V: 1983 & 2009 Part Three: 2009 Pilot Summary, Characters and Emerging Memes

The 2009 V starts with a comparison of 9/11, JFK’s assassination, and the arrival of the Visitors, as a means of foreshadowing for the generation that didn’t see the original. This version describes the state of Obama’s America with opening scenes discuss the ongoing housing crisis. However, the most important cultural aspect of V 2009 is the prevalence of terrorism and terrorist investigations in the show. In the first place, the show is set in New York City instead of Los Angeles like the original, and 9/11 is the second phrase shown during the introduction. Of course, it’s easy to see that the one terrorist cell that increases its chatter post-visitor arrival instead of dropping off like the others will turn out to be the beginnings of what becomes the Resistance. But this is not an Islamic terrorist group, it is composed of Visitor sleeper agents who disrupt the beginnings of the Resistance’s formation.

From the first scene it looks obvious that African-American buying the engagement ring will be the 2009 version of Dr. Ben, but this time he’s a Federal Agent, former militia member, and likely future Counter Revolutionary. It seems they’ve consolidated the two brothers into one this character, which makes a certain amount of sense because Dr. Ben was only in the miniseries for the first hour or so and Elias was in all 10.5 hours of the V marathon on SyFy. And the meme regarding struggles and competing visions seems to be resolved, at least in the writers’ minds.

The falling of the Catholic Crucifix inside the first 4 minutes represents two memes not especially present in the 1983 version, but which have gained increasing currency among conspiracy culture insiders. We’ll call Meme A the Fallen Christ Meme and Meme B the Questioning Christianity’s Legitimacy meme. The Fallen Christ Meme is common among those who continue to suggest that the arrival of an extra terrestrial alien species would pose an existential threat to all religions, thereby causing mass chaos. It sometimes is cited as a reason justifying government suppression of any real evidence of alien visitation. The Questioning Christianity’s Legitimacy Meme really didn’t emerge in America until after the publication of Graham Hancock’s Holy Blood, Holy Grail and the emergence of websites and books on Mary Magdalene as the wife of Jesus and mother of Merovee, the founder of the Merovinginian line of French Kings.

The “Question Authority Meme,” always favored among the now-empowered left until the Democratic Party has power in Congress and/or the Presidency, emerges 11 minutes into the pilot. This comes from the youngish priest character, whose doppelganger in the original version had served with anti-communist guerillas in Angola, but whose credentials on this front in the 2009 version are still in question.

Illustrative of women’s success in the intervening 25 years between the two series is that the sympathetic, ambitious reporter who becomes the Visitor’s spokesperson is no longer a woman using feminine wiles, but is now portrayed by a metrosexual male. Additionally, this character seems to have less backbone, and be much more compliant with the Visitors and their requests. Moreover, one primary protagonist is a female FBI counter-terrorism operative,

Significantly, the 2009 version's Hitler allusions are less pronounced. Though interestingly, the neighborhood kid who signs up as a Visitor "Brown Shirt" is driven to it due to maternal neglect by the FBI agent (thus reprising the "Law Enforcement is Hard on Families" Meme. In the original series, the character who joins is much like the guard in The Bridge at Andau: someone who is generally a loser, but has ambitions above his abilities. I preferred the 1983 motivation better because it puts the onus squarely on the child's decisions. Perhaps in our post-Columbine world they were afraid to portray similar a high-school character with these psychological motivations. The other explanation is that the "Bad Mother Meme" has picked up cultural relevance due to the ongoing culture wars.

V: 1983 & 2009 Part Two: 1983 Summary & Memes

The protagonist in the 1983 version is Donovan, a a foreign affairs correspondent whom we first encounter covering anonymous, admirable revolutionaries against a Central American dictatorship (Contras anyone?). He later shares the stage with Ham Tyler in V: The Final Battle. Ham is an American guerilla/ arms dealer he runs across in his work. In the 2009 version, the protagonist seems to be a synthesis of Donovan and Tyler. The pains of the reporter's divorce and conflict with his ex over his seeming upper hand in the competition for his child’s affection reflects the then-prominent "Divorce is Hard on Families Meme" in the 1983 version which seems absent from the new series, largely because as a society I think we're over divorce as a social issue.

