Sharp Stick "Inglourious Basterds" a lesson to learn, Kerry, Hatch, Huckabee, Olson -Liars ALL,
Stafford Williamson
September 04, 2009
I wanted to start today´s column with a tug-at-your-heartstrings portrait of a young lady I met recently. One whose smile melted my heart, and whose Herculean effort to form even a word much less a whole sentence was awe inspiring to behold. But I must postpone my tiny tribute to that indomitable spirit because I am overwhelmed with grief.
Overwhelmed
Oh, I am sure that I feel almost as destitute as anyone outside the immediate family to be deprived to the sometimes equally heroic efforts of Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy (D, MA) but that´s not what has left me so flat. It was actually an encounter with a pair of Teddy´s friends on This Week with George Stephanopolous this weekend that leaves me feeling just barely above despair, or perhaps it is even greater than the depths of despair I am feeling. Can you blame me?
There sat two of the more respected politicians of our country, invited on the program to give perspective (and doubtlessly, add their praises) to the passing of Senator Kennedy, and in the first minute or two they have both pronounced bald-faced lies. Senator John Kerry (D. MA) and Senator Orrin Hatch (R. Utah) are two political icons who, within their own respective political parties at least, have been held in the highest of esteem at least from time to time. What hope then can we hold that "politics" in the USA can be expected to have any integrity whatsoever when both immediately resort to blatant lies and distortions to argue their positions on pending healthcare legislation. I don´t have access to a transcript of the show at the moment, and I was so outraged and disgusted that I immediately lost track of what those heinous distortions were, but I assure you that truth, never mind fair minded assessments of the opposing position, was never a factor in the arguments they made for their distortions.
Frankly it was also a bit unseemly that so much of the tribute to Senator Kennedy that took place at the John F. Kennedy library had been so stacked with pleas and assurances that the best memorial to Senator Kennedy would be to pass a meaningful health insurance reform package. Though it was also not less unseemly that Senator Orrin Hatch took more time than any other speaker to detail how he had been such an important and major contributor to virtually all of the health care provisions and legislative accomplishments of Senator Kennedy in his 4 decades as a member of the United States Senate, with an emphasis on how Senator Kennedy was constantly seeking Hatch´s approval (according to Hatch, himself) after apparently vicious exchanges on the Senate floor.
Twisted Governor
Then too, there is the Gov. Mike Huckabee´s outrageous distortion that claims President Obama´s plan would have had government medical advisors "urging" Senator Kennedy to "take a pill and go home" to die when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor one year ago. Huckabee´s Thursday remarks were quoted in the Huffington Post as "[I]t was President Obama himself who suggested that seniors who don't have as long to live might want to consider just taking a pain pill instead of getting an expensive operation to cure them." Since most of the people who read my column are at least a little better informed than the average American, I hope I can assume that you know that the provision (which was not "dropped from the Senate bill", just from the Finance Committee´s version of the Senate bill) which Sarah Palin twisted into her infamous "death squads" accusation was in fact a provision that provided for a Medicare benefit which would allow doctors (just your regular primary care physician, not some thanatologist or gerontologist) to be reimbursed under a treatment coding for "end of life counseling". [Which as has frequently been reported was a provision in a bill supported by Governor Palin in the Alaskan Legislature last year.]
Governor Huckabee was not the first to twist President Obama´s pill versus pacemaker hypothetical example, Senator Dan Lundgren (R. CA) made a similar claim in July, which Politifact investigated with the final word that, "We rate Lungren's claim False."
The ignorance, as usual, is unbelievable but overwhelming in evidence. One opponent claimed that physicist, Nobel Laureate, "Stephen Hawkins would never have survived under British [National] healthcare." Of course, Stephen Hawking was born and has thus far lived all his life under the single-payer National Healthcare system in Britain. And then there´s the case of Congressman Pete Olson (R-Texas) claiming at a recent town hall meeting that a child might never had been born (or certainly not survived) if it had happened under Obama´s government option healthcare according to the mother. The audience had so readily bought into the distortion presented that logic failed to prevail when other members of the audience shouted, "That´s not true," and "The insurance company turned her down, not the government," an audience member said. "The private insurance turned her down, not the government," called out another calmly, but it seems that logic, facts and certainly intelligence are no longer any part of political discussions. Which brings me back to the town of Valle Vista, Arizona.
