The Dark Night or NeoCon Artist:
Gary Gray | 11.01.2009 23:53 | Analysis | Cambridge
One wonders why so many in the media and film industry are in such frenzy over Christopher Nolan’s film “The Dark Night”? Granted the movie is good, and in some ways great, but still the plot is really no more ingenious that what passes for standard fare on Law and Order. So why is it that the Powers-that-Be is such a tizzy? No doubt a fair share has to do with it portending to hold a mirror up to post-9/11 society—with a major theme of how terror can corrupt those that fear and fight terrorism.
The Dark Night or NeoCon Artist:
byGary Gray
One wonders why so many in the media and film industry are in such frenzy over Christopher Nolan’s film “The Dark Night”? Granted the movie is good, and in some ways great, but still the plot is really no more ingenious that what passes for standard fare on Law and Order. So why is it that the Powers-that-Be is such a tizzy?
No doubt a fair share has to do with it portending to hold a mirror up to post-9/11 society—with a major theme of how terror can corrupt those that fear and fight terrorism. Film critics have claimed that this “epic” speaks to the essentials of the human condition—like a humanities lesson? They say this movie on good versus evil is but a reality show in which good souls fight forces bent on “obliterating” the foundations of liberty and order—and wanting to destroy the very “philosophical” foundations of organized society. Well, as metaphor, this documentary speaks volumes to what has happened politically and socially in the U.S.A.
Anyone who has read Naomi Wolf’s book “The End of America: A Letter to a Young Patriot,” or has learned of its myriad of deeper truths and patterns, knows that the foundations of American freedom and civil liberty have been undermined in a very big way—and no amount of Obama and same-old-same democratic party is going to make much difference. The fact remains that the Bush Administration has already pushed, to the brink, the mechanisms necessary to turn this country into a dictatorship in a matter of days if a major catastrophe occurs (concocted or otherwise). So anyone not deeply concerned about the direction this country continues to take toward new forms of KGB-like surveillance and control—despite Obama’s win—is deeply deluded.
But what is particularly alarming is that the mainstream media itself has been a major vehicle for taking our country to the brink of authoritarianism—and thanks too to Israel’s negative influence to “egalitarian” democracy by insisting that Americans should continue to support their anti-democratic cause—that has been essentially ethnocentric with pseudo-democracy meant “only” for Jews—prompted by the ultimate delusion that a deity actually “gifted” the land of Canaan to them, and to them alone (that is their ancestors), millennia ago and supposedly for eternity.
So any “Clash of Civilization” analysis, as made by the likes of Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington, has to also recognize that major “philosophical” differences are not just between the West and Islamic theocracies, but equally exist as ideological clash between our form of constitutional respect for equal rights for “all”; and, not rabid authoritarianism founded on a psychology of tyrannical monarchy as incorporated in the psychology of ancient Judaism. Lewis and Huntington were right in respect that a “clash” of civilizations has its roots in ancient history—but we take notice that this is especially true for the myths promulgated to create the Judaic religion.
Therefore we need to ask why citizens of the United States should continue to abide a brainwash insistence that the U.S. should support Israel’s domination of a land that was never their land—save their historical willingness to kill off inhabitants with “their” concocted propagandist claim of “their” God’s will, as commanded, to kill off non-Jews—whether such killing is currently in operation or happened millennia ago?
No one in their right mind, who has capacity for objective and independent thought, would consent to the idea that the God of Moses and the Old Testament is, or was, ever just or fair? Such a “mythic” deity, according to their own scripture, ordered the massacre of the many inhabitants of Canaan, because (we are to naively suppose to believe) their God “willed” that that land, millennia ago, was destined “only” for Jews and descendants of David—despite the fact that other people had already lived there—thus this historical need to kill off current inhabitants.
And this is foreign relations plan that the people of the United States are expected to support no matter how such psychological corruption gives impetus to other forms of tyranny and extremism? Perhaps it is time for the State Department to set up an Office of Psychiatry to deal with this so-called “special” relationship our country has had with Israel (and to put the doctors next to Hillary Clinton’s suite so that she too can be monitored for her attack dog manner of being another tool of foreign influence unhampered by the Foreign Agents Registration Act)? And perhaps State Department personnel can explain to doctors why Israel, which continues to spy on our country, and sell or trade our secrets to potential enemies, is still treated as so valuable a relationship?
