Posted by Mattias Indy Pettersson | Filed under
politics
Markets are ruled right now by fear.
The stockmarket is finished.
The governments don't rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world.
In less than twelve months the savings of millions of people is gonna vanish, and this is just the beginning.
The biggest risk people can take right now is not acting.
Posted by Mattias Indy Pettersson | Filed under
politics
This is the best article I've found so far ("best" as in – in my opinion – being fair and balanced): Imperial Delusions: Ignoring the Lessons of 9/11 by Robert Jensen, journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
[...] If the new boss sounds a lot like the old boss, it's because the problem isn't just bad leaders but a bad system. That's why a critique of today's wars sounds a lot like critiques of wars past. Here's Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assessment of the imperial war of his time: "[N]o one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over."
Will our autopsy report read "global war on terror"?
That sounds harsh, and it's tempting to argue that we should refrain from political debate on the 9/11 anniversary to honor those who died and to respect those who lost loved ones. I would be willing to do that if the cheerleaders for the U.S. empire would refrain from using the day to justify the wars of aggression that followed 9/11. But given the events of the past decade, there is no way to take the politics out of the anniversary.
We should take time on 9/11 to remember the nearly 3,000 victims who died that day, but as responsible citizens, we also should face a harsh reality: While the terrorism of fanatical individuals and groups is a serious threat, much greater damage has been done by our nation-state caught up in its own fanatical notions of imperial greatness.
That's why I feel no satisfaction in being part of the anti-war/anti-empire movement. Being right means nothing if we failed to create a more just foreign policy conducted by a more humble nation. [...]
Posted by Mattias Indy Pettersson | Filed under
movies
The opening scene of The Plague Dogs (1982) really sets the tone.
A dog being subject to repeated drowning experiments. Outside the thunder roars, the rain comes down hard and a cold wind blows.
This is not Disney.
Two dogs escape from a British government animal testing lab – Animal Research (Scientific and Experimental), A.R.S.E. – and roam the grey and wintry Lake District in search of a new master, or rather, in search of a good human. The facility spreads the rumour that the animals are carrying bubonic plague, so being hated by humans and not knowing how to survive, they decide that they'll have to ”live by our teeth and kill”.
This is a highly impressive, very realistic movie. It's free from cool effects (even though the animation work is superb if you're into old school stuff), kind of slow at times, and most importantly: it's severely depressing, painful and sad.
Obviously, it still remains an underground movie since it actually has got something to say (something like this: The only way to free yourself from the cruelties of mankind is to die, so when the dogs swim out to sea in the end, they choose death instead of being killed by humans...). People with a short attention span probably won't like it, and some scenes are pretty rough. It got censored due to graphical content, and only 8,000 copies of the uncut film exists on tape. It's on YouTube, though.
Even though the dogs' constant self-pitiness might become tedious after a while, I think the overall darkness and sadness of it all makes up for that. True animal friends most likely will cry when watching. Hell, you don't even have to be a fanatic animal lover to be touched by this one. Anybody reaching the conclusion that mankind sucks ought to cry every once in a while.
The realism is a huge factor as well in making this a classic movie. Rowf's fear of water, the death scenes and the dialogue are just a few examples of that.
I come to think of Grave of the Fireflies (a superb movie that everyone should see at least once) when watching The Plague Dogs, not really because they're both animated films, but because of the depressing mood and the realism. Sometimes, stories like these are told more efficiently in comics and animated movies.
[Snitter, trapped in a garage, is hallucinating about his old home] Rowf: Snitter! Can you hear me? Snitter: I'm inside my head now. And it's where I should be. Rowf: This is no time for one of your turns! The Tod: Come on out, ya great fool! Sharp with ye, now, before we're all caught! Snitter: I can't come out. If I do, I'll go mad again.
