Neo-McCarthyite Witchhunters Hypocritically Mourn Kirk Douglas
Matthew Ehret
Hollywood film legend Kirk Douglas’ passing on February 5th at the age of 103 has resulted in a sickening level of hypocrisy from the leftist mainstream media outlets.
These outlets have written countless homages and memorials honoring the life of the man who “used his star power and influence in the late 1950s to help break the Hollywood blacklist” as CNN reported on February 6. Similar eulogies have followed this line from MSNBC, the NY Times, Washington Post, as well as many Hollywood celebrities.
What makes this so sickening is not that these memorials are untrue, but rather that it is these same MSM/Hollywood forces that are the heirs to the fascist McCarthyite machine which Kirk Douglass and his close network of collaborators fought so courageously against during their lives.
Hollywood and the CIA Today
In recent decades, barring a few exceptions, Hollywood (just like much of the mainstream media) has become a branch of the CIA and broader military industrial complex. While fake news agencies as CNN spin false facts to the intellects of mushy-minded Americans, Hollywood prepares the fertile soil for those false seeds to grow by shaping the hearts and imagination in their victims through the important hypnotic power of storytelling.
Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, Red Sparrow and Bitter Harvest are just a few of the most popular propaganda films which portray Russians as the nefarious villains of the earth and heroically elevate the CIA to patriotic heights.
Hacked emails from Sony pictures published on WikiLeaks provided a smoking gun when it was revealed that the Obama administration had courted Hollywood execs to the task of promoting films to “counter Russian narratives” and all of this in the midst of a renewed Cold War terror which has led to attacks on Chinese scholars in America and an attempted coup against a sitting U.S. President.
YET, just as Hollywood can serve as a force of great evil, Kirk Douglas and his small network of collaborators demonstrated that it could equally serve as a force of great good. This is because films exhibiting a spirit of honesty and courage can bypass the gatekeepers of intellect and strike at the inner being of the audience rendering a people, under certain circumstances better patriots of their nation and citizens of the world.
This brings us to the important question of “what truly made Kirk Douglas and his small but influential network of collaborators so important during such a dark period of World history during the peak of the Cold War?”
Ending the Blacklist: Douglas and Trumbo
The above quote from a CNN memorial cited Douglas’s efforts to end the Hollywood Blacklist. For those who are not aware, the blacklist was the name given to the “untouchables” of Hollywood.
Those writers, directors and producers who courageously refused to cooperate with the fascist hearings of the House on Un-American Activities run under the dictatorial leadership of Senator Joseph McCarthy and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
By the end of the hearings, hundreds of careers were destroyed and examples were made of ten leading writers led by the great Dalton Trumbo- who were not only given prison sentences for defending the US Constitution, but who became un-hirable for years after their release. Not only this, but anyone caught employing them were threatened with similar penalties.
In spite of that grim reality many of them continued to work under pseudonyms with Trumbo even winning two uncredited academy awards during the 1950s (Roman Holiday and The Brave One).
During this dark period, a network of brave film makers formed who worked very closely together for 20 years which centered around Trumbo, Kirk Douglas, David Miller, John Frankenheimer, Stanley Kramer, Burt Lancaster and producer Edward Lewis.
Many of the films produced by these men not only carried stories which shook the foundations of the newly reorganized deep state, but also strove to awaken the moral sensibilities of Americans whose complacency had permitted the creation of a new Pax Americana abroad, and racist police state within.
Kirk Douglas responded to this early on by forming his own studio called Bryna Productions which created the anti-war classic Paths of Glory (1957) and Spartacus (1960).
Paths of Glory told the true story of the unjust execution of several French soldiers who refused to obey a suicide mission during WW1 and provided a strong statement against irrational wars but also arbitrary political power run amok.
Set in 72 BC, Spartacus told the true story of a Thracian slave who led a two year freedom struggle against Rome and spoke directly to the civil rights movement in America and fight against imperialism more broadly.
What gave Spartacus its strategic potency to end the Blacklist was due to the fact that it was written by the leading untouchable “commie-lover” of America… Dalton Trumbo. Kirk Douglas’ last minute decision to use Trumbo’s real name was more of a risk than most people realize, and in later years, Douglas described this period:
The choices were hard. The consequences were painful and very real. During the blacklist, I had friends who went into exile when no one would hire them; actors who committed suicide in despair … I was threatened that using a Blacklisted writer for Spartacus — my friend Dalton Trumbo — would mark me as a ‘Commie-lover’ and end my career. There are times when one has to stand up for principle. I am so proud of my fellow actors who use their public influence to speak out against injustice. At 98 years old, I have learned one lesson from history: It very often repeats itself. I hope that Trumbo, a fine film, will remind all of us that the Blacklist was a terrible time in our country, but that we must learn from it so that it will never happen again.
When the newly-elected president John Kennedy and his brother Robert crossed anti-Communist picket lines to first attend the film, and then endorsed it loudly, the foundations of the Blacklist were destroyed and the edifice of 15 years of terror came crashing down.
Kennedy’s Murder and Trumbo’s Revenge
Kennedy’s death in 1963 sent America into a spiral of despair, drugs and insanity. Films like Frankenheimber’s Manchurian Candidate (1962), and 7 Days in May (1964) attempted to shed light on the deep state takeover of America but it was too late.
During the 1960s, Douglas, Ed Lewis, Trumbo and Frankenheimber continued to work closely together on films like Lonely are the Brave, Town without Pity, The Fixer, Last Sunset, Seconds, The Train, Devil’s Disciple, Johny Got His Gun, The Horsemen and more. Sadly, the cultural rot had set in too deeply and nothing came as close to the artistry of the dense 1957-1964 period of creative resistance.
