Simply A Masterpiece

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Basically, Norman Solomon's notion, as presented here covers modern wars from Vietnam to the recent adventures in the Middle East. Here's how the process works.Stage One: The government, led by the president, begins beating the war drums against a perceived enemy. The enemy is manufacturing and storing weapons, is a threat to democracy, is a sponsor of an alien ideology, aims at the destruction of America and possibly world domination. The names used (or, rather, called) are always the same -- "evil," "terrorist or communist," "barbaric", "brutal," "ruthless," and so on. The media reports what the government says. Challengers are marginalized and, since the government is the focus of attention in the press, get much less coverage.Stage Two: The war is launched. And now we can't back out because we must "support the troops" or else we are "unpatriotic." The government controls press access to combat so what we see and read becomes a combination of a Fourth of July fireworks display and a Homecoming football game with everyone rooting for our side. Our high technology weapons are lovingly described. The enemy are faceless.Solomon would certainly agree that nothing is as simple as the picture of "going to war" that I've just presented. We get to see a lot of Norman Solomon. He's a soft-spoken, thoughtful, smart guy and wouldn't be easily bamboozled by simplicity. That's why he wrote the book.There are a couple of things I find myself doubting. He downplays the impact of the press on the public's perception of the Vietnam war. And, in fact, the evidence is that the newspapers were laggard in their understanding. But they did come around. I guess it would be safe to say that they usually DO come around eventually and see the process from a more informed perspective.I don't think anyone can underplay the influence of Walter Cronkite's national broadcast in which he admitted that Vietnam had become a stalemate and it was time to leave. It certainly had an effect on Lyndon Johnson. Solomon is right in arguing that it came a little late in the game, but then it's the job of journalists to report what they know, not their opinion of what they know. At least it used to be that way, before some of the cable news channels became instrumentalized.A few new thoughts occurred to me while watching this. During the Iraq and Afghanistan experiences, the government allowed the media wide access to military operations by "embedding" reporters with selected units. But -- it didn't HELP the public. In a perfectly natural process, the reporters became loyal friends of the soldiers of their units and submitted stories favorable to them. (Imagine: A hypothetical Marine throws away his weapon and runs to the rear. Is the embedded reporter likely to publicize the incident?) There is no surer way to bond people than to subject them to the same stress at the same time. And the enemy remains faceless, distant targets to be shot at or bombed.Some of the comments we hear on the morality of war are also thought provoking. Is it somehow more "moral" for a man to release a load of bombs on a city from ten thousand feet in the air, than it is for a man to strap on a vest full of explosives and commit suicide in the midst of those that HE defines as the barbaric enemy? When our guys commit altruistic suicide they become heroes. Why is it a surprise that when they do it, they become heroes too? Finally, I'll cut these comments short because I don't want to run out of space, and because I've gotten so high on this soap box that I'm beginning to feel the effects of cerebral anoxia. This has nothing to do with the dynamics described by Solomon but I wonder if there isn't something within at least some of us that actually WANTS to go to war and kill others. It's not as stupid as it sounds. Testosterone prompts us to engage in aggression and sexual activity and blood levels vary between individuals and groups. (The level is higher in winning soccer teams.) And differences have been found in the brains of those who are more or less likely to go to war, especially in the region of the amygdala, an almond-shaped organ in the mid-brain that controls the fight-or-flight response. It's bigger in those who are more likely to be militant. You can probably Google it easily enough.Finally, I DO wish we'd all stop using the term "cut and run." War at the top isn't a matter of gonads; it's a matter of brains. I'd suggest that anybody who has survived an elementary school-yard fight should outgrow it -- although I think "cut" can be a perfectly apt term to describe a military withdrawal from an unwinnable situation. It's certainly used routinely on Wall Street -- "cut your losses." The alternative can lead to things like Kamikaze attacks and Hitler's order to "retreat not one millimeter."