Therefore, it seems a “conceit” of the those that work for the Powers-That-Be, and who continue to undermine America’s real national security, that are the most enamored with their frenetic notions of what The Dark Night represents as giddy matter. This movie posits innocent and “nice” people of society as victims of fear, ignorance and dogma—who then support politicians’ dealings to “save” the citizens of Gotham from the Joker’s blatant forms of evil.
Yet the irony or insider joke is that the Joker is more honest about the human condition, as he engages his fictional life-style to reveal the fallible nature of, say, an Anglo-Saxon (Aaron Eckhart), which may be a lesson to those who believe in the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition, as inheritance, about a Mediterranean underworld that does not respect democratic freedom—or any idealism—cyndicating it just fantasy? (Note too that when people argued for the American Revolution they mostly quoted from English polemics, enlightenment philosophy and classical literature—not the Bible).
So why does the news and entertainment industry, that has played its significant part in manipulating the American mind on crucial issues related to terrorism, become so affectedly charmed of the Jokers’s proposition—namely that life cannot conform to such simplicities as everything as either good or evil—when their propaganda so willingly argues such—such as Hamas (Israel’s current obstacle) is all evil? Even a fool knows that there are areas of gray that cannot be so easily categorized—but how does this cynicism equate to a willingness to corrupt a system an ideals they claim to protect?
Was it not the mainstream media that contributed to much to damage, for example in protecting the Bush Administration eroding of our civil rights, such as not much questioning the Patriot Acts—while they claimed to be our watch dogs for the rights of man that this country was founded as a “radical” departure from the European tyrannical monarchy and theocracy?
Did not the Main Stream Media help lead the charge that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction? Did not the MSM help mobilize the war machine for an illegal invasion based on lies and deceit concocted by forces within the beltway, including the Zionist propagandists that created phony intelligence in the Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon? Did not the MSM ignore the ACLU press release in 2003 that autopsy reports showed enemy combatants were not just tortured but died from torture—only later to debate, ad nausea, if water boarding and loud music was torture or just torture-lite? Did not the mainstream media cover up both George W. Bush elections were stolen? Did not the mainstream media ignore or trivialize certain presidential candidates—as not good enough for Zionists, or war machine, or big oil aspirations? Did not the MSM help cover-up 9/11 by not exploring alternative theories with their McCarthy spin that “conspiracy theories” are the stuff of irrational and susceptible minds?
And is it not the MSM that continues to lead the charge that all things Islamic and Arab are suspect while never suggesting that perhaps their could equally be a small fraction of Christian, Zionist, and secular extremists who would also resort to violence and terrorism—if they thought they could get away with it? And is it not MSM who is involved in another propaganda war to turn the U.S. war machine on another of Israel’s enemies—namely Iran, etc?
It was a willingness to engage in deceit against the American People that makes The Dark Night the historical Devil—and it is precisely this willingness to engage deceit, including self-deceit, that now laughs off any seriousness or anxiety as the fourth estate continues to manipulate America in fighting predominately for Israeli objectives by trying to make Americans believe the our Homeland Security mission is to protect ourselves against what were essentially Israel’s conflicts—but they would make us believe (with force if necessary) their enemies are now exactly our own enemies.
We Americans have lost much in the name of freedom and will likely continue to do so until our Government has the moral courage to demand that Israel and Palestine and the rest of the Middle East separate church and state and grant equal rights to “all” people, irrespective of religion and nationality—across the board—no exception to any historical delusions or propensities to religious dictatorship.
Truly it has been tragedy for persecution and murder of all religious peoples—including and especially for Jews—but a homeland starts within one’s heart and that all the world and people are equal to a God that esteems equality. Furthermore Americans are “not” responsible for all of history’s atrocities—and we are not going to be endlessly guilt-tripped and blackmailed into thinking it is our mission to support any theocracy—no matter how many centuries of make-belief it has survived. It is time for Israelis and the rest of the Middle East to wake up to their dysfunctional feuds that never end—but that they want us to pay for and be destroyed in the process.