One little known film stands out quite a bit however, and since so little is known of this small masterpiece, a word must be said now.
Ten years after Kennedy’s murder, Trumbo, Edward Lewis, David Miller, Mark Lane and Garry Horrowitz created a film which could be called “Trumbo’s last stand”. This film was called Executive Action (1973) and starred Kirk Douglas’ long-time collaborator Burt Lancaster as a leading coordinator of the plot to assassinate President John F. Kennedy.
Edward Lewis, who had also produced Spartacus with Douglas earlier, spearheaded this film which tells the story of a cabal of oligarchs who arrange the murder of John Kennedy using three teams of professional mercenaries (former CIA men fired after the Bay of Pigs fiasco).
This incredibly well-researched storyline infused fiction with powerful facts and was based upon the work of Mark Lane- a close friend of the Kennedys, NY State Attorney, and civil rights activist (the only legislator to be arrested as a Freedom rider fighting segregation).
During a powerful dialogue between James Farrington (Lancaster) and the leader of the cabal Robert Foster (played by Robert Ryan), the gauntlet is dropped, as the true reason is given for Kennedy’s murder in chilling detail: Global Depopulation.
Here Farrington is told by Foster:
“The real problem is this James. In two decades there will be seven billion human beings on this planet. Most of them brown, yellow or black. All of them hungry. All of them determined to love. They’ll swarm out of their breeding grounds into Europe and North America… Hence, Vietnam. An all-out effort there will give us control of south Asia for decades to come. And with proper planning, we can reduce the population to 550 million by the end of the century. I know… I’ve seen the data.”
James: “We sound rather like Gods reading the Doomsday book don’t we?”
Foster: “Well, someone has to do it. Not only will the nations affected be better off. But the techniques developed there can be used to reduce our own excess population: blacks, Puerto Ricans, Mexican Americans, poverty prone whites, and so forth”.
Although the film was pulled from most American theaters, it still stands as one of the most direct and chilling refutations of the lone-gunman narrative and is also the only film this author is aware of which showcases the deeper neo-Malthusian agenda underlying the murder of Kennedy which feared the optimistic vision he had threatened to create as outlined in my previous paper Remembering JFK’s Vision for the Future that Should Have Been.
The oligarchs attempting to play God in today’s world, just as their predecessors who oversaw JFK’s murder know that hunger, war and disease are not the natural state of humanity, but simply means of checking population growth.
It is worth keeping in mind that those same media and Hollywood outlets mourning Douglas’ passing are the perpetrators of this Malthusian legacy, and are deathly afraid of a renewal of JFK’s legacy under a revived space program to establish permanent human colonies on the Moon and Mars as well as establish cooperative relations with Russia and China which provides humanity its last, best chance to end the oligarchy’s pandemic of wars, disease and hunger forever.
Matthew Ehret is the founder of the Canadian Patriot Review, author of the Untold History of Canada and BRI expert on Tactical Talk. He can be reached at [email protected]
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I appreciate Mr. Ehret’s compelling overview of the Hollywood blacklist era, but an important clarification needs to be made because it has been a frequent source of confusion for nearly seven decades. Mr. Ehret mentions a “House on Un-American Activities run under the dictatorial leadership of Senator Joseph McCarthy and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.” Presumably this is a reference to the House COMMITTEE on Un-American Activities (HUAC), a committee formed by the U.S. House of Representatives in the early 1930s — not by the United States Senate. McCarthy was a senator, not a congressman, and he did not have direct dealings with HUAC. The HUAC operation was run by a smarmy succession of Republican and Democrat congressmen with impressive racist, anti-Semitic, and pro-fascist credentials. While HUAC existed within the ugly political universe Sen. McCarthy sought to control, it was not a McCarthy operation. It is also important to mention… Read more »
Talking of Witch Hunts, 25 Labour members were expelled in one day under their “Fast Track Anti Semitism Procedure”, under which there is no hearing and no defence is possible. People are now just kicked out when a hit list is forwarded from the Board of Deputies. These victims include Pauline Hammerton, a life long party member and peace activist, whose concern for Palestine was “anti semitic.” Other unacceptable transgressions demanding immediate expulsion include using the term “Israel Lobby” or referring to the Electronic Intifada. Basically any reference to Palestine whatsoever that does not consist of nauseating, grovelling, lickspittle toadying to the Zionist Mafia. At a recent hustings hosted by the “Jewish Labour Movement” and “Friends of Israel”, the various candidates were breaking all records in pandering. Long-Bailey, Starmer, and Nandy all stated that their No. 1 Priority was to address the “terrible scourge of anti Semitism.” Forget austerity, forget… Read more »
Incidentally, Pauline Hammerton died a few days after being expelled.
Does anybody here still have any illusions that the Labour Party is worth a rat’s ass?
See – they’re so anti semitic they expelled 25 in one day!!!
F*** Labour.
The Labour Party leadership candidates support Jewish nationalism and denounce English nationalism as fascism.
What was sickening was seeing a violent rapist memorialized as some kind of secular saint.
Do a websearch on “Kirk Douglas Natalie Wood”.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/rumours-natalie-wood-wont-die-kirk-douglas/
https://www.distractify.com/p/kirk-douglas-natalie-wood-assault
An awful lot of “claiming” and “believed to be” going on concerning an event that took place 58 years before. But nevertheless this murky matter has become carved in stone.
