HuffPost blogger Paul Krassner, founder of the radical rag The Realist, has praised good satire as "a way of calling attention to the contradictions or the hypocrisy that's going on officially. That's the function of humor -- it can alter your reality."
And our current reality can certainly use some altering. Enter John Cusack, who has made a powerful new film, War Inc. that pulls off the near-impossible: finding a savage reality-altering humor amidst the tragedy of Iraq. It delivers a wicked punch in the gut, making you laugh, wince, and get outraged all at the same time.
Naomi Klein, whose writings on Iraq helped inspire Cusack, feels the same way. "War Inc. is one of those rare satires with the danger left in," she told me. "It cranks up the dial on the state of privatized war just enough that we can finally see our present clearly. As you're watching it, you can't help wondering: can these guys really get away with this? Are we all going to get in trouble? It's an extremely good feeling. It's what risk feels like."
Cusack has given HuffPost an exclusive clip from the movie at its most uncorked. I asked John why he chose the black comedy route to address such a tragic subject. "This was the only way to stay one step ahead of reality," he told me, "one step ahead of the absurdities wrought by the neo-conservative, neo-liberal experiment in the Middle East and around the world. A lot of people have been feeling what Naomi has brilliantly chronicled and what I'm trying to capture in this movie: the ever expanding war machine is completely out of control and has morphed into something far more dangerous than Eisenhower ever imagined. It is absolutely immoral to profit from making 'defense' policy."
So check out the War Inc. clip below. And if you haven't watched the video of John's HuffPost interview with Naomi about her new book, click here.
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Education is important, but we have to get people off the mainstream 'news' and onto alternative media like the Huffington Post and podcasts and alternative radio and online information portals, where the truth lies.
And remember, stupid people didn't elect Bush. He was appointed by the Supreme Court the first time and voter caging and other election manipulations put him in office the second time. We don't have enough stupid people even in the U.S. to elect a disaster like George Bush.
Can't wait to see it.
Much thanks.
btw - Cusack acted in a little known film now rapidly becoming a cult favorite called The Contract with Morgan Freeman.
Because it's being sold to us by believers, is why. When the Jehovah's Witnesses come to the door, we feel the need to be polite to them, as we tell them (or try to tell them) not to come back. We feel a deep need for respect, when confronted with deeply held beliefs. We fall into that same trap with the Greed Is Good folks.
Respect is a good thing, but it's being used against us. We know how utterly wrong they are. We know they are morally crippled. We know, heaven help us, that letting them run rampant will destroy all we value in our country and our world. But since they sincerely believe that destroying civil life in the interest of unbridled wealth is the proper path for humanity to take, we feel compelled to let them work out their own karma with it.
Eventually, the subtext goes, they will figure out that castrating civil government to enable unrestricted resource piracy leads to the utter despoilment of the environment and the death of any semblance of moral order. Eventually they will figure out that curtailing any criticism of their grand capitalist adventure kills what's best about this country.
The problem is, it WILL kill us, if we don't stop them. We don't have the luxury of respecting the hoodlum who's cutting our throat. It's not just us, but the world itself that's at stake. They won't stop with Iran, any more than that other crusader, the little artist guy, stopped in the Sudetenland, or in Poland. They are the distillation of the old worldview of unending "progress" to a gleaming capitalist utopia.
They are the New Crusaders, and unless they are stopped, they'll keep marching until the Earth is waste.
As far as Naomi's book, kudos! It's a very sobering look at the real world as it is today.
So, hopefully his special talent will be evident in this project as well, and if it's done half as well and has half the impact as the brilliant M*A*S*H film and TV show, then it is undoubtedly worth seeing.
Thanx for your usual excellent work. God Bless you girl.
To paraphrase an ancient Chinese saying, ...we live in interesting 'and criminal' times.
Looking forward to War, Inc. and reading Ms. Naomi's book.
I am most definitely SHOCKED!
can't wait to see John's movie
only then will americans have an opportunity to wake up but dont count on it.
look at history most countries refuse to accept reality and slide deeper into third world status.
the bully is about to be defeated.
we all loved it when USSR failed without realizing we were next. arrogance.
go to the street talk to the voters it will scare you beyond anything you can imagine.
of course I live in a red state that continues to elect mc cain and kyle so what do I expect.
when you make war heros out of your soldiers that bomb women and children in an illegal war you know the country has turned to imperialism mentality.
jesus was a war hero you know and loved imperialism ask any evangel or better yet ask blackwater folks they are evangels and christian folks.
The theory of Capitalism has been so perverted beyond recognition.
Christianity has been hijacked.
The gap between the poor and the wealthy grows deeper, with much of the middle class falling into the poverty side of the valley.
The middle class and their one-time retail power has been rendered unnecessary to an economy driven by WAR $$$$$.
Americans will be BEGGING for socialism.
At the bottom, however, is a ladder, and each rung is the death of an illusion.
One of the big ones is the idea that bad people (here including good people who believe bad things) will not change their beliefs or stop being bad on their own. Karma may eventually get them, but I'm not willing to wait for their next life, which is how long it'll take.
Another illusion is the idea that our purpose is derailed when we take flak for our own beliefs. This leads to keeping silent, when we know that the stakes are the eventual life of the planet. So what if they call us terrorists and traitors and worms and scum. They will anyway. So frickin what? Their criticisms only make sense in the "absence of values" zones they create. What's funny is that they call US greedy for wanting THEM to be less so. To them, greed in their own self interest is a good thing, and our desire for the common good is a sin because it would limit their investment options.
Yes communism failed. That was because it was an incomplete philosophy; one pole on a contimuum. It was a beautiful idea: "From each according to ability, to each according to need." What's wrong with that? It's a beautiful concept. Only someone had to administer it, and the only administrators available were humans -- fallible, resource-hungry humans, fatally attracted to power. The drive for power and control led to every failing of that system.
Our own Church of Capitalism, at the other pole, has a complementary failure: the idea that the only pure motive capable of accomplishing great things is unrestrained greed. Between the two poles, I'd choose the beautiful over the ugly; but we aren't restricted to the poles for our choices.
Which is another big rung.
Just when you think things can't possibly get more absurd...
its the dark side, the dirty secret of capitalism-- there's obscene profit in calamity, catastrophe, crisis.
the public, effectively hypnotized and narcotized by the expensive propaganda machine, is unquestioning.
but, Id say, naomi klein in all her brilliance has barely even scratched the surface.
the international warmachine is basically a real, extensive, ubiquitous, globalized mafia.
more gory details on "economic warfare" in the following free paper
"fractional reserve banking as economic parasitism"
endorsed by two phd economists. printed in nexus
magazine, 60k world circulation. #1 top downloaded
economics paper. used by economics
teacher in australia as standard classroom material.
more info on request.
recent supporting material:
The Shock Doctrine: Naomi Klein on the Rise of Disaster Capitalism
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions
John Perkins on "The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption"
Video, senator/pres candidate Dennis Kucinich at last years 2005 Monetary Reform Conference
money as debt video by Grignon
Highly recommend watching it!
As long as we keep thinking it's only Bush &Co. or only the Republicans we don't stand a chance of stopping it. It is every single vote in both houses and if we think the Democrats still remember the New Deal we had better call them out on it now. If they don't come clean, get a true 2nd party in power or join the current party...Or flee to Canada?