more the engrish!

AS IS OBVIOUS FROM THE TITLE, THERE ARE NOW BUT FOUR DAYS UNTIL WE "MORALLY SUPERIOR" AMERICANS MAKE THAT FATEFUL DECISION as to where a 21st-century America ought go.

Which can only mean that the propaganda can only get all the more vile and disgusting from certain circles in this the final countdown.

Making this all the more relevant: Yesterday was the 60th anniversary of perhaps the single greatest demonstration of how radio's power and intrusion can be abused to the point of perverted--viz., the Mercury Theatre of the Air's dramatisation of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds under direction of Orson Welles, the pride(?!) of Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Said dramatisation being done in form of simulated radio news coverage and live remotes as sounded too realistic for many listeners to accept as drama, even to the point of mass hysteria ensuing throughout the country as listeners believed that Mars was invading Earth based on the various "bulletins" frequently heard throughout the first two-thirds of the drama.

Welles, however, waited until the end to "let the cat out of the bag," so to speak, with this dénoument explaining it all for you--or trying to in the face of the chaos outside:

This is Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen, out of character to assure you that The War of The Worlds has no further significance than as the holiday offering it was intended to be. The Mercury Theatre's own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying Boo! Starting now, we couldn't soap all your windows and steal all your garden gates by tomorrow night. . . so we did the best next thing. We annihiliated the world before your very ears, and utterly destroyed the C. B. S. You will be releieved, I hope, to learn that we didn't mean it, and that both institutions are still open for business. So goodbye everybody, and remember the terrible lesson you learned tonight. That grinning, glowing, globular invader of your living room is an inhabitant of the pumpkin patch, and if your doorbell rings and nobody's there, that was no Martian. . .it's Hallowe'en.

As it turned out, the Mercury Theatre's presentation of War of the Worlds in such a realistic stylee was deliberate. Payback, as it were, for one of the early episodes thereof being interrupted by a CBS newsflash announcing the infamous Munich accords (which brought, as then-British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain would say, "peace in our time"--howbeit on Nazi terms, as it turned out).

And, even more bizarrely, aided and abetted by a late programme change for The Chase and Sanborn Hour on rival NBC, which then dominated Sunday-night radio listening: The traditional early-show comedy sketch involving Edgar Bergen and his Little Wooden Pal, Charlie McCarthy, was cut back to accomodate an expanded musical interlude by resident vocalist Nelson Eddy. Frustrated listeners responded by twiddling their radio dials to find out what else was on the ether waves, and, more often than not, stumbled upon War of the Worlds--howbeit too late for them to know that it was a dramatisation (i.e., about ten minutes into the broadcast, when the first of the "bulletins" from the "Intercontinental Radio News" of the "Martian attack" was being broadcast), thus helping forment the belief among many listeners that Martians were invading Earth and laying all to waste.

And the furore wasn't exactly confined to New York and environs; as The New York Times reported on The Morning After, outbreaks of broadcast-related panic and hysteria were widespread:

Last night's radio "war scare" shocked thousands of men, women and children in the big cities throughout the country. Newspaper offices, police stations and radio stations were besieged with calls from anxious relatives of New Jersey residents, and in some places anxious groups discussed the impending menace of a disastrous war.

Most of the listeners who sought more information were widely confused over the reports they had heard, and many were indignant when they learned that fiction was the cause of their alarm.

In San Francisco the general impression of listeners seemed to be that an overwhelming force had invaded the United States from the air, was in the process of destroying New York and threatening to move westward. "My God," roared one inquirer into a telephone, "where can I volunteer my services? We've got to stop this awful thing."

Newspaper offices and radio stations in Chicago were swamped with telephone calls about the "meteor" that had fallen in New Jersey. Some said they had relatives in the "stricken area" and asked if the casualty list was available.

In parts of St. Louis men and women clustered in the streets in residential areas to discuss what they should do in the face of the sudden war. One suburban resident drove fifteen miles to a newspaper office to verify the radio "report."

In New Orleans a general impression prevailed that New Jersey had been devastated by the "invaders," but fewer inquiries were received than in other cities.

In Baltimore a woman engaged passage on an airliner for New York, where her daughter is in school.

The Associated Press gathered the following reports of reaction to the broadcast:

At Fayetteville, N. C., people with relatives in the section of New Jersey where the mythical visitation had its locale went to a newspaper office in tears, seeking information.