Nope! Wrong. Story first appeared in print in Suzanne Finstad’s well-researched 2001 biography of Natalie Wood. Disappointing to see that creepy misogynists still patrol Off-Guardian, might turn into quite a good site otherwise.
https://www.monstersandcritics.com/celebrity/kirk-douglas-natalie-wood-trends-on-twitter-as-rape-claims-resurface-following-actors-death/ According to Finstad’s account, Natalie Wood told a few of her closest friends that a married movie star lured her to a room and brutally raped her, causing physical injuries, when she was 16 years old in the mid-’50s (Wood was born in 1938). She was too frightened to report the crime to the police. Natalie kept the incident a secret after the unnamed actor allegedly threatened her life if she talked about it. She reportedly continued to hate the actor, shuddered each time the actor’s name was mentioned and tried to act as if nothing happened each time they met in public. However, Finstad’s account did not reveal or offer clues about the identity of the alleged rapist. And how fitting that your comments should appear under an article about witch hunting – a process in which an allegation (and a very late one at that) takes on… Read more »
Having looked at the relevant pages in Finstad’s book, the tale of rape is as traumatic as you would expect. It seems that the case for Kirk Douglas being the culprit is that Wood turned down a movie called The Devil’s Disciple supposedly on the grounds that one of the three male leads was the one who reaped her. The details are in the following link. (Admittedly this is a comment thread and I don’t know who the commenters are) https://www.lipstickalley.com/threads/do-you-believe-kirk-douglas-really-raped-natalie-wood.445623/page-5 These interviews were conducted in 1999. Finstad also notes, that in the summer of 1958, she was offered a huge salary as the female lead in a prestigious film. Natalie turned it down, saying she couldn’t be separated from R.J. (Robert Wagner, whom she had married in March of that year), resulting in publicity that made her appear either capricious or unreasonably demanding. The underlying reason, which Natalie did… Read more »
Normally rapists have a history of molesting women in some way. It would seldom be a one-off. So did he have a history of this?
Moreover one should not simply take the word of a female that she was raped. You cannot have one law for one and not another regardless of what any misandrist may think.
Strictly speaking you should never take anyone’s word alone for anything. That is exactly what a witch hunt is i.e. the word alone is taken to be everything. And this is exactly what you are getting in the media now cf. the damaged careers of Placido Domingo, Geoffrey Rush.
Kathleen,
The appalling rumour and fake accusation is repeated by the appalling Hadley Freeman in the appalling Groaniad, she and her fellow valkyries are regularly used to making appalling lies about Assange and ‘Anti semitism’ accusations against all anti zionists or social democrats, for Hadley undercover of a professional presstitute – watch as they – in the UK – pile in against Sanders as his momentum goes mainstream.
Stick to facts. Not rumours.
Hadley Freeman doesn’t exactly endorse the rape claims. At least not here: I didn’t ask Douglas about the allegations because, having looked into the story, I could not justify doing so. Wood’s rape was mentioned in her biography, with Douglas, among others, whispered as a suspect. But how many of the people commenting so certainly about Douglas’s guilt know that the rumour about him really took root in 2012, when an anonymous commenter – who hinted that he was Robert Downey Jr, something Downey’s representatives quickly denied – posted, then deleted, the claim on a gossip blog? As foundations on which to build cases go, this one is quicksand. Wood’s sister, Lana, has said that her sister was raped when she was 16 by a “big star” and maybe that was Douglas, but maybe it wasn’t. None of us know because – in contrast to the Bryant case – neither… Read more »
Lol.
LOOK. LOOK THERES IS NOTHING TO SEE HERE!
Why did Hadley publish a long piece with all the fake news in the MSM – when she could have just wrote the last paragraph?
That she is classic gaslighting escapes your notice.
I’m shocked! To paraphrase Captain Renault.
Anyway George I’ve posted some real meat for you if you want to risk your gnashers
https://off-guardian.org/2020/02/14/imperialism-and-liberation-in-the-middle-east/
You truly are a wonder Dunnie. So when a writer writes something does it always mean the opposite?
There are none so blind…
🙈
Swish!
You mean WHOOSH?
Swish is for these who enjoy being caned!
Please go back to the guardian. You’re biased and hate aren’t welcome
“…leftist mainstream [USAmerican] media” – !! Leftist and lamestream? Both? Does Matthew Ehret not see the glaring oxymoron? Stopped me reading any further, right there in the first paragraph. I prefer writers who use words in accordance with reality. I’m getting ever more inclined to ignore the pointless political circus in the US, as it continues with it’s thoroughly reality-detached circling of the drain of empires… And clearly he’s completely out of touch with the harsh reality of our most likely future, which has far more in common with ‘The Road’ than with ‘Startrek’. I don’t see any prospect at all of human colonies on the Moon or Mars. We – humankind – are up for some serious collisions with reality as we find ourselves forced to dump our ‘outward into the universe by space travel’ myth. Myth in the old, literate sense of the word: a foundation story of… Read more »
Calling the MSM in the USA ‘leftist’ is a FoxNews meme. To the ‘left’ of Genghis Khan, perhaps, but Left in any real sense-it is to laugh.
The film “Executive Action” provides a shocking glimpse into the omnipotent power of the US military/security/surveillance corporate state. The film gives psychological insights into the psychopathic mentality of this cabal. It’s particularly depicted in the following video clip which perfectly captures the prescient nature of the script’s dialogue:
The thing is that in countries where Healthcare – Education and decent wages exist populations ten to fall. Look upon it like this: In Africa ( not particularly unusual around the globe – exc the West of course ) where the State supplies little to help people you will have larger families as an insurance policy. Grandma/Grandad become too old to work therefore the younger members of the family have to support their grandparents. The older members of the family also grow old – there are no pensions and more younger people have to work to protect the enlarged family. It makes sense in a wicked world. It needs to be done. In the white west it is all about inheritance. In Africa it is about looking after other people. The truth is the Africans can’t get off the ground as the Colonialists cheat and exploit them so this system… Read more »
A very short history of Cultural Marxism :
Marx [proletarian revolution economically inevitable]
Gramsci [circa 1920: revolution hindered by traditional culture among proletarians: nation, family, religion.]
