Alan Moore, Martha Honey, et al, �Brought to Light�
The sub-title for this split book reads, �30 Years of Drug Smuggling, Arms Deals and Covert Operations that Robbed America and Betrayed the Constitution.�
And this is presented in a comic book. Not bad.
Flashpoint � The La Penca Bombing, brought to you by Martha Honey, Tony Avirgan and the Christic Institute, takes the approach of Jack Chick, letting the morality tale be told in panels and pictures.
The difference is that instead of telling the story of a sergeant being mean to the Christian in his platoon and going to hell for it, we�re learning about the School of the Americas, a U.S. funded military training camp in Georgia for Latin American insurgents and commandos, implicated in the Iran-Contra affair.
Somewhere around 1997, I wrote a research paper on the School of the Americas. At the time, despite having a fair amount of protest centered on it, there were very few references that I could use forcing me to pour through hundreds of pages of official government documents filled with newspeak and censored passages for a paper that was rather inconsequential for my total grade.
Since that paper, there has been a book written about the school, along with dozens of other resources that would have made my job so much easier. Since I had to delve so deeply into the source material, I know a hell of a lot about the place, and so reading this doesn�t bring me much insight.
I suppose it is good reference material for the political novice, thought I can�t really recommend it � it�s too flat with its presentation AND art, and thus comes across as about as interesting as the survival guides that come at the beginning of the phone book.
And yes, I�ve read those.
Shadowplay � the Secret Team, written by Alan Moore and drawn by the always fucking incredible Bill Sienkiewicz, is absolutely amazing. Narrated by a Bald Eagle sitting in a bar (think of the Ed Asner version of Guy Banister in JFK), he drunkenly boasts, explains, mourns, and attempts to justify covert and illegal operations carried out by him (America), to the patron sitting next to him, which is supposed to be you, the citizen.
Moore covers well known debacles like the Bay of Pigs, to lesser-known atrocities in Libya and the Philippines, never bogging down the narrative with too much background information, yet making sure the reader understands what, and more importantly, why these things happened. The end result is that it�s entertaining as all hell, while being very, very scary.
The only problem is that Moore�s presentation is so dark and bitter that nobody will read this who doesn�t already foster distrust toward the U.S government. You couldn�t give this to Billy John Jim Joe Patriot and expect any change of position. It�s another example of preaching to the converted, when what we need to do is more converting.
You wouldn�t think converting people to be a little more skeptical of the government would be such a hard task. All you have to do is pay attention and you begin to see the inconsistencies. But distrust of any persons not white is on the brain right now. While I type this, the NPR reporter on the air just did a post describing a crime victim who called the police. Only instead of saying she dialed 911, he said, �the woman dialed nine eleven.�
Jesus. That is so 2001.
