Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Friday, August 11, 2006
From 9/11 movie plots to exaggerated terror plots (with some Huey P. on the side)
Why I would feel compelled to defend Oliver Stone is a mystery even to me, but I don’t know that he is necessarily remiss for focusing a 9/11 movie on a personal, non-political narrative. If you take a look at this interview, his views are clearly not mainstream, and toward the beginning of the piece he even has a quote that mirrors your Guy Debord quote
Posted by DPI on from The NJ 08/11 at 07:21 AMGood morning MIckey…
I could not see Huey Newton, could not even pull up the whole NYT article but got enough to see that it is about the Israeli request for cluster bombs from the USA. It might be that my computer is just too slow because of the dial-up connection also my ISP has been having problems lately. Anyway I am sad to miss some of the really good things that you put up here.Since the alleged plotters of the terrorism were mostly from GB, does that mean that the US will be bombing London? The 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia and the US bombed Iraq. Hummm, maybe now the US will bomb Portugal.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 08/11 at 07:26 AMGood Morning, DPI. I used to live in NJ.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 08/11 at 07:28 AMGood morning to you as well, Rosemarie. My condolences on having lived in New Jersey. You seem to have recovered from it, though. Only kidding, of course.
Posted by DPI on from The NJ 08/11 at 07:33 AMHello Expendables. It felt October here last night.
DPI: I understand your point but how many people will read interviews like that compared to how many will see the movie? In the end, Stone has a platform from which to inform and he chose to be “non-political.”
RMJ: Sorry you can’t see the article. Anyone else having trouble?
P.S. I avoid New Jersey as much as I can.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 08/11 at 08:41 AM“the opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude”
Posted by michael on from exile 08/11 at 09:52 AMoops - forgot to mention that that was an orwell quote
Posted by michael on from exile 08/11 at 09:53 AMI slept in a tent in a park last night, it was so cold, though I did get out of the tent before the sprinkler system came on. I came to the mountains on impulse without map, sleepingbag or most stuff you´d want for camping, unless a bag of clothes that need washing and the I Ching counts. Back down to Barcelona this evening and thence on to Valencia, it´s been nice to be around mountain people and their mild kind ways, though I might come back up for a couple weeks of grapepicking season after Valencia.
that quote about those folk wanting to be judged by their enemies rather than their results is nice. I´m not that keen on Oliver Stone, though he was righteous with Natural Born Killers making fun of the way media sell violence like tuna or toilet paper. I talked to an English woman in Perpignan yesterday on her way back to Heathrow, she was expecting to spend the day into the airport, I don´t have contact with state media, she told me the gubbermint said Boo! in a big way recently. I spose all we can do is nurture as much warmth and gentleness as possible.
Posted by owen on from still pig hill 08/11 at 10:35 AMGood day to all…
A significant result of Stone’s choice of angle is the result of focusing on a personal (both hands again) rather than political is that it allows focus to land on the purely emotional reactions of the individual viewer. Thus does it propagate and promote the very results that the psycopathic government would like us all to experience - fear, pity, victimhood; and does nothing to promote awareness, understanding, intellectual examination.
Haven’t we had enough emotional titilation to last the next eon? Do we not need to focus and redouble our efforts at truly rational examination instead, in order that we might find ways and means to address the causes of violence and hardship which drives our world to violence?
That Orwell quote is right on the money. Individuals who might like to believe that they can choose to be ‘apolitical’ in their art (or their day to day life) are fooling only themselves. Their choice is only effective in further empowering ‘others’ (government, corporations, et al) through ceding their own personal power to choose how they’re to be represented in the greater world by those same entities.
Geddy Lee sez: “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice”
I hope Expendables are all “having” a nice day, cool beautiful later summer is outside to be enjoyed.
Posted by Amelopsis on from Canadia 08/11 at 11:21 AMMickey and DPI… I actually miss New Jersey. I have a lot of good memories of the sand dunes, salt air, ocean breezes. and sea gulls. Then again, maybe Cape May is not really New Jersey. It is below the Mason Dixon line.
Amelopsis… I like that quote, “If you choose not to decide...”
Owen...warmth and gentleness to you.
michael...I think that everything has something to do with politics.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 08/11 at 11:46 AMI just finished watching Punishment Park by Peter Watkins, don’t know if anyone here is familiar with it. To me it is inconceivable that this film will at any time in the near future be shown widely on movie screens here or in the states.