György Bernát Löwinger / Willi Munzenberg [1922 meeting: use intellectuals to make Western Civilisation stink]
Frankfurter Schule [subvert traditional Western culture. Founded 1924, main influence since 50’s/60’s]
Felix Weil / Carl Grünberg / Max Horkheimer / Theodor Adorno / Ernst Bloch / Herbert Marcuse / Walter Benjamin / Leo Lowenthal / Otto Kirchheimer / Frederick Pollock
Saul David Alinsky [’70s onwards]
S(oros)JW
I perhaps object to Gramsci in that list – and you have left out the real culprits the Foundations of Ford, Carnegie, Rockefellers…all the way to Gates, George Lucas and no doubt Bezos… the real cultural marxists who aim to control thought & history through Pharma and ‘Education’.
“…the real cultural marxists who aim to control thought & history through Pharma and ‘Education’.”
And misapopriated ‘charity’. Plus, you left out Buffet.
Soros!!!??? Hilarious!
Adorno’s Nonsense – agreed, your admirably punchy (and true) timeline of iniquity nevertheless meets with abundant cognitive dissonance here on OffGuardian. At the time of commenting, 7 (seven for pities sake) downvotes to just 3 up
This was a superb article…until the last paragraph in favour of “…a revived space program to establish permanent human colonies on the Moon and Mars…” . Although I could think of a few I wouldn’t mind volunteering to be extra-terrestrial colonists, I felt this topic somewhat distracted from the essential truth of the rest of the piece. There is much common ground between my views and Ehret’s, but his sling-shot extra terrestrial tangents were a leap too far for Mankind. I also suspect that JFK himself might object to his vision for Humanity being thus hijacked. I approximate my favourite quote: “For in the final analysis, we all live on the same small planet. We breathe the same air. We cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal”. Although Ehret might interpret what he will from such a quote, it speaks to me of a love for this Earth,… Read more »
Ehret takes a counterfeit and cherrypicked selection of JFK’s speeches to present a spurious virtual history version of JFK that even Camelotists do not recognise. Tackling Malthus head on, JFK said to the National Academy of Sciences on October 22, 1963: “Malthus argued a century and a half ago that man, by using up all his available resources, would forever press on the limits of subsistence, thus condemning humanity to an indefinite future of misery and poverty. We can now begin to hope and, I believe, know that Malthus was expressing not a law of nature, but merely the limitation then of scientific and social wisdom.” Within a month of this speech Kennedy was dead and a new green paradigm of adaption to limits grew like a virus in poisonous environment of LSD, cultural irrationalism and the Vietnam War. [Follow his links. He’s not shy of linking his narrative constructions… Read more »
I always had a problem with Mr Douglas Sr’s tooth grinding persona of overwhelming “masculinity”. But on the other hand, that was when he was in his heyday and most of the adult males I knew then (when I was a teenage expected-to-be-apprentice in that craft) seemed to suffer from the same sexual perversion, so maybe Mr Douglas was just fitting his persona in.
BigB, hold onto your hat: I actually agree with much of this comment. (Perhaps because you have used less-contorted language?). I had never heard of either Ehren or LaRouche. A quick google on the latter is mind-boggling, even allowing for layers of smear and disinformation. Was he perhaps a construct to make the FBI and CIA looks relatively sane? I also agree with you that the planet is finite and we cannot keep abusing it under the present extreme Capitalist method. I am sure you will agree that the biggest enemy of Mother Earth is the American Empire, which beast grows stronger on the backs of Human suffering, mind control and maximum extractive exploitation of Creation – including gullible Mankind. However (and there has to be a However) are you not a tad guilty yourself of putting your own biased interpretations of JFK’s (and RFK’s) deeds (and mis-deeds)? For the… Read more »
Wondering if the Eugenics was a common thread to the US Establishment, I simply googled “John Foster Dulles Eugenics” and a few nuggets fell out. Averell Harriman was deeply into Eugenics and of course, Allen Dulles was a great friend to the Nazis: https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=dgmDCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT317&lpg=PT317&dq=john+foster+dulles+eugenics&source=bl&ots=HnRS8p62gk&sig=ACfU3U3b72BL9U0fxYXtBRLK4_JwbuL8Mg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjpiYKAq9LnAhVLyDgGHUNEAKkQ6AEwDnoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=john%20foster%20dulles%20eugenics&f=false
I am not saying this lends any credence to Ehren’s point or the script of “Executive Action”. I am simply saying that the small minds of PTB were receptive to the philosophy of Eugenics. And those same small minds would have been opposed to JFK.
“I had never heard of either Ehren or LaRouche.” Golly. LaRouche died, and was politically active, if not so personally public in this millennium before that, what–a whole 15 minutes ago? If we can’t even have a quick re-sqizz at yesterday’s newspaper before we throw it away forever, what chance do Socrates or Lao-tzu or Marx or Churchill or any other of the mythical characters of prehistory have? “However (and there has to be a However) are you [BigB] not a tad guilty yourself of putting your own biased interpretations of JFK’s (and RFK’s) deeds (and mis-deeds)?” BigB is about the single most sensitive poster here to the slightest suggestion of the seeds of ecodestruction in the background of any idea, trend, movement or action. To illustrate that, consider this minor variation on a common image: On the same image,: there is no doubt that great oratory can change the… Read more »
Rob. I am not quite sure what you are actually saying here. By your reference to Churchill’s hypocrisy and his emptiness of soul, are you therefore suggesting that RFK’s words were not meant sincerely? Or have you changed your opinion of him? I have changed my opinion on BigB but only when I could understand him. (His convoluted language smacks too much of tortured logic and razzle-dazzle neo-logisitic verbiage, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing intelligible).
