This is a test.

For more ifo, check out Drudge.

The Nature of the Threat

There is a new website started by Andrew Breitbart called Big Hollywood.

I highly recommend you check it out if you happen to blunder over here. It is meant to be a Hollywood conservative website, fighting back against all the liberal slop coming out of there nowadays. People are speaking out when perhaps its not wise professionally to do so, so please support them by going over there.

I have not posted anything in a long while, but a discussion at this new website got me going. Writer Andrew Klavan wrote an article called "Hooray for Big Hollywood" where he attempts to point out where, as dismal as Hollywood's left-leaning record has been, there is cause to rejoice over films with conservative themes that have come out and done well.

One film he mentions is The Dark Knight, and one poster attempts to discredit the idea that it has conservative or pro-war on terror, or even any pro-Bush sentiment.

I tried posting a response there, but it apparently was too long, so I thought I would post it here.

To see The Dark Knight as anything OTHER than a pro-war on terror films takes some pretty fancy mental gymnastics. The funny thing is that it is not pro-war or war-on-terror out of some ideological partisanship, but an understanding of common sense, history, and human nature. The characters of Batman and the Joker were written long before the War on Terror, or Bush, or Bin Ladin, and the struggle they represent is as old as history, but they fit so well already to our modern issues.

Batman is born out of a society which has become rotten to the core, where criminals run amok do to both their ruthlessness and avarice, and the corruption of the state, which refuses to reign in them out of fear or in complicity. In short, they support one another in preying on the citizenry, with no one able to stop them.

Batman is necessary because there is no one else; no one who is in “official” authority can or will do anything either of fear or self-interest or both. Those few like Jim Gordon, who want to effect change, have no power, particularly working within the corrupt system. Thus, Batman must work outside the law to reform it. Of course, the powers that be don’t like this, whether criminal or legal. They would both prefer things continue as they are. If some people get hurt or killed in the order normal day to day, that is okay, as long as things stay stable and lucrative for them.

Batman refuses to comply. He sees his parents murdered before him, and thus sees the price paid for the system to continue as it is. He bears the cost and judges it an immoral exchange.

How like this is our modern day, where on the local and international level, thugs and tyrants are allowed to continue their predations every day, because no one wants to get involved, or risk injury or lawsuit, or worse, profits from it? You think the various powers that wanted to lift sanctions on Iraq were doing it of humanitarian concerns for Iraqis, or for some business interests? Why is the treatment of terrorists at Guantanamo given so much press and liberal outrage, while the abject misery, cruel oppression and systemic murder of Africans in Dufar or North Korea’s population given short shrift, if ANY mention at all?

Batman also succeeds not only because he is an outsider, but because he manages to instill fear in those who had used fear as their best weapon, because he so effectively intimidates those who had thrived on intimidation.

We have seen this in action. Tyrant punks with big mouths who get off on grinding their own people into the ground and making threats and even waging attacks against other countries tend to do so with nations either too weak of will or of might to respond. When someone lands on one of their neighbors with both feet wrapped in Marine boots, they get awful quiet for a while, and some give up the game, like Khadaffi.

Batman is also a symbol, perhaps his most important feature, something featured in the movie and so brilliantly captured in Frank Miller’s the Dark Knight Returns. He is a symbol of resistance; of refusing to become a victim, of having the will and gaining the power to fight back against those seeking to make you’re their chattel. He will not take back Gotham city by himself, but by showing everyone decent there that fighting back is possible, that action with danger is better than fear with the same, and that the bad guys are not so tough when they meet fierce and determined resistance.

Surge, anyone?

Now, the Joker exemplifies the 9/11 terrorist, the jihadist, the madman, the fanatic for whom there are NO moral, ethical or societal compunctions or mores. His goals, his desires, his drives are paramount, and nothing, but nothing, is off limits as far as goals or methods. He is a raging ID, fully intent on doing absolutely anything he wants, because he recognizes nothing in society as worthwhile or sacrosanct except that which he desires. If true, pure nihilism had a face, it would be white, with a maniacal red grin painted on it.

He is the end result, the last bastion of evil, the final development in the evolution of evil which finds itself hard pressed, like the Uri-kai Orcs Saruman cooks up for the final battle of Middle Earth.

He challenges Batman not only physically, attacking him, attacking average citizens, attacking his friend and killing his lover, but most important, morally. The Joker realizes that he holds one trump card over Batman, and it’s a good one.

As much as Batman is an outsider, one who is willing and able to work as outcast, even an outlaw, to get things done, even HE has limits. He is fighting to preserve decent society, true justice, even if he shuns or skirts them at times.

