DOWNTON ABBEY Season 3: When A Writer’s Hand Is Forced

HUGE SPOILER ALERT! DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED SEASON 3 YET!

I won’t go too in-depth about the third season of DOWNTON ABBEY as I actually found most of it to be very entertaining and satisfying. But this third season introduced a few moments that could be seen as the ever-feared missteps a series can take when it overstays its welcome or when popularity seeps in as a guiding force in how the story unfolds.

DOWNTON has quickly become a household name since I first watched what seemed to be just another BBC mini-series that the vast majority of Americans had not only never heard of, but were quite likely NEVER to hear of, like so many fantastic British shows to come before it and live in relative obscurity here in the States. But DOWNTON ABBEY hit a nerve and its popularity has since soared on this side of the pond. And while I’m happy for the show’s success, that kind of popularity always fills me with a little dread as well. I won’t lie. Sometimes I like good shows to remain a bit of a well-kept secret. Selfish, I know. But then I can also continue complaining about how the best shows never find an audience and how stupid American viewers are over all. But then a show like DOWNTON gains a measure of real success and either A) I have to stop complaining about the dullness of Americans or B) the show has to lower its standards to keep its new audience entertained.

When I read that Shirley MacLaine was gonna be on the show, I thought my fears had been realized. Now don’t misunderstand, I love Shirley MacLaine. But her presence suggested the possibility of this fine BBC drama placating its newfound American audience with a more “familiar” face (Elizabeth McGovern, though American, has not been a familiar face on these shores for a number of years, while Ms. MacLaine has managed to embed herself in our continued social consciousness). Thankfully and allaying my fears, MacLaine’s role on DOWNTON was short and sweet. She didn’t try and eat the scenery or overwhelm with her presence. No, in fact, she fit right in and was most welcome both in her arrival and departure. I thought it was all just right and I couldn’t have been more pleased.

Then there was the big mid-season surprise. The sudden death of Sybil. I admired this choice. Though she was my favorite of the sisters (and the one I had the biggest mini-series crush on), I always like when a main character is killed off. It often forces a show and its viewers to deal with a particular set of experiences that they have not had to deal with before. That gives it resonance. Something to talk about, something to remember, both emotionally and structurally. But there was a lazy bone to be found in the storyline surrounding Sybil’s death. The much-decorated doctor who insists that Sybil’s symptoms are nothing more than those naturally found in pregnancy is such a pompous, unlikeable fool of a man that I would guess 99% of the audience knew that our dear country doctor was indeed correct and that Sybil’s life was in danger. Why choose to paint these two in such black and white terms? Why not offer a bit more credibility to the doctor responsible for Sybil’s death? Why not allow us, the audience, to share in the difficulty of the life and death decisions being made? Perhaps Mr. Fellowes believed he was doing just that. Or, perhaps, he didn’t want to. I don’t have the answer. All I know is that I was thrilled Sybil died (from a story perspective, that is), but disappointed that the events surrounding it hadn’t been painted in grayer strokes so that her death may have been even more of a surprise and may have engaged me by allowing me to partake in some measure of responsibility. As it stands, the writing allowed me to get ahead of the characters in what was to unfold. But all in all, this was a mildly disappointing and fleeting moment surrounded by so many wonderful moments that I was able to push it aside with relative ease and not have it negatively impact my feelings about this extraordinarily engaging show.

Julian Fellowes

Then the Season 3 finale arrived. Now let me just start by saying that I’m okay with Matthew’s death. Conceptually. Remember, I like when main characters die. Particularly beloved ones. But this particular death felt incredibly inorganic to me. And it’s not simply because actor Dan Stevens chose to leave the show and forced scribe and creator Julian Fellowes into a story corner. Certainly that plays a role (and I think will actually breed some ill-will toward Mr. Stevens though, for myself, I hope his personal choice leads him to a successful career), but it’s in the handling of Matthew’s death that I take issue with here.

Viewers across the globe have complained that there was simply too much similarity between Matthew’s death and Sybil’s. Both died following the birth of their child. Both were in loving relationships that were damn near perfect for those characters, making the loss that much greater. It worked wonderfully for Sybil’s death. But for Matthew’s… I could feel the writer struggling. For me, giving Matthew and Mary their final moment together to once again profess their love for one another and for Matthew to bask in the glow of his newborn son before driving off to his inevitable demise was just too much for me. It felt manufactured. Insincere.

Now I have a friend who believes I’m in the minority in feeling dissatisfaction with allowing Matthew’s relationship to end with such happy/tragic perfection. He feels that most people wanted to see/needed to see some measure of resolution before such a tragic event. But in reading comments online and talking with other friends, I’m thinking that my sense of dissatisfaction might be the overriding sensation being felt in living rooms across the globe. Death is a dirty business and Matthew wasn’t just another character in DOWNTON ABBEY. He was our guide through the world of DOWNTON ABBEY. The upstairs of Downton, that is, just as Bates is our guide downstairs.

Julian Fellowes had set up the near perfect end for himself, then chose not to take it: Matthew wants to leave with Mary. She tells him “No, I’ll be fine” and returns home without him. For me, that decision ending with them never seeing one another again and Matthew never seeing his son would have had the gravitas and tragedy earned by Matthew’s character. As it stands, I feel as if I were gently lead into Matthew’s death, as if Mr. Fellowes were afraid of the forced-decision to prematurely rid the show of Matthew and therefore second-guessed the audience’s reaction. Matthew’s endless profession of love for Mary seemed overwrought and inorganic; it was hinting too strongly at something else, setting up the scenes to come with an uncharacteristically heavy hand. Perhaps Mr. Fellowes was hyper-aware that this episode was going to air on Christmas Day and felt some measure of guilt in having to kill off Matthew (and possibly spoil Christmas a la Scrooge or the Grinch) and so chose to balance this fated tragedy with an extra helping of gaiety and joy.

For me, Matthew’s death should have been devastating, not just surprising. Unfortunately, I felt less devastation and more confusion. For a moment, it felt like I was watching a different show. Try as I might to feel better about it, I just couldn’t. Some other friends commented that they too had felt it a bit awkward and inorganic, but felt better about it once they’d learned that Mr. Fellowes had been forced into killing off Mathhew’s character. For me, sadly, that realization only highlighted just how inorganic Matthew’s death actually was.

There may have been no way to make Matthew’s death intrinsic to Season 3 as it clearly wasn’t Fellowes’ wish to end that character’s journey here. He had much more in store for Matthew. And perhaps that is why Fellowes exhibited what I consider an uncharacteristically unsteady hand in fashioning Matthew’s demise.

One thing is certain: writing is difficult. Incredibly so, as anyone who has attempted to do so knows. And Mr. Fellowes has certainly more than earned his right to stumble slightly, though he may not personally see it as such. But for me, Matthew’s death could have been a strong and defining moment in the DOWNTON ABBEY universe. Instead, for me, its a slight blemish on an otherwise incredibly engaging show.

