One of the benefits/drawbacks of the holidays is the opportunity to venture out of the blue enclave of Austin into the Rest of Texas, where knee-jerk religiosity and jingoism have a foothold. But even a connoisseur of “Jesus loves a fetus” billboards and crying eagle bumper stickers such as myself was still surprised and impressed by the levels of self-congratulatory immoral war-mongering going on in this ad I witnessed in the pre-movie show before the movie “Walk Hard”.
3 Doors Down says gain yourself an insta-manhood by joining the National Guard! Defend the country from foreign invaders, help save people from natural disasters, live the tradition of American self-determination, and take the infinitesimal chance of being deployed to fight in a war overseas. And by “infinitesimal”, they mean, “Hope you like the desert weather and the non-stop fear of ambush by guerrilla forces.”
The sleaze of it all dripped off the screen. This isn’t directly related, but related in spirit. A couple of blogs have noticed the weird standards employed by the MPAA in what posters are acceptable and not. This is terrible and whiny adults who can’t stand having their thoughtless nationalism questioned children can’t be exposed to it.
The subtle hint of how terrible actual, real life torture is disturbs too many beautiful minds, I guess. However, if the movie’s entire purpose is to titillate misogynists that are angry at hot women for not sucking their cocks at the snap of a finger, then the standards get a lot looser:
I don’t think this has anything to do with The Children or squeamishness even (I looked at the blood and guts Hostel II poster for like 30 minutes waiting in line at a movie a few months ago, and eventually the queasiness subsided, but it took a minute). By gum, folks, I think the MPAA is making a fairly direct statement about their complicity with the propaganda desires of the Bush administration.
It’s worth noting yet again how strange it is that torture porn is more acceptable in the multiplex than the more traditional kind of porn that shows acts that are uncomfortably close to ones that might demonstrate genuine affection towards women in real life.
106 Responses to “Maudlin Propaganda Association of America”
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I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve watched a movie on teh big screen; 4 in the past fifteen years. It’s so filled with crap it’s just not worth it. Back to books.
America - love it,
or leave itor else…That goddamned National Guard glorification commercial/music video! I loathe it. I have seen it at least twice before a kids’ movie—Bee Movie and Golden Compass. Now, if I wanted my 7-year-old son to see big splashy guns on screen, I’d take him to different sorts of movies. I don’t, so I take him to see kiddie movies—and it gets foisted upon him anyway. Be a hero! Tote a gun! Wars from all eras! Fun! Kickass music! Give your life for an ill-advised war begun under false pretenses! Oh, wait, they didn’t mention that last part.
Those horror movie posters are totally disgusting. To think that they operate as some kind of barely subliminal pornography for under-evolved straight men and teenage boys is even more disturbing.
Holy crap!
I love the attempt to paint the iraq fiasco as the same as world war 2 and the revolutionary war.
Hey, here’s a few more messages to add in white at the bottom of the screen:
“I killed 30 civilians who did nothing wrong”
“I watched as my squad mates raped a woman as her children watched”
“I called in the air strike that wiped out a school”
“I joined up cause i hate those damned #$%$^ers”
“I personally broke an alqaeda officer by rape and drowning, only to find out he was the wrong guy later. oh, well”
“I will come home only when i loose a limb or my life”
Try those in your little recruitment “video”
-A disgusted cat
I had to sit through that jingoist bullshit before I saw Sweeney Todd last weekend. I wanted to march up to the front office of the theater and tell them to get a fucking clue. Equating the National Guard with the fucking Revolutionary minutemen is almost accurate, if you ignore the fact that they’re only recruiting to get more fresh bodies for the Iraq meat grinder and their upcoming war with Iran.
And those posters? I don’t think I ever saw them before, but JESUS H., I’m not surprised. Remember, deplorable violence is fine as long as it’s perpetrated by Bad People, and Our Good White Christian Soldiers can never be Bad People until someone forces accountability. Then they’re scapegoats.
Ah well, seeing Sweeney Todd did make me feel better, though. Try the priest.
Of course they’re targeting pre-teen kids for the military recruiting ads. It’s like smoking: you have to get kids hooked on the idea that killing and getting killed is cool before their critical facilities kick in.
I wish there were something not incredibly pessimistic I could say about the prevalence of torture porn in the US. Perhaps the fact that pretty much every other industrialized country in the world recognizes it as a symptom of out cultural sickness.
Whatever the faults with our current system of military enlistment there may be, thank God we don’t have draft slavery conscription.
An all-volunteer force is the best option, and that all-volunteer force should be paid about twice what they receive now.
“Whatever the faults with our current system of military enlistment there may be, thank God we don’t have draft slavery conscription.”
While I don’t want to see the return of the draft, the fact is that if our current military was the result of conscription we would either have not gone to war in Iraq at all, of we would have pulled out already because of the carnage to “innocent” soldiers.
Way too many times I’ve heard some Reichwing Yellow Elephant use the fact that the US armed forces are voluntary to excuse the carnage in Iraq. “They knew what they were volunteering for…” What a pile of crap…
I think our military is severely underpaid. The fact that corporate-welfare blackwater and the like are being paid so much more is pretty outrageous. I think the minimum for the enlisted should be $100,000/year at least for the shit they go through and the risks they take.
Being from a military state I have nothing but the utmost respect and sympathy for the enlisted. Having your life at the mercy of capricious politicians a’int easy.
“Being from a military state I have nothing but the utmost respect and sympathy for the enlisted. “
Don’t we ALL live in “military states”?…
The one advantage to living in a conservative city is that I don’t get posters like that foisted on my eyes. If I did, I would seriously consider doing something illegal such as finding a way to deface them.
