bloodyminded

The title of the OP seems disingenuous at best. Protests against Israel do not automatically connote "bigotry." We've come to a pretty pass when such assertions become all-too common. Having said that, I can't get behind these protesters. There are times when folks should be left alone. To claim that the musicians are "complicit" in any bad behaviour by Israel is only true in the broadest, most institutional sense, in the way that people of all democracies can be argued to share responsibility. Israelis are certainly not unique in such matters, so I wouldn't personally think they should be singled out. Sharing in the arts is a positive thing, and should be celebrated. I've said elsewhere that there is an irritating component to the activist Left that relies on disruption of one sort or another. And while I'm not flatly opposed to the very idea of disruption for activist purposes, I think a little more reflection is often in order, a more civic-minded response. Such things can work, perhaps, but they take organization and dedication, and a strict adherence to behaving well. I mean this not only for its own sake--but even for the sake of the protesters' own causes. Ultimately, you want folks to sympathize with your cause...therefore, act sympathetically. As I've told pro-lifers: if you want to get people onto your side, calling them "babykillers" is no doubt precisely counter-productive. Something vaguely similar applies here.

I'm glad you enjoy it, though that's not the reason I do it. I do it to offer an analogy; you name parts of the film (Bullocks' castrating conservative matriarch standing up to thugs; or because it had "homeless people," which I must not like...?????) and then "wonder" if that's what I didn't like about it. Fatuous as hell, but I generously explained it anyway through analogy. In the other instance, I was informed that I didn't like anything that was conservative, or something foolish along those lines, so I aptly explained that I do like movies that are often considered "conservative," as a counter to this assertion. You know, when you simply run out of counter-arguments, no one is forcing you to write anything, Borges.

No. A quietly throwaway remark, not a manifesto. And I agree, not really accurate. And i ask again: who are these people, exactly, and what makes you say they "support anything Muslims do"? All I'm asking for is you to tell me who, exactly, these poeple are...and, even more importantly, how they are "affecting policy." Which liberals? she didn't refer to any; she referred to "bleeding hearts," which has been repeatedly used to denote liberals of every stripe, including those who oppose the death penalty, support prison reform, state concern for impoverished people, and any number of things. Like I said, who constitutes "bleeding hearts" is defined by a continual shifting of goalposts. Which is necessary, since it's a flatly meaningless term. As you've insisted. Yet remain unable or unwilling to tell me who (exactly) they are, and how (exactly) they are affecting it. If you can't do this, then you're speaking from impression, which is not very workable here. Just because you claim it exists doesn't mean it does. Who is it? I'm cautious about assigning such things. You might even say I'm conservative about it. If you don't believe me, find where I have specifically decried something called "the far Right" as they influence public policy. I consider it far more complex. Weak-kneed liberals are those who, for example, strenuously opposed Bush's wiretapping program...and then supported it wholeheartedly the moment Obama got into office. They work not on principle, but on the usual adoration of powerful people, albeit coloured with a partisan lens. Keith Olbermann performed exactly this way. Or the liberals who oppose every war automatically...except for the "liberal war" (Clinton, Blair, Chretien) conducted in Europe in '99. The hawkish liberals are folks like NYTimes' Thomas Friedman, who never met a war--ever--that he didn't intially love. He's more predictably hawkish than any conservative, who tend to be more principled than the Friedmanesque liberals. Her also opined that the US should strive for "the best of all worlds: an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein." That's a hawkish liberal. See, I can name one off the top of my head; whereas you struggle to find a "bleeding heart," much less one who has influence and readership....much, much less one who "affects public policy," in the view of yourself and Raza, content to throw terms around like grenades without backing them up. Some people might call the so-called "neocons" hawkish liberals as well; I dunno, it's worth thinking about. I"m agnostic on that point. Those who oppose tyranny but think Castro is super-duper awesome are of a similar camp...though they aren't of the hawkish variety, but rather the weak-kneed one. Who are they? they're so obviously there, and so clearly "affecting policy." And they're not secretive or invisible, you say. So give us some names? I wish. I don't know if I have a problem with them, because you stubbornly refuse to say who they are and how they are affecting their "bleeding heart" policies, which are such a problem for society.

Whatever Gore meant or didn't mean by his strange comment (and who would boast about inspiring such an awful movie?), it is a fact that the internet was developed through public monies. If that offends you on some politicized basis, I can't help that.

That's not a disparity. It's precisely, 10% aligned-perfect. Perhaps you got the numbers wrong here. EDIT Holy cow, I bungled the math so badly, I got it exactly backwards from what I thought I was seeing! God love me, I'm just not that bright. Carry on.

I don't think we need (or want) him either, regardless of what a couple of Canadians say.

