Ten good things to come out of the current economic crisis

1. Less junk mail: Yes, I know, we've been getting bombarded with tons of it during the never-ending elections, the health care debate, and the rest of the astroturf and Lollipop Guild crowd. But this is good, and there are trees breathing a little easier right now.

2. The death of the myth of the American Dream: It was never real anyway, and who wanted except the dopes making all of the money? The rest of us got thrown the bones for pointless labor. At least now the mask is off and it's going to be harder to pacify us with crappy consumer products whose creation is destroying the natural environment. Productivity = death.

3. No more talk about American exceptionalism except from the obviously deluded: After 2001, I wouldn't have been responsible for my actions if I had heard another pigslob uttering this bullshit. Got tell people on an Indian reservation and the urban ghettos. Tell a homeless veteran. Now that the mask is off, people don't want to hear your bullshit and aren't listening anymore.

4. Far less talk of how "great" Ronald Reagan was, "the greatest president that ever lived": Not only wasn't he not great, he left office in disgrace over Iran-Contra (trading weapons-for-hostages with terrorists); left the economy in ruins (now outdone by another GOP "majority" and president); pushed unnecessary and unprecedented defense spending; waged an illegal proxy war in Central America; nearly got us all killed in a nuclear war at least once; helped smash many unions, something that hurts the American worker to this day; did not "win" the Cold War and actually wanted it to continue; was not a good actor, ever, by any standard; was little more than a puppet of big business and was assuredly senile upon his unfortunate inauguration into office; and was not elected by a real majority vote since only a little over 22% of the eligible voters at the time even voted, giving him about a quarter of one of the worst turnouts in an American election (thanks to cynicism generated by his own party over Watergate).

5. We're polluting the planet much less: Fewer jobs = Less "disposable income" = Less productivity = less pollution = a better world (and cycle it around, again and again).

6. Wal-Mart is making a much smaller profit: See five.

7. The racists are being forced out of hiding: This always occurs when things turn sour. It's easier to hit a target that's out in the open. Hiding was safe, harder to isolate and neutralize, but now, they're running around yammering because they think it's safe to. Meanwhile, people like me are taking notes, taking down names...

8. The myth of capitalism is finally dying: Can't you hear it? Then get the shit out of your ears. Even former Treasury Sec. Hank Paulson said earlier this year that had they not done the bailout with the banks that there would have been "riots" and "a loss-of-faith in the system," something many of us have been hoping for all along. The ultimate irony in all of this is that the bailouts aren't going to work. Wall Street rammed its representatives into Congress and the White House, nixing most chances for reform, the very thing that would prevent another internal collapse of the financial system. Nothing succeeds like failure, but thankfully, none of this can last. The real collapse will come anyway, and there will be no remnants of classical capitalism left when it's over.

9. The Republican Party is finally on-the-verge of permanent collapse: But hurry up, will ya? I mean it, quit fucking around, we've tolerated you assholes enough. Besides, we'll have to take down the Democratic Party after that since they'll be emboldened with your absence. You were always the real "fifth column," the real "anti-Americans." You are the enemy within, and so are you children, the Libertarians especially, and the rest of what's left of the right in America. Go away. Fuck off.

10. The very strong possibility that the generation-long routing of the working-class by the rich has failed and that nature is going to take them down: Hey, that's great, you get your temporary dictatorship. It won't last. It won't save your wealth. It won't save your dirty energy and industries. Nature is coming for you, and you will lose. Your grandchildren will live in the same toxic environment as everyone else as hurricanes and tornados pummel human civilization into submission. Deserts will emerge where there was once farmland, and your militaries will grind to a halt, ending any semblance of power you might have once had. The wealthy are not gods. They are not nature. Nature always wins.

Apocalypto (2006) review

There is only one word for Mel Gibson's Apocalypto: masterwork. We have the source of his meltdown--this film. To say that Apocalypto is a major achievement would be an understatement. It is more. Gibson has created a story about now and how civilizations fall.

Yes, there are numerous references to the war in Iraq--albeit indirect ones--but also about the fear-baiting "War on Terror." The panic surrounding 9/11 is touched-on: a scene of refugees escaping warfare very early in the film conveys the need for calm during a crisis, and not for people to fall-prey to their fears (the food of all tyrants and demagogues).

For those who want to shift the debate about this film, you should realize that it's an allegory, and it's meant to exist only in cinematic space and not as a representation of a linear-history. It's thrust is thematic. We should all know this by now regarding movies and how they portray human history. Interestingly, Gibson and his co-writer crib a scene from William Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," and it fits. I also enjoyed his take on the shamanic experience and the power of human insight.

But many of the images in Apocalypto are happening in Iraq today, many-of-which are being committed by our troops in our name. The only difference here is the absence of automatic-weapons and other "high-technologies". While there isn't 100% accuracy in the depiction of the classical Mayan civilization, the bulk of their culture and practices (including the cyclical-droughts that precipitated a decline of the cities, enslavement, and an increase in human sacrifice) are present. There is a genuine love of the Maya expressed in the film, and they are a beautiful people with their aquiline-noses and their bronze-skin.

