… For a big fan of his work. Here is part one of a six part interview with Woody Harrelson on Zinn’s most famous incendiary material, A People’s History of the United States. RIP Howard Zinn.
Chris
Tag Archives: Wars
Question of the Week
To give some background information before I pose the question, the famous above photo was taken following the My Lai masacre during the Vietnam War in 1968. Hundreds of innocent, unarmed civilians, mostly women and children were brutally murdered. Even though over a dozen soliders particpated in the crime, only one was convicted, officer William Cally, who ordered the masacre. He initially was given a life sentence, but Nixon eventually paroled him. At the time, many protested Cally’s conviction, mostly patriotic/chauvinistic Americans, but also critics of the war and the miltary’s policies. The latter’s logic being that millions of innocent civilians had been murdered throughout the war and that this was not an isolated incident, but rather a common policy. Now, my question is should we imprision such individuals for their crimes or ignore them because others clearly do not receive the same treatment?
Chris
Film Review: Avatar
Full Title: Avatar
Director: James Cameron
Year: 2009
Grade: B+
If you are thinking of seeing this in any other venue then IMAX, then you need your head examined and then chopped off and kicked down the street like a soccer ball a la George Bush Sr. for you Bill Hicks fans :) But, seriously, it’s worth shelling out the extra smackers to experience this 3D Sci Fi mega blockbuster in an IMAX theater. The sound is simply exquiste. Of course your 3D glasses make the film all the more epic and exciting i.e. people running past you, objects thrown in your direction, and my personal favorite, being chased by an enormous, ferocious animal about to tear you to shreds as you pathetically attempt to foil his monstruous ability to jostle you to and fro. Now, I must admit, I am biased here, in the sense that I am not the biggest fan of Sci Fi, War, Action, or any sort of “epic” film, for the most part. Perhaps if this was an off colour comedy with some young, chic, unconventionally beautiful actress and her hipster, male co star with a soundtrack dominated by my low fi favorites I would probably rate it higher than this even if it was of lesser quality. So, keep that in mind while I disect the film for the remainder of the review. To begin, of course it was visually goregous and the action was entertaining. The story was sound and actually unexpected, at least for me. Briefly, the plot concerns a young jarhead marine named Jake Sully, who is sent on a mission in which he becomes part of an entirely foreign world called Pandora, literally becoming like this new species: blue, tail, etc. As his tenure on the planet continues he questions the military’s motives for his mission and their future plans with the planet. Soon, he finds himself at home and decides to follow a new path. SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!
I must say that I really dig the way Jake joins his new blue comrades and does the right thing by helping them fight off their oppressors/occupiers: the American Military. Kinda subversive for such a mainstream film! It would be like an American soldier in Vitenam, who is sent on a mission to be a Viet Cong informant and then he “betrays” the yankies for his new KONG brothers. That would be cool sorta ahah.
Overall: Once again, I don’t typically get boners over these kinds of films, but it was a decent flick, certainly worth seeing at least once. All in all, overrated, with that being said, the story was solid, the acting was nothing special, but worked just fine, and well you know in terms of visual/special effects and what have you, it was top notch.
P.S. Jay Reatard- Turning Blue should have appeared on the soundtrack. What did they expcect Disco? Boring fucks…
Chris
FUCK THE TROOPS!
Alright, so let’s take turns shoving our cocks inside these brave men and women to show our support! Kidding…. In fact, the truth is I have never professed to such narrow minded slogans as “fuck the troops” or “support the troops” blah blah blah. Of course I support them; support as in wish them no harm. Now, if you mean support as in condone their activity, then fuck no! I personally don’t believe they are defending our freedom and civil liberties. But, those that support the military seem to espouse to this ignorant way of thinking and yet they so blatantly contradict themselvse often. As I mentioned before they claim that they fight for our freedom and yet whenever such (often tasteless and cruel) groups like “fuck the troops” arise, they are the first ones to petition for it’s censorship. Welly welly well, here’s a pickle. Why would you remove the free speech you supposedly die for?! Free speech is free speech. An extremely apropos Noam Chomsky quote comes to mind whenever I see such behavior: ” If you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in freedom of speech for views you don’t like. Goebbels was in favor of freedom of speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re in favor of freedom of speech, that means you’re in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise.” Let’s not mince words here. I wholeheartedly sympathize for our brave men and women, whom selflessly thrust themselves into harm’s way and in many cases parish for what they see as a noble cause. That’s really intesne and admirable. They definitely don’t deserve to be treated like trash. So, how do we solve our little dilemma? For starters, we can inform ourselves of what is actually happening instead of blindly following traditional doctrine. I suggest those that favor free speech to be consistent in their views, no matter how they feel about the military or foreign policy. I recommend the pansies that initate these mean groups like FTT to consider the sacrifices their fellow men and women are making and more importantly how ineffective and destructive their means of speech is to the antiwar movement. Finally, y’all military brats and friends and family of such to open your eyes to the atrocious crimes our governement is committing and has always committed against millions of innocent people each day, including our once again brave soldiers, whom are mere pawns in this rotten machine’s sick game of greed.
P.S. I don’t necessarily agree with the slogan triumphantly displayed in the above photo, but I found it humorous and it reminded me of something Jerry Rubin once demanded.
Chris
The Whole World Woke Up… Or Did They?
In the simply thrilling Bright Eyes number, ” At the Bottom of Everything,” singer/songwriter, Conor Oberst merrilly declares that the “the whole world’s waking up.” I’d love to agree with ya Conor, man, but the cynical side of me must toss you off the cloud your floating on bud. Don’t get me wrong, musically/artistically, this piece and the entire album will go down in the annals of exceptional entertainment. On an entirely different level, I completely disagree with the aformentioned assumption. Clearly, Oberst is referring to Americans waking up to the sad state of their country under George W. Bush and his hawkish policies. I agree, that within the past few years, we’ve seen an extremely rare political play. Finally, people were pointing fingers at the “bad guy,” as they rightfully should have. There was an entire mood of Anti-Bush! Even my grandparents, fairly moderate-conservative people viewed their comander in chief as a bumbling fool. With this new repudiation of Bush it became extremely palpable for a young, charming, eloquent, black man to rise to the top of an old, now foolish, white man’s empire. But, that’s an entirely different story. As much as I hated everything Bush represnted, I know he’s merely a puppet in a grand scheme of century after century of carnage. If you look closely, the wave of Anti-Bush actually painted the man as a sympathetic character. They say the War in Iraq was a mistake… no my friends it was and is a blatant CRIME against humanity: Ma$$ Murder, as any serious political commentator would inform you. Imagine, if the history books noted Ted Bundy’s and John Wayne Gacy’s crimes as mistakes. That would be an obscenity and neither Bush nor any other public figure should be treated any diffrently. The average American, who may have detested Bush, I seriously doubt will mention these basic flaws in their criticisms. Sure, now citizens and politicians alike are “against” the War in Iraq, but are they truly opposed to all American foreign policy, sadly most aren’t. So, did the world really wake up? Nahh, their (american) dreams turned into nightmares and they hopped out of bed to do some sleep walking. It is the job of the radical (the minority) to snap the conformed (the majority) into reality… by any means necessary.
Chris
Kids Like You & Me (KLYAM) 