I agree in part, except that much of the bashing--including here on this thread--is coming from the Canadian Right. Own it, Shady, instead of passing it off as yet more monstrosities from the mythically-enhanced "Left."

The far left are not generally big Obama fans.

Those two might just not be the biggest Perry boosters, all things considered equal, no. As for the God remark...maybe you're right, or maybe it's merely the usual offhand "in God we trust" stuff, not related to policy.

But not as much as Danielle Steele novels, which means that the latter are superior, wiser, and that you should choose her over Cheney's memoir. But at any rate, I have no opinion on the man's book...as I haven't read it. A crazy method of criticism, I know!

Why is Saipan a monumentally dishonest debater?

You haven't been adhering solely to the "correct" websites.

I'm going to take a small chance here and assume that you can understand the whopping contradiction with which you've presented us.

Don't get me started on this topic. I am often (actually, consistently) away from this site--which I view as entertainment, and not by a long shot my only source thereof--for several days at a time; sometimes weeks. I got stuff to do! Then I come back, and discover that I've "run away from the subject" which I forgot, or didn't even know, existed.

There are far more people of faith who are worried about global warming than there are atheists in total, regardless of their thoughts on the matter.

Nicely done. It'll have no effect, but that's not your fault.

What a frightened and bigoted little world you live in. Too bad.

A man lying on deck on his stomach and executed with a shot to the back of the head....What a courageous (and necessary) "response"!

You "would," except you're not.....

Like what, for example?

Von Trier does, interestingly, make some people angry. The response is interesting. I'm going to check out AntiChrist shortly, which evidently has generated visceral responses, both love and hate. Michael Haneke's movies seem to hit people in the same way. Funny Games makes some people dislike him, personally; which might be part of the point, in that such movies are what academics would call an "interrogation" of film and audience participation.

Why do people respond as if they haven't read the other's posts, under some pretence that they did so? What you're really implying here is that I dislike When Harry Met Sally because I'm offended that people fall in love, meet obstacles, and ultimately discover romantic happiness. After all, that's what that movie is ultimately about. Therefore, that must be my problem with it. Similarly, I'm not too happy about the Twilight movies (which are superior to the unbearable The Blind Side, just incidentally)....and my reason? Well, evidently I don't like teenaged love either, or perhaps am terrified by Native-American werewolves, handsome vampires, or sullen teenaged girls. There just couldn't be anything other reasons. I don't like the Bullock movie because it's maudlin and queasily unbelievable, even though it's sold to us as Inspiration-Real; that Big Mike is not even protrayed as a person, an actual character, but some sort of feel-good symbol; that the movie despises reality, and so indulges in the "true story" catechism to give us broad brush-strokes of what a conventional feel-good movie is supposed to be; and finally, because movies like this make us stupid.

Wrong. The very medium fictionalizes. "This is a true story" is part of the fiction. The Coen brothers, in my view, made the final, perfect, simple statement on this little trope; Fargo begins with a "this is a true story," tagline (names of the characters changed to protect the innocent, etc). Except it isn't; at least, not in the sense that such an assertion suggests. That is, fictional narrative (when it's good) is "true," every bit as much as those "based on a 'true' story." Fargo is not, literally, a "true story," and the mischievous claim at the beginning is itself part of the fiction. On the other hand, husbands have committed to having their wives kidnapped for ransom, I bet, after which matters went horribly wrong. So in a sense, it is a "true story." But that's not even really what matters: basic plotlines are far less important--to a film's worth, and to "truth"--than what is done within the plotlines, which after all are usually little more than vehicles for what really matters. If you watch crap like The Blind Side (or any other movie) you can instantly recognize the conventions of film, of story, of fiction. The movie is fictional. It's not a "true story," not in any meaningful sense. But that's not what makes it bad. No, the movie's goal is to present an emotionally-laden story about family, about love and about helping others, etc. It doesn't do it well, in my view, but that is the goal; not the importance of Left Tackle! Every movie, without exception, has a cultural context within which it works. It is 100% impossible for it not to. How could it? I don't think anything of the sort. For all I know, the real story is genuinely a good, heartwarming one. The fiction we're giving is not; it's crass epxloitive manipulation. Further, I don't have anything against the subgenre known popularly (if problematically) as "exploitation" cinema. What I object to is movies that are supposed to be warm, moral films, but actually are cynical, even ugly, and are near the opposite of their clear intent. In other words, I am criticizing the movie for its failure, not its politics in and of themselves. S'why I talked about movies that might be deemed "conservative," and that I think are fantastic movies.

Advocacy????? Not even a little.

"Huh?" is right, August. Here's what you quoted from me: So how in Godzilla's name you ever concluded what you did...well, I doubt anyone could say. Least of all yourself.