No shortage of ignorance
Valle Vista is in Northwest Arizona, about 15 miles outside of Kingman. I´ve been to Kingman many times, just passing through on my way to some convention or other (NAB, Comdex, etc.) in Las Vegas, and I frankly don´t remember passing through Valle Vista though I might have. But the citizens there are determined not to allow a biodiesel processing plant to foul their fair city (? Town? Village?). Phoenix independent television news reported the scene. "They want to ruin our way of life," Richard Veradt, a local resident, proclaimed. Fires, explosions and untold imaginary scenes of horror and destruction of natural beauty apparently swirled thought their heads. The proposed site was not even in the Valle Vista borders but about a mile away. Las Vegas-based Sun West Biofuels is attempting to get the US$30 million plant built, next step is the Mojave County Board of Supervisors, since although opponents outnumbered supporters at the Mojave County Commissioners, they approved the proposal anyway. Supporters say that jobs and tax revenues are too good to pass up. Opponents found some support in the single opposing vote from Commissioner Bill Abbott, who said, "I believe if we approve this, we're saying we're okaying heavy industrial in that area." I take it we can likely conclude that Commissioner Abbott has either never seen a biodiesel plant or has never actually encountered any actual "heavy" industry, unless, of course, logic, facts and intelligence also play no part in his politics either.
Dancing with Hitler at the Movies
Just to be clear, there is a reason why the film isn't called "Inglorious Bastards" and that is because it is the American title of an Italian made film from 1978, starring Fred Williamson and Bo Svenson (at least in the American billings). Incidentally Bo Svenson plays an American officer in the Tarantino film.
Here's a version of the Tarantino film trailer.
Oh, and before I forget, you may have missed Mike Myers as the British intelligence officer (everybody want to be in a Tarantino filme), a perfectly subdued performance.
Inglourious Basterds the new film from Quentin Tarantino
is failing to impress dim-witted critics worldwide. Fortunately, not all of them are so dim-witted, and I´ll hold up Huffington Post writer Mark Blankenship as an example of one whose wits are sharper than some others. In his review, Blankenship points out that this is not some silly revenge comedy about bashing Nazi´s. It is a marvelously entertaining movie. It does have some fairly funny moments, and as inPulp Fiction the violence is often sudden, severe and shocking. But it has the same theme as Kill Bill 1 and 2, the endless agony and suffering inflicted on both individuals when the vendetta is personal, and on society when an assumption of justification of revenge is taken. As Blankenship says, about Inglourious Basterds "that theme is how revenge cripples societies."
He is dead-on (pun intended) when he points to the scene in which the SS Officers and friends are cheering the lone sniper assassinating every approaching American soldier with dead-eye single-shot accuracy, where thinking people are likely to notice that we ourselves, as the audience to the film have been manipulated into looking forward to the mass destruction of the Nazi´s trapped in the burning theater.
Tarantino has woven a tale that manipulates our sympathies in a perfect propaganda message about how horrific the Nazi´s are, but at the same time litters the story with hints like Lt. Aldo Raines obsession with scalp-taking of the Nazi´s they kill. This brutal battle tactic which most audience members associate with Wild West stories of American Indians was actually taught to the Indians by Europeans so that when the bodies of opposing forces were found thus brutalized on the battlefield, the Indian allies (or their enemies) would seem all the more frightening (and inhuman). This myth was amplified by Hollywood as a means of de-humanizing the Indians being slaughtered in "cowboy" movies. There is no doubt that the highly effective scalping scenes in Inglourious Basterds amply demonstrate at least a hint of how effective that could have been in the real history of the American continent.
Mr. Blankenship encapsulates it perfectly in his sentence that states, "Inglourious Basterds is an unsettling examination of how culturally acceptable hatred creates a terrifying mob mentality."
