Antiwar: Why Does the US Government Love War?

Russo-Ukrainian War

From the website antiwar.com, I chose to focus on "The Stories You're Not Hearing About the Russo-Ukrainian War..." written by Ted Snider, because we have had multiple in-class discussions regarding this war and its effect US politics, as well as the idea that the media reports just the bare surface of how deeply American policy influences this conflict. The article begins by depicting Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky's recent lies about the war's statistics. In February, the president reported that the soldier death count of the two years (and counting) war was about 31,000. President Zelensky also released to the public a statement that Russia was being stopped and could not take any further of Ukraine's territory, while reporting that the country had already taken about 26% of it.

Snider calls bullsh** on each statement. Both Russian and Ukrainian political figures and government officials have reported dead and wounded counts over 400,000. Following President Zelensky's bold statement proclaiming the Ukrainian Armed Forces have practically stopped Russian armies from seizing more territory, Russia took both Avdiivka and Lastochkyne (Ukrainian villages and territories), resulting each time in fumbling Ukrainian retreat. 

The US government has been funding this war since 2014, and dare I say, is the only reason Ukraine has not completely fallen to the powerhouse of Russia. The most recent funding update occurred on February 13th of this year, when the Senate passed an amendment to Division A of the National Security Act, procuring $60 billion for '"Ukraine-related activities" out of the $95.3 billion in total funding.' 

I would've thought that this recent policy-making would have made national news, considering the amount of debt our country has suck into AND the controversy of the war itself within our own country. However, when I googled subjects like "how much money does the US give to Ukraine" and "US funding of Ukrainian war," corporations like CNN, Fox News and CBS have either not reported on this, or their articles are buried within the second or third pages of Google search results. 

President Biden and President Zelensky

This war is truly a losing battle. Ukraine does not have the resources, wealth, manpower or resistance to continue warding off Russia, and is only afloat from outside funding (ie, America). Without the billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars we send to the country, Russia would have overtaken Ukrainian territory a year ago. 

I believe that the US government and our politicians support Ukraine so heavily in this war for a number

of reasons. The first, so that they are able to use it as advertising for their administration. The Biden administration, specifically, is a great example of this. President Biden mentions Ukraine and his support for the country almost every time he makes an important speech and appearance to the media. He has announced that his support for Ukraine will last "as long as [America] can." That's scary. The administration has also changed their goal for the war, which originally started as forcing Russia completely out of Ukraine, and now are saying that the war can only end in diplomatic negotiation (ironic in that Biden refuses to interact with Putin). Biden uses the media to show his continual support for the country, and the media supports him by reporting more on atrocities that have been committed throughout this war, and less on just how much money America has given, or the bleak outlook of the war at this point. The President gains the emotional support of his voters' through Ukrainian struggles. 

Benefits of War & The Media

Wartime is not a positive space for our country. It is a drain on our resources, economy, and obviously heartbreakingly violent for the people of America. However, wartime and corresponding conflict tends to bring our country together. Levels of patriotism rise in the aftermath of events like Pearl Harbor, 9/11, WWII, etc. The country unites against a common enemy and in turn, has more support for the government and elected officials. There is more trust in our news and media, as well as politicians.

However, this trend has all but vanished. I would pinpoint the start to the steady decline of both government and media trust to the Pentagon Papers scandal and New York Times Company v. United States during the Vietnam war. Nixon's attempt at prior restraint to prevent the Times from printing the Papers is one of the first clear examples of government conspiracy that negatively effected the public. 

Reporting on the victories of wartime seems to comfort the American people in the billions and billions of dollars that are funneled into the military and foreign aid. 

Now, both media and government trust are at all time lows. The government has its fingers buried within big media conglomerations, and everything revolves around money. We live in an era of two major foreign conflicts, both the Russo-Ukraine war and the Israel-Palestine conflict. There are huge amounts of various media released daily covering these topics, but a lack of strong media focusing on anti-war aspects. If the media focused on the failing war within Ukraine, would they support the amount of money the Biden administration is trying push to them?