Joker seeks to destroy all the same, and his greatest strength is the ability to do anything at any time. Period. No rules, not limits, no conscience. Not only does this free Joker to do anything he needs to further his twisted goals, but he knows the limitations Batman puts on himself as well as the ones his chosen society places on him, hang-strings him. The other bad guys know it:

"Salvatore Maroni: [to Batman who is interrogating him about The Joker] No one's gonna tell you anything. They're wise to your act. You got rules. The Joker, he's got no rules. No one's gonna cross him for you. You want this guy, you got one way. And you already know what that is. Just take off that mask and let him come find you. Or do you want to let a couple more people get killed while you make your mind?"

And the Joker knows that the same society Batman is trying to protect will not support him, will even turn on him, even against their own best interest, because they cannot face up to what needs to be done:

"The Joker: Don't talk like one of them. You're not! Even if you'd like to be. To them, you're just a freak, like me! They need you right now, but when they don't, they'll cast you out, like a leper! You see, their morals, their code, it's a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be. I'll show you. When the chips are down, these... these civilized people, they'll eat each other. See, I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve.
Batman: Where's Dent?
The Joker: You have all these rules, and you think they'll save you."

In order to truly combat such a demon, Batman cannot operate by all the rules of society, even one what was less corrupt and more capable than his. The Joker operates so far out of norms of civilization that Batman has two choices; let him do his evil work and accept the losses, or follow him out just far enough out into the darkness to grab his scrawny little neck and drag him in.

The challenge for Batman is not lose himself to the Darkness in the process, but there lies the real tragedy of the tale…

"The Joker: Oh, you. You just couldn't let me go, could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You are truly incorruptible, aren't you? Huh? You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness. And I won't kill you because you're just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever.
Batman: You'll be in a padded cell forever."

But he won’t be. As the Batman mythos relates, the Joker is the modern Hydra, a deadly fanged head always popping back up in society to wreak lethal havoc, and Batman must once again catch him and put him in that cell, hoping it will be the last time.

Batman refuses to kill the Joker out of principle, to prevent taking that last imagined step into darkness, but as he will find out over the years, one can’t escape the blood on his hands. Bruce Wayne refuses to take a life, even one so deserving as this metaphysical psychopath, but in doing so, he will condemn countless others to death at the hands of the Joker.

As Batman says to himself in Miller’s TDKR on arriving on the scene of another Joker massacre:

“How many, Joker? How many have I killed by letting you live?”

One might ask the likes of Hamas, or their puppet masters in Iran, the same thing…

HEART OF DARKNESS

WARNING! I am pointing to something graphically violent below!! Watch enough to get the idea. I did not watch the entire thing myself.

http://www.revver.com/video/718011/frontiers-horror-movie-trailer/

This is entertainment nowadays.

We are in trouble.

I am not some prude or wilting lilly, and I do NOT like hand-wringing over violence in movies and video games. I play first person shooters, and hack and slash type RPG's, and have even played a couple of incarnations of Grand Theft Auto.

I admit I am not a horror film fan, particularly the slasher type films, but I do watch some. I tend to like werewolf/vampire stuff, or maybe one of the not horrible Alien films, but I am not one who refuses to watch them.

I don't like the idea of censorship or lecturing adults on what they should or not watch. To each his own.

However, there are friggin' limits...

First, this is not a horror film, not even of the slasher type.

Its a torture film. TORTURE. A psychotically sadistic snuff film in every sense of the term "snuff" but the actual death of someone. There is not terror in it, but mind crushing cruelty and soul deadening brutality.

Yes, yes, I've only seen the trailer, but I've seen similar. Rob Zombie's House of a 1,000 Corpses was the same thing. And damn, if this is only what is in the trailor.

There was no horror in that film. I never felt terrified or scared, like one would think a horror film is supposed to make one feel.

I felt disgusted and psychically damaged by it. Literally.

All the film was, was 90 minutes of de-humanizing, bestial savagery displayed in graphic form.

Again, I am NOT a overly sensitive type. I love action films, and fight films, and war films and I have played more than my share of violent video games.

However, like with many things, context plays a big role.

In the games I have played, you are fighting against opponents, AI or human, who are trying to kill you. Whether its a war game, or a fantasy role playing game, the idea is that the violence means something, there is a reason for it. You are in fighting a war, as cruel and brutal as that can be, or you a fighting a supernatural threat, or whatever.

And again, there is fighting. NOT repeated torture for torture and violence and sheer suffering's sake.

This is Evil.

If you believe any war or fighting is Evil, then let's at least categorize one as necessary evil and wanton Evil.

I do not buy the normal "violence in the media" causes real world violence meme. Or at least I did not before. Maybe I still don't.