This is why Oliver Stone has to make such pap about 9/11. Sure there were heroic people on that day who did wonderful human things, but you know what, there are heroic people in Lebanon and Israel today tring to clean up the aftermath of war and trying to alleviate some of the suffering that innocents are undergoing.
Oliver Stone cannot make a film about the root causes of 9/11, about his country’s complicity in creating radical terrorists, because it would never be shown widely. Ever.
I recommend Punishment Park highly and am looking for The War Game by Watkins which was actually banned for 20 years after it was made.
Hope everyone is doing well. Really enjoy the discussion here.
Chau for now
Edson
Posted by Edson Castilho on from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada 08/11 at 11:47 AMedson… do u have a link to direct us toward it?
RMJ - i think the force of the orwell comment is not in saying that everything is political. people write beautiful things about the way the wind feels on their skin or the way looking at a different colour can change their mood (do NOT take this as an indication that i am into the sort of half-arsed mysticism bullshit that is sweeping people who are disillusioned with the western world but won’t do anything to try and change it. LOGIC people LOGIC!)
the force is in the word OPINION. if you make a deliberate attempt to seperate out art from politics then a serious political judgement has been made.
i think this still leaves room for sensational art. and i mean sensational in the literal sense (of the senses) - not sensational in the TV sports way.
on a similar but slightly different note i was blown away by this from aldous huxley that i just came across…
“there are two indispensable things..intelligence (in its broadest possible sense) and goodwill.
Intelligence without goodwill is apt to be inhuman and goodwill without intelligence is impotent or ineffectual. the two MUST go together”
Posted by michael on from exile 08/11 at 12:08 PMdispatches...an email i just got from one of the internationals in the middle east at the moment.
“Regarding last nights demonstration in Jerusalem. Which as I said before extreme violence was used, I just remembered a small incident which my friend and I were involved in.
It was hilarious, when the army surrounded the activists, my dear friend who works in Tel Rumadia and I started doing the CAN CAN. You know the French dance where you kick your legs.
You should have seen the soldiers faces, it was hilarious, they did not know what to do.
So we met up again at Billin this morning for the demonstration, the same one where John and I received injuries last week and decided this week we were also going to do the CAN CAN once we reached the fence. This is where the soldiers are waiting on us.
The theme of the demonstration this week was approx 10 of us would walk in the front line carrying bodies of dead people and dead children. So we all headed towards the fence where the soldiers were waiting carrying our sacks covered in red paint to represent the dead when we turned the corner to find the Military blocking the road. As we marched towards them they suddenly started throwing sound bombs at us and firing rubber bullets. Some of us ran to the side and some ran to the back. I was standing next to a Spanish activist who I know well, I spent time with her here the last time I was in Nablus and a sound bomb went off right in between us. Her and I have both lost hearing and there is a ringing sensation in both our ears. Two minutes later a sound bomb smashed into my elbow which actually broke the skin and my arm was bleeding.
I was split from some of the group who were trying to take shelter behind some bricks, when the Israeli Army started firing at them. We went to sit in front of the army jeeps and the Israeli Army came with their batons and started attacking the Internationals brutally, smashing peoples legs and my dear friend was hit on the head.
I am waiting to find out how many people were injured, this was a very brutal demonstration on the Israeli Army’s part. One young Israeli boy was hit at extreme close range with a steel bullet coated in rubber at his head and also his neck.
A friend from Scotland was also there and she gave first aid. She told me that his skull was fractured very, very badly.
All I could see was people either being carried, or supported with blood running down their leg, arm and still the bullets and sound bombs were being fired.
This again was extreme force on a peaceful demonstration. As we walked towards them they used their brute force. Who is the terrorist?
We never of course got the chance to do the Can Can, but of course there will be another chance.
One of the young boys from our Campaign was hit quite badly by the Israelies baton as well. They were sitting down peacefully when the Israeli Army took out their batons and smashed them into peoples heads, bodies and legs.
I keep thinking what people say to us on the stall ‘THE ISRAELI ARMY ARE THE MOST MORAL ARMY IN THE WORLD’
The Israeli Army are the most cowardly army I have witnessed. They shoot innocent people on the back when they are walking away, they smash their batons into people sitting down. As people walk towards them they open fire on them.