Technology Reaction: Motion Picture

 During EOTO presentations, I learned about the history and impact of the motion picture. The journey of the motion picture began in 1888, when the French inventor Louis Le Prince became the first person to shoot a motion picture film. The film was titled the "Roundhay Garden Scene" and depicted people walking within the garden. The clip lasted for a short two seconds, and was silent, as sound did not develop till many years later. However, the first evidence of a "moving picture" began with a toy called the zoetrope. This device was invented during the Civil War to make use of photographs taken during wartime; the "toy," as soldiers called it, allowed viewers to see the images in succession, as if they were moving. In 1878, photographer Eadweard Muybridge captured twelve photographs of a horses' gallop and used a zoetrope to prove to a colleague that all of a horses' hooves left the ground while the animal was in a full run. After both proving a point and creating a motion picture of photographs, Muybridge went on to invent the zoogyroscope in 1879 to show a larger audience the horses' motion picture.

The Kinetophone

The next main event within motion picture's history was in 1891, when American inventor Thomas Edison combined sound with the idea of a motion picture. Edison, working alongside inventor W. K. L. Dickson, created a machine called the Kinetophone. This device allowed viewers to experience sound while watching a film by viewing the motion picture while placing rubber tubes over their ears and listening to the accompanying sounds through a phonograph, almost as if they were using the 19th century version of headphones. In 1913, a newer version of the Kinetophone was marketed to the general public, and ended up producing 19 talking pictures. The presenter mentioned that one of the negative side effects of this piece of technology was that the motion picture with sound was only viewable by one person at a time, as illustrated in the picture below. As technology progressed throughout later years, brilliant minds devised ways for motion pictures to be viewed by the general public, while accompanied by sound. 

In France, during 1895, inventors and brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière create a projector with the ability to display up to sixteen photographs per second. Titled the Cinématographe, the invention allowed for motion pictures to run more smoothly, making them less stop-and-start, and more video-like. 

The Lumière's Cinématographe

The earliest film's displayed to the public were made up of short videos, like animals or children, in clips only a couple seconds long. However, the Lumière brothers managed to film a 50-second long clip of a train arriving in a French station in 1896. The film shows both the train moving and people at the station walking and watching the locomotive. I read online that this feat was so shocking to the public, who had never seen something quite like it, that part of the audience was scared the train would travel through the screen and crash into them. 

Cinematography and the motion picture progress further in the early 1900s, when narrative film making became popularized, and motion pictures began to tell a story. Keeping in mind that these films were still completely void of color and sound, the ability of inventors to produce technology with the purpose of capturing live moments was astounding during this era. 

In 1927, the first motion picture is produced with sound, titled The Jazz Singer. While still in black and

white, the film was created using a sound and disc system under Warner Bros. Pictures. The movie was about an hour and 20 minutes long, including both dialogue and musical numbers, and a detailed plot line. This production marked the era of the rising popularity of the film entertainment industry. Through the 1920s, nearly 100 million people purchased tickets to see movies, on a weekly basis. Ticket prices remained affordable, so almost all economic classes were in attendance. Movies were, and are, arguably the most popular form of entertainment in our media industry.

EOTO: The Typewriter

The Invention

The history of the typewriter begins in 1714, when English inventor Henry Mill filed a patent for a machine that "transcribes" letters into a sequence. The document was extremely vague in both its wording and description of the machine. Mill named the machine a typograph, but never successfully invented the idea that was presented within the patent. 

This is the typewriter that historians envisioned Mill's designed, based upon his patent.

 

The next documented event in the typewriter's history occurred in 1808, when Pellegrino Turri invented the first known working typewriter. The story told is that the Italian inventor came up with the invention for Countess Carolina Fantoni de Fivizzano. He wanted to help his friend to write letters back and forth. Another version says that the Countess was blind, and another recounts that the Countess' brother built the machine. The controversy around the invention of the first working typewriter does not end there, with conflict over whether the inventor was Italian, English, or American. However, my research has shown that the earliest documented evidence of the machine was a letter written by the Countess, pictured below. 