Yes America has plenty of faults and hypocrisies on its own which one reason we don’t need to compound them with the faults and hypocrisies of other peoples. And it does not matter what percentage of Jewry are good and respectable people, and who hold high standards of ethics—the bottom line is the right-wing of Jewry that falls back to right-wing impulses. Nor does it matter how ancient, or elaborate, or extensive, is Jewish, Islamic, or Christian religious literature, or how much controversy and change lies in the history of their religious beliefs. The bottom line is tyranny is found in the Bible gives credence to extremist elements.
Face it, Saddam Hussein supported the Palestinians. Bin Laden supported the Palestinians. So do most Islamists including the current leader of Iran. Plenty of this terrorism quagmire, boils down to Israel’s conflict and inability to get along in its own neighborhood, so it brings its impossible demands to us, and barks propaganda of “eternal” crisis and being “eternally” victims.
Did not Israel help create and support the Hamas as counterpoint to the PLO? Does not Israel help create many of the conditions their people rail against? Yet we Americans are suppose to have eternal patience for their irrational autism.
Mark Twain wrote in “Man’s Place in the Animal World” that back in 1572 Roman Catholics sprung a surprise upon unsuspecting Protestants and butchered thousands on St. Bartholomew’s Day. He went on to say, “In all ages the savages of all lands have made the slaughtering of their neighboring brothers … the common business of their lives”. Well perhaps killing of men cannot be completely ended but why must mankind sanctify killing that hides behind the institution of religions and religious waywardness—that make holy claims for murder and mayhem? Why does Israel continue to think it has no responsibility to the people of the rest of the world save their deluded state of Messianism—that they can defy every resolution because it has the U.S. Security Council veto in their back pocket?
It is time for Jews, Christians and Muslims world wide to realize that they cannot continue to strive for religious delusions about God’s will to justify the killing of people who live in Canaan or Palestine or elsewhere. This historical precedent has “nothing” to do with any deity’s will but is rather the product of some men’s’ wishes—slowly transformed from religious myth. This historical brainwash that finds no reason for existence in modernity has played itself out. Nevertheless, the number of massacres in Israel since its assumed inception this last mid-century, would make up another bloody chapter of their Hebrew Bible for the supposed sanctity of their God’s will to advocate such violence. When is this insanity going to stop?
Back on Independence Day, David Broder wrote that he found it disturbing a Bradley Foundation report shows this nation is loosing its identity because young people are not taught that what makes our country unique is a set of ‘ideas’ and not genetic inheritance. Schools are blamed. But why are not the people who work the media blamed? Where is media’s appreciation for John Lock insistence that there is something ‘natural’ about understanding justice—that one does not have to rely on dogma or traditional just because written down as law or gospel? Where is the mainstream media’s appreciation for Montesquieu’s awareness that republican forms of government required “virtue” in men and a public sense of responsibility? Why do they not practice the ethics they preach?
Somehow we American citizens should abide an insinuation that the joke is on us—as this country has been compromised in numerous ways—and continues to be compromised by those willing to take us into another national security disaster—namely Afghanistan—as if this country were being deliberately led into disaster—by people working for foreign interests.
Obviously people are bent on destroying our treasury, and stealing our wealth, and the story continues with those bent on stealing the wealth of common day investors, homeowners, and people with hopes of retirement.
But the real joke is there is no vision or respect for the franchise of a voting republic. Instead PR professionals have spent enormous amounts of money and energy trying to convince people, who don’t have much of a clue, on how to vote—based too often on misinformation or obvious slant. Meanwhile alternative candidates were trivialized and marginalized by the mainstream media—such as Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader, with Nader written off as someone with an ego issue when it was nothing of the kind—he was telling Americans what they did not want to hear—that both major parties are corrupt and that we need “real” change—not just rhetoric that sings sweet lullabies to the AIPAC and the weapons industry.
The Dark Night, as the Joker, is suppose to be a soul who is smarter than naïve people who believe in a morality of society—which allows for trust of one’s fellow human being. This dark night, which represents “temptation,” claims in this movie to have no ulterior motives other than to simply play his “games” (on whose commission) with the poor souls of mortality—like the ancient tempter helped the mighty one sort out the good from the bad. Well perhaps having no personal motive, other than temptation, is good for fairy tales but “no” mortal being, or society, on this planet is without special interests—and so the conceit of the wickedly wise as merely having a good time falls on its face.