However (and there is indeed always a However 😉 if you are telling me you now appreciate a hitherto unknown RFK, then that might likewise explain why I had never heard of Ehren’s hero, LaRouche. Our biases blinker our analysis.
“Rob. I am not quite sure what you are actually saying here.” That’s a good start. Very often people have no idea at all of what I’m actually saying so they disparage it anyway. I call that ‘projection’. “By your reference to Churchill’s hypocrisy and his emptiness of soul, are you therefore suggesting that RFK’s words were not meant sincerely? Or have you changed your opinion of him?” ?? I made no reference to Churchill’s putative flaws, either way, and I certainly did not drag the repleteness of his soul into the arena. For one thing, I wouldn’t know where to find it in order to make a useful assessment. Similarly, but more so, with RFK. To the best of my recollection I have never conveyed my opinion on his sincerity or signalled any change in it to anybody, with the single exception of the person who passed on the… Read more »
Unfortunately, Kirk Douglas was a down-the-line defender of Israel, including of its war crimes.
In Kirk Douglas’s heyday, we were ALL defenders of Israel, because we didn’t know about its war crimes. And most of the world is still in denial about them.
I’m only making the point that we wouldn’t criticize Mozart for not being Stravinsky. Everyone is a child of their time to some extent.
“…we were ALL defenders of Israel…”
Telling me. I even went there to join in the fun. Fortunately I got to travel over most of its then territory with a sabra who couldn’t quite accept it, but–equally–couldn’t wholeheartedly embrace it, so I spent a lot of time listening to tales like ‘This is (Hebrew name), which used to be called (Arab name) until 1948 when all the Arabs…mmm…ran away.’
Even so, it took me a while after I backed off to Blighty for a break, to get some perspective on it all, before I really began to realize there was something wrong with the conventional story (about 95% of it, roughly) and fail to return.
I had incorrectly thought I remembered his being in the film “Exodus”. However, instead, it was probably this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_a_Giant_Shadow
It is also Hollywood’s film violence and torture that gives their CIA inspiration away. Tarantino must have been one of Gina Haspel’s favorites apart from the “Saw” sequels. Prepping future Anglo soldiers for the “right” mindset.
Sick.
After watching the first half hour of “Inglourious Basterds”, I had to stop. I couldn’t watch any more of the violence. Just like the Nazis showing “Jud Suess” to Wehrmacht soldiers.
Except that Tarantino is an entertainer, not a propaganda minister. His taste is not everyone’s taste, but I have a hunch he doesn’t expect anyone to take him too seriously. It’s also nice that in his movies, it is largely stupid, corrupt and downright evil people who get their come-uppance, unlike the nauseating trend of recent decades – which I consider to be deliberate political propaganda – of portraying hopelessness, despair and wretchedness as the best outcome modern people can expect from “the authorities”, as well as repeatedly portraying the scenario that nobody in government should be punished for anything. A movie is, after all, not the same thing as a real life, and when real life becomes almost unbearable, it is worth having a fantasy counter-balance to remind us of other solutions and possibilities. I like Tarantino’s violence. It is comic-book violence, and I have not become a violent… Read more »
Just an ‘entertainer’!
Just as Noel Coward was or all propagandists of that era.
I don’t want to get into a full on dissection of the new hollywood bratpackers of the 90’s onwards and their work for the state… but just consider the first Tarantino success and its title , what does it mean? What are reservoir rats? Why the glorification of such ultraviolence?
Why the associated video games?
One just needs to consider just how many PMC’s have sprouted in the US and UK and A few other countries comprising the 5+1 eyed monster empire.
Merely expressing a personal assessment of Tarantino as an entertainer. In his fantasy world he does what he does extremely well, and I have no interest in him beyond that. The war-hero comics the kids of my generation read were in the same vein, but they have not coloured my informed opinion of modern Germans. Nor do I even live in my own “fatherland”. Frankly, I feel at home wherever decent people live. People are people, life is life, and games are games. Of course it is important to understand the difference, wherever you live, and I do share with you a concern that there are many who do not understand that difference, but is the answer to protect ourselves from ourselves, as the neoliberals would like to do for us? I am not convinced that many of those “bratpackers” really “work” for the state, but rather that the state… Read more »
Veit Harlan, the director of “Jud Suess”, was also not abpropaganda minister.
Nor does Tarantino have a Goebbels standing over him.
He’s a successful specimen, going out on his own limb because he has the money to do so.
Over him Tarantino had Harvey Weinstein, the delighted producer of the film.
I wouldn’t really call that “over him”. Tarantino has a world reputation which doesn’t need a Weinstein. After all, one has other friends too… And Kirk Douglas also carried a lot of weight independently of McCarthy’s “approval”. To make a slightly ridiculous comparison, but with some validity, Beethoven and Mozart needed publishers and patrons to make a living, but their work was appreciated by a wide musical public, and they had friends as well. Fabulous wealth was not in the picture, nor was it the purpose of their work, but what they created from their genius was ultimately for the pleasure and inspiration of fellow human beings, not for the whim of some prince, archbishop or despot. Tarantino does the entertainment thing extremely well, and I’m prepared to content myself with being weirdly entertained by him, without digging into his motives. As another musical perspective, Richard Wagner appears to have… Read more »
tarrantino like deniro like marty scocsese like copolla are all hiding in plane site
they may pretend to be catholic or whatever they are supreme talent but also liars and fakers
khazar scum all hiding behind italian
modern day fiddler on the roof small community keeping it in the non semite fake jew russio steppe family
babylon was it not
weinstein playing god more like the devil
“A movie is, after all, not the same thing as a real life, and when real life becomes almost unbearable, it is worth having a fantasy counter-balance to remind us of other solutions and possibilities.” Provided that reminding us of other solutions and possibilities is what they do, which it mostly isn’t. In the 1960s or ’70s I saw a full-page magazine ad for Kodak motion picture film that pictured a large can of film of the sort that was distributed to cinemas under a bold caption which read, simply, “MAKE ‘EM LAUGH, MAKE ‘EM CRY…”, with the Kodak logo in one corner. That was the entire message. It was so compelling that I tore it off and taped it to my office wall as a suberb example of, in itself, without any external reference, “MAKE ‘EM PUKE”. However, I doubt if even 1% of those who noticed it also… Read more »
Agreed.
