I don't know if the Pentagon brass will be terribly worried about the film shown by the Exchange. IIRC, the exchange is a separate business entity, motivated by profit. They show reduced price films 4-6 wks after release. I know a guy who runs the X in Mayport--he's a civilian/ reitred after 20 yrs. Navy. If they try to stop them, they'll just bring more attn to the film.
On the ships and the army (don't know about Marines), they show antiwar films so I'm guessing they figure that, since films aren't seamless, it really depends on where you're 'at' as to whether you'll grasp the message a director may have meant to convey.
At 12:41 PM 7/4/2004, Doug Henwood wrote
>[wotta pile of crap - I saw the movie in Danvers, Mass., which is not much
>like Northampton, but the audience reactions were not dissimilar - and
>yesterday in a chain steakhouse in suburban NJ we overheard a gray-haired
>lady in a powder-blue suit at the salad bar, urging fellow diners to see it]
If Kerry's campaign isn't targeting senior citizens around this issue, then they are blockheads. (OK, so we already know this....! :) I've seen it three times because I've wanted to take people who couldn't go without transportation/me paying for ticket. (I actually have a pirated copy but don't have a DVD burner so I can't imagine us all huddling around my small flat screen!) Every single time, the most obviously disgusted people in the audience were seniors. um, Ok, so I lived in Florida....
The woman who used to be an activist at Notre Dame's Draft Counseling Center? I met her at the film. After all these years, she decided to get involved in antiwar activism again. She's never felt a reason to get involved before, mainly because she doesn't see what antiwar activists have done since vietnam as worthwhile. Protesting doesn't do much for her. That gets us back to that issue that Jon's raised. If we're going to make any headway, you have to show people you're doing something more than standing on a corner holding a candlelight vigil.
:) I was sitting next to one man who kept having to pull his hand out of
the ziplock bag of goodies he shared with the woman he was with. He had to
do that so he could raise his hand in gestures of disgust.
Yesterday's crowd seemed a lot less political where I saw it--also a matinee. People weren't laughing as uproariously but it still got a standing O by some and most everyone seemed to be clapping. When we got outside, there was a woman standing in the ticket line who stopped the three women ahead of me and asked, "You just saw Fahrenheit, didn't you?"
"Yes, why?"
"You're all walking out teary-eyed or dazed, one after the other."
I have to say, that comment in the military town article struck me as so accurate, to paraphrase, the woman indicated she'd been hesitant to see it because she didn't want to know.
At 05:37 PM 7/4/2004, Carl Remick wrote:
>I'm almost inclined to raise the ante and call for Bush & Co. to be tried
>for war crimes, not just tossed out of office. But I think that's just
>the effect of having seen the movie a couple of hours ago. I have no idea
>how deep or lasting an impact the movie will have on audiences in general.
This should bring you down sufficiently. Bring your barf bags! :)
---------------------------- Construction Worker Powell:
>http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/powell_village_people
http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/
This guy's parodies crack me up. I used to check in daily for a giggle. The entry for July 4 had the link to the video footage and a photoshopped pic of Powell as a member of the VP.
Also, if you look further down, under an entry labeled 'impotence,' you can see they're trying to google bomb the word 'impotence' to make it link to a page about Cheney at whitehouse.gov. Now THAT'S going to be hard to google bomb!
At 03:47 PM 7/4/2004, Chuck0 wrote:
>I hate to admit it, but I was deeply moved by the part of the film about
>the lack of support shown for the Congressional Black Caucus. You would
>think that that incident would have become more famous after the 2000
>election, but F911 was the first time I had heard about this incident. Of
>course, this was a scathing indictment of the Democrats.
hell, I remember watching it as it happened on the local FOX channel or maybe it was CSPAN. The thing Moore did was to push it together to make it more powerful. I already knew about it, but I still bawl every time I see it.
At 03:08 PM 7/4/2004, Chuck0 wrote:
>Fahrenheit 9/11: Cotton Eye Candy for the Usual Suspects
>http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=04/07/04/8963235
>
>I saw the film last Sunday night in Orlando in a packed auditorium full of
>librarians. Perhaps all of the hype was too much for me to enjoy the film,
>but I didn't come out of it with the same level of excitement that I had
>after seeing Bowling for Columbine. True, we're talking about two
>different films, but I think that Bowling for Columbine will stand the
>test of time and will be seen as the better of the two films.
Why do you expect him to interview activists? His point in that section is to expose the ways the administration keeps everyone afraid through prevariganda and how it pursues a war on terr (tm) I'll call "nerf-based security". It's not to take a look at what the Busheviks have done to activists.
I actually think he presented activists in a very positive light in the beginning and, in the end, I think he seemed to make the point that Lila was left there, alone, with an ineffective 'peace' group there who couldn't do much more than mouth slogans in response to Lila's pushy critic.
To me, it was exactly the kind of criticism you make of conventional activists.
Also, are you ever simply going to accept that not everyone is ready to storm the whitehouse? That they need to move through various stages of, for lack of a better phrase, consciousness-raising to actually get there?
And what would happen if you and Valentine got their way: You storm the Whitehouse. Like, if you did, this country wouldn't immediately fall into a chaotic mess that would make today's Iraq look paradise?
We need stronger alternative institutions and practices that advance political education AND which help people learn how to run their lives, collectively. make decisions, collectively. Much of what anarchists have been involved in when they actually work on those things is what I value about the movement. But all this crabbing about everyone is just not up to snuff and everyone else fails on anarchist standards ... it is just offputting. What does anarchism offer my former Draft Counseling Center antiwar volunteer friend, J?
"We're in a fucking stagmire."
--Little Carmine, 'The Sopranos'