A message from Providence, R. I., said: "Weeping and hysterical women swamped the switchboard of The Providence Journal for details of the massacre and destruction at New York, and officials of the electric company received scores of calls urging them to turn off all lights so that the city would be safe from the enemy."

Mass hysteria mounted so high in some cases that people told the police and newspapers they "saw" the invasion.

The Boston Globe told of one woman who claimed she could "see the fire," and said she and many others in her neighborhood were "getting out of here."

Minneapolis and St. Paul police switchboards were deluged with calls from frightened people.

The Times-Dispatch in Richmond, Va., reported some of their telephone calls from people who said they were "praying."

The Kansas City bureau of The Associated Press received inquiries on the "meteors" from Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Beaumont, Texas, and St. Joseph, Mo., in addition to having its local switchboards flooded with calls. One telephone informant said he had loaded all his children into his car, had filled it with gasoline, and was going somewhere. "Where is it safe?" he wanted to know.

Atlanta reported that listeners throughout the Southeast "had it that a planet struck in New Jersey, with monsters and almost everything and anywhere from 40 to 7,000 people reported killed." Editors said responsible persons, known to them, were among the anxious information seekers.

In Birmingham, Ala., people gathered in groups and prayed, and Memphis had its full quota of weeping women calling in to learn the facts.

In Indianapolis a woman ran into a church screaming: "New York destroyed; it's the end of the world. You might as well go home to die. I just heard it on the radio." Services were dismissed immediately.

Five students at Brevard College, N. C., fainted and panic gripped the campus for a half hour with many students fighting for telephones to ask their parents to come and get them.

A man in Pittsburgh said he returned home in the midst of the broadcast and found his wife in the bathroom, a bottle of poison in her hand, and screaming: "I'd rather die this way than like that."

He calmed her, listened to the broadcast and then rushed to a telephone to get an explanation.

Officials of station CFRB, Toronto, said they never had had so many inquiries regarding a single broadcast, the Canadian Press reported.

Even CBS wound up having to eat crow in explaining the situation; again, The New York Times explains:

The Columbia Broadcasting System issued a statement saying that the adaptation of Mr. Welles' novel which was broadcast "followed the original closely, but to make the imaginary details more interesting to American listeners the adapter, Orson Welles, substituted an American locale for the English scenes of the story."

Pointing out that the fictional character of the broadcast had been announced four times and had been previously publicized, it continued:

"Nevertheless, the program apparently was produced with such vividness that some listeners who may have heard only fragments thought the broadcast was fact, not fiction. Hundreds of telephone calls reaching CBS stations, city authorities, newspaper offices and police headquarters in various cities testified to the mistaken belief.

"Naturally, it was neither Columbia's nor the Mercury Theatre's intention to mislead any one, and when it became evident that a part of the audience had been disturbed by the performance five announcements were read over the network later in the evening to reassure those listeners."

Expressing profound regret that his dramatic efforts should cause such consternation, Mr. Welles said: "I don't think we will choose anything like this again." He hesitated about presenting it, he disclosed, because "it was our thought that perhaps people might be bored or annoyed at hearing a tale so improbable."

Within days, CBS issued this statement in response to the broadcast's producing such hysteria in extremis:

In order that this may not happen again, the program department hereafter will not use the technique of a stimulated news broadcast within a dramatization when the circumstances of the broadcast could cause immediate alarm to numbers of listeners.

It would also emerge in the ensuing fallout that H.G. Wells himself did not allow for such excesses of dramatic licence in allowing The Mercury Theatre of the Air to so dramatise War of the Worlds:

LONDON, (AP). H. G. Wells, whose "War of the Worlds" furnished the basis of the broadcast which spread alarm in the United States Sunday night, said that it was "implicit" in the agreement for selling the radio rights that any broadcast would clearly "be fiction and not news." The novelist added that he gave no permission whatever for alterations which might lead to the belief that the broadcast material was real news.

[***]

(From a later, related dispatch, under dateline of New York:)

Jacques Chambrun, literary representative for H. G. Wells, said the famous British author was "deeply concerned" that the radio dramatization of his book should have spread alarm in the country. Chambrun said Wells cabled him from London Monday morning, declaring that "the Columbia Broadcasting System and Mr. Orson Welles have far overstepped their rights in the matter***and should make a full retraction."

He said Wells cabled that the radio dramatization was made "with a liberty that amounts to a complete rewriting" and made Wells' novel into "an entirely different story."  

Has the McCain/Palin campaign in particular--let alone their close droogs in conservative propaganda prolefeed--learned these Lessons and Warnings from History?