Tarantino makes me meditate on the capacity of man to laugh, cry and puke at the same time.
As I said, it’s not to everybody’s taste…
Just an over long Zionist Wet Dream, giving full rein to their bloodthirsty fantasies.
Curiosity and scepticism have been suffocated by the bloody hands of the ruling class.
The average punter is too busy making ends meet to question the strident voices of authoritarians.
The ongoing climate collapse will wake a few.
Society is allergic to the truth. The G increasingly likes p1ssyfooting around the issues; they explain how dangerous the AfD in Germany is and disliked this comment (not too tame, I admit): The AfD has just been bequeathed a large sum of money by a late engineer from Bückeburg. They cannot be destroyed by taboos. Get rid of the asylum clause and people will be with you again. Human beings are also territorial beings. They do not appreciate people coming from all corners of the globe, take up housing, and public money. When no money is available to compensate people for the loss of their land and a German unemployed (my late brother) needs to die for lack of funds after paying into the system for 35 years, some people do not take that lying down. The people in Germany are also aware that certain folks strengthen conflicts and wars… Read more »
What a steaming pile of absolute propagandic sh1te. Not the bit about Kirk Douglas: the Kennedy codicil at the end. Kennedy was killed in a neo-Malthusean plot? This guy has so many screws loose: his head must rattle as it turns. Ehret is such an inveterate propagandist: he cannot help himself. His agenda is of an infinite open (economic) system (read his other loose stool water dribblings) that JFK was about to install. So the Malthusian eco-fascists killed him to further their own agenda of global depopulation. And now they run Hollywood. If anyone other than Ehret believes this – they really need to restart taking their meds. Admin: does no one proof read this sh1te before publishing it? Do you really believe in Casey, JFK, and LaRouche’s deranged infinite futurist agenda? If so: why also publish the ‘No Deal For Nature’ site? The two agenda’s are diametrically opposed and… Read more »
Hey if you want to depopulate the planet so badly why don’t you start with yourself?
If you actually believe in Ehret/LaRouche’s delusions – you already are ideologically aligned with global depopulation. And our our technologically accelerated rate of species extinctionism. Including our own. I, for one, would rather we didn’t follow this insanity into the grave.
Promoting this ideology – barely concealed as a tribute – does nothing to foster any sort of resistance. Even if it is token. We are way beyond the time when we have to draw a line as to whether we are for nature or against it. Where do you stand? I’ve made my stance clear over the years. If you condemn it: you condemn yourself. There is only one nature: and the mind is not its technological master …as Ehret believes. We live within our ecological and biological limitations: or we do not live at all. Which seems to be too hard for most to understand.
The reason the planet is unlivable is because of “primitive accumulation” by greedy capitalist scum who have wrecked the environment by plundering it. This planet is quite capable of sustaining billions without their greed. If there is any depopulation required it is the elite who are wrecking this place. Not some poor African farmer and his family which seems to be the target of the above elitist trash.
That is simply nonsense. A sustainable human population for this planet, with a decent sufficiency for all, is in the range of no more than three billion. Surely that is enough. The people who want a constantly growing population are capitalists, ie metastases of a neoplastic death drive, religious fanatics or the seriously deluded.
And you know this how? By reading the Georgia Guide Stones or by seeking the deep inner wisdom of the Club of Rome, CFR, TC and other “friends” of humanity.
By opening my eyes-every life-sustaining system on Earth is already in collapse, or nearing it, and no amount of loony self-deception will change that. What is your idea of an ideal, sustainable, level of human population on Earth?
I already mentioned why life sustaining systems are collapsing. You and Greta seem to ignore the actual pachyderm parked on the sofa such as the Military and Corporations that have made life unlivable and are the ones responsible for the decline.
Instead like Matheus, those involved in the Eugenics movement you propose eliminating humans especially if they don’t happen to be aryan as the final solution to sustain your wasteful life style while ignoring the actual cause.
That’s not just “loony self deception” that is arrogant delusion.
“This planet is quite capable of sustaining billions without their greed.” A few* billions, maybe just. ” If there is any depopulation required it is the elite who are wrecking this place.” No, it is not. The elite are only those ring leaders who are most adept at adapting the “logic” of capitalism to serve themselves best. *Those wrecking this place includes not just them, but all of the other believers who have been succoured and suckered into espousing the gospel of capitalism, born of an epigenetic become genetic response to existence in times preceeding any hint of ‘civilization’, such as “some poor African farmer and his family which seems to be the target of the above elitist trash” who accepts the values of feudalism, mercantilism or capitalism which–finally–reliably fed them… just enough to fool them. A house may be large or small; as long as the neighboring houses are… Read more »
Added emphasis worked this time!
Are you reading the piece correctly BB?
The author doesn’t believe in the Malthusian fallacy; JFK didn’t.