In 1868, the sewing machine company Remington and Sons bought the patent for a working typewriter from American Inventor Christopher Sholes and his associate Carlos Glidden. The company was the first to produce and sell a typewriter on the market for the general public. Just five short years after purchasing the patent, the Remington typewriter hit the market in 1874. The first version of the Remington typewriter typed in all capital letters because it lacked a shift key change, and included the original cylindrical design that allowed for letter and line spacing, as well as an inked ribbon for printing. It had a QWERTY patterned keyboard, which is still in use today.

The Remington

The Remington no. 2 was first produced in 1878. This typewriter was revolutionary with its use of both upper and lower case letters. In this video illustrating use of a Remington no. 2 typewriter, it is clear to see the key shift change on the left side of the machine to switch from upper to lower case letters. This is also a great visual demonstration of the use of a typewriter in general, where the wire attached keys hit the page as the escapement moves the page across the top to form a line. 

The Remington no. 2

American inventor James Smathers revolutionized the typewriter world by creating the first electric typewriter in 1920. Originally, in 1872, Thomas Edison had designed an electric machine that functioned as a typewriter does. However, he went on to create the Universal Stock Ticker, a machine that continuously reported changes in stock prices. Smathers fine tunes Edison's design to produce the first commercial, electric typewriter. This design was powered by an electric motor, allowing the user to hit one key and initiate the key stroke and carriage motion. The electric typewriter made typing faster and more efficient, and became a staple in offices throughout this time period. 

Wartime

During World War I, the typewriter was a crucial communication element. The machine was used for paperwork in all military offices, both contracts, letters, and other correspondence between people during wartime. The typewriter had advanced to be easily portable and lighter than previous models. 

The decline of the typewriter begins during World War II, when the typewriter is used more for scrap metal than important communication between military personage. IBM had submitted patents at this point for the first computer-like devices, and had begun production. The electric typewriter had become very advanced and was still in use, but on its way out as the computer began its climb to popularity. 

The End

The final chapter of the typewriter occurs in 2011, when Godrej and Boyce close its last typewriter-specific factory in India. Previously, many third world countries had been mainly using typewriters due to their lack of electricity and funds. In America, computers for both personal and office use have become mainstream at this point in time, and the typewriter is practically obsolete. However, the typewriter still serves a couple of uses in today's time of personal laptops, office desktop computers, tablets and smartphones. The chart below shows the industries that currently use the typewriter the most.

The typewriter is beneficial to type onto already printed out documents, such as death certificates. Prisons utilize typewriters to allow their prisoners to write letters or other projects while limiting their access to the internet. Some smaller divisions in the government, as well as banks, use typewriters to fill in documents that cannot be accessed through an online computer. Many have typewriters in their homes that have been passed down through generations and serve as a parlor trick for grandkids, or an author's methodism. The typewriter can now be described as vintage. You are still able to purchase a typewriter on websites like Ebay. These typewriters run anywhere from $200 to $1,000+, in comparison to the same typewriters that cost about $67 in 1950. There are still very few companies that make and produce typewriters for commercial purchases. The two companies with the most "power" over the very tiny modern typewriter industry are Nakajima and Royal. 

The Impact

Though the typewriter has fallen behind in the last couple decades of the communication technology race, it has made a continual impression on the world of online connectivity. The main factor of the typewriter that we see today is the QWERTY keyboard. The original typewriter's keyboard was modeled this way, and it has stuck in today's technology. Take a look at your own keyboard; I can almost guarantee that it is organized in the same way that the 1868 Remington I keyboard was. 

There is something to be said about the efficiency of immediately having the typed product by using a typewriter, instead of having to write a document on a computer and then go through the process of printing it out. Though the typewriter is a slower typing tool that lacks the fancy gadgets of a computer keyboard, it was the first invention to type anything and everything. From the typewriter, computers, printers and tablets were born. Each of these machines were inspired from Henry Mill's vague idea of an invention that "transcribes" letters into a sequence.