Some people conceitedly think that if they “own” God, and the literature that defines God, then they can act as immoral or amoral as they want—that they are not required to follow any rules an mores of the religion or ethics they claim to represent. They think that being restricted to any kind of morality is not to have the edge—thus they choose chaos. They refuse to be bound to any social contract other than brute force of the bully.
Heath Ledger will never realize any fame of winning any acting award because he died as the film was being released. No, rather, this award spin frenzy for best picture seems much for the conceit of those that think they have gotten over on the masses—the hoi polloi that they apparently disdain. Sometimes humor is meant to express one’s superiority over others, so when the movie wins best picture you can suspect an ulterior motive for such enthusiasm. This includes the notion that Obama too is going to play another impotent president who cannot deal with Israel on American terms. After all is not the current invasion and heavy attack on Gaza prior to Obama’s inauguration a statement to Bush’s impotence and corruption and an invite to begin the “con” game for Obama of not challenging Israeli atrocity—giving Obama an easy out to not say anything as not yet in office—thus weakening his independence? Was it not David Brooks of the NYT that said this latest invasion of Gaza is just a “psychological game”? Is it not Thomas Friedman of the NYT that continues sophistry and propaganda for the Israeli lie—that Israel has had serious intentions of treating the Palestinians as human beings with human rights? Yet the only constant has been that Israel has continued to deceive and do whatever it wants irrespective of other peoples’ or nation’s needs.
Gotham was originally a township in England known for people who pretended to be ignorant fools so a 11th century King would not want to visit. Now Gotham is New York City where people like Alan Greenspan saw no evil (and Milton Friedman at the fascist Leo Strauss school of University of Chicago where the movie was filmed equally could see no evil), not to mention the bankers and financiers who had no idea what they were selling when they sold repackaged mortgage securities. If you steal 100 to 1000 dollars you go to jail but if you steal 100 thousand to 100 million you get slapped on the wrist and a bonus at tax payer expense. If you are wealthy your children go to college and if you middle class to poor your children get forced into war and stress disorder with no jobs in the ecomony. But since so much money has been stolen by bad contract in Iraq, and money disappeared in Iraq and at the Pentagon, and executives getting paid million dollar bonuses at the tax payer expense that certainly sounds like something all America can share a big hearty laugh—even if somewhat cynically and socio-pathologically?
byGary Gray
One wonders why so many in the media and film industry are in such frenzy over Christopher Nolan’s film “The Dark Night”? Granted the movie is good, and in some ways great, but still the plot is really no more ingenious that what passes for standard fare on Law and Order. So why is it that the Powers-that-Be is such a tizzy?
No doubt a fair share has to do with it portending to hold a mirror up to post-9/11 society—with a major theme of how terror can corrupt those that fear and fight terrorism. Film critics have claimed that this “epic” speaks to the essentials of the human condition—like a humanities lesson? They say this movie on good versus evil is but a reality show in which good souls fight forces bent on “obliterating” the foundations of liberty and order—and wanting to destroy the very “philosophical” foundations of organized society. Well, as metaphor, this documentary speaks volumes to what has happened politically and socially in the U.S.A.
Anyone who has read Naomi Wolf’s book “The End of America: A Letter to a Young Patriot,” or has learned of its myriad of deeper truths and patterns, knows that the foundations of American freedom and civil liberty have been undermined in a very big way—and no amount of Obama and same-old-same democratic party is going to make much difference. The fact remains that the Bush Administration has already pushed, to the brink, the mechanisms necessary to turn this country into a dictatorship in a matter of days if a major catastrophe occurs (concocted or otherwise). So anyone not deeply concerned about the direction this country continues to take toward new forms of KGB-like surveillance and control—despite Obama’s win—is deeply deluded.
But what is particularly alarming is that the mainstream media itself has been a major vehicle for taking our country to the brink of authoritarianism—and thanks too to Israel’s negative influence to “egalitarian” democracy by insisting that Americans should continue to support their anti-democratic cause—that has been essentially ethnocentric with pseudo-democracy meant “only” for Jews—prompted by the ultimate delusion that a deity actually “gifted” the land of Canaan to them, and to them alone (that is their ancestors), millennia ago and supposedly for eternity.