The speculated motives of the assassination are saying the cover is Malthusian Eugenics for Anglo supremacists
Hell man our own Dominic Cummings and Toby Youngs and cryptofascists of the Breitbart generations of the ‘wideboys’ or whatever meme they call themselves (Pepe?) are pushing for it – that is where all the anti-immigration comes from, where the ‘My Country back’ and Brexit and worship of little blonde posh kiddies is about …
The ones on the receiving end of McCarthyism and Hoovers FBI knew first hand WHO the real enemies were.
Ehret is a delusional fantasist. And so is anyone else who eshews biocapacity and ecological footprint with imaginary economic infiniteness. Nature has limits: and economies are thermodynamically limited. I’m not spending the rest of my life trying to impart this fundamental fact to those who do not want to believe. It is a brute fact of nature that has nothing to do with Malthus or anyone’s opinions. As Eddington said: The law that entropy always increases, holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you… Read more »
BB your pseudoscience is worthy of the concept of the Ether and flatearthism or sky spirits.
When you invoke scientific ‘Laws’ and apply them pseudoscientificly to non-science knowledge systems you are no better than a illusionist or mind reader or spiritualist…
Take it from a a degree level educated Theoretical physics student – i have forgotten more than most will ever learn.
I’ll give you a simple question – name me one natural element or mineral or ‘resource’ that the planet Earth is devoid of due to human consumption of it?
Show how any major resource is now more expensive than it ever was because it is in so great a demand.
Holding forth from the Eurocentric self importance and it’s imperialist creed is a self mythologising narcissism.
There are more things in Heaven and Earth …
I’m not playing games with you. I’ve posted time and time again on EROI and sustainability science. And backed it up with reference: including Keen’s online modules on thermodynamics and the economy. Watch them.
Nothing runs out. It just comes with a greater and greater cost of recovery and refinement, transport, etc. It’s well studied. If you want to ignore it and invent a reality: I refer you back to Eddington. Recursively.
“imaginary economic infiniteness. Nature has limits: and economies are thermodynamically limited.”
Yes you are playing games. Word salad is what it is known as.
Economics is not science.
Apples are not Oranges.
I’ll happily discuss with you or anyone any subject but I won’t engage or stand for with pseudo bs.
The revisionism alluded to in this article put me in mind of Theresa May’s role as an ANC freedom fighter.
This little seen clip proves the British establishment was actually on the side of Mandela even when on the surface it seemed they were strident apartheid apologists.
At least this was the line the public were expected to swallow during May’s disastrous PR stunt at Robben island.
What happened to the Trump impeachment rollocks, that the MSM have been banging on about for months on end now?
Of course, it was all a big nothing burger that’s now gone down the memory hole.
In the meantime the American death machine – both at home and abroad – carries on unabated.
Beautifully (if inadvetently ?) directorally and cinematographically contrasted commentary.
As a side note to this piece, after most of Spartacus had been shot (and it was one of the most expensive movies in history), Douglas, the leading man in the movie, threatened to walk away from the project, thus wrecking it completely, unless the screenwriter Dalton Trumbo was properly accredited.
Suffice to say that Trumbo appeared on the screen credits; and the rest, as they say, is history.
Here’s a quote from Dalton Trombo…….
“You can always hear the people who are willing to sacrifice somebody else’s life. They’re plenty loud and they talk all the time. You can find them in churches and in schools and newspapers and Legislatures and Congress. That’s their business. They sound wonderful. Death before dishonour. This ground sanctified in blood. These men who died gloriously. They shall not have died in vain. Our noble Dead”.
He sounds like a decent human being…..No wonder the Ruling elites of the day didn’t like him.
Like most Hollywood epics, it was grossly historically inaccurate.
Spartacus was killed early on in his final battle. He wasn’t captured and defended by fellow slaves, and then executed.
John Wayne’s Alamo epic is totally inaccurate from beginning to end.
Like the ludicrous Errol Flynn films of the 40s.
Any resemblance to historical reality is purely coincidental.
Saw ‘Executive Action’ at a proper cinema last year. It’s a beauty! Every local presstitute, who would swear on their mother’s grave that Oswald was, indeed, the ‘lone gunman’, should be forced to watch it, like Alex in ‘A Clockwork Orange’.
I personally thought it was excellent movie. Even better than Stone’s JFK which was too murky and surreal which is what you want if obfuscation is your objective.
I even bought the movie. But those presstitutes own the world today, and persuading the people of the world that green is not purple is still a superhuman task – or that they should “see what you see; not what you are supposed to see”.
Just as persuading the Richard Dawkinses or Christopher Hitchenses of the world that their clever brains are missing something is still a superhuman task.
But one soldiers on . . .
I clicked on the “Executive Action” link and got a “This video is not available”…..
Is this just me?…maybe is not available on the country I’m in???!!
It works in certain countries. (Or for certain people?) If it works you get a trailer with the option to “Buy or rent”.
Thanks…is the country…I’m in a socialist one….so we are de facto russian assets or no money as to be attractive (consumers)…. 😁😁😊.
I think you can find it here.
https://archive.org/details/ExecutiveAction1973
Thank you. 😊🙏
😎👍
Maybe I’m missing something but that’s a 4 minute audio file about something that has nothing to do with the movie.
It should be on the torrent. Do you have a torrent app?
Hollywood the place where narcissism and hypocrisy meet. I noticed that Jane Fonda wore “sustainable” diamonds and gold jewelry to the Academy Awards. Whatever that is? Hooray for Hollywood!
Thankyou Matthew, it had got to me too.
Wouldn’t be me if I still didn’t find some thing nitty to pick over 😉
So I give you ‘TOUGH GUYS’ (1986).