I just could not stand such an assault day after day. Viewing them online was disturbing enough. It is telling that people can drive by these or walk by them casually every day, probably repeatedly and feel nothing.
As for the National Guard propaganda. They are desperate.
Also notable are their stealth tactics for finding new recuits. The newest surprise to me was finding them in the employment section of Craigslist, under “paid training to learn trades, construction, plumbing…” They still also do their constant survellience of malls and other teen hang outs like the modern version of the notorious life insurance salesman. They target their victims; the lost, alienated and/or poor (poor is best) to swoop to the killing fields with promises of everything from job skills, money for college, chance to drive a macho Humvee and most of all, the honor and recognition they feel society won’t give them at home.
Bastards.
“Don’t we ALL live in “military states”?…”
Virginia (”Home of the Pentagon) is an uber-military state. Especially if one lives within ten miles of an army base.
Its the Christmas season, but most of the houses in my neighborhood are dark because their owners are in Iraq or Afghanistan.
What nonsense. The state militias weren’t even organized into the present Guard system until 1903. Even if you want to pretend there’s a continuous lineage, the 21st century National Guard is as similar to the Massachussets Militia of 1775 as the 21st century Republican party is to the party of Lincoln.
Not those slackers in RI!
I appreciate your points, Atomic, but unfortunately there’s so much upfront deceit and paper-shuffling abuse of soldiers that I reject the idea that we have an all-volunteer army by a realistic standard. People sign up for duty X and get stuck in combat instead, women are forbidden combat (and combat pay) but end up on the front lines anyway just without the pay, and stop gap measures make sure that you can’t leave even when your time is up.
When I went to see Sweeney Todd, not 5 minutes after that terrible music video for a lousy song was a preview for Stop Loss, which is apparently a drama about a soldier and his family being destroyed because of the Stop-Loss program and his attempt to fight the army’s refusal to honor their half of the bargain.
FWIW, I know for a fact I’d be in the national guard if it was a genuine SDF/Disaster Relief force. SDF isn’t something fundamentally contradictory to my pacifist nature and I’ll always consider disaster relief a good thing.
I guess there’s always the Red Cross.
Let’s see, I saw some natural disaster/possible 9/11 style National Guard activity in that video, and plenty of stuff that looked kind of Iraqish, but nothing that reminded me of flooding. I can’t imagine why.
It couldn’t possibly be because reminding us of Katrina reminds us of when Wal-Mart did a better job of emergency response than our government, in no small part because the National Guard’s equipment was sent overseas even if the Guardsmen weren’t. Somehow the idea of being the citizen soldier whose job it is to track down vehicles and supplies that should have already been there in the first place seems less heroic than the 3Doors Down video implies. Or how about the citizen soldiers who were called from their daily routines to push papers for the border patrol so that Bush could look tough on Mexicans for a few weeks? That probably felt very heroic as well.
We don’t have a draft, we just have a “volunteer” force composed almost entirely of people who have few other options in life that don’t involve far more blatantly illegal activities. Often what enlists is much brighter than a typical legacy admission or SAT-fluffed upper middle class scion.
If you have a .999th percentile IQ you find a way out, but often even then through the military. All others can try to find a job or realize that college will not be possible on their dime, and try for that GI bill.
You know these things when you grow up in trailer courts.
I agree with Amanda. There is outright deception going on in terms of recruitment. This is anecdotal, but they went after my little brother, who has a serious hand tremor. They convinced him that it would be okay to lie enough to get through the MEPS physical and that they could waive the tremor, the ADHD (which led to him getting the permanent tremor, as a side effect of his drugs in early childhood) and his general physique and aptitudes (underweight for his height). My brother can not hold a dinner plate loaded with food, let alone a loaded weapon. Plus he has some learning disabilities and a fairly severe panic button–in high pressure situations, he freaks right the hell out. And knowing all this, his recruitment officers were trying to get him to lie, knowing that should he wash out, the onus would be on him–since they could prove he had lied about physical requirements.
Fortunately, I was able to convince my brother that it was against his best interests to join up.
(BTW, I had applied to join the Reserves–for the education money–when I was a wee tyke and washed out because I have a bad refraction in one eye. When the recruiters were going after my brother, they noted, “Oh, we see your sister tried joining before….they’ve changed the requirements. She’d totally make it in now,
I agree with Amanda. There is outright deception going on in terms of recruitment. This is anecdotal, but they went after my little brother, who has a serious hand tremor. They convinced him that it would be okay to lie enough to get through the MEPS physical and that they could waive the tremor, the ADHD (which led to him getting the permanent tremor, as a side effect of his drugs in early childhood) and his general physique and aptitudes (underweight for his height). My brother can not hold a dinner plate loaded with food, let alone a loaded weapon. Plus he has some learning disabilities and a fairly severe panic button–in high pressure situations, he freaks right the hell out. And knowing all this, his recruitment officers were trying to get him to lie, knowing that should he wash out, the onus would be on him–since they could prove he had lied about physical requirements.
Fortunately, I was able to convince my brother that it was against his best interests to join up.
(BTW, I had applied to join the Reserves–for the education money–when I was a wee tyke and washed out because I have a bad refraction in one eye. When the recruiters were going after my brother, they noted, “Oh, we see your sister tried joining before….they’ve changed the requirements. She’d totally make it in now,
FWIW, I know for a fact I’d be in the national guard if it was a genuine SDF/Disaster Relief force.