Chris Hayes, Bill Keller and Understanding What The Romney/Ryan Ticket Really Means

It’s been both scary and incredibly frustrating watching so many Americans vote against their own well-being and the well-being of their neighbors. But it’s far from surprising: 8 years of George W. Bush, the rise of Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, even Ronald Reagan being considered one of our “great” presidents… There is a portion of America that simply does not follow what is going on. They just… follow. Their buttons are pushed and they react.

America has become a country overrun with greed. It is a testament to just how dangerous Capitalism can be when the failsafes are broken, when they are deemed “unnecessary.”

“What is good for me is right.”

Ayn Rand’s quoted statement that traced back to child murderer William Hickman (see HERE) seems to have become the American mantra. At least for a portion of the country. Now I know there are many, many well-meaning, truly good people who will be voting for Romney come November (assuming he gets the nomination–I’m still watching for a last minute Jeb Bush game-changer), but there can only be one reason for this:

Ignorance.

While I recognize that to be a rather harsh statement, I’m afraid there are many people out there who, if they knew the truth behind what it was they were voting for and what the repercussions would actually be, would vote quite differently given the proper information in its proper context. Take fear and misinformation out of the picture and what is revealed would scare even Ronald Reagan out of his own cement boots.

The other option for voting for the Romney/Ryan ticket would be straightforward selfishness and/or greed. Of course, that would probably release those folks from the category of “well-meaning.” I’m sorry to paint such a black and white picture here, but to vote Republican in this day and age, with what Conservative America is proposing and the path it has taken, there really aren’t any other believable reasons for voting that way. Okay, mental illness counts, too.

But in all seriousness, this is no longer about political ideologies. This is about a system that has broken down to allow the ruling class (yes, we have a ruling class) to change the rules in their favor. At the expense of every other citizen. This is not just a possibility, this is not hyperbole, this is what has happened and it will take educating more people, opening a few more eyes, and getting some seriously brave people out in the field to turn this around. And by “the field,” I mean the voting booths, peaceful protests, writing blogs, op eds, talking seriously to friends and family armed with facts and knowledge, doing whatever one can do to make sure as many people as possible understand exactly what it is they are voting for and who it benefits.

My conversations with conservatives of late has revealed a deep well of misinformation. For a group of people fighting against the horrors and corruption of big government, it’s amazing to see those very same people absorbing what they’re told by Fox News or those on the payrolls of the world’s wealthiest corporations as the word of God. With absolutely no desire to scrape the surface and actually find out if any of what they’re being sold told is based on any measure of truth! And the level of intransigence that goes along with their conviction that what they claim to know as truth is a reality worth fighting for is downright surreal. But alongside that surreality is a very frightening reality that these people could very well damage the lives of millions of people, including their own and those of their loved ones. In the age of Christian conservatism it comes across as downright ironic since their very own Messiah preached values that seem to be the polar opposite of what these people are voting for. Without realizing it, these folks have become the crowd encircling the crosses at Golgotha calling for blood and reveling in the death of three men whom the powers-that-be insisted were dangerous and unworthy to live.

For anyone who might have an interest in knowing just a tad more about what the Romney-Ryan package has to offer, I recommend Bill Keller’s write-up in the New York Times on that very subject.

And finally, I think Chris Hayes nailed it while on the Rachel Maddow show. His succinct and precise interpretation pretty much says it all:

You can watch the entire interview HERE.

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES or The Descent Of American Intelligence

Has anyone else noticed that around the time we elected Ronald Reagan president, American cinema began a steady decline? The same mentality that led us to George Bush, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann and the Tea Party, has led us to deliver films like RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES to a public no longer interested in using their brains. In fact, “intelligent” and “educated” have become dirty words, perhaps even anti-American. So for a country that helped shepherd in cinema as an art and a craft –as we did Democracy and Capitalism as schools of thought– we have shamed ourselves by veering so far off course as to appear like adults who have grown into infancy.

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is the perfect example of how bad a film can be in this current age of Hollywood. And how brain-washed or starved film critics are that they would actually apply words like “smart,” “intelligent,” and “complex” to a film like APES.

“An emotionally complex story, evocative and engaging.” –Bruce Diones, The New Yorker 

“The cautionary tale feels surprisingly fresh and entertaining… Franco is charismatic as a dedicated scientist… With top-notch computer-generated images, this sci-fi action thriller revives the series and creates a palpable sense of tension.” –Claudia Puig, USA Today  

“The film, which Rupert Wyatt directed from an audacious screenplay by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, rises above its dramatic deficits, boosts the collective IQ of this summer’s movies and swings into flights of kinetic fantasy that blow the collective mind…” –Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal  

“Rise of the Planet of the Apes” does it right. Smart, fun and thoroughly enjoyable, it’s a model summer diversion that entertains without insulting your intelligence… “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is as good as it is partly because it’s strong in the areas all films, not just summer blockbusters, should be. It’s effectively written by the team of Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver and well acted both by stars like James Franco and John Lithgow and supporting players like the protean Brian Cox… British director Rupert Wyatt’s previous feature was the excellent prison-break drama “The Escapist,” but he proved to be a shrewd choice to make a film about an entire species breaking free of eons of restraint, one that includes some of the most potent species versus species conflict since Alfred Hitchcock‘s “The Birds.” …A director who knows how to bring drive and momentum to material he connects with, Wyatt works with editors Conrad Buff and Mark Goldblatt (both veterans of several James Cameron projects) to create a crackerjack sense of pace. And cinematographer Andrew Lesnie, who shot the “Lord of the Rings” films, gives “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” an exciting wide-screen feeling while providing numerous bravura visual moments.” –Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times 

“Precisely the kind of summer diversion that the studios have such a hard time making now.” –Manohla Dargis, New York Times 

Excuse me for a moment while I attempt to lift my jaw off the ground.

These comments are straight out of the Twilight Zone for me. They are truly from a different planet than the one I inhabit. Now granted, most of our film critics today are either fancy bloggers (far fancier than myself) or journalists hired as a paper’s film critic for reasons other than having any knowledge of film, its history or its craft. But there are a number of critics who have been around a while who have given this film glowing reviews. I say this with all seriousness: I will never read them again. I cannot trust them.

For the record, I take no issue with anyone who simply found the experience of watching APES enjoyable. It’s one thing to enjoy a film even though you know it’s highly flawed. It’s another to call it smart, well-written, complex. Those are two very, very different things. There are many films I recognize as not being particularly impressive works of cinema, some I even recognize as downright awful, but for one reason or many, I still find them enjoyable. Guilty-pleasures, as it were.