Another meme prevalent through the first few hours of the miniseries is the conflict in the black community between “the streets” and “selling out,” epitomized by the conflict between ne'er do well Elias Taylor and his brother Dr. Ben Taylor over life and their father’s affection. The show resolves this conflict by having Ben die, which ultimately leads Elias to declare that it should be him not Ben because Ben had made something with himself. However it is Elias's skills and contacts from “the streets” that help the Resistance obtain shelter, useful intelligence and necessary supplies. This may reflect the inability of the writer to resolve the issue satisfactorily for himself or us.

V is also one of the first sources for the meme of illegal immigration in California in the mid-80’s, and the issue of “visitors” taking Californian jobs is even addressed explicitly within the first 45 minutes of the show. In fact, during that scene, Caleb explicitly complains about job competition from “honkeys” and Mexicans since this was produced before political correctness craziness became the norm.

The meme of environmental catastrophe, in this case on the Visitors planet, began to emerge into political and pop culture around this time, and the environmental "disaster" on the Visitor's home planet (their cover story for coveting our water) is mentioned in the first 30 minutes. The meme is not referenced explicitly again, and may explain why the show has emerged now: we have a major environmental bill working its way through Congress, which many on the left who tend to include television writers support. In fact the New America Foundation recently hosted a briefing in Washington, DC titled "Go West Young Policy Wonk" focusing on whether those interested in policy making should head to Hollywood instead.

The Nazi allusions are right in your face right from the name of the Jewish Resistance Fighter (Abraham) down to the brown shirts and youth brigades, though at the time, many Americans also associated youth brigades and secret police (brown shirts) with the Soviets. Only this time instead of “The Jews” it's “The Scientists” with the evil conspiracy against the powers that be. The Visitors use a false flag conspiracy to justify rounding up scientists, and then eventually stage “Reichstag bombing” attacks around the world, using means similar to those in Wag the Dog. In the 2009 version, the Hitler allusions are less pronounced. Perhaps this is because the newer generation doesn’t identify as much with this epochal event 25 years later than the original and 65 years after the event was revealed to the world. Additionally, in the 2009 series, the Visitors seem to be setting up the foundations for a religion as a means of Social Control. This fits into the "All Religions Are Shams" meme that has emerged forcefully in the past decade.

The "Abortion is Completely Acceptable" meme appears early on V: The Final Battle,when the Catholic Priest's moral objections are dismissed out of hand, and represents a different cultural era. 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High and The Last American Virgin both showed the really problem with getting an abortion was having the guy pay for it. This is before the deluge of shows in the 1990s and 2000s, including Friends, in which the potentially pregnant character ends up not having to make a decision /resolve the conflict because the test was wrong or their was a miscarriage, "getting them off the hook" for having to make a decision. I expect that in the new series, this will be replaced with teh "Abortion is a Serious Issue" meme and there will be a more weighty debate about the potential abortion of the hybrid fetus. If I'm correct on this, it will reflect the ascendancy of the Christian Right during the past 25 years. Whether they are now on the decline is a debatable point.

Jericho & The False Flag Meme

I was watching the Jericho series finale again today (TiVo Rocks!) and realized that the "9/11 Truth Movement" has succeeded in firmly planing the "False Flag" meme in our popular culture. False Flag refers to covert intelligence/military operations undertaken by a government and designed to appear as if they were conducted by another government or outside group. Until the last decade or so many historians considered the explosion of the USS Maine in Cuba a false flag operation engineered by the McKinley Administration to justify war with Spain to take over/liberate Cuba (in the past decade or so additional research has shown that the Maine's boiler probably exploded on its own accord, but there is no evidence of Spanish of American sabotage).

In Jericho, the false flag operation is conducted by officials at the Department of Homeland Security and blamed on Iran and North Korea, justifying the further perpetration of nuclear holocaust on these two nations. This furthers the meme of the "neo-conservatives" or members of the Project for the New American Century as war mongers against those two nations. This meme is based somewhat on reality, as it well known that neo-conservatives are international realists instead of Wilsonian idealists and are very concerned about those two nations' relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons and long range missle capability, (even to the point of entering space as Iran propose).

In the show, the shadow government's attack occurs in order to purge the government of the pervasive influence of Jennings & Rawl, an obvious proxy for Haliburton. This "Haliburton is evil and associated by Vice President Cheney" meme is very widespread throughout our culture, especially among the hard core left. It's amazing how sutbtly anti-Bush Jericho really is. After all, you'd expect that a show based on an American nuclear holocaust would really be more pro-killing terrorists.

