Sunday, July 26, 2020

The Beatnik & The Pentagon Papers

Tom & Meryl

Sunday morning: I watched an interesting film on the telly last night. It is a 2017 film called The Post starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks. Meryl played the part of Katherine Graham who was the owner of the Washington Post. It was all about the decision to publish the Pentagon Papers which revealed the lies and secrets of the USA government during the Vietnam War. It was these revelations which hastened the end of the war. What the film showed was the importance of a free press to hold the government to account for their actions. I think the problem these days, in Britain at least, is that newspapers don't care about telling the truth anymore. large chunks of the media have fallen into the hands of billionaire tax dodging media moguls and their papers have become propaganda machines for right wing governments.
Daniel Ellsberg
When the film ended, I looked online to see what happened in real life to the protagonists in the film. I was pleased to find out that Daniel Ellsberg who was the man who leaked the papers is still alive today aged 89. One interesting thing I found out was that he met Beat poet Gary Snyder in Kyoto Japan in 1960. Gary at the time was halfway through a ten-year study of Zen Buddhism. He had wanted to meet Gary after reading The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac. Daniel said that it was partly due to his arguments with Gary about active Buddhism  and US foreign policy that convinced him to reveal the truth about what was going on. I wonder what Jack Kerouac & Neal Cassady would have made of all that? They could be quite right-wing in their views sometimes. I found this little fact about Daniel Ellsberg & Gary Snyder and their place in American history quite fascinating, so I am glad I watched The Post last night.
Gary Snyder.



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