That’s why my Eagle Scout nephew is currently touring the south east coast and Carribean with the Coast Guard. All the best of military life, saving lives, protecting the nation, a clear mission, mopping up drug dealers and runners, and no pointless combat.
Sorry, that’s “99.9″th percentile. Duhhh.
I guess that’s why I had to go into the Navy as an exit strategy!
I sat through that bilge prior to watching Charlie Wilson’s War the other night. Of course, I had to Wiki the 3 Doors Down bandmembers to see their ages. Every one of them under the maximum age of 42 for Army enlistment. They all look to be in peak physical condition, too. Since they’re so enamored of military service and warfare, why just sing songs about it? C’mon boys, suit up and ship out!
Now that is something we can agree on. Those who enlist are often very bright lower middle class and poor folks who didn’t have the chance to go onto higher education like those in income brackets above them.
Again, they should be given the best benefits the federal government can afford, not the piss-poor pay and (especially) medical care they receive currently
That Hostel Part II poster is grotacious. I am going to suppose it’s not a coincidence that it looks sort of…labial, or am I being a paranoid conspiracy theorist again?
OK, Atomic, we get it, you want to see the military pay increase. That’s a bold stance, there, AF - Pandagonians being notorious supporters of paying soldiers with coupons redeemable at any Army store on the barracks. Or not, whichever works for you.
We’d all like to see them get the benefits they were promised to begin with, much less the best of the best of the best, sir!* How about the military start by not demanding signing bonuses back when the soldier can’t finish his or her term because they’ve lost a limb, or properly funding VA hospitals, or providing the necessary body armor, or not lie to make recruitment quotas, or offer coupons to iTunes in exchange for contact information, or showing propaganda to children?
You personally can be a soldier in the war against thread derailment by making at least one post that isn’t an attempt at self-satisfied threadjacking. Do you have any opinions on jingoistic music videos featuring pop stars glorifying an extremely white-washed version of military service being shown to children at a time when it is known the military is a raw deal for pretty much anyone who signs up?
*OK, so I like MIB. Sue me.
I think Three Doors Down sucks, and the same goes for pretty much anyone on MTV or non-satellite radio since around the suicide of Kurt Cobain. The fact that they endorse signing up for the military at a time when this nation is engaged in an unjust imperialistic war makes them suck even harder and longer.
Given the severe stop-loss programs we employ calling our armed forces “volunteers” is not accurate. They are getting far more than they volunteered for.
You all kind of miss the point. If there was a draft of, say, even 3% of the population between the ages of 18-35, Bush would have way more “boots on the ground” than he does now and would probably be marching into Iran or Syria by now.
When I went to see I Am Legend it really freaked me out how people were laughing at it. Like when Will Smith has a zombie woman strapped down on a table and she tries to bite him, at least half the audience chuckled. I’ll laugh my ass off at something like Evil Dead, but being around a bunch of people who were straight up laughing at brutal, not-funny scenes was really disconcerting.
Can anybody explain this line “So many times you did not bring this on yourself”? They’re mangling the language in a particularly odd way. It’s like berating someone for not asking you to kick them in the face.
Fruitbat, Bush would be busy trying to justify why the Twins and all the “little brown ones” weren’t wearing the uniform.
Can you say “massive outbreak of privileged whining” if nobody was exempted, or “massive class and or race warfare” if the rich bratz got to buy their way out?
I knew you could.
No, no, I don’t think we do.
No, if there was a draft, the war would end immediately, because that would mean there’s a possibility of spoiled rich kids going.
Really? You think that’d be the effect of a reinstated draft? Because I think that the effect would be that the self involved electorate that seldom bothers to even vote would suddenly find it in themselves to vote for the next candidate that promised to repeal the draft.
Not to mention that getting 3% of the available population is laughable when the draft boards have only been collecting information on 50% of that sample.
Back on-topic, I thought the “music video” (propaganda piece) was ridiculous, and caught myself thinking at various times:
“sure, she’s an expert, but she sleeps with a gun under her pillow because over there *everyone* is the enemy”
and “omfg, I can’t believe they brought up 9/11. Way to claim full credit for something that tens of agencies helped with, the national guard not the least of those, but not the most, and hey, what have they done since then for America on American soil??”
and finally “cannonballs don’t explode like that. Yes, it’s a neat graphic, but if you’re going to be all gungho on war, let’s go for a little realism. Cannonfire was mostly effective against buildings and calvary, they couldn’t load and aim fast enough to hit a single man running through the woods! Assholes! And they didn’t show any explosions in the *modern-day* warfare because it isn’t separated and would be something people would really have to face… bah!”
Maybe, but then again we had Vietnam for twenty years despite a draft.
There could also be a massive government propaganda campaign telling people that they are “fighting in the terrorists war against us” and so on. Good marketing can be pretty powerful stuff.
Fruitbat, what would have happened had the US spent the kind of money that it has on providing universal access to college education based on merit?
That’s why your “pay raise” drumbeat sounds hollow to me. People don’t need better pay for being pulled in as part of America’s “backdoor draft”, they need more opportunities to put those brains to work without being forced to serve
the interests of the wealthy oil corporationsour country.Based on merit, you say? A la the HOPE Scholarship? Sounds great!
Maybe, but then again we had Vietnam for twenty years despite a draft.Yes, and we all know how well that worked out for troop morale, civilian morale, approval ratings, our standing in the world, and those who came back alive.Stop trying to sell us on the idea of a draft. It’ll never happen and the wingnuts in charge know it - that’s why they keep pushing the whole “they volunteered, so they gotta do it, and that’s that, now sign up to go die in BFE” angle.