War, war, what is it good for... Sing it again. Yeah.Oh, boy.I have a nagging doubt that the Left doesn't really grasp the concept of war at all, or how it relates to humankind, politics, psychology, and just about everything else. The Left has an almost embarrassing way of over-simplifying every single complex issue (while over-complicating the very simple, straight-forward ones), and this they display in abundant quantities in this goofy attempt at a "documentary".But it's interesting that as anti-war as they (allegedly) are, they would never complain if Hugo Chavez or any other Left-wing idol of theirs started a war. War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!... Except if it's a conflict initiated by Marxist rebels. Then it's a "good war". This is when killing becomes "necessary" and "acceptable".War! What is it good for? Absolutely everything - like killing Imperialist Capitalist Western swine! Sing it again... Yeah.On a serious note, with a title like this, the Left have once again prevented one of their numerous propaganda films from reaching those whom they wish to convert. As it is, the only people who saw this film were the already converted (i.e. brainwashed). As far as I know, propaganda films are not judged by how they were made - but by how many people of differing views they can reach.Nice try, but no cigar - yet again.To get my extensive "Left-Wing Propaganda in Cinema" list (+comments), email me.

When Ronbo Reagan rose to CEO of the U$, I told a lifelong friend of mine: "What's going to happen, now, is an economic depression that'll turn this into just another Third World Country- and then World War Three." He told me I was full of ****. Now he knows better, but he no longer talks to me. When WWIII (aka, "Operation Desert Storm") started, I was working on a weekly Public Access show (EXPERIMENTAL FILM AND VIDEO). One night, after King George had decreed that his oil fields had been secured, we were doing a show with an exchange student from Russia operating one of the cameras. As was their wont, the producers of the show turned to me the moment I walked in the door and asked me what we would be doing that night. I asked who the new kid was. When I found out, I suggested (and we broadcast it thus, live) an "interview" with a Russian citizen (the exchange student). I was the off-camera "interviewer" and I asked him what he thought of American television. I told him before we began to simply say anything he wanted to in Russian and I would "translate" it for our viewers. He began to speak in Russian. To this day, I have no idea what he said, but my translation went something like this: "Your American TV, it really bad. Me watch mini-series other night, OPERATION DESERT STORM. Very bad. Special effects really cheesy. Even in Russia, we make better war movie than this. George Bush very bad actor." It went on like that for a while (we had an hour to fill, and fill it we did), but you get the gist. We do what we can. Sometimes it works, sometimes it don't. (I just spent the better part of an hour in the freezing cold trying to save a cat that had been run over and left for dead. By the time I got her to her owner, she was able to sit up, though she was very, very badly injured. If she survives, it'll be nothing less than a bona fide miracle. But I didn't just drive by when I saw her lying there bleeding from both ends. I tried.) (By the same token, I once convinced a local pedophile- who was living right next door to me when he got busted the second time- that he might want to live... elsewhere. He moved away for a decade or so, but he's back, now- and living directly across the street from me. But I tried.) Like TORTURING DEMOCRACY, WAR MADE EASY is an important documentary, and one that we all need to see. As WAR MADE EASY so clearly makes clear, the Fourth Estate (so often co-opted by the bald-faced liars that are our political leaders) was fully foreclosed on during the Republican reign of the past 30-plus years. Only an idiot could watch GNN (the Government News Network- "the only news you need to know") and buy the Party Line, lock, stock and barrel. But it happens- every day. People made stupid by television are led like lemmings to the edge of the cliff(s) and told to step off. And do. "Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see," the Greeks once told us. I live by that admonition, and have since I was a kid. Because, despite what our political leaders (who have handed us yet another Great Depression) would have you think, "The object of the Superior Man is Truth." Ask Confucius.

That's exactly how I felt after walking out at the end of this gripping, but short documentary (only about 75 minutes). I was riveted to the screen from start to finish. I thought to myself, "I'm so glad I didn't vote for the Fourth Reich (i.e. The Bush Administration)either in 2000, or 2004 (not that voting mattered much, as I'm sure the voting machines were rigged so that Fuhrer George II came out on top both times). This documentary (shot on digital video fore mat),based on Norman Soloman's book of the same name,left me angry & bitter at the way this country is heading (is heading,he says?). There is a plethora of film & video footage of just about every war mongering President (Fascist Dictator) from L.B.J., to Fuhrer George II (George W. Bush),taken from the mainstream media (any & all of the major networks,including,but not limited to Fox News--shudder!). Although this documentary is getting something of a limited theatrical run (due to the fact that most cinemas aren't equipped for digital video fore mat),the film/video is already available on DVD, so there is still a chance for you to see this important document on how our (alleged)leaders are flushing our country down the proverbial toilet.