether a representative government can resist popular calls for more money to be spent by the government on popular consumption. In the U.S. case, it can be asked whether the fiscal stresses on Social Security and Medicare are due more to demographic factors (i.e., an aging population) or democracy itself. The ability of representative democracy to maintain a viable economy and republic in the long term is at issue.

Accordingly, Putin’s less than democratic approach to ruling Russia may have a bright side. Even though nearly 40% of the population smoked in 2012 and the world’s four big tobacco companies controlled 90% of the Russian market, the Kremlin was pushing strong anti-smoking legislation through the legislature. Besides the question of whether such legislation should be at that level in an empire-level federal system (there had been legislation at the republic level), the fact that the government was standing up to big business and 40 percent of its population (60% of Russian men) can be attributed to a strong state resisting popular pressure literally for consumption. This is not necessarily bad, as people do not always know what is best for them.

The full essay is at "Russia's Putin and Big Tobacco."

Should Citi Be Broken Up or “Prodded”?

In 2011, the office of the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program published a report on the aid provided to Citigroup by the U.S. Government during the financial crisis of 2008. “Unless and until an institution such as Citigroup is either broken up,” the report concludes, “so that it is no longer a threat to the financial system, or a structure is put in place to assure that it will be left to suffer the full consequences of its own folly, the prospect of more bailouts will potentially fuel more bad behavior with potentially disastrous results.” The Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 was an attempt to provide such a structure, with the federal government’s role being oriented to upping reserve requirements for the biggest banks and ordering the liquidation of big banks in bankruptcy, rather than to break up the banks too big to fail. That is to say, rather than add systemic risk to the restraint-of-trade criterion of anti-trust law, Congress and the U.S. president decided in 2010 to allow the banks with $1 to $2 trillion in assets to decide whether to downsize of their own volition or continue to face the raised reserve requirements.

The full essay is at "Citibank: Too Big To Fail?"

Russia's Putin Embraced BP

The Russian state-owned company, Rosneft, reached separate agreements in October 2012 to buy TNK-BP from BP and a group of Russian billionaires. According to the Wall Street Journal, the deal represents “an acquisition that promises to reshape the Russian oil industry in favor of the state-owned company.” The Russian federal government was set to own or control nearly 50% of the Russian oil industry. Lest it be supposed that the legacy of inefficient state enterprise might compromise that industry in Russia, the state would have the benefit of literally sitting on the same board with representatives of the experienced oil producer from the private sector. By implication, the traditional dichotomy between public and private could be further blurred, such that the easy labels of “socialism” and “capitalism” may become less and less relevant or useful (except in the rhetoric of American presidential contests). Rosneft itself is a case in point of privateness and publicness coming together with a shared vocabulary or at least financial aim. Before addressing this point, I present the basics of the deal itself.

Robert Dudley, CEO of BP, talking with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin.   Source: Telegraph

The full essay is at "Russia's Putin Embraced BP."

Morsi as Partisan in Constitution-Building: Lessons from Washington

Appealing for unity after the controversial ratification of a draft constitution in December 2012, President Morsi of Egypt pledged in a televised address to respect the one-third of the electorate that had voted against the proposed constitution. He claimed that “active patriotic opposition” should not annoy the president or the people in a democracy. I contend that the office of president should not be of the sort that would have partisan opposition, ideally at least. That is to say, presiding means safeguarding the process itself, as well as the good of the whole, rather than pushing a partisan agenda. That Morsi was on record in support of the partisan-drafted proposal undercut his role as presider in chief. Given the innate instability of a nascent democracy, the role for a presider “above the fray” was particularly valuable in Egypt at the time. Morsi fell short in this regard, and thus put the fragile democracy at risk.

The full essay is at "Morsi as Partisan."

Social Harmony and Toxic Chemicals in China

According to the New York Times in 2012, the Chinese had become increasingly willing “to take to the streets despite the perils of openly challenging the country’s authoritarian government.” Even more surprising, government officials had actually acquiesced in some notable cases. Given the raw nature of power, particularly under authoritarian auspices, revolution rather than gradual reform may still be the most likely means by which democracy can bloom under the golden, albeit hazy, sun.

The full essay is at "Chemical Pollution in China."

