>The sequence should have been reversed!!! The sufferings of the American
>mother should have been the lead-in, to put it bluntly, the prop to the
>sufferings of the ultimate victim: the Iraqi mother who is _still_
>victimized, _still_ suffering, long after the American "moves on dot com
>;-)", because it is not simply that it is not America, but Iraq, that is
>the occupied country, but that it is furthermore America that is the
>occupier. But all this falls out of sight once we go to Flint, Michigan.
Right. You wanted a different film altogether. You do not want a movie about why George Bush and his ilk need to be flushed down the toilet bowl of history. You want a movie that is about American imperialism and a movie about how the u.s. citizenry are the beneficiaries of imperialism. You also seem to want a film that is about how Lila ought to ignore the 50% unemployment rate in Flint because she is far better off than any Iraqi ever imagined being. Stop pitying yourself lady and buy an errant klew: things ain't so bad.
Good luck winning over the u.s. masses. I took my kids and his friends from the old hood to see that film. You have never seen five young black men filled with recognition. someone told their story! someone showed, on film, with all kinds of people "getting it" --white people!--getting it. in the theater. white people laughing uproariously at the two idiot recruiters. can you imagine what it was like for them to have THEIR story told for a change in an audience that revealed that they are on their side?
afterward, they recounted story after story about how these recruiters try to sell them a bill of goods. they replayed over and over how those two guys in the parking lot responded. you know what they saw? heh. oh lawdy, they were so funny, I wish I could have taped it and loaded it up on the 'net for you to hear. As we drive home, _I_ about wet myself. These kids put words in the mouths of the two young men that had to endure the recruiting mofos attempt to "connect." DP, I need to hook you up with T, he's got the stuff for stand up!
Lila Lipscomb's family is _their_ family. They live in multi-racial families. They know what it's like to few choices. They know what it's like to play b-ball on broken down courts or in the street.
Last weekend, they saw something about them. It opened with a story about them--the CBC being humiliated on the Senate floor and it ended with a story about them--"their mother" who might one day be balling her eyes out for their brother, sister, cousin, father, uncle, aunt.
Kelley
"We're in a fucking stagmire."
--Little Carmine, 'The Sopranos'