The Ugliest Americans

The ugliest of Americans emerge as pus from the cankerous rhetoric of the Republican right-wing. No sense of decorum. No reason or balance. Just oozing, vile, reactionary sheep who are in lockstep with the tones issued from the bully pulpits of Limbaugh, Beck, Bachmann, or the festering extremism masquerading as a political movement they call the Tea Party Movement. How can you have over 70% of it's members self-identify as Republicans and not view it as another branch of the right-wing that is framing not only the public debate in front of the cameras but steering the Republican party toward further fringe conservatism?

"We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat....I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead." - David Frum, former speechwriter for Pres. Bush and prominent conservative

 

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Obama Signs Health Care Overhaul Bill

After a long history of "socialist" inclinations of US Presidents from Teddy Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson and even Richard Nixon who had tried to move forward the agenda of universal health care has finally passed and was signed into law today. FINALLY. I'm with Vice President Biden's sentiments-- this is a big FUCKING deal. Indicative of this colossal effort is that not a single Republican vote helped this to pass. Since Rush Limbaugh's audacious and entirely un-American battle cry that he wanted to see President Obama fail, the Republican party had done nothing but stand in the way of any health care reform effort. In 36 years, no Republican since Nixon, when in power, has ever tried to address universal coverage for all Americans. Now when a Democratic President elected with the largest majority of any Democrat ever passes something of this magnitude, the Republicans feign some position of interest in reform measures. Let's face it, they have zero interest in reform when it means providing basic fundamental care for its citizens.

History's Biggest Losers

- “This is a somber day for the American people" - John Boehner, House Minority Leader

- Tea Party protesters who spat on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a well known leader of the civil rights movement, was called the "n-word", and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a "faggot".

- "This bill is the crown jewel of Socialism...which is a tremendous insult to Americans..." - Michele Bachmann, Republican Representative of MN

- Rep. Randy Neugebauer yells "baby killer" during Rep. Bart Stupak's speech before the congressional debate and vote last Sunday even though Rep. Stupak who is a pro-Life Dem backed the bill precisely because it doesn't allow for abortions paid by Federal money.

- "Today we are turning back the clock. For most of the 20th century people fled the ghosts of Communist dictators and now you are bringing the ghosts of those dictators back. With passage of this bill they will haunt Americans for generations."

"...when you use totalitarian tactics, people begin to act crazy and I think people have every right to say what they want and..smear someone." In reply to an interviewers question about racist insults hurled at congressmen.  

- Rep. Devin Nunes of California?!



- Blogger, Mike Vanderboegh, encourages throwing bricks into the windows of Democratic offices all across the country in response to health care passing. http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/

- Sarah Palin Tweets: Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!"and post this image on her Facebook.

An Apologia For Woods

Woods Mea Culpa 

The list of the crestfallen: President Clinton, Governor Spitzer, Senator Ensign, Senator Edwards...no American should really be surprised by our culture's puritanical heritage whelming up to condemn politico heavy hitters when they transgress in their personal sexual mores. However we are a nation of contradictions and paradoxes. We prop up our politicians as demigods on a precarious pedestal while at the same time vilifying politicians as morally corrupt and joke about the crooks in congress. Likewise, we have a hyper-sexualized culture that by some estimates spends $3000 a second on pornography while we crucify mostly men for acting out on their libertine impulses. No doubt part of the job of being a public figure is intense scrutiny but to ruin careers, engender extremes of financial losses, or to carry around the antiquated scarlet letter on one's credentials seems to lack a fair amount of perspective and equanimity. 

I don't think I've said anything revolutionary so far or something that millions of Americans would not agree with me upon. The grassroots political organization, Moveon.org was started precisely out of the counter outrage and fatigue Americans had with the crucifixion of President Clinton over his sexual transgression. The identically shameful narrative now haunts Mr. Woods imbroglio yet I couldn't be more bored by this non-news event. In this same vain, I propose we all collectively Move The Fuck On. Nothing to see here, people.

INGLOROURIOUS BASTERDS

[Warning: the following commentary contains spoilers so do not proceed unless that's your intention.]


I was surprised to enjoy this film. I enjoyed its cinematic flourishes and the emblematic Tarantino stylings that put an edgy luster and somewhat unique take on a well worn genre. I say surprised because the prima facie proposition for a potentially irreverent and worse, flippant, narrative of a yet another Nazi era movie didn't seem so palatable to me. What could Tarantino's mostly form over content directorial sensibility add to this well exposed period of history without going dangerously to the edges of over-vilification and even Nazi fetishism that has been the trap of other films?