This is Palestinian land we are talking about here.
I am afraid I vented my anger on a lady who was there and she told me that the Army there were just very frightened. I could not believe it, she witnessed the brutality, saw the injured people with blood running down their arms, legs and bodies and still tried to justify the bruality they used.
It is very difficult to constantly witness what the occupation is doing here and not feel a real hatred for the Israeli people, you need to constantly remember yourself it is a bit like Tony Blair, do not hate the British people because of him.
My last words are that today we had the most fantastic sight, there must have been approx 50 plus Israeli Activists came to the demonstration today and I very proudly stood beside them.Posted by michael on from exile 08/11 at 12:40 PMmichael...yes, I see your point. I just meant that probably for me everything is political. By that I mean, I see a reflection of a person’s world view in almost anything that they do. Perhaps there are exceptions. I was just going to say that there would be no political significance if a person preferred vanilla ice cream over chocolate, but on second thought there would be a lot of political values expressed with that choice.
Edson...I don’t go to movies much so have not seen 9/11 but if Stone did not make the root cause of 9/11 the main theme, I am disappointed. I did like some of his other work. The 9/11 Commission also ignored the elephant in the middle of the living room by ignoring that issue.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 08/11 at 12:41 PMMore cluster bombs, eh?
But Israel only wants Peace....(yawn)
They have loaded up that Lebanon with DU pollution, used white phosphorus weapons and Thermobaric explosives against civilians and yet those pesky Arabs refuse to be ethnically cleansed and just give up the Litani River for Israeli water parks,swimming pools and lush green lawns.
Why not throw some more cluster bombs into the mix there, Uncle Scam?
Here throw another toxic log on the flesh fire…“New and unkown deadly weapons used by Israeli forces
‘direct energy’ weapons, chemical and/or biological agents, in a macabre experiment of future warfare”
http://tinyurl.com/jro6hPosted by Youngfox on from Canaduh 08/11 at 12:47 PMHi All!
Hope Has Withered for India’s Farmers: http://tinyurl.com/s2xy4
Greenland’s Ice Cap is Melting at a Frighteningly Fast Rate: http://tinyurl.com/negfv
Britain’s airline terror plot: Questions that need to be answered: http://tinyurl.com/p36t4
UN force to evacuate Lebanese troops: http://tinyurl.com/otc6s
Posted by TM on from 08/11 at 12:55 PMFor the movielink, try punishmentpark.co.uk or just type in punishment park on google.
Chau for now
Edson
Posted by Edson Castilho on from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada 08/11 at 12:55 PMYoungfox...good to see you here and I like what you are saying there in # 15. Also, Israel still refuses to give Lebanon the map showing where the land mines are. Those new energy weapons sound like the same ones that the Pentagon was developing not too long ago....I think I wrote about them in “A Weapon to Make Your Blood Boil”. They might have been developed by Raytheon, I’m don’t remember. If we really want change, we will have to make it socially unacceptable for anyone to work at places like that. I know how hard that will be because there are not enough jobs that do not have an evil component.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 08/11 at 12:57 PMHello again, everyone. Great to see so many different folks here but wow...I’ve really fallen behind. Thanks for the great links, comments, quotes, etc. Time to play catch-up.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 08/11 at 02:47 PMIgnatieff admits gaffe over conflict: http://tinyurl.com/nwx66 The article states that Ignatieff is an “internationally acclaimed human rights expert”
Ignatieff’s statement: http://tinyurl.com/qrrzy
Posted by TM on from 08/11 at 03:22 PMTM - You must know that the “Liberals” and Neocons are two sides of the same rancid coin here in Canada.
The “Liberals” sent us into Afghanistan and lied to Canadians pretending it was a “peacekeeping mission” and all about “women’s rights” and “reconstructing” that country after the Americans hastily bombed what was left of it into dusty rubble on their way to Iraq.
The “Liberals” represent the “incremental deep integration” with the USA on all levels of society.
The Neocons, on the other hand, represent total and “immediate deep integration” with the American system and military and the ceding of all of our natural resources to their American masters.
The NDP just stands around like a mute woman who just had her purse snatched.
The “values” they espouse stand for nought when all they create is deafening silence.The “Liberals” are just slightly more humane on some domestic issues than the Neocons.