Jesus Christ, is the comment system around here in the habit of eating entire paragraphs for no good reason or what?
Based on merit, you say? A la the HOPE Scholarship? Sounds great!
Without the excessive loans on top, dude. Call it a REAL scholarship, not a dim HOPE for a few.
I got Pell grants on top of ROTC, so I know from this. The debt load is scary, and what is out there is feel good or corporate welfare.
Spending money on health care to support small business and entrepreneurship, and education of the best and brightest is a vastly better use of people and money than wasting both in a vanity war. Period.
Yeah, it’s fucking disgusting.
When I came home for Christmas in 2001, I flew in uniform, and I went to midnight Mass in uniform. People bought me drinks at the airport. They moved me to first class, first fucking CLASS, on the plane, and some clown was happy to give up his comfy seat for me. People outside of the church shook my hand and “thanked me for my service.”
When I look back on this it makes me completely sick.
I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking but, honestly, someone should have kicked my ass for it. God does not get hitched to the same wagon as Government. Fuck.
I’m just thoroughly ashamed by even thinking like that 6 years ago.
I have a question for those who might know:
The other day my old man and I were listening to The Communist Manifesto audiobook while driving around Chicago.
Marx talks about how we produce so much that we have to engage in wars to dispose of those items (or else would would have overflowing bounty, which would erase class distinctions), and that having trained the underclass to fight, we have to find something for them to do, else they will rebel.
I’m not saying I’m a Marxist, but honestly, does that not describe Iraq? It sure as shit sounds like it described Vietnam, if you ask my Godfather (he did three tours and spent the latter two thinking he was already dead. Very healthy mindset).
Just wonderin’.
Uh, given our current foreign military adventures and widescale use of mercenaries aren’t we the redcoats in that music video?
Petey it’s my opinion that we engage in wars to make money for those who control the banking system. For instance WW1 and WW2 were financed on both sides by the same individuals. Case in point the Nazis couldn’t have flown a single airplane without goods supplied by Standard Oil. We die, they make a ton of money.
Oops I think I messed up that link. It should be http://www.google.com/search?q=standard+oil+nazis
I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking but, honestly, someone should have kicked my ass for it. God does not get hitched to the same wagon as Government. Fuck.
I’m just thoroughly ashamed by even thinking like that 6 years ago.
Shows you’ve grown, at least. Perhaps the only real reason I can think of for a draft rather than a pseudo-all-volunteer army is so that this precise lesson gets learned early and often by those in power. A glib interpretation of WW1 was that there hadn’t been a real war in a generation, and no one remembered what it was really like. the “All Volunteer” means those in power, those making the choice to go to war, and the people they fearmonger to stay in power, never actually have to fight the war, and never face the direct consequeces.
War is an awful thing, and anyone who wouldn’t use it only as the last of the last resorts is a monster.
But you’ve overcome that much, at least. hope you rub off on some others.
I’m not saying I’m a Marxist, but honestly, does that not describe Iraq? It sure as shit sounds like it described Vietnam, if you ask my Godfather (he did three tours and spent the latter two thinking he was already dead. Very healthy mindset).
yes. that’s EXACTLY what it is. There’s a reason there are still historians who are self-described Marxists. Marxist analysis can miss an awful lot if you let it, but it can be spot-fucking-on for a lot of things, particularly about war. You’re a historian marxist (as opposed to a “bomb throwing marxist” as my old medieval scholar prof distinguished) if you’d agree with the statement “rich assholes are assholes who are prone to all sorts of assholery to maintain their rich status.”
So, at least from an analytic standpoint, there’s never any shame in calling yourself a marxist, don’t hesitate to use the term if it’s appropriate.
3 doors down are crap. they’ll go the way of other crap bands like creed, only faster now that they’ve made that propagandist crap video. even the dumbest of the dumb are catching on that theyre being swindled. plus, they dont want to endanger their fat asses.
and how did torture porn get in under the radar so quickly? there have been bans on s&m actual porn videos (eg, intercourse, etc) on the net, but snuff porn like the kind shown in this thread is a-ok??
that’s serial killer shit! that is exactly what gets a horribly twisted person like a ted bundy excited –mixing not only the torture of women (titilation), but also the death & bodily destruction/decomposition … this stuff is beyond the pale & should be out & out banned.
What kind of rocker produces government propaganda?
Can we get a KMFDM video to balance this dreck out?
this kind of rocker produces govt propoganda:
http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/?p=1244
i actually at first thought this post was about the same thing as that interview, but it turns out the interview is the guy from godsmack poorly defending doing a recruiting video. pretty humorous interview tho, dudes an idiot.
Fruitbat, I have to agree that military people who see service should be paid more (as should teachers, firemen, health clinic workers, etc.). I think you mean well when you say this. I’m not in favour of a draft by any means, but for what we expect of our military, (risking their lives for the country) I think they deserve a hell of a lot more than they are given. (Or at least some proper fucking heathcare.) Although I’m Canadian, I’ve seen the same sort of dynamics happen here.
My father joined the RCAF because he had no options; my mother joined because she earned a scholarship to the University of Manitoba, but her father would not pay the rest because she was “only a girl.” They died with barely any money, and believe me it has not helped myself and my four siblings to even live. I’m sure when they signed up they thought they could provide for a family. (FYI, they died of cancer, not in combat.)
A draft would totally cause a huge protest against this bullshit war, and that’s the only reason I would think one was even tolerable. Too many people are just looking the other way.
