Saturday, July 19, 2008

 

The Problem With "The Dark Knight"

By MARC McDONALD

One of the most heavily-hyped and highly rated films in years, The Dark Knight is more than just a mere movie: it's an industry unto itself. This juggernaut, which cost an eye-popping $180 million to produce, opened to rapturous response, and massive crowds on Friday. As of Saturday afternoon, it had already raked in a one-day box office record $66 million and is (at least at the moment) the all-time No. 1 highest rated film on IMDB.com, just ahead of The Godfather.

The back-story of The Dark Knight is causing a media frenzy, led by the tragic death earlier this year of Heath Ledger, who plays The Joker.

The film itself is being hailed for its dark, menacing atmosphere, as well as the sheer amount of graphic bloodiness (unusual for a comic book movie). But overall, everyone seems to be happy: from comic book fanboys to Time Warner shareholders.

However, I can't help but think that there's something horribly wrong about the whole Dark Knight phenomenon that is symbolic of what's wrong with our nation as a whole these days. And it goes well beyond the dumbing-down of our culture, which is so easily entertained by a movie based on a comic book (a mediocre comic book at that----I can think of dozens of manga and underground comics that are vastly superior to "Batman").

For a start, there is the matter of misplaced priorities. Between The Dark Knight and Heath Ledger's death, our national media has once again devoted acres of column space to a movie, during a time in which the ongoing Iraq War has all but disappeared from our nation's media radar.

The long-suffering people of Iraq have no need to go a movie to see bloody shootouts and spectacular explosions: they see them all the time in real life, every day.

In fact, while the people of America are idly distracting themselves with comic book movies, the people of Iraq are still suffering a horrible ongoing nightmare.

Despite the proclamations by the GOP and the corporate media that Iraq is "getting better," the Iraqi people still have to contend with daily shootings and bombings on a mind-numbing scale.

Take Tuesday, for example. Just on that one day, guerrillas killed around 40 people and wounded dozens in several attacks in northern Iraq.

Did you hear about this story? Of course not. The U.S. media had more important priorities, such as gearing up the Great Hype Machine for The Dark Knight.

Tuesday's attacks were the sort of horrific violence that would dominate the news for years if it happened here. But since it happened in Iraq, it barely even gets reported in the U.S. these days. Our politicians are too busy proclaiming the "success" of our operations in Iraq.

I'm sure some readers will complain that I'm being a spoilsport. "Americans are weary of the war," they'll say. "We need an occasional break from reality with escapist fare like The Dark Knight."

Therein lies the problem. America is responsible for the horrific mess in Iraq. The disaster there may no longer interest Americans, with our short, MTV attention spans. But Iraq is OUR disaster and it ought to be relentlessly rubbed in our faces every single day until we demand and scream that this disastrous, illegal, immoral war be brought to an end now.

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Saturday, June 14, 2008

 

Deliver Us From Evil




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Whenever I think about what George W. Bush and the NeoCons have done to America over the past seven years, I always think of this scene from Deliverance. Outside of Bush's rich and powerful cronies, we've all been screwed in Bush's America. Just as in Deliverance, I hope we can eventually kill off the NeoCon monster and bury it deep in the woods.

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Monday, May 26, 2008

 

While Bush Drags U.S. Back To Dark Ages, Other Nations Forge Ahead




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By MARC MCDONALD

The U.S. used to be the world leader in science and technology. A lot of Americans still think it is.

But the fact is, the U.S. is no longer the leader in much of anything (except in exporting death and destruction around the world).

Over the past disastrous seven years, George W. Bush and the NeoCons have dragged the U.S. backward into a new Dark Ages. It's an era in which superstition and ignorance have replaced science and reason.

Meanwhile, other nations are forging ahead. Japan, for example, has become the world leader in a wide array of crucial advanced technologies, including cutting-edge electronics, telecommunications, supercomputers, aerospace, nuclear power, alternative energies, microengineering, exotic new materials, advanced chemicals, and more.

This video, showing Honda's amazing ASIMO robot, displays Japan's prowess in technology these days. Anyone visiting East Asia or Europe knows that the U.S. is a laggard in many areas of science and technology that it used to dominate. It doesn't take long for any American overseas to come to this realization: whether you're riding a high-speed German train, or whether you're using a state-of-the-art Japanese mobile phone.

Under Bush, the U.S. has clearly gone backwards. Our already mediocre schools have gone even further downhill. The U.S. is a distant also-ran in manufacturing. We don't make much of anything these days. Indeed, our Ponzi-scheme economy seems to be incapable to doing much, (outside of enriching a tiny super-wealthy elite). These days, the once-mighty Great American Middle Class is dead---and so is the American Dream.

What's worse is that, in Bush's America, fear and superstition has replaced science and reason. The White House embraces extremist religious fanatics while it muzzles scientists who speak out about global warming. And GOP house organs like Fox News peddle fear, superstition and ignorance as "news."

Thanks to GOP lies and White House spin, Americans remains as misinformed and ignorant as ever. (Astonishingly, over one-third of Americans still believe Saddam was behind 9/11).

And as you'd expect in a nation that is increasingly backwards, ignorant, and in decline, a growing number of our population these days is behind bars. America has the world's biggest prison population.

Incredibly, the NeoCon idiots continue to boast and brag that the U.S. is "Number One." A lot of Americans believe them---but then, our media has done a poor job keeping the American people informed about the real state of the world these days.

Smug, ignorant, self-satisfied, and arrogant: these qualities all describe America in the early 21st Century. Few Americans seem to grasp the fact that our era of dominance is over. The only thing that sustains the illusion of "prosperity" in our economy is the hundreds of billions of dollars flowing in from the central banks of China and Japan.

Stumble It!

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"Every generation needs a new revolution."
-----Thomas Jefferson