BUT, anyone who can sit through something like this, repeatedly, and finds that they enjoy it, HAS to be disturbed in one way or the other.

I find this kind of thing particularly disturbing because there are people around the world being subjected to just this kind of treatment every minute (and NO, its not at Guantanamo), and while some many reject the violence of war which might prevent some of it, they are okaying with watching the cinematic equivalent and calling it entertainment.

I just feel that there is a terrible price to pay for all this, including Karmic.

WG

Check out this site.

How Memes Are Created

Covering the UK car bomb story this morning, CNN seems to keep trying tie this act with the Iraq war, some of it merely on the fact that it reportedly was similiar to an IED. How they are so sure of that, I don't know.

Christiane Amanpour in particular was claiming that the Iraq war was radicalizing people in Britain, although she did admit they were already radicalized. One reason was their anger at the people who were "killing our Muslim brothers".

The name of the blog is "Lattices of Bogosity", and this is the kind of stuff that I am talking about. Not only is this absurd, but is so blatantly absurd, people like Amanpour should be pointing it out:

Al Queda and other radical Islamist groups, and Muslim tyrants have killed their "Muslim brothers" in the millions over the centuries. Hell, its probably in the millions just in the past century.

*Now there is another talking head spouting this illogic.*

Get it through your head; This rhetoric is a pretext. It is right in front of your face if you take 2 seconds to think about. It is meant to justify the unjustifiable and to hide the real agenda, cloaking it in the lofty concept of "resistence."

Radicals have been living and organizing in Britain as parasites for over a decade at least. Before they kept their attacks outside of the country, but they resent the push-back post 9/11 and are now turning against the host body.

War on Terror is a Bumper Sticker...

Attached to really big car BOMB.

Next time, Scotland Yard should call John Edwards and ask him to defuse it.

Freedom of Speech is Inconvenient

Rich Lowry on the Fairness Doctrine:

"The report of the Center for American Progress on “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio” marks the latest phase in liberaldom’s grappling with conservative talk radio. First came the attempts to create a liberal Limbaugh — Mario Cuomo, Jim Hightower, et al. — that fell flat. Then an entire left-wing network, Air America, was founded, and foundered. So there’s only one option left — if you can’t beat them, and you won’t join them, you can agitate for government to regulate them."

When you couple the intent of both Dems and Repubs to completely ignore the strong opposition to the Immigration bill under review, with THIS little ramp up to outright censorship, EVERYONE should be worried.

Of course, Libs who are willing to decry everything else as a trampling of their free speech rights will agree its a "important corrective". Certain Republicans are on board as well, because they are tired of hearing from the peons on the issues. But no matter, this is an attempt to hand control of free speech over to the government. Advocates will bend logic into pretzels in order to convince us otherwise, but that what it is. If the government gets to say how much of what someone gets to say, and when they say it, its censorship.

I cannot believe this is a serious discussion in the United States of America.

"FAUX NEWS" and FAUX OBJECTIVITY

"The scorecard -- 125 of 144 donations to Democrats -- provides fresh ammunition to those who say the press has a liberal tilt. It's hard to argue you don't favor one party when you've just coughed up cash for that party." - Howard Kurtz

Another factoid which will bounce off the leftist bubble, who take it as an article of faith that Fox News is some sort of Rovian propaganda machine, but scoff at the suggestion that the MSM has objectivity issues. Turns out a Brit Hume (that's Fox's Brit Hume) researcher gave $2,600 to Democrat Harold Ford, according to Kurtz. Hey, Rove! How'd that guy make it past the screening process!?

A Lacking Brain

Roger Ebert, in a review of A Mighty Heart:

"The Americans who complain about "negative" news are the ideological cousins of those who shoot at CNN crews. The news is the news, good or bad, and those who resent being informed of it are pitiful."

I am not even going to disect the idiocy in this; it speaks for itself. You either get it or you don't.

Thus my pseudonym.

I get physically tired and a mild headache trying to fathom the thought process that not only thinks this in the first place, but then types it out, rereads it, thinks it worthy to keep, then publishes it for a worldwide audience. It almost like trying to visualize 4th dimensional geometry, which is hard enough, but when one thinks of the ramifications of HOW MANY people operate under similar twisted thinking, its worrisome to say the least. Trying to imagine a mind which would draw such a parallel, and find it valid, is stupifying.

So, I guess people on the left (and right) who complain about Americans exercising free speech to criticize them (and being so popular with the public for doing so) are the ideological cousins of those who shoot at CNN crews. Reality is reality, truth is the truth, ratings are ratings and those who resent being informed of it are pitiful, no?

Idiot.

(Hat tip, New Editor)

*revised*