Of course it is a reinvention of the 1978 original named with subtle variance as, "Inglorious Bastards" directed by the Italian filmmaker, Enzo G. Castellari as opposed to Tarantino's remake as, "Inglourious Basterds." The essential storyline with both films has a rough and tumble crew assembled by US or Allied Forces tasked with an impossible mission to infiltrate and upset the Nazi effort. Indeed, I only happened upon the closely mirrored stories because I accidentally put Enzo's version on my Netflix queue expecting Tarantino's. Comedy of errors but edifying nonetheless.

Without going into a full critical exposition of Inglourious Basterds, I would say one of the 2 most memorable scenes in the film for me were the opening scene played out by Col. Hans Landa, who has the notorious moniker of, The Jew Hunter, who visits a French farmer and his 3 daughters to confirm they are not harboring a Jewish family. The pastoral beauty of the French countryside, the rustic innocence of farm life, and the almost cliche prettiness of the farmer's three daughters is juxtaposed with the sudden arrival of the Colonel and his entourage of German soldiers. The Colonel's interview of the farmer in his dining table builds from false congeniality to a mounting tenseness resulting from the fact that the Colonel is ruthless and preternaturally gifted in the subtle extraction of squeezing truth out of his subjects. The scene of course ends with the inevitable tragedy of the family beneath the floorboards being massacred except one of the girls in the family, Shosanna Dreyfus, who manages to escape and sets up the plot for her later revenge.

The second scene that seemed to stick to the roof of my visual palate was the very ending where the entire upper echelon of the Nazi command including Adolf Hitler himself attends a small but exclusive screening of Goebbels' propaganda film, "Nation's Pride." Shosanna unravels her ultimate revenge for the massacre of her family by locking the entire German audience in the screening room and setting them ablaze by igniting a small mountain of highly flammable film behind the screen. As the film screens toward its ending, the audience suddenly sees a spliced image of Shosanna who appears like an apparition from some projected human conscience appear before them to issue their death sentence. The fire ignites and flickers up the screen image of Shosanna with perfect aesthetic as if it were intentionally to be included for some demonic movie trailer for hell and the audience panics and stampedes to the exit doors which have been locked. As fire and smoke begin to consume the entire room, the beam of the projector light continues to cast an eerie pallor of Shosanna amidst the amorphous smoke and pandemonium. She couldn't have staged a better finale for her ending but alas she is not able to appreciate her masterful creative destruction since she has been shot by her ironic Nazi admirer, Pvt. Zoller. What gets her shot is a moment of last minute human compassion as she has already shot the Private in the screening room but has a momentary lapse in judgment and approaches the fallen Private who surprises her with a round of bullets.

Compassion is not rewarded in this film. Shosanna's hesitation kills her. Col. Landa's willingness to let Shosanna escape from the farm massacre comes back to haunt him even though he leverages that opportunity for self-interest. There is of course the brutality of war and the utter banality of evil of the genocidal agenda of the Nazi's so an equally brutal and unmerciful response is often made in some Faustian moral calculus that allows narratives that pit pure evil against the forces that fight it to be utterly justified. Lt. Aldo Raine's (Brad Pitt) reign (no pun intended) of terror on the Nazi's was a programmatic attempt to instill fear and undermine the firm confidence of the Germans. To this tactical and strategic end, it has a certain undeniable military logic but it still is hard to celebrate their violence even to their German counterparts which they brutalize with bats to the head and scalpings. This is a general problem with Tarantino's film strategy. You sometimes have the sense that he sets up story lines and characters for the express purpose of allowing the audience to enjoy naked violence. In the Kill Bill series, the cartoonish stylization mocks its own genre and provides the enzyme to digest the graphic violence. In Inglourious Basterds, the Nazi tableaux is a backdrop which gives any resistance to the Nazi's a blank check to indulge in their most violent response.

The weakest link of the film is Brad Pitt's character, Lt. Aldo Raines. All I see is Brad Pitt not Aldo Raines and a knowing wink to the camera by Brad Pitt saying, "Hey it's me Brad, I'm being cheeky."

One of the strongest character links and acting performances is by Christoph Waltz who plays Col. Hans Landa. His ability to portray paradoxical ill attuned evil intelligence against hints of a boorish buffoon is masterful. He pulls off being crafty, manipulative, and disarms you with unexpected etiquette and charm but he proves to be a master of deception since he is not committed to any ultimate allegiance but harbors an agenda of survival and self-admiration.