If Ignatieff wins the leadership it will be made so much clearer that the two parties are a Cerberus control system like the Democrats and Neocons down South.For people who use their heads for more than a pedestal upon which to place a nifty hairdo neither “mainstream” party is a viable option.
RMJ - love ya babe, but I do not subscribe to the “Blowback” 9/11 explanations.
While it fits in a logical world, we do not live in a logical world.
I am convinced that 9/11 was an inside job with the hardliner Neocons in the Cheney administration and the Israeli Mossad, “by way of deception”.
It was/is a frame-up psyop of supernatural proportions utilizing the CIA/ISI created database of Mujahadeen “freedom fighters” (Al Qaeda), acting as the “Lee Harvey Oswald” cover story.I realize that you and Mick both espouse following the trail of blood and tears that stretches from the American military industrial complex out into the world and you are absolutely correct to do so.
It is in deep exploration of the conventional lies that the unconventional will be revealed.I think that in time and an American patriot or patriots with big enough balls (or ovaries) will eventually come forward and reveal the 9/11 psyop did not come out of a CIA constructed bunker in Afghanistan but out of one of Dick Cheney’s network of American bunkers in direct lockstep with the hardline Zionist equivalent in Israel.
Who has benefited most from all of this terror?The curiosity must begin somewhere and I feel that the truth is so very unpalatable to a brain-scrubbed North American consumer public that the dissemination of truth must begin in the realm of the conventionally obvious.
I just do not have the patience for it anymore.
All hail the New World “Order”!Posted by Youngfox on from Canaduh 08/11 at 04:28 PMJust poppin’ in late. Fine post, good article Mickey. I’ll prolly pass on the Stone flick. Just saw Jarhead, and we were disappointed; my girlfriend said it reminded her of Police Academy at times. I just think it was too timid. Ollie Stone seems to not want to go there either. Whenever I stand on my soapbox after a concert or before a concert or whatever and bitch about how too few artists use the inherently communicative dimension of their work to deal with the danger and destruction closing in, I always get asked what I myself am doing. I find it embarassing when I have to point to my own soapbox.
Yo Youngfox mentioned Zionist lust after the Litani river; David Peterson’s collected some resources on “Greater Israel" over at his ZNet blog…
Posted by Keir on from The Hague (Jackowski election hdqts) 08/11 at 05:44 PMAh Youngfox...You are taking this discussion in a very interesting direction. I do not totally disagree with your analysis of 9/11. There is plenty of history to support your view that it was an inside job. I don’t really disagree with that. I am sort of agnostic on the issue. BUT, whether or not it was “blowback” or an inside job does not alter the fact that many groups/nations had logical reasons for blowback. Also, by trying to keep the blowback arguement out there it helps inform the public of past usa misdeeds. Your arguement also does that, maybe even better. The only view that I object to is the “official” one that says that “they” did it because they hate us for our freedoms. I doubt that anyone who ever comes to this site believes that.
I agree that this world is not driven by logic. I also do not think that religion plays as big a part as many think. I think that it is driven by greed for money. Things make sense when you follow the money.Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 08/11 at 05:49 PMIslam vs rest of world
Posted by Fiona on from San Diego 08/11 at 06:37 PMFiona I think that woman is offensive. Does she seriously believe that all Muslims are backward thinking barbarians???
Among monotheistic religions (and many philosophies and other religions too) their are none who take all the blame for the problems of violence in the world, nor is a single one of them blameless. Religious fanaticism of any flavour foments violence and hatred and is the very antithesis of the ideals of most.
She made some valid observations, but only when demanding her right to be non-religious and defending another’s right to the opposite.
The sort of finger pointing she does is the backward barbarian thought that she seems to think is the problem.
Posted by Amelopsis on from Canaduh 08/11 at 08:14 PMHere is a full transcript of that video, unedited by MEMRI: http://tinyurl.com/ql43d (it’s in pdf form)
sourcewatch.org on MEMRI: http://tinyurl.com/ru28x
Posted by TM on from 08/11 at 09:16 PMWell,
Thanks for that creatively spliced piece of propaganda from what is probably the world’s most prominent Zionist thought conductor.
(Thanks for the reality check TM).
Anybody who does his or her homework, (or a rudimentary Google search), knows what Memri’s agenda is Fiona.The fundamentalist Psychopaths on both sides of these current wars desires this kind of “Culture clash” bullshit to be the focus of religious zealots and eater/breeders on their respective sides of the power fence.