Happy Ending
I would take it a step further to say that Mr. Tarantino is sounding a wake-up call to those thoughtful enough to recognize it; that we need to heed that lesson today with respect to all people of this earth.
Love and warm wishes,
Sincerely,
Stafford "Doc" Williamson
http://daochienergy.com
Overwhelmed
Oh, I am sure that I feel almost as destitute as anyone outside the immediate family to be deprived to the sometimes equally heroic efforts of Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy (D, MA) but that´s not what has left me so flat. It was actually an encounter with a pair of Teddy´s friends on This Week with George Stephanopolous this weekend that leaves me feeling just barely above despair, or perhaps it is even greater than the depths of despair I am feeling. Can you blame me?
There sat two of the more respected politicians of our country, invited on the program to give perspective (and doubtlessly, add their praises) to the passing of Senator Kennedy, and in the first minute or two they have both pronounced bald-faced lies. Senator John Kerry (D. MA) and Senator Orrin Hatch (R. Utah) are two political icons who, within their own respective political parties at least, have been held in the highest of esteem at least from time to time. What hope then can we hold that "politics" in the USA can be expected to have any integrity whatsoever when both immediately resort to blatant lies and distortions to argue their positions on pending healthcare legislation. I don´t have access to a transcript of the show at the moment, and I was so outraged and disgusted that I immediately lost track of what those heinous distortions were, but I assure you that truth, never mind fair minded assessments of the opposing position, was never a factor in the arguments they made for their distortions.
Frankly it was also a bit unseemly that so much of the tribute to Senator Kennedy that took place at the John F. Kennedy library had been so stacked with pleas and assurances that the best memorial to Senator Kennedy would be to pass a meaningful health insurance reform package. Though it was also not less unseemly that Senator Orrin Hatch took more time than any other speaker to detail how he had been such an important and major contributor to virtually all of the health care provisions and legislative accomplishments of Senator Kennedy in his 4 decades as a member of the United States Senate, with an emphasis on how Senator Kennedy was constantly seeking Hatch´s approval (according to Hatch, himself) after apparently vicious exchanges on the Senate floor.
Twisted Governor
Then too, there is the Gov. Mike Huckabee´s outrageous distortion that claims President Obama´s plan would have had government medical advisors "urging" Senator Kennedy to "take a pill and go home" to die when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor one year ago. Huckabee´s Thursday remarks were quoted in the Huffington Post as "[I]t was President Obama himself who suggested that seniors who don't have as long to live might want to consider just taking a pain pill instead of getting an expensive operation to cure them." Since most of the people who read my column are at least a little better informed than the average American, I hope I can assume that you know that the provision (which was not "dropped from the Senate bill", just from the Finance Committee´s version of the Senate bill) which Sarah Palin twisted into her infamous "death squads" accusation was in fact a provision that provided for a Medicare benefit which would allow doctors (just your regular primary care physician, not some thanatologist or gerontologist) to be reimbursed under a treatment coding for "end of life counseling". [Which as has frequently been reported was a provision in a bill supported by Governor Palin in the Alaskan Legislature last year.]
Governor Huckabee was not the first to twist President Obama´s pill versus pacemaker hypothetical example, Senator Dan Lundgren (R. CA) made a similar claim in July, which Politifact investigated with the final word that, "We rate Lungren's claim False."
The ignorance, as usual, is unbelievable but overwhelming in evidence. One opponent claimed that physicist, Nobel Laureate, "Stephen Hawkins would never have survived under British [National] healthcare." Of course, Stephen Hawking was born and has thus far lived all his life under the single-payer National Healthcare system in Britain. And then there´s the case of Congressman Pete Olson (R-Texas) claiming at a recent town hall meeting that a child might never had been born (or certainly not survived) if it had happened under Obama´s government option healthcare according to the mother. The audience had so readily bought into the distortion presented that logic failed to prevail when other members of the audience shouted, "That´s not true," and "The insurance company turned her down, not the government," an audience member said. "The private insurance turned her down, not the government," called out another calmly, but it seems that logic, facts and certainly intelligence are no longer any part of political discussions. Which brings me back to the town of Valle Vista, Arizona.