Getting these memes (further) embedded in the mainstream culture is an enormous success for the 9/11 Truth Movement. It helps make people more receptive to their misguided conspiracy agenda.

Members of the 9/11 Truth Movement believe that elements inside the Bush Administration or federal government (or the Israeli government) engineered the 9/11 attacks. The typical motive for this alleged false flag operation frequently is attributed either to justifying a Middle East war over oil or changing the political issue matrix to benefit the Republican Party and ensure continued political dominance. Oh yeah, and to enrich the President's friends.

Now, the first reason is laughable. The Israelis are in a strong enough position to take care of themselves, and war is always an enormous drain on a nation no matter how necessary (WWII was a necessary war for example). The second motive is somewhat more plausible (though still absolute crap). Here's why: in late 2001 almost the entire political issue matrix was geared against the Republican party and its principles. Good economic times in the 1990s had produced not only a balanced budget, but one in large and growing surplus. People were happy and shifting their attention away from the international sphere and back to the domestic issues on which the Democratic Pary had an advantage. Additionally, a United States government able to pay back most of its outstanding debt and eventually pay it all off would prove economically damaging to the banking industry.

These facts provide a kernel of truth from which to grow an entirely ridiculs conspiracy theory based on any substantiated association or causality. The "theory" : the executive branch initiated treason against our nation in order to put its political party back in political advantage ensuring its own continued power and accumulating even more power by taking advantage of the extreme national culture shock of 9/11 to accumulate more power through the Patriot Act and other measures.

The History Channel showed a documentary last week called "The 9/11 Conspiracies" which explored the conspiracies and then offered rational responses to the execrable false flag charges.

These Truthers cling much to hard to the conspiracy meme of a "supercompetent federal government." We're talking about a bunch of guys who actually tried to kill Castro by giving him an exploding cigar. The same people who masterminded the disastrous Bay of Pigs fiasco in which they lost their nerve and declined to call in air support for the invastion, thus guaranteeing its failure. Plus there are enough potential whistleblowers in the government that any such conspiracy would have become exposed since it would have had to involve officials at multiple federal agencies. Even within the same Department, and especially within Homeland security due to the disjointed and spread out nature of its buildings, it is difficult to coordinate anything without the help of people lower down the food chanin than the "principals" (Administrators, Assistant Secretaries and their Deputies, Directors of Progams).

The Comments Heard Around the World

Maureen Dowd's recent column has put Hillaryland and her campaign into a tizzy with her comments by David Geffen. While they've been covered extensively, here is a summary of what Hillaryland is upset about:

Mr. Geffen said the Clintons lie “with such ease, it’s troubling” and that the Clinton political operation “is going to be very unpleasant and unattractive and effective.” Mr. Geffen called Mr. Clinton a “reckless guy” who had not changed in the last six years, and suggested that Mrs. Clinton was too scripted.

The real panic in Hillaryland is that Geffen's defection will signal to other high dollar donors that it's ok to raise money for someone else. Their other fear is that Geffen was right: Clinton still has a zipper problem (just like John Boehner - Carl Hulse of the New York Times told me this about Boehner while we were waiting for last year's GOP leadership elections) and Clinton's problem WILL come out during the campaign and cost her some valuable media time. Additionally, talking about him and his pecadillos really doesn't help her much.

Her status as trailblazing first lady to become a Senator and presidential candidate puts her in the same category as Vice Presidents running to succeed predecessor. It's hard for her to tie herself to the successes of her husband's administration without being tarnished with his administration's failures. This proved awkward for Al Gore, and as the latest spat shows, will be even harder for her. Gore could separate himself from Clinton by picking Joe Lieberman, but Hillary can't do anything similar.

Here only real way to distance herself from her husband's failures is to try to intimidate the political class and punditocracy into not tying her to her husband. She even brought back the 90s meme of the "politics of personal destruction." Ironic for a woman who once boasted that her husband's election would give us "two for the price of one"

(Oh and then there are the reports that the whole Hillaryland reaction was actually due to Bill's furiousness about criticism regarding his pardon of multi-millionaire fugitive Marc Rich).

Unfortunately for her, the Clinton years, and Bill's ongoing affairs will be issues that will be embarassing and a challenge for her campaign to overcome. Good thing for her she has enough money to become the nominee anyway. Bad thing for the Democratic party.