Thankfully, I am not completely alone in being appalled by this film’s brain-dead incompetence. There are some critics out there who recognized this tepid mess for what it was and were not afraid to say so in their reviews. They have my respect and I will be looking forward to more of their opinions and observations regarding film. Hopefully, with one or two of them, their ability to recognize weak, lazy screenwriting and uninspired directing and acting will be reflected in future reviews. Here are a handful of them who have, at least this time around, garnered my respect:

 ”A creature feature of disappointing stupidity… Those early [APE] movies may look cheesy now, but the guys in the monkey suits at least gave Charlton Heston something solid to respond to. The stars of this incarnation, like the sick chimps of 28 Days Later, are just barreling balls of unspecified quadruped fury, swarming over the Golden Gate Bridge and tossing manhole covers like discuses. For all we know they could be protesting the lack of primate roles on network television.” –Jeannette Catsoulis, NPR  

“The production notes for “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” calls it “the first live-action film in the history of movies to star, and be told from the point of view of, a sentient animal – a character with human-like qualities, who can strategize, organize, and ultimately lead a revolution, and with whom audiences will experience a real emotional bond.” Didn’t “Zookeeper” already do that? What about “Rocky”?… This is the kind of movie where the characters are always saying things like, “What are you saying?” Plot points are continually reiterated. Obviously director Rupert Wyatt doesn’t think we in the audience are as smart as Caesar.” –Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor  

“They probably should have called it “Beneath the Dignity of the Planet of the Apes… Freida Pinto gets to spend the movie doing nothing except standing next to Franco looking like Freida Pinto, which ought to be enough but somehow isn’t. Three years from Best Picture to Best Human Scenery? Depressing… A nasty guard (Tom Felton, a k a Draco Malfoy) has “first victim” written all over him. Yet it takes the movie a good 45 minutes to catch up to the audience. Why the guard — a twerp who looks like your average Kinko’s employee, not a sadist whose brutality is responsible for changing the fate of the Earth — gets so much screen time is a mystery. Especially when the movie’s got the ably villainous Brian Cox, who once played Hannibal Lecter, sitting around nearby… The monkeys don’t seem to want anything except to live in the redwood forest and maybe an apology for the 1976 version of “King Kong.” But as they settle down and establish themselves as the alpha species, I couldn’t quite summon much terror. Could they really be any worse than the real-life government of the state of California?” –Kyle Smith, New York Post

“Less wonderful [than the ape effects] are his fully human co-stars. James Franco, no matter how many degrees he amasses in real life, will never convince as a brilliant research scientist. The script, at its worst, stoops to having [Freida Pinto] pause before a cataclysmic battle, give Franco a kiss and whisper “Be careful.” If you have popcorn, you may want to throw it.” –Stephen Whitty, The Star Ledger 

“The filmmakers seem to have spent so much attention and, presumably, money on getting the primates right that they completely forgot about the people. Led by a mumble-mouthed James Franco in the role of Will Rodman, the cast of human actors is uniformly weak. John Lithgow is especially embarrassing as Will’s dodderingly senile father, but the list of offenders – and their acting offenses – is long. At one end of the dramatic spectrum is Freida Pinto, who’s almost invisible as Will’s veterinarian girlfriend. At the other end there’s David Oyelowo, who chews the scenery and spits it out as Will’s money-grubbing pharmaceutical-company boss. Brian Cox is somewhere in between. As the director of the animal shelter where the apes foment their revolution after Caesar is sent there for attacking a human, Cox exudes smarmily sinister incompetence but little else. As for Felton, his character’s malevolence is even more over the top than the actor’s work in the “Harry Potter” movies, where he played the maleficent Draco Malfoy. Here’s a movie mixing live action and CGI in which the humans are the least interesting thing about it. Not to mention the least plausible.” –Michael O’Sullivan, Washington Post

“[A] lineup of dull characters and a limp story that functions like a conveyor belt. Viewers get on, know where it’s heading, and that’s where it goes.” –Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

To suffer through the writing that accompanies RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is something only Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld could condone. Now I personally know all too well that the script as it appears on screen and the script as it may have been originally written or envisioned may not be one and the same. Oftentimes writers-for-hire are simply reflecting the desires of those who sign their checks. For good or ill. But it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen a film with characters so paper-thin and generic. Poor James Franco, such a good actor when he cares about the material, but so awkward and bland when he doesn’t. Now I can’t speak for what was actually going through Franco’s mind while the cameras were rolling on this puppy, but let’s just say the end result was reminiscent of his performance as host of the Academy Awards. It seems when Franco knows the material’s bad, he gives it the least amount of effort possible; as if silently saying “Don’t believe for a second that I think this is good.” There’s an air of embarrassment to his performance. A dull “I wish I were anywhere but here” quality that no paycheck can erase. Now please don’t misunderstand me. I have a great respect for James Franco and his talent. I think he’s one of our more fascinating and talented young actors. But when you give him little-to-nothing to work with, he accurately reflects that back.

The only character in this film with anything to do is the ape Caesar. And he is played (via digital recreation) by the now quite famous Andy Serkis. And his performance has been singled out by both lovers and haters of the film. And rightfully so. Serkis commits. But that doesn’t make the script any better. But it does give us something to hold on to, however tenuous that may be. Perhaps this is what has captured audiences’s attention: that they could care for a digital character in a minefield of dull, dimwitted humans. But at the end of the day, this technological achievement still has backward momentum insofar as storytelling goes. THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS director Gillo Pontecorvo’s now famous statement, “Technically U.S. directors keep improving. But this technical expertise hides an emptiness that keeps getting bigger. They’re very good at saying nothing,” seems to have been quite a prescient commentary on this very film; APES is the epitome of the decline Pontecorvo was witnessing in American cinema.

So how do films like this get made? Well, let’s look at some of the comments and advice that have been tossed my way by other filmmakers and producers: Clive Barker’s insistence that a horror film should have a scare planted every seven minutes (as if it were a recipe for the perfect blintz) is one that boggles my mind. Talk about formulas! I’m glad most of the great horror filmmakers didn’t have the opportunity to confer with Barker before moving into production. Then there was producer Chris Sievernich, who insisted a filmmaker should never do more than one take on any individual shot or performance. Unless of course the gate was dirty and we HAD to do another. Chris’s concern wasn’t with the quality of the filmmaking or the acting, but with the delivery of exposed celluloid. And as little of it as humanly possible, regardless of the caliber of its contents. Or how about the conversation I recently had with a producer (who shall remain nameless) whose latest big Hollywood remake was filled with so many gaps of inner logic as to drive an armada of luxury motor yachts through. When asked about the making of the film, he informed me that they knew the film had no inner logic, that it broke every rule it set up. But they didn’t care. He claimed that none of the test audiences noticed it so they figured it didn’t matter.

It. Didn’t. Matter.

What ever happened to pride in filmmaking? What ever happened to a desire to not only make money, but to make the best film possible? Is it that hard, once you’ve gathered all the elements together and have the money in place, to actually strive for quality beyond visual effects?

And speaking of visual effects, I have to say that at least half the time in APES, I found the digital chimps to be more distracting than engaging. No matter how far along we are, we still haven’t managed to give these things weight. There’s an insubstantial smoothness to the characters that make them feel shallow to me. Like wax museum figures come to life. There’s something to be said for trying too hard to make something look “real.” Cinema is not reality. I will take the artistry of a Stan Winston, Rob Bottin or John Chambers over the greatest digital artists working today. Not to diminish those talents, mind you. Digital has a place, it’s a wonderful tool and a very valid art, but it has not reached a point where I, personally, prefer it over actual three-dimensional objects or, by the same token, a beautiful matte painting. I go more on how it “feels” rather than how “realistic” it appears.

