www.scene4.com

Castle Keep... Revised

Arthur Danin Adler - Scene4 Magazine | www.scene4.com

Arthur Danín Adler

It was a film.

Two Films.

I watched All the President's Men, produced by Alan Pakula and Robert Redford in 1976. I watched it for the fourth time, maybe the fifth.

I watched All the President's Men Revisited, also produced by Redford in 2013.

I watched and stared.

What was this all about, over 40 years ago, when there were few personal computers,  no internet, no social media, no mobile phones. Who were these people, these people in America. I was one of them. I had a wife and children and a theatre company. I watched the Washington Post runup to the Watergate hearings. I watched the menacing churn of the hearings, day after day. I watched a crooked man with a crooked smile absolved and pardoned.

Over 40 years ago, or was it 100 years ago, or was it the 19th century after the Civil War or 18th century France after its revolution. I stared at the images and my memories as they dug up an archaeological site. It was then.

Then began dissolving during the last years of Bill Clinton with the advent of the Digital Age. It continued to melt away with Bush and Obama.

Other than the stupidity of 9/11 and the monstrosity of the Iraq war, Bush was a cipher.

Obama, Barry Obama of Harvard, was a political naïf, a talker not a doer, a caretaker who minded eight years as they went by and made certain he would be a "historical" president, the great chalk mark on the historical list marking the 1st Black president and opening the way for the first woman president (which never happened). He accomplished little, smiled broadly, and carefully carved his good fortune into the rest of his life. He also paved the way for the zombie who followed him.

No matter. Government has always been by the few, for the few and it shall not perish from the Earth until the species disappears.

There would have been no Watergate if Nixon hadn't been a paranoid, a failed narcissist, and an alcoholic. No matter. Post Nixon would have been the same.

It is the same

The narrow-eyed politico and pundit, James Carville, smiled it this way:

"One thing about Watergate, it was going to change the culture of Washington. It did no such thing. You know that of course this kind of thing is going to happen again. It's going to happen again on a much, much bigger scale."

Nothing to revise.

Send Us Your
Comments On This Article

Share This Page

View other readers’ comments in Letters to the Editor

Arthur Danin Adler - Scene4 Magazine | www.scene4.com
Arthur Danín Adler is a playwright, writer and the founding Editor of Scene4. He is the author of Medea Noir, directs the Talos Ensemble and produces for Aemagefilms. More at Darcy-Kane. His latest book,
The Lyriana Nocturnes, will be published this year.
For more of his commentary and articles,
check the Archives.

©2020 Arthur Danín Adler
©2020 Publication Scene4 Magazine

 

torchsong1-cr90Writings
Index of Danín Adler’s
columns and writings in
Scene4.
Click Here for Access

 

www.scene4.com

May 2020

  Sections~Cover · This Issue · inFocus · inView · inSight · Perspectives · Special Issues
  Columns~Adler · Alenier · Bettencourt · Jones · Luce · Marcott · Walsh 
  Information~Masthead · Submissions · Prior Issues · Your Support · Archives · Books
  Connections~Contact Us · Comments · Subscribe · Advertising · Privacy · Terms · Letters


Search Current Issue | Search Archives | Share Page

Scene4 (ISSN 1932-3603), published monthly by Scene4 Magazine–International Magazine
of Arts and Culture. Copyright © 2000-2020 Aviar-Dka Ltd – Aviar Media Llc.


www,scene4.comSubscribe to our mail list for news and a monthly update of each new issue. It’s Free!
 Name

 Email Address


Please see our Privacy Policy regarding the security of your information.