So any “Clash of Civilization” analysis, as made by the likes of Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington, has to also recognize that major “philosophical” differences are not just between the West and Islamic theocracies, but equally exist as ideological clash between our form of constitutional respect for equal rights for “all”; and, not rabid authoritarianism founded on a psychology of tyrannical monarchy as incorporated in the psychology of ancient Judaism. Lewis and Huntington were right in respect that a “clash” of civilizations has its roots in ancient history—but we take notice that this is especially true for the myths promulgated to create the Judaic religion.
Therefore we need to ask why citizens of the United States should continue to abide a brainwash insistence that the U.S. should support Israel’s domination of a land that was never their land—save their historical willingness to kill off inhabitants with “their” concocted propagandist claim of “their” God’s will, as commanded, to kill off non-Jews—whether such killing is currently in operation or happened millennia ago?
No one in their right mind, who has capacity for objective and independent thought, would consent to the idea that the God of Moses and the Old Testament is, or was, ever just or fair? Such a “mythic” deity, according to their own scripture, ordered the massacre of the many inhabitants of Canaan, because (we are to naively suppose to believe) their God “willed” that that land, millennia ago, was destined “only” for Jews and descendants of David—despite the fact that other people had already lived there—thus this historical need to kill off current inhabitants.
And this is foreign relations plan that the people of the United States are expected to support no matter how such psychological corruption gives impetus to other forms of tyranny and extremism? Perhaps it is time for the State Department to set up an Office of Psychiatry to deal with this so-called “special” relationship our country has had with Israel (and to put the doctors next to Hillary Clinton’s suite so that she too can be monitored for her attack dog manner of being another tool of foreign influence unhampered by the Foreign Agents Registration Act)? And perhaps State Department personnel can explain to doctors why Israel, which continues to spy on our country, and sell or trade our secrets to potential enemies, is still treated as so valuable a relationship?
Therefore, it seems a “conceit” of the those that work for the Powers-That-Be, and who continue to undermine America’s real national security, that are the most enamored with their frenetic notions of what The Dark Night represents as giddy matter. This movie posits innocent and “nice” people of society as victims of fear, ignorance and dogma—who then support politicians’ dealings to “save” the citizens of Gotham from the Joker’s blatant forms of evil.
Yet the irony or insider joke is that the Joker is more honest about the human condition, as he engages his fictional life-style to reveal the fallible nature of, say, an Anglo-Saxon (Aaron Eckhart), which may be a lesson to those who believe in the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition, as inheritance, about a Mediterranean underworld that does not respect democratic freedom—or any idealism—cyndicating it just fantasy? (Note too that when people argued for the American Revolution they mostly quoted from English polemics, enlightenment philosophy and classical literature—not the Bible).
So why does the news and entertainment industry, that has played its significant part in manipulating the American mind on crucial issues related to terrorism, become so affectedly charmed of the Jokers’s proposition—namely that life cannot conform to such simplicities as everything as either good or evil—when their propaganda so willingly argues such—such as Hamas (Israel’s current obstacle) is all evil? Even a fool knows that there are areas of gray that cannot be so easily categorized—but how does this cynicism equate to a willingness to corrupt a system an ideals they claim to protect?
Was it not the mainstream media that contributed to much to damage, for example in protecting the Bush Administration eroding of our civil rights, such as not much questioning the Patriot Acts—while they claimed to be our watch dogs for the rights of man that this country was founded as a “radical” departure from the European tyrannical monarchy and theocracy?
Did not the Main Stream Media help lead the charge that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction? Did not the MSM help mobilize the war machine for an illegal invasion based on lies and deceit concocted by forces within the beltway, including the Zionist propagandists that created phony intelligence in the Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon? Did not the MSM ignore the ACLU press release in 2003 that autopsy reports showed enemy combatants were not just tortured but died from torture—only later to debate, ad nausea, if water boarding and loud music was torture or just torture-lite? Did not the mainstream media cover up both George W. Bush elections were stolen? Did not the mainstream media ignore or trivialize certain presidential candidates—as not good enough for Zionists, or war machine, or big oil aspirations? Did not the MSM help cover-up 9/11 by not exploring alternative theories with their McCarthy spin that “conspiracy theories” are the stuff of irrational and susceptible minds?