So director Rupert Wyatt’s direction of following a very digital baby chimp around as it swings and careens over lamps and through tree branches feels nothing more than a gimmick weighed down by an unwelcome, over-used familiarity. It lacks inspiration or originality. I would go so far as to say that I found the film’s visual style –Wyatt’s storytelling choices– to be, aside from its widescreen aspect ratio, more in sync with a made-for-televsion-movie than with something one expects to find showing at the local cinema. There was not a single image or movement in this film that carried an ounce of weight for me. Wyatt’s direction felt as unsubstantial as most of the digital characters bounding tirelessly across the screen. I could find no distinct vision there. Not even Andrew Lesnie’s lighting could save this film from the lifeless compositions and predictable camera-moves.

As for the other actors, I’ve always loved John Lithgow, and I would like to think he did as much as could be done with what he was given, but what he was given never attempted to move beyond the generic and obvious depictions of someone with Alzheimer’s. For me, the end result –within the context of this film– bordered on camp. Mr. Lithgow was, quite simply put, not in good hands. And while Freida Pinto may well be the single most beautiful woman ever created, she has little-to-nothing to do here. Or, as critic Stephen Whitty of the Star-Ledger observed: “Freida Pinto plays one of those movie girlfriends who seems to be there simply to prove that the hero isn’t gay.”

Brian Cox is completely wasted as a character with no arc, no purpose and no resolution. And Tom Felton as his son is such a one-note villain, such a first-draft concept of a character, that throwing the classic line “Get your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape!” into his mouth makes us even more aware of how little originality or care was taken in creating these characters, this world. The film would not have played any worse if the human actors had been nothing more than cardboard cutouts on sticks. They were certainly written as such.

For the record, I would much rather be writing a glowing piece on APES congratulating it on breaking free of the doldrums of contemporary Hollywood to offer us something of value, something inspired. But I cannot. At the end of the day, I would rather see a film that tries for greatness and fails, than see a film like APES which appears to strive for very little and –box office numbers notwithstanding– succeeds.

Luckily, there is always a silver lining. If nothing else, this APES reminds us just how great the original film was. And how, even at their worst, the four original sequels that followed never stooped this low. Not even the wretched BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES which at least shows effort in the face of an almost non-existent budget.

Beyond that, I think this film should be a fantastic motivator for American writers and filmmakers to do everything they can to return us to an age where we strive for more from our art, from our entertainment, as I hope we will one day strive for more from our politicians, our government. In a town like Hollywood, overrun with writers, to allow a script of this low-quality, something this lazy, this poorly written and executed to make its way into a multi-million dollar production, should shame us into action. I see it as a call to arms. A “RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE WRITERS,” as it were.

Mike Huckabee vs. America (and Natalie Portman). Who Will Win?

This is what possible Republican candidates have been reduced to: either they pander to the least-educated, racist, conspiracy-nuts, or they simply don’t stand a chance. Mike Huckabee has recently received some flack from the left (and any sane individuals remaining on the right) for not only misrepresenting President Obama as having been raised in Kenya (Obama didn’t actually visit Kenya until he was in his 20′s), but suggesting that Obama’s time spent NOT living in the United States (he did live in Indonesia from ages 6-10) had made him un-American.

“And one thing that I do know is, his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, is very different than the average American,” claims Huckabee.

Well, it seems when called out on this, Huckabee’s spokesperson informed us that Huckabee meant to say Indonesia and not Kenya at all! A simple slip of the tongue. Great. So now that we know Obama grew up in Hawaii and lived for a short time in Indonesia and NOT Kenya, we can ask the real question: Why would Obama have issues with the Brits since they never colonized Indonesia (it was, in fact, the Dutch that took that honor)? And wouldn’t it be Americans who might take issue with the Brits since our very country was founded on a war we started to break from British rule? Isn’t that the foundation of this country?

So while Huckabee has since admitted publicly that, yes, Obama is “technically” an American, he still reserves a right to judge Obama’s “spiritual” patriotism:

“…I do think [Pres. Obama] has a different worldview and I think it’s, in part, molded out of a very different experience. Most of us grew up going to Boy Scout meetings and, you know, our communities were filled with Rotary Clubs, not madrassas.”

I don’t know what fantasy world Huckabee lives in, but I think he just insulted far more Americans than just President Obama. How many American men would you imagine have also not attended Boy Scouts? And how many American women have not attended Girl Scouts? And how popular are those rotary clubs in your community these days? Mike Huckabee is clearly far less in touch with what it means to be an American in 2011 than just about anyone else out there spouting off in public. And for the record, both the Boy Scouts and Rotary are international organizations, not exclusively American. And yes, they have Boy Scouts in Indonesia. And yes, Barack Obama was a Boy Scout there. But perhaps Huckabee feels that only the American arm of the Boy Scouts is truly honorable, and that any attempt to teach such values in a place like Jakarta, where Obama was a member, would be fruitless, even anti-American.

Values like those taught to Huckabee’s son David who, according to Newsweek, “was involved in the hanging of a stray dog at a Boy Scout camp in 1998. The incident led to the dismissal of David Huckabee, then 17, from his job as a counselor at Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, Ark.”

It has even been suggested (but not proven) that David Huckabee hanged the dog, slit it’s throat and stoned it to death.

But I suppose being a cruel and inhumane Boy Scout in America is more American than not being a Boy Scout at all. Perhaps David Huckabee is next in line for the coveted Dick Cheney Award For Humanitarian Concerns, which automatically comes with a job offer training recruits at Abu Ghraib.

But wait, there’s more! To add insult to injury, Huckabee has also managed to alienate all single mothers by lambasting Oscar winning actress Natalie Portman for being pregnant out of wedlock and “flaunting” it publicly at the Oscars.

“…one of the things that’s troubling is that people see a Natalie Portman or some other Hollywood starlet who boasts of, ‘Hey look, you know, we’re having children, we’re not married, but we’re having these children, and they’re doing just fine.’”

Maybe Huckabee’s son David might want to consider hanging Ms. Portman from a tree, slitting her throat and stoning her to death.

Or, the Huckabees and others like them can just back off and start the long painful process of coming to terms with the reality that Americans come in all different shapes and sizes, hold many different beliefs, and are never, ever, going to all be like one another no matter how severely you judge them. And the America I personally feel more connected to is one inhabited by the likes of Ms. Portman. But I accept that there are men like Mike and David Huckabee out there. And they also represent what it means to be American. But they have no exclusive claim on the definition.

In the meantime, it seems a vote for Mike Huckabee might just be a vote for open intolerance and moral judgement, albeit of the American variety. Weren’t in the Boy Scouts of America? Not American. Pregnant out of wedlock? Irresponsible and immoral. Bad American. Yes, it seems the margins for being a decent American (or American at all) are very narrow in Huckabee’s book. So get ready because, liberal or conservative, you’re probably not going to make the cut.