Absolute Sovereignty: The Case of Syria

By the end of 2012, over 60,000 Syrians had been killed and over half a million had fled as a result of the civil war in Syria. Shortages of food and shelter were worsening inside Syria for civilians. In early January of 2013, a spokesperson for the U.N. said that the international organization was unable to feed a million residents in combat zones. Acute fuel shortages in Syria were contributing to the rising price of bread—at least six times greater than the pre-conflict price. Additionally, an outbreak of violence in a large Syrian refugee camp of 54,000 refugees in Jordan amid a winter storm was reported. “The incident followed a night of heavy storms, during which torrential rains and high winds swept away tents and left parts of the camp flooded,” an official in Save the Children said in a statement. One might ask what was really behind the deteriorating conditions.

The full essay is at "Absolute Sovereignty: The Case of Syria."

The Receding Chinese-American Economic Paradigm in 2011: Imbalances within Mutual Benefit

“For decades,” according to The Wall Street Journal, “plentiful Chinese labor kept down costs of a range of goods bought by Americans.” Then, roughly in 2010, the Chinese government began supporting higher wages to reduce labor unrest and boost domestic consumption while reducing reliance on exports. Partially as a result of this, the world saw higher prices for commodities in 2011; oil was another factor as protests in the Middle East increased political risk in the calculations of future supply (amid speculation). A shrinking workforce in China was also putting pressure on the labor cost. Even though relatively cheap labor was still in the interior of the country, higher transportation costs mitigated the cost advantage. The prevailing paradigm was showing cracks. To be sure, it certainly had them.

The full essay is at "Economic Imbalances between China and the United States."

Corporations as Citizens: A Right to Make Political Donations?

In Citizens United, the U.S. Supreme Court held that corporations and unions “should have the same right as individuals to pay for election ads and other electioneering,” according to The Wall Street Journal. Not addressed in the court’s decision was whether corporations and unions also have “the same right as individuals to donate money directly to candidates for Congress or the White House.”

The full essay is at "Corporations as Citizens: Political Rights?"

Democracy and the Courts: Alternative Checks on Austerity in Greece

In May 2011, “Athens agreed to impose a new $9 billion round of tax increases and spending cuts and speed up nearly $75 billion in promised privatizations.” In early June, a new round of tightening was being planned by the Greek government. It was feared that those cuts would deepen the recession and thus further shrink the tax base, making it even harder for the government to cut its deficit. Meanwhile, Reuters reported, “Greeks are showing signs of reaching the limits of their endurance as budget cuts imposed under Greece's first bailout a year ago have helped to push unemployment close to 16 percent.” The news service cited police reports of more than 80,000 people packing the main Syntagma square outside parliament on June 6^th—the 12^th consecutive day of protesting there.

                                              Reuters

The full essay is at "Democracy and the Courts: On Austerity."

On the Myopic Hyperbole of Wall Street: Overblowing Small Changes

I suppose that after looking at something closely for a long period of time, virtually anyone would perceive a small change in it as huge. This is reflected in how people formulate graphs. In particular, typically only a small interval is shown, the perceptual impact of which is that small changes look big. For example, Msnbc.com reported on June 8, 2011 that the price of oil “soared” on that day “almost $2 to near $101 a barrel.” My reaction in reading the report was that the word “soared” indicates a lack of perspective on Wall Street and the media.

The full essay is at "Exaggerating Market Volatility."

The Fiat 500: The American Taste for Convenience Revealed

One means of doing cross-cultural comparison is by contrasting consumer tastes; such proclivities tend to evince societal mores by which societies can be perceived to be distinctive. In the case of the E.U. and U.S., Fiat, a European auto company that controls Chrysler, an American company, is discovering some societal differences as it refashions the Fiat 500 for American customers.

The full essay is at "American Consumer Tastes."

Marx and Chinese Dynasties: A Postmortem on Occupy Wall Street

My essay that suggests that the Occupy Wall Street protests should have focused on the large corporation itself (i.e., that the large corporate form be expunged from modern society) rather than on a myriad of redistribution agendas resonates with Marx’s theory of revolution. In that theory, the proletariat finally throws off the chains and subdues the hitherto hegemonic capitalists in a materialist reading of Hegel's idea that history progresses toward greater freedom of the human spirit. The redistributive push of the Occupy movement fellf short because even increased redistribution advocated would have been within extant the political-economic system that the corporations dominate and run (i.e., including Congress). If the protesters were in fact serious about confronting corporate capitalism, their movement should have been radical rather than reformist because reforms are within the system that works for and by corporations.

The full essay is at "Marx and Chinese Dynasties: A Post-Mortem on Occupy Wall Street."