And is it not the MSM that continues to lead the charge that all things Islamic and Arab are suspect while never suggesting that perhaps their could equally be a small fraction of Christian, Zionist, and secular extremists who would also resort to violence and terrorism—if they thought they could get away with it? And is it not MSM who is involved in another propaganda war to turn the U.S. war machine on another of Israel’s enemies—namely Iran, etc?
It was a willingness to engage in deceit against the American People that makes The Dark Night the historical Devil—and it is precisely this willingness to engage deceit, including self-deceit, that now laughs off any seriousness or anxiety as the fourth estate continues to manipulate America in fighting predominately for Israeli objectives by trying to make Americans believe the our Homeland Security mission is to protect ourselves against what were essentially Israel’s conflicts—but they would make us believe (with force if necessary) their enemies are now exactly our own enemies.
We Americans have lost much in the name of freedom and will likely continue to do so until our Government has the moral courage to demand that Israel and Palestine and the rest of the Middle East separate church and state and grant equal rights to “all” people, irrespective of religion and nationality—across the board—no exception to any historical delusions or propensities to religious dictatorship.
Truly it has been tragedy for persecution and murder of all religious peoples—including and especially for Jews—but a homeland starts within one’s heart and that all the world and people are equal to a God that esteems equality. Furthermore Americans are “not” responsible for all of history’s atrocities—and we are not going to be endlessly guilt-tripped and blackmailed into thinking it is our mission to support any theocracy—no matter how many centuries of make-belief it has survived. It is time for Israelis and the rest of the Middle East to wake up to their dysfunctional feuds that never end—but that they want us to pay for and be destroyed in the process.
Yes America has plenty of faults and hypocrisies on its own which one reason we don’t need to compound them with the faults and hypocrisies of other peoples. And it does not matter what percentage of Jewry are good and respectable people, and who hold high standards of ethics—the bottom line is the right-wing of Jewry that falls back to right-wing impulses. Nor does it matter how ancient, or elaborate, or extensive, is Jewish, Islamic, or Christian religious literature, or how much controversy and change lies in the history of their religious beliefs. The bottom line is tyranny is found in the Bible gives credence to extremist elements.
Face it, Saddam Hussein supported the Palestinians. Bin Laden supported the Palestinians. So do most Islamists including the current leader of Iran. Plenty of this terrorism quagmire, boils down to Israel’s conflict and inability to get along in its own neighborhood, so it brings its impossible demands to us, and barks propaganda of “eternal” crisis and being “eternally” victims.
Did not Israel help create and support the Hamas as counterpoint to the PLO? Does not Israel help create many of the conditions their people rail against? Yet we Americans are suppose to have eternal patience for their irrational autism.
Mark Twain wrote in “Man’s Place in the Animal World” that back in 1572 Roman Catholics sprung a surprise upon unsuspecting Protestants and butchered thousands on St. Bartholomew’s Day. He went on to say, “In all ages the savages of all lands have made the slaughtering of their neighboring brothers … the common business of their lives”. Well perhaps killing of men cannot be completely ended but why must mankind sanctify killing that hides behind the institution of religions and religious waywardness—that make holy claims for murder and mayhem? Why does Israel continue to think it has no responsibility to the people of the rest of the world save their deluded state of Messianism—that they can defy every resolution because it has the U.S. Security Council veto in their back pocket?
It is time for Jews, Christians and Muslims world wide to realize that they cannot continue to strive for religious delusions about God’s will to justify the killing of people who live in Canaan or Palestine or elsewhere. This historical precedent has “nothing” to do with any deity’s will but is rather the product of some men’s’ wishes—slowly transformed from religious myth. This historical brainwash that finds no reason for existence in modernity has played itself out. Nevertheless, the number of massacres in Israel since its assumed inception this last mid-century, would make up another bloody chapter of their Hebrew Bible for the supposed sanctity of their God’s will to advocate such violence. When is this insanity going to stop?