One of my personal favourites and a great comedy also featuring the great Eli Wallach.
These guys had style – unlike the modern day brat packers and CIA whores of Clooney and co!
——-
Meanwhile our Junta after the December coup in the UK gets it’s ducks in order for our very own fascist state , with the the help of the dumb ‘patriot’ voters who bought into the Brexit lies – aided and abetted by the media presstitutes of all shapes.
Cheers for down tick – always warms the heart knowing that truth is hurting!
Dungroanin, the EU is over with. The French, Italians, Spanish and many of the rest won’t be far behind the Brits.
The revolt is all about neoliberalism, the ‘name that is never mentioned’.
Do you really think that Europeans revolting against neoliberalism are going to embrace America.
Seriously?
A neo-liberal EU along the lines if Thatcherite/Blairite/Cummingshite IS certainly over and Macron the Banker is over. And the Nato Atlantic Council gangster 2% fire-insurance is over.
The 4 freedoms and Schengen one is doing perfectly fine and will only settle into its full glory without us in their tent pissing over all the furniture and in peoples food and faces.
We’ll be begging to get back the moment we leave with our HARD brexit in less then a years time.
And on the topic of pertinent scripts that probably wouldn’t get past the cutting room nowadays, I always remember the following dialogue from the end of “Three Days of the Condor”. Turner (Robert Redford) is a minor CIA analyst who finds his team assassinated and has to go on the run. He has this conversation with a CIA deputy director Higgins (Cliff Robertson): Turner: Do we have plans to invade the Middle East? Higgins: Are you crazy? Turner: Am I? Higgins: Look, Turner… Turner: Do we have plans? Higgins: No. Absolutely not. We have games. That’s all. We play games. What if? How many men? What would it take? Is there a cheaper way to destabilize a regime? That’s what we’re paid to do. Turner: So Atwood just took the games too seriously. He was really going to do it, wasn’t he? Higgins: A renegade operation. Atwood knew 54/12 would… Read more »
One of the few movies made that was actually better than the book it was based on. One of my all time favorites. The book isn’t so much but the script was written in a style very similar to Eric Ambler who like LeCarre didn’t glorify the craft of intelligence unlike Fleming.
Another movie that is better than the book is the Sum of All Fears which was made just before 9/11 but was rescheduled which is in many ways truer to actual events than that turkey United 93.
Wasn’t there a whole spate of movies based around Flight 93 i.e. the most evidence free part of 9/11? Who needs evidence when you have Hollywood to tell you what happened.
As far as I know there was a TV miniseries or maybe two. Never saw them though watching the movie was bad enough but I subjected myself to it because I’m writing a book on 9/11. Believe me the suspension of disbelief required to watch it qualifies heroic measures. Most of it adheres to the official story thus the genre would be fantasy or maybe action fantasy.
Who needs evidence when you have Hollywood to tell you what happened.
better yet, who needs evidence when you have Hollywood to tell you what WILL happen?
They did a nice job of telling us about 911 in Back To The Future
BACK TO THE FUTURE predicts 9/11
Talking of Le Carre he seems to be going crazy. In his latest interview he referred to Corbyn as a Marxist/Leninist anti-semite.
I think senile would be a better word. He actually writes better than he interviews. I’ve noticed ex-spooks make bad interviewees because you need a secret decoder ring to actually understand what they’re saying.
Well, in latter years, he’s been coming on as a right-on liberal dissident.
But perhaps Corbyn has been enough to make his residual spook training kick in.
‘The Sum of All Fears’, where ‘Novichok’ is specifically mentioned as being used by the dastardly Russians.
Probably where Teresa May got it from but obviously you’ve missed the forest for that one ity bitty tree actually a sapling since the story involves using an Israeli nuke on Baltimore which were the same type of devices used to take down the Twin Towers in NY my dear Watson.
Hacked emails from Sony pictures published on WikiLeaks provided a smoking gun when it was revealed that the Obama administration had courted Hollywood execs to the task of promoting films to “counter Russian narratives”
This is how the propaganda always works. The shit they churn out is always “in response” to a phoney threat. Thus the US “combats” Soviet expansion by building American bases everywhere …and then – Lo and Behold! It’s the US empire which has expanded.
Sorry – the first paragraph should have been a block quote.
Try reading “Reel Bad Arabs” by Jack Shaheen about how Hollywood vilifies an entire race of people. I believe he also made a doco on the subject. Hollywood has always advanced the Zionist narrative because……well, we know why.
True. Black Monday is the epitome of such propaganda. So is True Lies and The Siege all written and directed by Zionist trash trying to spook Americans into believing that Arab Terrorism was an actual problem which is total BS according to actual stats:
http://www.loonwatch.com/files/2010/01/not-all-terrorists-are-muslims/
…And goes some way to explain why Mel Gibson has to make his own movies now……Another Australian actor in the ’30’s, 40’s and fifties the Great, Errol Flynn used to show his contempt for Hollywood’s elite, knowing full well that he was their greatest money maker, until his looks and his lifestyle faded away………..He’s still a Legend today though……
Red Sparrow was totally unadulterated BS. First of all KGB called them “swallows” not sparrows. Obviously the writer must have been jerking off to an episode of Rocky and Bullwinkle featuring Boris and Natasha when he or she wrote it.
One of the best depictions of Soviet penetration was the Americans. An excellent series that had you rooting for the Rooskies 🙂
A British film that left a huge mark on me was “The long and the short and the tall” about the British campaign in Malaya during WWII. These days we only have propaganda like 1917.
A school text for some of us 70’s O’ levelers! Was a TV play too.
Really? That’s excellent. Can’t imagine anything similar for the social media generation.
A great little marching song too, with the correct expletives off course.