Hollywood And The Golden Arches Of Mediocrity

As a writer and filmmaker, I have, for as long as I can remember, felt strongly about storytelling. I was also lucky enough to have grown into adulthood during the second golden age of cinema (the 1970′s). Therefore, my most cherished form of storytelling has been through movies. It is the medium that most speaks to me, the language I most thoroughly embrace that best articulates, for me, what it means to be human. So it seems I take the current state of cinema far more seriously than do certain others for whom films are a mere distraction or, at best, a simple pleasure.

Which leads my desire to draw your attention to an interesting article by Mark Harris in GQ magazine. It’s called THE DAY THE MOVIES DIED and it’s about Hollywood today and the state of films and filmmaking. I think Mark makes some terrific points and observations and they are in keeping with my feelings about the industry and the art form. That said, I think there are areas that are even more complex than Mr. Harris spells them out to be. Though he does an excellent job of offering some very appealing conversation starters. I would also state, as a criticism, that I wish Mr. Harris had offered up some more detailed information regarding his sources as they would have added even more credibility to his stories and insights (e.g. his stated industry reaction to INCEPTION). But all in all, it’s an article worth reading and it paints a picture that, in my opinion, has more truth to it than not. Which saddens me.

I would also turn attention to a book by Columbia professor Tim Wu titled THE MASTER SWITCH: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires. Here, too, you will find answers to why we are where we are, why the film industry is what it is, and where we might be heading. The book will also place those questions, answers and concepts onto a much larger stage. It’ll certainly equip you to handle just about any conversation on the subject that might arise and then some.

Here is David Siegfried’s Booklist review of MASTER SWITCH:

A veteran of Silicon Valley and professor at Columbia University, Wu is an author and policy advocate best known for coining the term net neutrality. Although the Internet has created a world of openness and access unprecedented in human history, Wu is quick to point out that the early phases of telephony, film, and radio offered similar opportunities for the hobbyist, inventor, and creative individual, only to be centralized and controlled by corporate interests, monopolized, broken into smaller entities, and then reconsolidated. Wu calls this the Cycle, and nowhere is it more exemplary than in the telecommunications industry. The question Wu raises is whether the Internet is different, or whether we are merely in the early open phase of a technology that is to be usurped and controlled by profiteering interests. Central in the power struggle is the difference between the way Apple Computer and Google treat content, with Apple attempting to control the user experience with slick products while Google endeavors to democratize content, giving the user choice and openness. This is an essential look at the directions that personal computing could be headed depending on which policies and worldviews come to dominate control over the Internet.

Bear with me now as I take you down a seemingly random path that, I assure you, will lead back to the overriding themes at hand. I once knew a man for whom the idea of eating food was nothing more than a means of attaining nourishment and proteins. So much so that after a workout, he would take a beautiful prime cut of beef and toss it headlong into a microwave. The fate of that particular portion of cow was to become a grey, rubbery slab of flavorless meat, with not so much as a sprinkle of pepper or salt to provide some modicum of dignity to the poor deceased beast.

As one who genuinely loves and appreciates a great meal, watching this nightly parade of food abomination was distressing to me, to say the least. So, if you’re like me and you truly love a great meal, imagine what your food world would look like if most available meals were manufactured by McDonalds. Sure, the occasional restaurant might pop up here and there offering something lovingly concocted by a real chef, someone with a deep love of food and food preparation, but that establishment wouldn’t last long enough to build up much of a customer base. No, I’m afraid most of your dining options would be, well, off the McD’s menu. Now, by comparison, an occasional meal at the Olive Garden would suddenly seem downright luxurious, downright masterful in both its preparation and combination of flavors. Olive Garden might even become the Holy Grail of good cooking in the hearts and minds of many. But in truth, we’d be salivating over a plate of supreme mediocrity. To me, Hollywood is the McDonald’s of filmmaking. And occasionally something comes out of the system (usually as a result of a big favor owed) that wows people. And that, my friends, is a meal at the Olive Garden. If you were a chef, you would not want to ply your craft at either McD’s or “The Garden.” They are not designed for you to do what it is you love. And the people who would most appreciate your work, your passion, your gift, would not frequent these places looking for what you have to offer. Anyone who knew what a good Italian meal was –or a good burger, for that matter– would mourn the loss of something exquisite, something great. They would shake their heads in collective misery at the loss of such an elegant art, the loss of that cherished human capacity to create and recognize something that embodies both complex and simple flavors, something which excites the taste buds and satisfies in such a gloriously primal way.

And so we return to my feelings about the current American film industry.

The state of Hollywood today is not good for films, filmmakers or audiences. And it hasn’t been for a long time. We’ve been in a steady decline for many years. And that’s more than just sour grapes or being a curmudgeon. Film is an art, a language, a beautiful and complex animal that mirrors the human condition. But Hollywood today is far from being a place to nourish such desires or, worse, to even dream of them. Perhaps with the way technology has changed, there will be no need for Hollywood anymore. Or maybe there will be a resurgence of filmmakers who truly love film and want to push the boundaries of the medium once again. To explore, to grow, to seek, to touch. But for every one of those, there are still thousands of others whose final destination is Hollywood. And that will yield nothing but mediocrity at its best. I wish it were otherwise. But in a town inundated with accountants and frat boys at the helm, we must look elsewhere for the fruits of the medium. But all of this is in keeping sync with the state of the union, not just the state of Hollywood. The Tea-Party, hard-core conservatism, rabid anti-intellectualism, money over people. It’s why Netflix is becoming the new Blockbuster and corporate interests override human/customer interest or loyalty. It’s why universal health care is demonized and Workers Unions the enemy. All of these things are reflected in one another. Reagan fueled the fire and it’s been snowballing ever since. Not just in politics or the economy, but in every corner of our collective consciousness. Our own Capitalist sensibilities have turned around and bitten us square in the ass and we’re only now starting to comprehend that those are our own teeth embedded there.

Nothing reflects the moods and tone of a nation better than its art. Our priorities as a nation and our ability to fight to accept as little as possible has been a deepening, festering wound. We will either heal it or die from it. I’m rooting for the former myself. But in the meantime, one of the repercussions is that our artists must look elsewhere to create their art, while businessmen and women parade around as filmmakers. And as caring politicians. All of whom would very much like you to try that bold new Angus Burger at McDonalds. Really, you’ll love it.

America: Insanity Or Performance Art?

Egypt. Wisconsin. Union rights. The Anti-Christ.

It seems Glenn Beck and Fox News are on the loose again. This time they’ve brought in a self-proclaimed prophet as “expert” on comparing Obama to the Anti-Christ and why the goings-on in Wisconsin are about the end of days and turning America into an Islamic state and not about union rights after all. And while we’ve all gotten used to this kind of rhetoric being tossed about on a daily basis and shaking our collective heads at the absurdity of it all –so much so that we barely notice it anymore– there are more than a few people out there taking all this nonsense very seriously. After all, Fox News brought in an “expert!”

And while 35% of those polled in New Jersey either believe or are willing to consider the possibility that Obama is the Anti-Christ, Rachel Maddow, as always, has a rather enlightened take on the whole affair.

Pat & Kevin Tillman: The Words Still Mean Something

Pat Tillman, left, and brother Kevin stand in front of a Chinook helicopter in Saudi Arabia before their tour of duty as Army Rangers in Iraq in 2003.