Back on Independence Day, David Broder wrote that he found it disturbing a Bradley Foundation report shows this nation is loosing its identity because young people are not taught that what makes our country unique is a set of ‘ideas’ and not genetic inheritance. Schools are blamed. But why are not the people who work the media blamed? Where is media’s appreciation for John Lock insistence that there is something ‘natural’ about understanding justice—that one does not have to rely on dogma or traditional just because written down as law or gospel? Where is the mainstream media’s appreciation for Montesquieu’s awareness that republican forms of government required “virtue” in men and a public sense of responsibility? Why do they not practice the ethics they preach?
Somehow we American citizens should abide an insinuation that the joke is on us—as this country has been compromised in numerous ways—and continues to be compromised by those willing to take us into another national security disaster—namely Afghanistan—as if this country were being deliberately led into disaster—by people working for foreign interests.
Obviously people are bent on destroying our treasury, and stealing our wealth, and the story continues with those bent on stealing the wealth of common day investors, homeowners, and people with hopes of retirement.
But the real joke is there is no vision or respect for the franchise of a voting republic. Instead PR professionals have spent enormous amounts of money and energy trying to convince people, who don’t have much of a clue, on how to vote—based too often on misinformation or obvious slant. Meanwhile alternative candidates were trivialized and marginalized by the mainstream media—such as Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader, with Nader written off as someone with an ego issue when it was nothing of the kind—he was telling Americans what they did not want to hear—that both major parties are corrupt and that we need “real” change—not just rhetoric that sings sweet lullabies to the AIPAC and the weapons industry.
The Dark Night, as the Joker, is suppose to be a soul who is smarter than naïve people who believe in a morality of society—which allows for trust of one’s fellow human being. This dark night, which represents “temptation,” claims in this movie to have no ulterior motives other than to simply play his “games” (on whose commission) with the poor souls of mortality—like the ancient tempter helped the mighty one sort out the good from the bad. Well perhaps having no personal motive, other than temptation, is good for fairy tales but “no” mortal being, or society, on this planet is without special interests—and so the conceit of the wickedly wise as merely having a good time falls on its face.
Some people conceitedly think that if they “own” God, and the literature that defines God, then they can act as immoral or amoral as they want—that they are not required to follow any rules an mores of the religion or ethics they claim to represent. They think that being restricted to any kind of morality is not to have the edge—thus they choose chaos. They refuse to be bound to any social contract other than brute force of the bully.
Heath Ledger will never realize any fame of winning any acting award because he died as the film was being released. No, rather, this award spin frenzy for best picture seems much for the conceit of those that think they have gotten over on the masses—the hoi polloi that they apparently disdain. Sometimes humor is meant to express one’s superiority over others, so when the movie wins best picture you can suspect an ulterior motive for such enthusiasm. This includes the notion that Obama too is going to play another impotent president who cannot deal with Israel on American terms. After all is not the current invasion and heavy attack on Gaza prior to Obama’s inauguration a statement to Bush’s impotence and corruption and an invite to begin the “con” game for Obama of not challenging Israeli atrocity—giving Obama an easy out to not say anything as not yet in office—thus weakening his independence? Was it not David Brooks of the NYT that said this latest invasion of Gaza is just a “psychological game”? Is it not Thomas Friedman of the NYT that continues sophistry and propaganda for the Israeli lie—that Israel has had serious intentions of treating the Palestinians as human beings with human rights? Yet the only constant has been that Israel has continued to deceive and do whatever it wants irrespective of other peoples’ or nation’s needs.
Gotham was originally a township in England known for people who pretended to be ignorant fools so a 11th century King would not want to visit. Now Gotham is New York City where people like Alan Greenspan saw no evil (and Milton Friedman at the fascist Leo Strauss school of University of Chicago where the movie was filmed equally could see no evil), not to mention the bankers and financiers who had no idea what they were selling when they sold repackaged mortgage securities. If you steal 100 to 1000 dollars you go to jail but if you steal 100 thousand to 100 million you get slapped on the wrist and a bonus at tax payer expense. If you are wealthy your children go to college and if you middle class to poor your children get forced into war and stress disorder with no jobs in the ecomony. But since so much money has been stolen by bad contract in Iraq, and money disappeared in Iraq and at the Pentagon, and executives getting paid million dollar bonuses at the tax payer expense that certainly sounds like something all America can share a big hearty laugh—even if somewhat cynically and socio-pathologically?
Gary Gray