Make Muslims for the “the good Americans” what Jews were to “the good Germans” -
Sub humans worthy of extermination.Don’t worry, with the Western Media and all of the mouth breathing Cletus’ and Britney’s on board you will get the eternal cycle of holocausts your glib post seems to indicate a desire for.
I do wonder though, why would you flog such pointed and crass rhetoric at people who actually read books?
I agree that Arab and Muslims countries have lousy repressive regimes but look at any one of them and dig around.
Who props up the Wahabists (sp?) in Saudi Arabia? Who Keeps “General General” in power in Pakistan?How do you think America is doing these days? Just because US fascism has slick branding and PR campaigns doesn’t mean it isn’t willing to crush all among its own citizenry who threaten to take power from the select few who wield it.
Without a strong secular centre how long do you think it would take for women to be barefoot in ankle skirts shackled to a stove in the Christian world?
So-called “democracy” needs a villain in order to sell itself as the perpetual good guy no matter what putrid, greed-driven evil is done in its name.
Just as you schlep this kind of contorted, hateful shit to generate animosity toward Muslims so to do Muslims have their own partisans schlepping their own anti-Christian and Jewish psyop bullshit in the Muslim world. (Only they have the advantage of years of oppressive foreign occupations and massacres with which to fan the flames).
The cycle must be broken.
I agree that monotheistic control cults are the greatest threat to World peace because within each one of them brain wiped, programmed soldiers for the cause are created with a sense of self-righteous “chosen people of god” attitude that would send them gladly into the jaws of hot death for their unseen, bigoted alien sky monsters.
At their core religions are the same as these conflicts themselves.
They are about power and control over the masses that they claim to serve.
They are about the death of the evolution of the human spirit.
They are about making us all willing slaves to an elite, psychopathic few.
Moderate Muslims will never gain any influence in the Muslim world as long as the West gives the fundamentalists all of the hateful ammunition required to rally the people to blind hatred.
We are trapped in a timeless cycle that has come back around to yet another global “final solution”.
Thanks for the help, Fiona.“Selective Memri : Brian Whitaker investigates whether the ‘independent’ media institute that translates the Arabic newspapers is quite what it seems” http://tinyurl.com/329x
Posted by Youngfox on from Canaduh 08/11 at 10:35 PMI don’t think Fiona meant any harm when she posted that link, if anyone seems to think so.
The Secret Cause of Flame Wars
http://tinyurl.com/7q2b9Posted by TM on from 08/12 at 12:03 AMThanks. TM. Just in case it was not clear: The Fiona I know was not endorsing the message of that video.
Gotta run (I mean, fly). Talk to you soon from Texas.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 08/12 at 03:56 AMIt is so surprising to see that although the alternative truth seekers are abundant in USA , a majority of the population there is still going about their lives as walking dead bodies. The blame cannot be shared individually by the reckless politicians but also by the people who refuse to “see the truth” . Its time we focus that we have leaders who are conrgruent and have constructive visions for the world , have the highest integrity and speak the truth always , if need be ..WIRE THEM UP TO LIE DETECTORS EVERY TIME THEY SPEAK.
Fear causes people to submit to others and this is what is going on . It would be inappropriate to bring out whether the plots are an exaggeration or not , but one thing is CLEAR ... no one is trying to see the root cause of the problem , if the PROBLEM REALLY EXISTS.
As terrorism is not having a command and control structure and is mostly a ideology which is home grown , home imbibed and is spreading like virus , maybe we should look into the reasons of why so many young minds ( conservative relegions living in cosmopolitan parts of the world ) are ready to give up their lives rather than LIVE MEANINGFUL LIVES , and why are they deriving MEANING from killing others and themselves.
Security is nothing but FREEDOM from FEAR and being prepared with WAR ARSENAL for any eventuality is not SECURITY by any YARDSTICK. Freedom from fear will come only when of what we fear tommorow , we need to do something today to neutralize that fear. And that can only happen by change of policies and change of people’s mindset to see the real truth.
Eventually while focussing on the problem , let us also occassionaly focus on the solution that the TRUTH WILL SURFACE and will set us FREE .
Posted by Rohit on from India 08/15 at 09:59 PM
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