With the release of the documentary THE TILLMAN STORY, I am taking my cue from Truthdig.com and printing here Kevin Tillman’s 2006 article. This was, as some of you will remember, just before the election of President Obama. We were at the tail-end of the Bush/Cheney years and all the horrors that came with it. Horrors we still live with today despite Obama’s noble efforts to turn back the overwhelming tide of destruction caused by the Bush Administration and its supporters. There are many people out there today who still do not understand what was being done during that time. Nor do they see the decades-long build-up to everything we’ve been struggling with lately that began in earnest with the election of Ronald Reagan way back when.

While Obama stumbles his way through a minefield of past illegal-transgressions, a devastated economy, two ongoing wars, the rape of our Constitution, and a severely fractured society, America still struggles to come to terms with all of the realities expressed in Kevin Tillman’s piece. His words still resonate today and it is imperative that we not forget them.

After Pat’s Birthday

By Kevin Tillman

It is Pat’s birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after.  It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military.  He spoke about the risks with signing the papers.  How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people.  How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition.  How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice … until we got out.

Much has happened since we handed over our voice:

Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can’t be called a civil war even though it is.  Something like that.

Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them.  Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few “bad apples” in the military.

Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet.  It’s interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.

Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.

Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.

Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.

Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.  Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.

Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.

Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.

Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.

Somehow torture is tolerated.  Somehow lying is tolerated.   Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.

Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.

Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.

Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.

Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.

Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.

Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.

Somehow this is tolerated.  Somehow nobody is accountable for this.

In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that “somehow” was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.

Luckily this country is still a democracy.  People still have a voice.  People still can take action.  It can start after Pat’s birthday.

Brother and Friend of Pat Tillman,

Kevin Tillman

For more on Pat and Kevin’s story, please go out and see the new documentary, THE TILLMAN STORY, now in theaters.

America: A Culture Of Bullies & Violence?

America loves a bully. Despite the word’s definition: A person who uses strength or power to harm or intimidate those who are weaker. We, as Americans, celebrate the bully at every turn, while accusing those who use brains over brawn as being weak. Take our current president, for example. Here is a man who is consistently painted as being weak by his critics, both Republicans and Democrats alike. America’s love of the bully is what, for so long, made Russia such a formidable opponent. They were bullies and they were threatening our global bully position. Yes, we often claim to be the saviors of other “weaker” nations, but when given an opportunity to move a couple of notches up the evolutionary ladder, we almost always resort to our most basic, animalistic tendencies. That being said, we often do manage to grow eventually, but not before enacting irreversible brutality on both ourselves and those around us.

Barack Obama is fully capable of devouring his enemies and critics. But he does so with a knife and fork and a bib tucked neatly into his shirt. His recent live Q&A at a House Republican retreat in Baltimore proved that to be the case. Despite the ongoing insistence by the radical right that Obama is nothing without his teleprompter (that he’s all smoke and mirrors and his “illusion” of intelligence and knowledge has more to do with his well-rehearsed oratory skills), Obama cleaned the floor with these fools on live national television while suggesting “a tone of civility instead of slash and burn will be helpful.” And no teleprompter! His victory here was so complete that, according to MSNBC’s Luke Russert, one Republican official and other GOP aides confided that allowing the “cameras to roll like that” was a “mistake.” Even Fox News cut away from the live proceeding 20 minutes before it ended! And Ezra Klein of the Washington Post called it “the most compelling political television I’ve seen…maybe ever.” But in perfect pathological fashion, folks like Florida Republican Marco Rubio continue to insist that Obama is helpless without his teleprompter. It should be noted that Rubio made that claim again the other day while standing before a set of teleprompters and flipping through pages of notes on the podium before him.

So what exactly is this pathological rewriting of reality? I had a handful of very disturbing interactions with a Libertarian acquaintance of mine recently and felt I got a series of first-hand examples of this kind of mindset. The same mindset that allowed Fox News to cut away from Obama in Baltimore and replace him with talking heads who immediately started rewriting history even as it was happening! And what was most terrifying about my exchange with this Libertarian fellow who sees himself as “an extremely socially, ultra-liberal independent voter” was the complete and utter lack of self-awareness that accompanied it. This fellow would make accusations against Obama and other politicians, basically regurgitating “facts” which he’d heard or read elsewhere and, when confronted with proof to the contrary, would either A) delete his previous comments (when interacting online) or claim never to have said any such thing; or B) refuse to respond to any rebuttal by changing the subject entirely or simply calling his debate opponent crazy. All the while NEVER backing up any of his statements or admitting when he’d been proven wrong. Even when confronted with deleted comments he claimed never to have made (they were, unbeknownst to him, saved on our email accounts), he would then backpedal by saying “Well, that’s not what I meant to say.” But when asked what it was he had meant to say, he would again resort to name-calling, but never actually answer the question at hand. It seemed, time and again, truth and reality were of no interest to him. There was a complete and total pathology at work that would allow him to create new realities in any given moment to suit his desires. With this tact, logic and reason had no effect and were therefore of no importance. And while, in certain situations, an interaction like this might serve as a source of mild amusement or come across as innocently baffling, here, in the political arena, it was downright terrifying. And I took it to be a signifier of a mindset all too common by some of today’s most vocal political protesters.

Meanwhile, political henchmen and possible presidential candidates like Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin stir the pot by publicly proclaiming Obama weak for apologizing internationally for America’s past transgressions (mostly committed while Cheney was Vice President). As if admitting you were wrong or apologizing for mistakes was ineffectual and spineless as opposed to honorable, ethical and, that dirtiest of all words, conscientious. They also condemned the president for politely bowing before asian world-leaders (despite it being tradition and a sign of respect–much like a handshake). But to the bully, showing respect or admitting that there may be common ground is tantamount to surrendering. So while Obama continues to act like an intelligent, thoughtful, educated and civil world leader, many Americans simply can’t stomach the fact that he’s not more outwardly aggressive.

Recently, the National Review’s Daniel Pipes outlined his thoughts on how Obama (“a president whose election I opposed, whose goals I fear, and whose policies I work against”) can regain the respect of the nation and lift his sagging poll numbers in an article he called “How to Save the Obama Presidency: Bomb Iran,”:

“[Obama] needs a dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a light-weight, bumbling ideologue, preferably in an arena where the stakes are high, where he can take charge, and where he can trump expectations… Such an opportunity does exist: Obama can give orders for the U.S. military to destroy Iran’s nuclear-weapon capacity.”

Because, let’s face it, two wars is not enough. And they weren’t Obama’s. Obama needs his own trophy war if he wants to gain the respect of all those Americans who believe him to be a socialist wimp. And of course the simple-solutions everywoman, Sarah Palin, agreed wholeheartedly with Pipes:

“If [Obama] decided to toughen up and do all that he can to secure our nation and our allies, I think people would, perhaps, shift their thinking a little bit and decide, ‘Well, maybe he’s tougher than we think he’s—than he is today,’ and there wouldn’t be as much passion to make sure that he doesn’t serve another four years.”

