Tom the Exterminator on the Middle East

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Mon Apr 8 11:36:46 PDT 2002


At 8:03 AM -0700 4/8/02, Michael Perelman wrote:
>On Mon, Apr 08, 2002 at 10:25:18AM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:
> >
> > Because the U.S., despite having "lost" the war, left Vietnam such a
> > wreck that it discouraged any rude experiments elsewhere.
> >
> > Doesn't Chomsky make this argument? I think I first got the idea from
> > him, and was persuaded.
> >
> > Doug
>
>That was also the thesis of the film, Burn.

In the movie _Burn!_, the island of Quemada had already been burned down by the Portuguese to quell a slave revolt before William Walker arrived with a mission to foment a nationalist revolution and thereby wrest economic control over the island from the Portuguese. Hence the name of the island. In the course of the movie, the island will be burned down again, this time by Quemada's military junta with William Walker's supervision and British military assistance (both serving the interests of the Antilles Royal Sugar Company, the neo-colonial successor to Portugal). So, the thesis of the movie is that, yes, the power elite will not hesitate to destroy even lucrative economic assets (sugar plantations in the case of the movie) -- not to mention human lives -- in one place to prevent the threat of revolution menacing assets in other places, _and yet_ revolts will happen again and again, regardless. -- Yoshie

* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>



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