No shortage of ignorance
Valle Vista is in Northwest Arizona, about 15 miles outside of Kingman. I´ve been to Kingman many times, just passing through on my way to some convention or other (NAB, Comdex, etc.) in Las Vegas, and I frankly don´t remember passing through Valle Vista though I might have. But the citizens there are determined not to allow a biodiesel processing plant to foul their fair city (? Town? Village?). Phoenix independent television news reported the scene. "They want to ruin our way of life," Richard Veradt, a local resident, proclaimed. Fires, explosions and untold imaginary scenes of horror and destruction of natural beauty apparently swirled thought their heads. The proposed site was not even in the Valle Vista borders but about a mile away. Las Vegas-based Sun West Biofuels is attempting to get the US$30 million plant built, next step is the Mojave County Board of Supervisors, since although opponents outnumbered supporters at the Mojave County Commissioners, they approved the proposal anyway. Supporters say that jobs and tax revenues are too good to pass up. Opponents found some support in the single opposing vote from Commissioner Bill Abbott, who said, "I believe if we approve this, we're saying we're okaying heavy industrial in that area." I take it we can likely conclude that Commissioner Abbott has either never seen a biodiesel plant or has never actually encountered any actual "heavy" industry, unless, of course, logic, facts and intelligence also play no part in his politics either.
Dancing with Hitler at the Movies
Just to be clear, there is a reason why the film isn't called "Inglorious Bastards" and that is because it is the American title of an Italian made film from 1978, starring Fred Williamson and Bo Svenson (at least in the American billings). Incidentally Bo Svenson plays an American officer in the Tarantino film.
Here's a version of the Tarantino film trailer.
Oh, and before I forget, you may have missed Mike Myers as the British intelligence officer (everybody want to be in a Tarantino filme), a perfectly subdued performance.
Inglourious Basterds the new film from Quentin Tarantino
is failing to impress dim-witted critics worldwide. Fortunately, not all of them are so dim-witted, and I´ll hold up Huffington Post writer Mark Blankenship as an example of one whose wits are sharper than some others. In his review, Blankenship points out that this is not some silly revenge comedy about bashing Nazi´s. It is a marvelously entertaining movie. It does have some fairly funny moments, and as inPulp Fiction the violence is often sudden, severe and shocking. But it has the same theme as Kill Bill 1 and 2, the endless agony and suffering inflicted on both individuals when the vendetta is personal, and on society when an assumption of justification of revenge is taken. As Blankenship says, about Inglourious Basterds "that theme is how revenge cripples societies."
He is dead-on (pun intended) when he points to the scene in which the SS Officers and friends are cheering the lone sniper assassinating every approaching American soldier with dead-eye single-shot accuracy, where thinking people are likely to notice that we ourselves, as the audience to the film have been manipulated into looking forward to the mass destruction of the Nazi´s trapped in the burning theater.
Tarantino has woven a tale that manipulates our sympathies in a perfect propaganda message about how horrific the Nazi´s are, but at the same time litters the story with hints like Lt. Aldo Raines obsession with scalp-taking of the Nazi´s they kill. This brutal battle tactic which most audience members associate with Wild West stories of American Indians was actually taught to the Indians by Europeans so that when the bodies of opposing forces were found thus brutalized on the battlefield, the Indian allies (or their enemies) would seem all the more frightening (and inhuman). This myth was amplified by Hollywood as a means of de-humanizing the Indians being slaughtered in "cowboy" movies. There is no doubt that the highly effective scalping scenes in Inglourious Basterds amply demonstrate at least a hint of how effective that could have been in the real history of the American continent.
Mr. Blankenship encapsulates it perfectly in his sentence that states, "Inglourious Basterds is an unsettling examination of how culturally acceptable hatred creates a terrifying mob mentality."
Happy Ending
I would take it a step further to say that Mr. Tarantino is sounding a wake-up call to those thoughtful enough to recognize it; that we need to heed that lesson today with respect to all people of this earth.
Love and warm wishes,
Sincerely,
Stafford "Doc" Williamson
http://daochienergy.com
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