And what’s saddest about all of this is that they may be correct. This would, quite likely, make a significant percentage of Americans more comfortable with Obama. Sure, it would plunge our already disastrous economy deeper into the toilet and hundreds of thousands of lives would most likely be lost in a war that would extend far beyond any comprehensible expectations (not to mention result in the further alienation of our Nato partners and other countries and citizens around the globe), but at least Obama would take his rightful place as another American bully and save face among his fellow citizens who think him a sissy boy. Or would it? We already know that, despite appalled denial, many Americans still struggle with racism and are not comfortable with a black (or even half-black) president. So what would happen if this president suddenly got tough, angry even, and became the bully we’re all so used to seeing in that highest of political offices? Well, he’d have a whole new set of problems to face that, well, a white guy might not, as Eric Deggans of the St. Petersburg Times discussed back in April of 2008:

“For new school black politicians, it is an essential question: How do you recognize the righteous anger of those frustrated by racial inequality without looking like just another Angry Black Man?

Those of us who write often about black folks and politics knew there would come a moment when the first black man with a realistic shot at becoming president would have to face this challenge — reconciling black anger and frustration with white fear and resentment.”

Would Obama go from intellectually-threatening wuss to scary, angry black guy in the eyes of the fearful? I mean, in this country, as sad a commentary as it is, a white president and a black president are still not treated equally in the eyes of some of our citizens. Take that Wingnut email being forwarded that takes outrage at Obama putting his feet up on the desk in the Oval Office:

Does this photo of President Obama in the Oval Office convey anything to you about his attitude?

Would you speak with the Chief of Staff, your Chief Economics Adviser, and your Senior Adviser with your feet up on the Resolute Desk – a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880?

We should inundate the White House with emails demanding he keep his feet off of our furniture.

This arrogant, immature & self-centered man has no sense of honor, or of simple decency.

While this posture is disrespectful in any culture, it is absolutely never done in any executive setting.

Further, in over half of the cultures of the world, it is recognized not only as disrespectful, but as an extreme insult.

He thinks of himself as a king — and not as a servant of the people, humbly occupying our White House for his term in office.

Electing him was an enormous mistake — and will cost us in many ways, for generations.

Where were all the letters of appall and outrage when our last (white) president did the very same thing?

So one wonders if it is possible for a man like Barack Obama to be the bully America loves without being stamped “another Angry Black Man.” Would he gain some level of twisted respect from the very men and women who fear him (after all, in America, fear equals power and strength, right?), or do we only like our bullies to be white?

Personally, I’m thrilled not to have another bully president even though Ifind myself at times wanting Obama to be a little more forceful in his political dealings. While I admire and celebrate his more evolved approach to politics (it’s one of the many reasons I voted for him), I believe he would actually be more effective if he were a bit more ruthless. Sadly, the current climate in Washington is set up to keep Obama from achieving any successes, regardless of whether or not they are in the best interest of most Americans. So he is essentially bullied by a divided House and Senate who will try and keep his hands tied for as long as he’s willing to allow them. At the same time, I believe Obama has a bigger picture in mind and is actually putting his money (and career) where his mouth is:

“I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president… There’s a tendency in Washington to think that our job description of elected officials is to get re-elected. That’s not our job description. Our job description is to solve problems and to help people. And, you know, that’s not just the view of elected officials themselves. That’s also the filter through which the media reads things.”

So while I am frustrated and angered by the eternal roadblocks put in place by lesser men and women, I am also thrilled to see America with an intelligent, self-aware leader who recognizes the changes that need to be made if we are to grow out of our infancy. Sadly, our love affair with violence (both verbal and physical) and our passion for vengeance and our need to be “stronger” than any potential opponent regardless of ideology or purpose, gets in the way of our actually making strides in the betterment of our people, our nation, or our world. And perhaps the above-mentioned live Q&A in Baltimore is a significant step in Obama bridging the gap between substance and politics. NBC’s Chuck Todd commented on the live event:

“The president should hold Congressional ‘town halls’ more often. Public needs to see this if they’ll ever trust Washington again.”

The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein added:

“Obama assumed the role of responsible adult to the GOP children, or, at the very least, of a college professor teaching and lecturing a room full of students.”

Dee Dee Myers, Clinton’s former press secretary, backed up that statement with:

“On one level it looked brave but on another he was the substitute teacher there, lecturing the audience. A lot of us have been waiting for that moment, a little more fight, a little more politics.”

And then there’s that poor fella so outraged by the IRS he decided that violence was the only answer to his problems and so he created his own 9/11 by crashing a plane into an Austin IRS complex. It seems in our celebration of bullies, we simultaneously send out a non-stop message that violence is a justifiable means to an end. I tried to address this concept metaphorically in my film THE PLAGUE, but the studio behind it decided that the film should actually be the polar opposite of its intent and set about systematically removing the film’s message and attempt at cultural self-reflection. Instead, they tried to turn it into a film about killer-kids; essentially, they were far more attracted to the notion of a film that celebrated its violence rather than one that made an informed commentary on it. And this is, as many of us already know, not a new development in the industry. God-forbid anything should illicit individual thought or stir conversation or promote questions. The studios would rather keep people right where they are (our base impulses sell more tickets than our intellect or common sense). Like Sarah Palin, who actually sells herself as a presidential candidate by publicizing the fact that she’s not qualified to run this country:

“I’m never going to pretend like I know more than the next person. I’m not going to pretend to be an elitist. In fact, I’m going to fight the elitist, because for too often and for too long now, I think the elitists have tried to make people like me and people in the heartland of America feel like we just don’t get it, and big government’s just going to have to take care of us… I want to speak up for the American people and say: No, we really do have some good common-sense solutions. I can be a messenger for that.”

Good common-sense solutions. Like bombing Iran. And I don’t know about anyone else, but the thought of a president who doesn’t know more than I do about running this country scares the shit out of me. But somehow this comforts many. They can relate to Palin. And she can be a bully. Unreasonable, unrealistic, ignorant, under-educated and completely incapable of admitting –or even understanding– when she’s wrong… Sounds like someone else I know. Or a vocal group of people I read about daily.

Here’s a quote I thought hit the nail on the head:

“If you were to imagine a bunch of middle-class white people who conceive of themselves as the oppressed productive backbone of the country, and who embody a strange collection of unbridled ignorance and bizarre ahistorical conspiracy theory, you’d have a pretty good handle on the teabaggers.”

Yep. That pretty much sums up Palin and her many followers and fans. That gun-toting, angry mob you see on the news pretty much every day. And like so many people in this group, they struggle, fight and vote against their own best interests. Blogger Ben Grossblatt put it quite eloquently, I thought:

“The Tea Party is a quasi-Libertarian collection of people who think Obama is a socialist, and who delude themselves into believing they’re more than just ventriloquist dummies for the Republicans. They fancy themselves populists, but they support the same economic and legislative policies that have put regular people under the heel of big business.”

