So has human being transended on earth in the last week? not quite but you could be excused for thinking he/she might have done based on the coverage of the anauguration of the 44th American President. In case you havn't noticed, the etheral Barack Obama was sworn in on Tuesday, albeit for slight cockup which meant it had to be repeated the next day; though according to a pupil I teach, it was an intentional cockup to show after all he is still a squalid human being. Now I've nothing against Barack Obama he cannot control the hysteria that has swamped his campaign and currently crowns him as saviour of America and the world. In times of darkness/economies going tits up and wars with semi-visible enemies, a ray of light offers hope and promise. But as Nietzsche desrcibes "Hope is the most evil of evils, because it prolongs man's torment." For the sake of millions of people I hope not but to place the responability out of sheer desperation on the shoulders of one person surely is too much.
"We will not walk in fear of one another" Quote of the day, the title of this piece is the film.
CBS news caster Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) questions Joseph McCarthy on his campaign to purg communists in the the USA. The film highlights the pressures that were placed on Murrow to stop documenting evidence that suggested McCarthy's policy was based on fear and paranoia. Milo Radulovich a Air Force Lieutenant accused of being a communist had been tried without his lawyer ever seeing the brown envolope containing the prosecutors evidence. Murrow documented this and continued to amass and transmit more shows despite mounting pressure from CBS management and sponsers. After a show that directly targeted McCarthy backed up with the trial of Annie Lee Moss (a commuication worker at the Pentagon tried based on a FBI infiltrator seeing her name on the memebers list of the American Communist Party) and response from McCarthy portraying Murrow as a communist is prooved false, McCarthy is brought in front of the senate to explain his policy.
The film is framed by performance of the speech given by Murrow to the Radio and Television News Directors Association in 1958, in which Murrow harshly admonishes his audience not to squander the potential of television to inform and educate the public.