First published in Scottish Socialist Voice, No. 326 (16th-29th May 2008), p.9
American television may not be as well known for its political radicalism as it is for its glamor and may in fact be better characterised as inherently conservative and reactionary than socially challenging. Yet there are, of course, notable exceptions to this rule. The most recent of these is Jericho; a show which has already been and gone as far as TV networks are concerned but which, fans are arguing, should not only be remembered but resurrected as well.
The story of Jericho begins with a series of nuclear bombs being set off in twenty-three US cities, including Washington. This could well set the scene for the most horrendous example of Islamophobia since whatever series of 24 was last churned out, but instead it has resulted in the most astute and radical analysis of corporate power in America that may ever have been shown on television.
The first series of the show demonstrates the complexities of a small-scale society coping with uncertainty and extreme scarcity, as towns all over the country are deprived of information, electricity, and food. While Jericho, Kansas, the particular town that the series focuses on, manages to retain some semblance of a working democracy, with a new mayor being elected with as much scaremongering and rhetoric on show as any liberal political system, other towns develop and cope with the new situation in different ways. In New Bern, the town neighbouring Jericho, the sheriff becomes leader and runs the town along noticeably fascist lines, investing heavily in military industry.
This first series contains so many subtle and accurate dissections of competing political theories that it would take a much longer article to describe in a fair manner, but the careful unpicking of the largely Anarchistic theories that were floating around during the conception of modern America makes the series worth a serious look in alone. Ought society to priorities liberal capitalism, even on a small scale, or should resources be distributed according to need and not ability to pay? This is just one debate Jericho attempts to present to the viewer.
However, if the first series acted as a slow simmering of political thought, the second cuts straight to the chase. After the initial run, due to dropping audience numbers, the series was canceled, but the pressure put on CBS, the station that funded and screened Jericho, was so great that the executives deemed a second series necessary to round off the story. So, a further seven episodes were produced which, while not displaying the subtly of the first series, construct a fantastically piercing criticism of contemporary American imperialism. In brief, Jericho ends up accusing the Bush administration for the attacks of September 11th, and justifies, though not unqualifiedly, the resistance in Iraq.
Towards the end of series one, the residents of Jericho slowly piece together small strands of information and are able to build up a partial picture of the country they are now living in. In the second series it transpires that America has been divided into three separate entities on the brink of civil war. The Allied States of America holds control of an area which includes Kansas and so Jericho.
This government administers the region through a corporation called Jennings & Raul, which uses a private army of contractors, Ravenwood, famed for their brutality in Iraq, to suppress a rising insurgency against the new rulers.
As the series runs on, it becomes clearer and clearer that Jennings & Raul had a hand in planning and carrying out the attacks and have aimed to increase their grip on the decision making process in American politics. Jericho, like other towns in the new nation, revolts violently against the Jennings & Raul administration and the Ravenwood mercenaries.
The point has been spelled out well on some of the fan forums that have grown on the internet in relation to Jericho: replace the bombings of twenty-three cities with the attack on just one (the nuclear bomb detonations become increasingly referred to as the September attacks); replace Kansas with Iraq (a region invaded by an occupying army); replace Jericho with Basra, or Baghdad, or any Iraqi town; replace Jennings & Raul with Halliburton (Dick Cheney’s old company which has far to much influence in policy making than should be acceptable even in a liberal democracy); replace Ravenwood with Blackwater (the private contractors criticised heavily for the impunity with which they operate in Iraq).
Jericho not only offers a sharp critique of both American foreign policy and the role corporations play in American politics. It lays the blame for September 11th at the White House door, or at least at the doors of the multinationals which had so much to gain from the invasions and occupations that were to follow. In addition to this, by portraying an American resistance to occupation, the show justifies to some extent, or at the very least attempts to understand, an Iraqi resistance to one.
This radical stance on modern politics turned out to be all too challenging for many viewers of the show and audience numbers dropped steadily even throughout the second series. Comments on online forums back up the claim that Jericho’s ‘lefty’ position is still denied a place in the mainstream of American cultural life. However, the shows producers, who deserve an honourable mention (so here it is: Jon Turteltaub, Stephen Chbosky and Carol Barbee), have been reported to be in talks with several American networks with the aim of, as fans have been pushing for, a resurrection of Jericho. To show support for Jericho, head to either bringbackjericho.co.uk or jerichorallypoint.com. And if you want to watch Jericho for yourself, then the DVDs are available to buy, or you can watch it online at alluc.org.
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