Congratulations Senator Burris

The Midwest--Welcome to the Senate, congrats! And congrats to Governor Rod Blagojevich, don't let them take you without the ugliest fight in American political history (too late). Good show, and I'm sure that there's more to this whole media story than anyone would imagine. Congratulations.

Rod Blagojevich-3, The Illinois Legislature/Rahm Emanuel-0

Because that's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it.

HAWKISH DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP SCUPPERS ASSAULT ON BUSH WAR POWERS

WASHINGTON D.C.--You know it was Rahm Emanuel and his faction in the House. Granted, Israel has a right to feeling secure, but Palestinians also have right to a homeland with access to water, roads, and a communications and civil infrastructure. That's a lot of shoulds. Now these twerps in the House have watered-down what the public really wants: an end to this pointless-war.

I don't blame Speaker Pelosi, nor do I blame Maxine Waters, and all the other of the 71 in Congress, but let's just sign the more moderate bill as a step-forward. None of this would have been possible with the GOP-majority, not ever.

But with conservative and moderate Democrats refusing to consider a faster timetable or a cutoff of war funding, party leaders have had to steer a more centrist course on Iraq. They point to polls that show the public opposes cutting off funding or revoking President Bush's authority for the war but backs bringing home troops by next year. They argue that their measure can at least make Bush report to Congress any time he deploys a unit that doesn't meet training or readiness standards, or has not spent at least a year at home between tours. Some left-of-center Democrats say they recognize their party's delicate position, and are coming around to the idea of supporting an Iraq measure that falls short of what they want. (AP, 03.12.2007)

I am 100% certain that Joe Donnelly, my representative, has helped in the scuppering of this. I can forgive him for now as a freshman legislator, but when the meltdown comes to Iraq, he's going to have line-up with the 71 anti-war representatives in Congress.

If he and all the others don't, they had best remember that the 2nd District will be calling him back home to South Bend. He can run his business again, eat ice cream in bed, build a ship in a bottle, go fishing, grow a second prostate, real mover-and-shaker stuff. That'll learn ya.'

One has to understand that you cannot rush any of this. The openings will come of their own accord, and that a misstep can result in the war continuing much-longer than it needs to. But I frankly believe that events on the ground in Iraq are going to decide all of this. We're going to have to lose, and that is what we are doing right now. The Democratic majority didn't lose anything today, this is just how politics works.

They still have the provision of a withdrawal today, which is the reason for Cheney's lame-remarks that the anti-war caucus "are telling the enemy simply to watch the clock and wait us out." A ten-year-old could smell this for the B.S. it is. This--according to AP--is the gridlock within the DNC:

Public opinion has swung the way of Democrats on the issue of the war. More than six in 10 Americans think the conflict was a mistake —the largest number yet found in AP-Ipsos polling. But Democrats have struggled to find a compromise that can satisfy both liberals who oppose any funding for the military effort and conservatives who do not want to unduly restrict the commander in chief. (AP, 03.12.2007)

Restrict the commander in chief? Are you nuts?! Of course he needs to be restricted, you morons. There are claims that the public doesn't want funding to be cut--prove it, what is this poll? We get no name for who did it from AP. Perhaps it was the "mystery man" who gave a press conference in Airforce Two for Vice President Cheney. Who was that guy? Must have been that guy who ejected all those activists from GOP events. You know, the one who said he was a Secret Service agent, when he really wasn't.

Or all those mysterious people who obstructed people--mostly Black and poor--from voting throughout the United States in 2000, 2002, and 2004? Oh yeah, and they tried it in 2006 too. The people who made a truckload full of voting-records in Florida in 2000 vanish, and then to magically-reappear hours later. Who are those guys (and where are the investigations)? What I find most-disturbing, however, is the attempt at scaring the Israelis into a conflict with Iran. It won't work, and it's unknown if either nation would still be standing after a full-on war.

It would be a disaster that I don't want to see happen to Israel and Iran, they are both nations that can be great together, with incredible contributions to world culture, and peaceful solutions are possible. The Bush administration wants war, while the world doesn't. This is a no-brainer, and Iran has a right to its own domestic nuclear power. They deserve to have energy independence, just as does Israel, America, Venezuela, Georgia and Armenia, or any other nation. This is the right to self-determination in its truest-form.

AP: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070313/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070313/ap_on_go_co/iraq_liberals;_ylt=AtqHdB_Ripg4DQmlbVlljuMGw_IE

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

Ari Emanuel: Hypocrite, Asshole.

Ari Emanuel is a well-known "superagent" in Hollywood who has been blogging on Huffingtonpost over the last year, and is often reasonable in his blogs. However, it seems the Israeli invasion of Lebanon has him sipping the Flavor Aide from Jonestown. Huh?

Cut-to-now: Mel Gibson makes anti-Semitic remarks (while intoxicated) after being pulled-over by the Orange County Sheriff's Department, saying such racist gems as, "The Jews have started every war", and "Are you a Jew?!" to the arresting officers. It's obvious he was intoxicated and anti-Semitic, sigh.

Cut-to a close-shot of Ari Emanuel's photo on Huffpo: The "superagent" (this guy must be an unknown arch-nemesis of mine) calls for a banning of Mel Gibson from Hollywood, demanding that people there stop working with Mel altogether--OK, I've caused some mayhem in my days as an arch-fiend, but this is just hypocritical.

"Why?", you ask? Here's why: Ari Emanuel's brother was a "top advisor to President Bill Clinton" during the 1990s. "Soooooo?", you're saying, as you ponder the information. Ahhhh, here's the whole rub, folks, from imdb:

The youngest of three brothers, Mr. Emanuel grew up in [a] Chicago household headed by a pediatrician (his father) and a psychiatric social worker (his mother). He learned to be competitive from his brothers, Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, an oncologist and chairman of the department of clinical bioethics at the Warren G. Magnusson Clinical Center at the National Institutes of Health and Rahm Emanuel, a top white house advisor to President Bill Clinton. His career began as an assistant to Robert Lantz, the veteran New York agent who represented Milos Foreman. He moved to Los Angeles in 1987 landing a job in the mail room [Ed.--Where he should have remained, for life.] of the Creative Artists Agency.

Coming from what he felt was a place of moral superiority, Mr. Emanuel rightly criticized Mr. Gibson for his anti-Semitic remarks. If it had ended there, that would have been fine. But no, he didn't end it there.

He called for a removal of Mel Gibson from the Hollywood scene altogether.

"Yeah, but what does that have to do with Clinton's bombing of civilian-infrastructures in 1990s Iraq," you're asking? Simple, the brothers Emanuel probably did nothing in trying to dissuade Clinton from causing the deaths of an entire generation of Iraqi children--nada--and they had direct-access to the president. They're petty and hypocritical regarding their take on Mel Gibson.

Would it have worked? I doubt this, but I would like to know if they ever tried, since they have had direct-access to the halls of power...

[Ed., 11.08.2008: I'd imagine that the Emanuels wanted the air strikes on Iraq in the interests of Israeli security. The problem is, Iraq was never a serious threat to them, and everyone knows it. The only good thing you can say about these two clowns is that they "get the job done." So did Jewish-collaborators at Auschwitz, dragging their brothers and sisters to the gas chambers.]