The Maya are a lovely people with a material culture and legacy that is both gorgeous and horrific, and they are a part of us all in Gibson's filmic universe. There are no Caucasian messiahs here (a truly racist conceit), as there have been in most films featuring indigenous peoples. Virtually every actor in the film is Mayan or at least Native American.

Some critics have said the tale seems more to concern the problems of the Aztecs, but consider that the rain god Kukulkan was a feathered-serpent, just as Quezalcoatl in Mesoamerican religion. Both gods received sacrifices of blood in ways that are so similar that there has to be some connection in the genesis of both civilizations, particularly in their militarized-theocratic structures. This connection may come from the Toltec and Olmec civilizations.

We can see a contemporary desire for this theocratic-context in the efforts of the Bush administration except that they sacrifice warriors to the god Mars. And so, we have one of the major themes in most of Gibson's oeuvre: the strong desire for human sacrifice and an unquenchable bloodthirstiness that is part of nearly every so-called "civilized" culture in human history. This is what makes it a story about the human-condition, and it's clear that Mel Gibson is horrified by the way that we treat each other. This raises some valid questions.

I put it to you: how-many people has he ever killed? Critics are suffering from misdirected-anger, while others are lying-racists themselves. Others are simply being reactionary and wrong-headed.

A noteworthy aspect of the film is the fact that this is the first motion picture with dialog spoken in the language of the Maya. Because most of the public don't understand that the Maya were and are a linguistic cultural group--not a single-unit as most indigenous groups are and were--it might be confusing to see Maya enslaving and sacrificing other Maya, but this is what occurred during their classical and post-classical eras.

Human sacrifice intensified when cycles of droughts, possibly due to an over-population in the cities. Due to internecine warfare, poor harvests, and general brutality through raiding and feuds, the cities began sinking. Gibson suggests that infighting as depicted in the film was the major-contributor, and Gibson appears to have done his homework on a subject that he so obviously adores. It's still a guess as to why they fell, which reveals the tale as allegory, not a simple history.

Even the philosopher Henri Rousseau with his "noble savages" might be impressed, but the co-writer/director/producer balances this all out with a display of what the Maya really did to one another as their civilization collapsed. Because of this, and the indirect references to our own time, the story has a message that isn't isolated to the fall of classical Mayan civilization, but a warning to us all that only a people can truly undo themselves.

This is a pretty radical message during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the divisiveness and chaos unleashed by the Bush administration upon the world. In past interviews, director Gibson has compared the human sacrifices in Apocalypto with Iraqis, Americans, and coalition forces being sacrificed to the war machine in the Middle East. This is a very fine-point that literally transcends the historical setting of the film and can be taken as part of its general-thrust: a civilization that wars with its neighbors and within itself cannot endure, a reminder from history. The majority of Mayan history was warfare against each other, it's just the unfortunate truth. Apocalypto is a warning to us all.

It is curious, then, that there are voices of the so-called "Left" who want to focus on the racial tirade of a man who was having a nervous-breakdown while intoxicated. It sends a very weird message indeed. The sheer brilliance of this film illuminates the incident more clearly by its technical achievements (digitally shooting, almost entirely within the jungles of the Yucatan). Ask Werner Herzog how easy this is.

This is not an apology for Gibson's comments, but we should ask ourselves how often these things happen to people who are not famous. If he wasn't Mel Gibson, we wouldn't even be talking about the tirade, we wouldn't care. It's all about having an agenda.

All attacks on him should be viewed with a reasonable degree of suspicion and level-headedness, because even a man who has done wrong can be used to commit further wrongs for individuals with an questionable agenda (like Ari Emanuel). Many of these people are supporters of the very imperialism that Gibson rails-against in this film.

There are a number of Hollywood insiders who have said point-blank that they will never even watch this film for consideration of an MPAA award. It all reminds me of the stupidity surrounding The Last Temptation of Christ (1989), an embarrassing episode for American culture. This is intellectual dishonesty at its worst, but most of these individuals are used to this state-of-being, as are many of the critics of the film--even one Ward Churchill, and he should know better.

In-character-as-usual, the Maya are mixed in their reactions to the film at this writing. They are not a monolithic people, but a culture of disjointed familial networks.

Yet, the Maya are survivors, 800,000-strong, which isn't shabby for an indigenous people in the Americas, and they even control parts of Chiapas, Belize and Guatemala. A people have a way of coming-around for their turn again, and it's possible that the Maya will have their own autonomous civilization someday. Here's to their continued resistance to colonialism. Today, the Maya often live as they always have in their small agricultural villages. Apocalypto is essential viewing with an ending that absolutely floored me. Its cinematic vistas are food for thought, regardless of who it came from.

Context-context-context:

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/meso_america/chichenitza.html
http://hatherleighpress.stores.yahoo.net/secretsofmaya.html
http://www.sfusd.k12.ca.us/schwww/sch618/Maya/Maya_Aztec_Main.html
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06309/735121-37.stm
http://www.indians.org/welker/maya.htm
http://www.smm.org/sln/ma/cenote.html
http://www.britannica.com/hispanic_heritage/article-9051572
http://www.pilotguides.com/destination_guide/central_america_and_caribbean/la_ruta_maya/chichen_itza.php
http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/extauazp.html

Revised 11.08.2008