In other news, a good friend of mine signed up to be in the Canadian Search and Rescue team. He went through basic training, and after, they sent him into combat in Afganistan. Despite that he was told when he signed up that he would not see combat. When we talked about it, about how they lied to him, he said “No, I’m not brainwashed, but they need me there so much more than they need me in Newfoundland.”
The coast guard in Newfoundland is totally understaffed. Glean from that what you will.
I think what bothered me most about the propaganda extravaganza (saw it before Walk Hard, which had way more cocks in it than I expected) was that it was so damned long. You can busy yourself with unwrapping your Junior Mints while a thirty-second Army ad runs, but a full-length music video? No, you’re pretty much stuck with it.
Ugh. And this after my significant other and I resolved to go on weekly dates. I still want to see Sweeney Todd, but I’m not looking forward to this part of the movie-going experience.
Isn’t the current crop of teenagers supposed to be all self-aware, awash in irony and resistant to blunt-force propaganda? I’m so disappointed.
Ah; here it is. Oh, Bill Hicks, tragic though it may be that you were taken from us so young, at least we can listen to your words, which are still depressingly relevant.
Government-approved rock ‘n’ roll. The future is shining so brightly that I may require sunglasses.I share your disgust with the “torture porn” phenomenon. If we’re lucky films like Hostel II and Captivity will bomb as badly as Hollywood’s current crop of anti-military movies like Rendition and In the Valley of Elah did.
I remember that “Captivity” crap. I saw that every fucking day as I got on the train for like 3 months. I hated it. Who the fuck wants to see an advertisment for torture and murder as they ride to work every day?
I saw the Natl Guard propaganda before a Saturday matinee of “Enchanted” - I kept meaning to complain to Muvico but it slipped my mind. Thanks for the reminder.
I have a career military family. Their favorite response to “Thank you for your service” is “So when are you signing up?”
Rat, I wouldn’t conflate “anti-war” with “anti-military”. If you actually think that opposing the killing and traumatizing of soldiers is somehow “anti” those soldiers due to tons of maudlin pro-war propaganda, then I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.
Why?Is the Texas Air National Guard not flying drunks and coc-heads anymore?
With the morphing of the military into crusaders for christ, we really need a draft in the worst way to dilute the wide eyed killing for christies already out there. Future frag targets, like Bush would have been. I’d have been surprised, knowing what I know now, if Bush would have lasted a year in Vietnam without being ‘wounded’ or fragged by his own troops…
We very much have a military of economic slaves. What’s left after the cream is sucked off the top…
Oh, hey! YOu have to watch ‘This Film Is Not Yet Rated’ to see the hypocrisy and bullshit that the MPAA really is.
They have ‘ministers’ that sit in on the ratings meetings and have veto power. They refuse to list who the raters are, describing them as ‘people with families’ and some have major corporate ties and no kids.
The major distribution companies have a vote on appeals of their rating of your movie.
And just think, there is a group in Texas that works the same way grading textbooks.
These reactionary liars have way to much power in a supposedly ‘modern society’.
I saw a bumper sticker the other day that was cool.
One sticker said ‘ARMY RETIRED’ The sticker below it said “Support the troops - End the war”.
YES!!!
No, if there was a draft, the war would end immediately, because that would mean there’s a possibility of spoiled rich kids going.
That’s a popular but inaccurate opinion. The draft is usually set up so rich kids don’t go. How do you think Bush evaded it? The song “Fortunate Son” was not written in a vacuum.
Amanda, as a woman who’s been in combat, I can emphatically say, I did get combat pay and so did everyone else in my unit.
Ummm… I didn’t know that there weren’t any women in the National Guard. Or you know… people of colour. Oh, wait. There are. Funny how the video didn’t show any of them. I’m sure it was just an oversight.
Jingoist white hyper-masculinity. Lovely. Just the thing that needs to be encouraged.
I guess I heard wrong. Apologies.
“The draft is usually set up so rich kids don’t go. How do you think Bush evaded it?”
But the loopholes for the privileged polarize the nation along class lines in a way that our system of coercive economic deprivation does not. The draft riots of 1863 lasted four days in New York and ended with a thousand dead — because the poor tore the city apart in rage at being sent to die while the rich stayed home. And during Vietnam, there was a real left in this country.
The draft would fall disproportionately on the poor no matter what - Selective Service registration is poorly enforced, but they do check it if you are applying for student loans. Hence I am registered but the kids from wealthy families I attended college with are not.
I never for the life of me understood the appeal of slasher horror. I guess I just don’t feel entertained by watching people inflict unspeakable pain and death on other people.
“I never for the life of me understood the appeal of slasher horror. I guess I just don’t feel entertained by watching people inflict unspeakable pain and death on other people. ”
This sums up nicely why i don’t bother watching so-called “horror” movies anymore. They’ve stopped even trying to be mildly entertaining or interesting. They just display gore.
There’s a world of difference between trying to entertain people with scares and trying to sour our collective soul.
But this example does nicely illustrate that, when the victim is female, torture, pain and murder are sexxxaayyyyy and funny.
That’s true generally, but popular outcry was such in the Vietnam era that they eradicated student deferments and the like and went to a “lottery system” in, I think, 1970 or 71. Public opposition to the war became much more widespread right around then, although there were other factors besides the “lottery” draft (Kent State and My Lai [sp?], notably.)Lottery notwithstanding, if your dad was a Senator, CIA brass, etc., obviously strings would be pulled (note the sarcastically discreet passive voice). Stuff like that’s just a fact of life.
when the victim is female, torture, pain and murder are sexxxaayyyyy and funny.
