tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3862216000300765627.post4166170055499246568..comments2024-01-16T03:42:46.705-05:00Comments on The Downward Spiral: We Were Fucked from the Moment We Elected the Movie ActorBill Hickshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17551954408189665078noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3862216000300765627.post-87013349852580864732012-09-28T10:28:14.303-04:002012-09-28T10:28:14.303-04:00My parents voted for Carter in 1980, and were very...My parents voted for Carter in 1980, and were very sympathetic to the speech. History has proved my parents' judgement correct. My mother now gets to worry about how her grandchildrens' lives are going to turn out after seeing videos by Chris Martenson.<br /><br />I read blog posts by the likes of Orlov, Kunstler and Greer, and do what I can for my family. Most of my friends go on with their lives. They are still doing okay or very well. At this point, seems the best thing to do is vote for the Green Party, do what you can for those close to you, and enjoy what's left of our energy shindig.kleymohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05073430643005816944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3862216000300765627.post-75403783753665912252012-09-27T19:36:09.219-04:002012-09-27T19:36:09.219-04:00Y'all are forgetting 'In Like Flint', ...Y'all are forgetting 'In Like Flint', which had the following bit of satire, which followed with life imitating, um, art. Anyway, I just wish life would follow through with the feminine takeover, so I could use another great line from this movie about women. 'I don't compete with them.' If you never saw this movie, which was pretty popular, you never heard the audience roar at the actor bit, clearly aimed at Reagan, who failed in his first run. Note also the mention of Red Scare. Again, great piece Bill.<br />graveday<br /><br /> The indomitable Derek Flint returns to save the world, this time from a bevy of beauties who simultaneously raise the ire of the world's women while replacing powerful males with surgically-altered substitutes (leading to, perhaps, the most prescient line of dialogue in any 1960s film--upon discovering that the man in the White House is not who he seems to be, a disbelieving Flint says, "An actor as president?"). That is, until a renegade ZOWIE general (Steve Inhat) decides it's his turn to take the reins of power. The delightful Lee J. Cobb is back as Flint's curmudgeonly boss, Cramden, as are the secret agent's posse of female admirers, and TV's Batgirl, Yvonne Craig, even shows up as a Russian ballerina. "In Like Flint" feels more grown up than the previous film, partly because the lighting and cinematography are more stark and partly because the humor is sometimes more rooted in satire than parody. Notions like the Red Scare being a feint to the very real dangers of corruption from within and the beauty industry actually having our worst interests in mind--and charging a premium for them--are slipped in with more obvious gags involving oversized eyebrows, cross-dressing, and the bouncing sing-a-long ball.centralscrewtinizerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03404913280254786506noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3862216000300765627.post-43324646124536156982012-09-27T15:06:35.282-04:002012-09-27T15:06:35.282-04:00Gail I include myself too, and I should have menti...Gail I include myself too, and I should have mentioned that in my comment above. I was just another Lomanesque Planglossian nincompoop until a few short years ago, and it took some professional setbacks to help me see the light. Lotta good it's done me. :)<br /><br />Looking forward to the next post re. "Joe Public," BH. (Raising a toast to St. Joe Strummer for that term!)~https://www.blogger.com/profile/07775795950513629761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3862216000300765627.post-60543281485891191122012-09-27T13:28:42.870-04:002012-09-27T13:28:42.870-04:00Good post. It's hard to point to any one thing...Good post. It's hard to point to any one thing and say that's when things went wrong. There are a lot of factors, and some started well before Reagan. <br /><br />But my symbolic turning point is during Reagan, too. When he tore the solar panels off the roof of the White House, it was the symbolic end of even the slimmest chance we had at heading off the peak events and minimizing the environmental damage within the industrial system. <br /><br />But "the American way of life is non-negotiable", and that was that. I agree with HueyLewis, the public is an all-too-willing supporter of the Hologram. This is a collective problem. We voted for delusion over reality.<br /><br />To boot with Reagan we gave free market ideology free reign at the exact time that globalism was technically possible.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3862216000300765627.post-27103519177971439632012-09-27T12:42:50.358-04:002012-09-27T12:42:50.358-04:00I wouldn't let Joe Public off the hook, and I&...I wouldn't let Joe Public off the hook, and I'm including myself there. However, for many years I found it quite possible to live more-or-less oblivious to the reality so cleverly summed up in this post. I hated Reagan, I hated what happened to Carter, but I didn't really understand the full dimensions of mendacity from the corporate oligarchy, the completely ruthless dominance of the military/industrial complex, and I certainly didn't recognize the imminent, existential threat of overshoot - whether it's considered to stem from population growth, resource extraction, habitat destruction or pollution.<br /><br />In fact, I probably still wouldn't know except it has become much easier to get real information on the internet.<br /><br />My point is, without exculpating Joe Public entirely, we are methodically, systematically, and deliberately lied to, and it takes some glimmer of that, from whatever source, to spur a personal effort to find out the truth.<br /><br />And then it's there in all its horrible banality.Gail Zawackihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3862216000300765627.post-4965268368150305242012-09-27T11:44:24.149-04:002012-09-27T11:44:24.149-04:00Check back on Saturday as I have a post in the wor...Check back on Saturday as I have a post in the works blasting a specific member of "Joe Public." :)Bill Hickshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17551954408189665078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3862216000300765627.post-61012097712612474962012-09-27T10:00:17.983-04:002012-09-27T10:00:17.983-04:00I think you might be letting Joe Public off the ho...I think you might be letting Joe Public off the hook a bit here, BH. The American public wanted a figurehead to tell them what they wanted to hear every bit as much as the proverbial "puppetmasters" wanted to give them one.<br /><br />Jimmy Carter, flawed though he was, tried to hint at the truth in his famous "malaise" speech (in which he never actually used that word), and was severely punished for it by the voting public. No savvy politician of either party ever forgot that lesson.<br /><br />The American middle and working classes got Reagan and his ilk because that's what they wanted. They are entirely complicit in their own economic and cultural destruction. When assessing our current state, there is much more to learn from Willy Loman (since you mention salesmen) than Ronald Reagan, who would be deemed a left-leaning moderate by today's standards. Reagan was a mere sympton of the conformist, wealth-worshipping, status-marker-obsessed nature of our culture that artists like Miller and Steinbeck and Sinclair Lewis identified decades before he came to office. This ideology remains strong today, particularly among the generations that came of age in the three decades after WW2, though at last we may be seeing some cracks in the facade.<br /><br />The phrase you coined, "Spoiled Rotten Nation," is a brilliant summing up of where we really stand.~https://www.blogger.com/profile/07775795950513629761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3862216000300765627.post-84608653643125752752012-09-27T09:59:20.895-04:002012-09-27T09:59:20.895-04:00I don't know about Bonzo, but I'd definite...I don't know about Bonzo, but I'd definitely vote the Tarzan-Cheetah ticket ...kingsnakenoreply@blogger.com