So getting back to my initial frets about the Israel/Hezbollah (Hizbollah, I've seen it spelled both ways) conflict. I should probably amend that to include Hamas/Palestine/and Lebanon, and if I really wanted to break out the big guns, I would throw in Syria and Iran, the boogermen.
I'm no middle eastern expert, I'm sure everything I say has been said better and more eloquently by somebody else out there in the world wide web. I'm sure people opposing and agreeing with me would tear me down in a second for my naive and bias views.
With that all out of the way, this concerns me because the neocons seem to dusting off (or reloading) their torches and pitchforks, calling for the heads of the leaders of Syria and Iran. Well, I shouldn't say they are going to be using those weapons, they will call on some poor uneducated minority to do that. And if they can't get them, they'll just go with the white supremacists. Or this. Either way, the people who want this war will be doing everything in their power to avoid fighting it.
Check out Glen Greenwald's blog. In his words he makes an extremely relevant point about the lack of honest debate about the Israeli lobby influence over U.S. Foreign policies. Definitely check out the washington post article he links to, it's long, but the detailing in it of the inner workings of AIPAC and other organizations is pretty revealing. Anyway, Greenwald's point is that if anybody tries to question Israeli policy, they are usually labeled anti-semites or coupled with some other extremist group. The lack of honest debate has led this country down some really dark paths in the past (Iraq, Iraq, and Iraq). Engaging in a new conflict with anybody and everybody that poses a threat to Israel seems like another aggravatingly weak justification for war that some of these assholes seem to be drooling for.
It seems to me that Hezbollah and Hamas are capable of extreme violent actions, considering they struck first. Israel is right up there with them, everybody is capable of extremes and sometimes peaceful democracies like Israel act out of a violent desire to swing their military might and prove their worth to the rest of the world. Why we excuse this kind of foolhardy aggression is beyond me, other than only to say we participate in the same kind of cowboy macho bull shit. See, it's the male gender's fault, we should attack them, I mean us. I don't wish to slant this in anyway, but both sides are at fault. It's just that Israel seems to be goading us into a full on cluster fuck. That really sticks in my crawl.
Hopefully the voices of reason will outweigh the hawks, and with Iraq looking the way it is now, I can't believe there are people out there who want to spread this all the way around the rest of the middle east. Also, to all the Gingriches and Kristols out there, don't give me this shit about the sacred mission of protecting Israel human life. I have one word for you, Africa, well maybe another one, oil. Maybe that's for another post, to be continued.
The new Night movie comes out on friday, and from all forecasts, it's looking pretty shitty. I don't want to sound like an asshole and say something like I want him to fail (i save that bile for Eli Roth and Brett Ratner, maybe Paul Haggis now). It's just that he's been obsessed with his own brand ever since his shit took off. He's openly admitted he's out to start pop culture phenomenons. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that pop-culture's job not some wannabe Spielberg/Hitchcock mis-mash. Also I think it's really interesting that he has all but ignored his first two films (Wide Awake and Praying With Anger) two religious comedies that didn't feature twists endings or pretentious supernatural allegories. I think the reason behind that is they didn't make any money. That's my other big problem with him, he equates his worth as a filmmaker with how much money they bring in. He could have directed Battlefield Earth and as long as it made money, he would have thought it was this century's citizen kane. It will be interesting to see how Lady in the Water does, hopefully it will be such a colossal crash and burn that Night will re-think his career and maybe stop making movies about how brilliant he is.
I might try to see it because I think Night's career has been very interesting in how each movie has gotten progressively worse (except Unbreakable, good shit) and just when I thought he couldn't get enough of his own hubris, he tops himself, it's kind of like how not to be a filmmaker, I should pay attention. I guess all I can say for him is that, like the Mel Gibson character in his mean, facist religious movie Signs, Night is not beyond redemption. He probably doesn't want it though, he's an asshole.
That's it for now, see ya in the funny pages.
"I'm a connoisseur of roads. I've been tasting roads my whole life.
This road will never end. It probably goes all around the world."
No comments:
Post a Comment