Big business, in the form of corporate entities, is the friend to the “tea-bagger”, despite any claims they may make to the contrary. And why is that? Because big business are bullies. And, no matter how much we may fear them, they give us some measure of comfort in the fear they illicit. We have a certain twisted “respect” for their power over us. And to make matters worse, we secretly hope to one day become a member of those wealthier-than-god, untouchable bullies. I think Reagan’s trickle-down economics proved that to be true. A failed economic plan that put the biggest tax breaks in the hands of the wealthiest Americans and opened the door for what turned out to be the complete corporate takeover of our nation (the world?) and still has the support of some of America’s least-wealthy and most-hard-hit-by-the-recession individuals. And despite the gross reality of this backward economic plan, there’s always a chance that one of us may find ourselves a member of that elite group (you sure you don’t like elitists, Ms. Palin?) and then we can finally reap the benefits of a misguided nation which fights to eliminate its middle-class (despite true Capitalism’s dependency on it) and broaden the division between rich and poor. Because the rich have historically always bullied the poor. And, as I said before, America loves and respects a bully. Even when we’re under their heel.

Is America Worth Saving?

It’s a question I’ve asked myself many a time. In fact, I find myself asking it about the entire human race from time to time. And the answer’s always the same: I sure as hell hope so.

I’d like to believe that we can grow and mature, learn from our mistakes. But like children who never believe the lessons of their parents and have to find out for themselves, the hard way, we continue to shoot ourselves in the head and then complain that no one told us the gun was loaded.

Two days ago, Massachusetts voters shat on the memory of the late Ted Kennedy by not only choosing a Republican to take his still-warm seat, but possibly killing an already watered-down Health Care Bill that was Mr. Kennedy’s life mission and dying wish. Did this really happen? How quickly we forget the atrocities committed by the Bush Administration. The party and ideology that destroyed our economy by redistributing wealth from the middle-class to the wealthiest Americans and corporations while simultaneously throwing us into a trillion dollar war that we had no moral or social right engaging in. Every American soldier who lost their life in Iraq lost it for a lie. And there are over 3,000 of them. Not to mention the over 100,000 Iraqis killed in that same ongoing war. The American people were twice victimized. First by the 9/11 attacks, then by a president who took advantage of our fear and shock. And now we’re voting these people back into power? Really?

Apparently, it is quite a task for the average American to measure the effectiveness of a president like Obama who saved us from falling into the abyss of an economic depression. Perhaps it would have been better if we had fallen into that abyss so that Americans would then have some understanding of what Obama accomplished by pulling us out. But too many Americans don’t seem to be able to weigh what a massive accomplishment avoiding that depression was and is. Or how close we were to it and what that reality would have looked like. We are an undereducated, incurious lot. And we are easily led. Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, Glenn Beck… They are all modern-day Joe McCarthys and legions of Americans are following them all over again.

All this said, Obama can certainly take a more definitive stand. Playing nice, it seems, gets little-to-nothing done. On the other hand, and I believe this is Obama’s logic, if we keep pushing our differing agendas in opposition to the other party, then we may find America in a damaging game of back and forth wherein one party is elected into office, disregards the other party’s beliefs and desires and forces its agenda no matter how severe (as the Bush Administration did from day one), and then the other party takes over again and reverses course until the first party takes control (again) and makes another u-turn. It’s a deadly circle that we could spin in for centuries without accomplishing a damn thing of consequence. Problem is, Americans only seem to respond to extremes. Subtlety is not taught in school and seems to float above the heads of many who miss the boat entirely and are lost and confused when someone points out what has been going on. They simply don’t believe it because they don’t have the tools to see it. We have societal and historical ADD. One year into the Obama Administration and hoards of Americans are already growing impatient and have forgotten the treacherous 8 years of lies, deaths and economic imbalance. Not to mention that we had a president on a religious Jihad all his own. From attempting to amend the constitution to conform to his Christian definition of marriage, to preemptively attacking Iraq in order to “erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”

So as sad as it may be, it seems the only way forward is to either try and meet Republicans halfway, or make the firm decision to move forward regardless of their wishes while we still can; to get as much done now and hope some of it sticks through later administrations. The biggest problem with meeting Republicans halfway, it seems, is that they don’t appear to be interested. So far as I can tell, the game that’s being played is “oppose Obama at every turn.” The notion being that if Obama is truly successful at fixing our national health care disaster, then he will most certainly get re-elected. And perhaps another Democrat will come after him! And God forbid he should bring any of these wars to an end or actually strengthen the economy. Then the corporations and the high-powered bigwigs who live off the blood of the less fortunate won’t get what they so desperately want (and have grown used to). And those very powerful organizations and the people whose pockets they regularly line will suffer greatly. And they are not willing to let that happen. Even if that means denying the American people their basic rights or fulfilling their basic needs. Like health care.

So, these men and women and the corporations behind them scream foul and create illusions of collapse and spoil that strike at the hearts of our most frightened and ignorant until they take to the streets en masse spouting misconceptions and incredulous at the mere notion that someone might actually be attempting to better their lives. And the Independents who don’t believe in anyone but knew that they were tired of Bush start to tire of Obama as well until they’re voting us right back into the abyss we just barely managed to crawl out of. And then there’s the lazy Democrats who just don’t get themselves out there to vote or campaign with enough vigor or resilience. Or the Blue Dog Democrats who just seem to be Republicans under a different name.

Meanwhile, Obama is in danger of being neutered by asking us to rise to an occasion we simply may not be ready for. His attempt to bring the parties and American people together ends up looking to Democrats like he’s not willing to go the extra mile and really take on the forces at hand –essentially “just another politician”– and Republicans see it as a sign of weakness and an opportunity to pounce.

All the while, the world watches and prays that we, currently the most powerful nation in the world (with China fast on our heels), find ourselves in the midst of a growth spurt that finally moves us out of our infancy and propels us into the world of the mature and self-aware. In the meantime, we’re a nation that essentially still believes in Santa Clause, hopes he’ll show up, and then shoots anything that comes down the chimney.

Ted Kennedy’s Death May Save Health Care Reform

Ted Kennedy was outspoken on Health Care Reform. Even John McCain himself expressed frustration with Ted Kennedy’s absence from the debate just days before Kennedy’s death. McCain felt that the debate and deliberations would be in a very different place if Mr. Kennedy were present.

Well, it seems Mr. Kennedy’s eternal absence may be just as powerful. Ted Kennedy had friends on both sides of the aisle and, unlike many, managed to find that place where both parties could come together. And now there’s talk of naming the Health Care Reform Bill after Mr. Kennedy. And members of both parties wish to honor the man and the cause that he so vehemently believed in. And, unlike before, Mr. Kennedy’s passionate words will be heard and replayed over and over again as a testament to his life and passion. And those words need to be heard and not just listened to.

Ted Kennedy’s final act may end up being the turning point in bringing Health Care Reform to America and Americans. Let’s hope that his passing has helped shed some light on what we are trying to do here today in this country and why it is so crucial that we reform Health Care, keep the public option, and make sure each and every American is covered and taken care of.

I posted a clip earlier this week of Mr. Kennedy giving an impassioned speech on Health Care from 2008. You can view it HERE. And I do hope you will listen.