That’s what’s extra-disturbing to me about recent films. I don’t know if it was always there and I never noticed it, but stuff like ‘Captivity’ seems farther into the enjoyment of torture of women than I have seen mainstream movies get in my lifetime. That disturbs me.
I first read this title as; “Malkin Propaganda Association of America”.
Which if you think about it, works just as well.
Bottom line is, the rich and/or connected kids who don’t want to go will always find a way out. A draft just isn’t going to fix that. I’m not entirely convinced it would bring about the end of the war any more quickly, precisely for the reason above.
Let me add that we shouldn’t forget there are wealthy and well-connected people who choose to serve. Jim Webb’s son, for example, or John McCain (the son of an Admiral) in Vietnam.
Thanks for posting on this Amanda. My boyfriend and I have now seen this THREE TIMES and it drives us nuts! I even know the TUNE.
I’m going to start getting to movies really late just to avoid it.
Amanda, no worries. There’s actually several different types of combat zone pay, and if you’re in a combat zone—which is all of Iraq—-you get it. Plus you don’t pay federal tax. It’s a great way to pay off your debts, which is a very unusual thing these days.
I cannot describe how offensive I find those torture pictures but what’s almost as bad is how popular culture justifies the use of torture as something okay and necessary. Watch any cop show. Watch “24″ for that matter. It’s all black and white and there’s table pounding and tense situations and by God torture is necessary. But I was an interrogator and I never so much as slapped a table and neither did any good interrogator I know. What works in interrogation is something that’s very unpopular in these fearful times: kindness. Compassion. Building rapport. Talk to a terrorist, offer him a cigarette, treat him a human being, and you’ll actually get somewhere. That seems to be an utterly alien concept in America today. Women and brown people are okay to torture, and in both cases I think there’s a sexual element—the dominance angle. Brown people aren’t human and neither are women, so they’re appropriate subjects to have total control over.
I’d like to second AtomicFruitbat’s original statement: for most of history, armies have been staffed by conscripts, drawn not from some random sample of the population, but from the slave/peasant classes. While it’s true that our system is very close to this, it would be hyperbolic to equate our military recruitment system with, say, the systems employed by imperial Japan or medieval Europe, or even the US system employed in WWI or the Civil War. We don’t literally allow conscripts the option of paying a fee to avoid service, even though our system of deferments works much like this in practice.
I have to say, though, that I don’t share AtomicFruitbat’s sympathy for armed service members. I acknowledge that many people are forced into work they know to be morally objectionable; even I am no exception to that rule. But if any soldier, at any time or place in history, can be held accountable for the moral dimension of his mission, it is the American soldier of 2007, who has grown up in a relatively democratic society with never-before-possible access to historical and political data. I have more sympathy for the German soldiers of the Third Reich, the marauders of Genghis Khan, or Hirohito’s cannon fodder than I do for American soldiers. (Which is to say, I do have some sympathy, but it’s tempered by pretty severe disgust at the horrific consequences of their work. My feelings toward American soldiers are about the same as my feelings toward crack dealers.) They should know better, even the poor ones. And if they are doing what they have to do to get by, well, hasn’t everyone, everywhere? It may be an explanation, but it’s not an excuse.
“Brown people aren’t human and neither are women, so they’re appropriate subjects to have total control over. ”
That we are supposed to either be completely unaware of this or are supposed to find it entertaining makes me literally sick to my stomach.
What kind of recruitment technique/angle WOULD pass the Pandagonian Film Panel?
I mean one that would actually recruit people. Seriously.
Well, for one thing, how about showing some of “our guys” actually getting hit by the other side’s shells and bullets, instead of having them explode in pretty patterns all around them. That probably wouldn’t “actually recruit people,” but it sure as hell would be more honest.Seriously, Eric, your question is equivalent to asking if a tobacco company could come up with smoking ads that would “pass” a panel of doctors.
Just this past quarter, I TA’ed a class on war and resistance in Vietnam, and one of our guest speakers was a man who had served there with the U.S. Army in military intelligence. His job was, like yours, as an interrogator and he said nearly the same thing. He knew torture happened, but said it garnered no valuable information, since most of the people his unit questioned were teenage boys and young men who knew nothing about what the Army wanted to know.
Eric, I’m a soldier and have been one for sixteen years, and I found this ad to be duplicitous. Show the reality. Hell, just show the latrines. CAn the ‘two days a month, two weeks a year’. That no longer holds.
Speaking of music, the draft, and propaganda - does it bother anyone else that the first line of “Fortunate Son” is being used in truck commercials like it’s some piece of patriotic Americana? “Ooh, that red white and blue” is ironic for God’s sake.
There are exceptions. The zombie genre has been particularly good here, as the constant theme is that the zombie menace is less of a threat than the humans are to each other. George Romero’s “… of the Dead” series, or 28 Days Later are good examples. (I’m also looking forward to the upcoming adaptation of World War Z–the book makes it very clear that the zombie apocalypse was entirely avoidable, but because people in power were trying to make a quick buck while selling everyone else downriver, coverups were instituted until it was too late. Sound familiar?)
It’s on Tropes; it’s called Isn’t It Ironic.
This reminds me of when Lee Iacocca, then head of Chrysler, tried to get the rights to Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” which would have been a case of egregious misuse on a par with “Fortunate Son.” Springsteen’s reply: “No thanks, mister.” (IIRC, Chrysler went on to produce commercials whose jingles had a chorus of “Born in America.” That worked out just great for them, didn’t it?)“Seriously, Eric, your question is equivalent to asking if a tobacco company could come up with smoking ads that would “pass” a panel of doctors.”
