Nov. 4th, 2005

jateshi: (Imperio/OOC // Artema)
I'm making more signs of life, aren't I? Journal entries on multiple days of the week, with coherent subject titles - stuff like that.

Today was "I have no art class, thus treat self to something good" day. I went to a movie. The following, folks, is some about the movie and some about the real world - it's political, in a way, and most certainly not "pro-America" since I tend to think of my fellow citizens as something a step above sheep, for the most part. SUVs for crissakes! GAS GUZZLERS and you're paying at the pump left and right! GAH!

When I want to go to a movie, I've got certain moods I'm in. Some movies I want to be taken to fantasy and absorb myself in the world woven on the screen. Some days I want to sit back and let my mind shut off, to decompress as we all need to do. Other days, though, I want to think. I want to watch a movie which makes me uncomfortable, which makes me question, and which makes me think.

Not surprisingly, for those familiar with the concept of Good Night, and Good Luck, I was disturbed and challenged - in a good way - by the movie. Completely shot in black and white and based on Edward Murrow's program on CBS in the 1950's, Good Night, and Good Luck is the story of the CBS reporters - about five or so - who stood up against junior Senator McCarthy and challenged his methods and motives for accusing people of being communist. It's not a movie to make you leave the theatre happy though, because that's not the point.

It's point, I feel, is the more simple introspection about the human mind and beast. It's not something to make you go "Wow, we're so enlightened now compared to then and those people" with a sense of pride; it sticks in your mind with the closing remarks that unless the broadcasting companies change, they serve only to distract the public from being the citizens they lawfully should. Television entertains, entrances, and distracts the people who watch it from looking closely at their world - they stop questioning things so long as their favourite shows are on at the set slots. Ed Murrow's parting words, in the scene of his 1958 speech to television corporate heads, leave the distasteful idea that just maybe the movie crosses more boundaries than history - it crosses time and place.

People seem to care less for the situations facing their nations and their borders and even their planet if the telly's on - they shush you when you speak about the news, asking you to wait until the commercial break. I live inside the Beltway - lingo where I live for "I am near DC" and we have this thing about us - we care for the news. Local news is DC politics, on my tv screen; the joke though, is that more than 20 miles from the Beltway, people stop caring. The frightening thing is that it's true, isn't it? So-called witch-hunts happen in cities and states, nations and continents around the world but Americans seem to more be concerned with Survivor than their news. All around, accusations about the intelligence of the government, the CIA leak, Libby's indictment, whether or not Rove will be indicted as well - those are all around. But they've barely affected the populace, from poll numbers.

Is it going to take public accusations and hearings to wake the country up again? But if so - we already have those. We've got CARNIVORE from the FBI, which scours the web for "terrorist" pages. We've got the Patriot Act, which allows the government permission to imprison people suspected of anti-America activities. It is the year 2005 and military bases are still on a semi lock-down, something that breaks my heart when I have to head into one of the installations. Murrow wanted to pursue the story of McCarthy because what the man was doing generated fear - how is this world we're surviving in now any different?

Fear is the mind-killer, as the Bene Gesserit say, is it not? When you're afraid, you don't question the things which are done to "make it safe" for you.

July 2012

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