I disagree. IF the military serves a positive societal purpose, it must be maintained (which on many levels -veteran healthcare, personal armor, social services for military families, benefit administration — it is NOT). I’m not addressing the military’s misuse by TPTB. Note the IF above.
[Tobacco OTOH is pretty much universally a drag on society.][Hopefully it’ll weed out some stupid people, but it’s much too slow.]
Somebody’s tasked with that job. (Thank god it’s not me– there’s a tough gig.) They also serve. I’m asking if there is a WAY to actually recruit soldiers that doesn’t flat out lie. (So bullshit like “show our guys getting shot” is out. Sawmills don’t recruit with industrial manglings.)
For instance, I myself would maybe concentrate on those who have served before, and their comments about their service. For that matter, highlighting the heroics of combat medics could have some effectiveness while still showing casualties.
Of course, you could just say the military DOESN’T supply a positive societal purpose. BAFAICS, it’s always going to be used in a way that will gore someone’s ox. If your fav candidate is elected, are they going to need a military? You can be sure that whoever you candidate is, THEIR use of the military will piss someone off.
Corallary: So, if ANY recruiting effort is going to make everybody here mad, the military has no reason to listen to you.
“I’m asking if there is a WAY to actually recruit soldiers that doesn’t flat out lie. (So bullshit like “show our guys getting shot” is out. Sawmills don’t recruit with industrial manglings.)”
The purpose of a sawmill is to produce lumber from trees. Sometimes the dangerous equipment used results in injury or death. The is unfortunate, and a lot of money is spent to reduce this side effect.
The purpose of a soldier is to wage war. Injury and death are features, not side effects. Selling access to college and other benefits while glossing over the evil reality at the heart of military service is morally wrong…
It is interesting how ads for Captivity were appropriate while the ones for Rendition were not. The Ratings System has been broken and is broken.
Eli Roth sang nothing but praise for the ratings system board because he could ‘negotiate’, whereas many of his movies in EU countries are told ‘remove this or it won’t run’
Strangely enough, I think Hostel II suffers from Hostel I (hated Hostel I, but was hoping for something good, from Roth) But Hostel II suffered from its marketing, and the growing awareness of ‘torture porn’. Hostel II wasn’t what I’d call torture porn — with Captivity, Saw, and Hostel I falling into that category. Its actually worth watching.
Sweeny Todd was great, and well worth sitting through the 3 doors down ‘video’. I think its pretty apparent that 3 Door Down hasn’t had anything going for a while, and desperately needs the work. The Better Life was at best an ‘ok’ album, with their sound not changing much from song to song.
We might not have a draft by mandate. Instead we have our backdoor drafts, our stop-loss orders and an economic draft. won’t it be great when they come home and get fed all that bs about the liberals not supporting them? Then they can have a new enemy to beat on!
Oh yeah, obligatory read the comic plea, yadda yadda ya….
sigh. Not Rendition, but ‘Taxi to the Dark Side’. I had ‘Rendition’ on the brain.
Criminal Minds won an award for an episode they did last year in which the team successfully interrogates a detainee at Guantanamo. Mandy Patinkin’s character uses kindness and subterfuge - and the research skills of the rest of the team - to get the information they need in order to stop the ticking time bomb.
Now, I’m sure a lot of other stuff in that episode was very wrong, but it was still a good episode and it did a good job of showing why the non-violent method was much more reliable than using torture.
See, I find that funny because I used to have absolutely no desire to watch horror movies or crime shows. But now I love them. However, that it’s very specific shows/movies that I like - 28 Days Later, Resident Evil (the first), Dexter, and, of course, Criminal Minds - all shows/movies that are very obviously commentary on the kind of violence that often goes unremarked upon.
*******
And since my comment from yesterday gotten eaten up, I’d like to add: last time we had the draft, half of those eligible for it in any given year were not yet old enough to vote.
I agree with all those that are saying that a draft would not necessarily be political suicide, but there is a reason why the politicians are so nervous to suggest a proper draft (rather than the backdoor one we have now). We’ve never had a draft where everyone who was eligible was also part of the electorate. Vietnam may - or may not- have ended sooner if those 18-20 year olds had been able to vote. The point is, no one really wants to be the one to suggest we find out.
Christ, that Hostel II poster is not easy on the eyes at all. If I saw it when I was a kid, I might’ve had nightmares about it.
Bloody shame about 3 Door Down as well, since I like the singles I’ve heard by them.
On the subject of inconsistent–or perhaps incongruous is a better word–advertising, one thing that’s strange is that while Marvel Comics is mostly pretty liberal in stories involving political issues and employs a lot of creators who have those kinds of beliefs (Joe Quesada said on The Colbert Report that Bush does exist in the Marvel Universe but that no bad guys are scared of him, J. Michael Straczynski wrote a Spider-Man story that was clearly an indictment of Gitmo and similar prisons, I read Peter David’s blog as much for his politics as for discussions of his work or anything else, and Mark Millar’s a critic of the Iraq War), it seems that lately it’s impossible for me to pick up a comic that does not contain an advertisement for the U.S. Army or the National Guard. Makes me wonder how Peter David might feel about such an advertisement being attached to a story he wrote, when he also wrote this.
When I was visiting family in San Diego, in 2004, I heard a commercial come on the TV for a motorcycle dealership that really had little to do with selling bikes. The guy–stereotypical biker, from the sound of his voice–was contemptuously repeated the talking point about how the same people who didn’t support the Iraq war would’ve probably been crying about the state of Germany after WWII, then invited people to come down and buy a bike and said “…and God bless America,” with a challenge in his voice, as if daring somebody out there to say something bad about his country.
The reason I can only describe his voice is because I was busy doing something, and when I heard what he was saying I didn’t even want to look at the screen until he was off it.
The whole idea that it’s like WWII or any war that can be considered to have done more good than harm is bullshit, of course. This is one thing I do see very much in black and white: if you fire the first shots in a conflict, if you start a war instead of striking back after somebody else attacks you, that makes you the bad guy. Period. In WWII, the U.S. was attacked first. With Iraq, the U.S. attacked first and thought that they’d blast their way through as many civilians as necessary in order to take down Saddam, making them the bad guys. I fucking hate people who say “all wars involving the United States of America are the same, the United States of America is always on the side of right and should always win, blah blah blah.”
I had a little post on the poster for ‘Taxi…’ and noticed that the MPAA has said in the past that a hood implies torture. It does now thanks to Bush.
And your point is….?I can’t conceive of any circumstances under which the military would “listen” to a bunch of long-haired, peace-loving moonbat freaks like us. The best we can do is to help elect people whom the military will have to listen to.
It turns out that the news that the
MPAA had banned the “Taxi to the Dark
Side” poster was incorrect. It was
the trailer that was banned, not the
poster.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117978005.html?categoryid=1611&cs=1
“The MPAA did not approve a theatrical
trailer for Alex Gibney’s documentary
“Taxi to the Dark Side” that contained
scenes with nudity and images that the
org deemed inappropriate for all audiences.
ThinkFilm has not yet officially submitted
the one-sheet art referenced in a Dec. 19 story,
but Daily Variety failed to indicate that it
was the trailer that was rejected and not
the one-sheet artwork.”
It turns out that the news that the
MPAA had banned the “Taxi to the Dark
Side” poster was incorrect. It was
the trailer that was banned, not the
poster.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117978005.html?categoryid=1611&cs=1
“The MPAA did not approve a theatrical
trailer for Alex Gibney’s documentary
“Taxi to the Dark Side” that contained
scenes with nudity and images that the
org deemed inappropriate for all audiences.
ThinkFilm has not yet officially submitted
the one-sheet art referenced in a Dec. 19 story,
but Daily Variety failed to indicate that it
was the trailer that was rejected and not
the one-sheet artwork.”
Hey, maybe this can help wash the stupid out of people’s brains (not to mention the crappily written song): REM’s Orange Crush video — a maybe slightly more subtle take on, well, war in general. Or something.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aMVwsEhebs
As I said, wars between nation-states exist because war is the most efficient money factory we have. Any other bullshit moralizing that accompanies your war is just that.
Fruitbat, I have to agree that military people who see service should be paid more (as should teachers, firemen, health clinic workers, etc.).
“More” in comparison to what standard? Where exactly do you believe these military personell and public service workers should be paid in relation to the average full-time wage?
Think carefully - the term “Everybody will be paid above average wages” may come up…
This sums up nicely why i don’t bother watching so-called “horror” movies anymore. They’ve stopped even trying to be mildly entertaining or interesting. They just display gore.
28 Days Later? 28 Weeks Later? Descent? Ginger Snaps? Dog Soldiers, even?
Quite a while back, I wandered into “Se7en” not knowing what it was about. I staggered out afterwards highly impressed as well as gob-smacked. Horror movies can be damned good. I went to “Donnie Darko” on an off-chance at a film festival, and was so impressed that I dragged 6 friends to the thing when it showed up in the mainstream theatres.
Mind you, I did the same sort of blind-testing for the first “Saw”, whuch is why I’ve avoided wasting my money on the sequels and the “Hostel” series.
PiaToR, Ginger Snaps is such a fantastic movie. i just did a paper on menstruation and culture and that movie was one of my film references. the dialogue is so sharp and the way they parallel menstruation with lycanthropism (lycanthropy?) is brilliant.
my only complaint is the guy who played the drug dealer who appeared to be channeling christian slater in turn channeling jack nicholson. it was a bit much, but after you get used to him you cease noticing that annoying quirk.
Amanda: women are forbidden combat (and combat pay)
Not to be rude, but the last half of that is wrong. Hazardous Duty Pay (which is the new name for Combat Pay) is given to every soldier in theater.
They also all get the same tex-exemption.
There are problems in how the Army deals with a lot of things, that isn’t one of them.
the dialogue is so sharp and the way they parallel menstruation with lycanthropism (lycanthropy?) is brilliant.
Mmm - a person turning into a monster once a month seems an obvious metaphor - I guess the reason it hasn’t been explored before is that, you know, cinemagoers don’t like female protagonists (yea, right). Or they don’t like them if they’re not Nastassja Kinski doing nude shots.
I’d pay double to see something both good and original about vampires. “Perfect Creature” was a nice try, but disappointing.
When my friend and I saw this, we both wondered why they showed the National Guard blowing up the USA.
‘Cos seriously, this whole dark n’gritty look makes them look more evil. Particularly in the scenes where they’re all wearing helmuts.
Think carefully - the term “Everybody will be paid above average wages” may come up…
which is because people far too often conflate “living wage” with “above average.” Which means when they say “average wage” they mean “sub-living wage.”
which is so tragic I could fucking cry.
images like that video are why people talk about women in the military like it’s a dirty, subversive myth.