Went to see this on rainy Saturday, mostly to see Cage, who I was in acting class with decades ago before he was in any movies and always dug his fearless approach to the craft as well as his choice of roles.
This flick is made by the Pang brothers in that now not so new Hong Kong action film style that a lot of my intellectual friends have been enamored with for a while now.
I never found it that enticing. Compelling at times while watching, but mostly the murky bluish tint to everything, the muffled then blasting sound, the convenient coincidences etc. not my thing. Although sometimes each of those techniques and more can work very well, but it’s not a style I crave to see or fall under the spell of every time.
This was an exception, for the most part. The murky color and strangely balanced sound etc. bugged me for awhile until the story drew me in and I stopped noticing.
Cage was as compelling a screen presence as he usually is, and looked authentically like he’d lived the hard life that the character did. Someone actually doing the job his character does would probably want to appear less unique and eccentric, but it still worked for me. And he does that action stuff well.
But it was an added story element that most drew me in, that involved a lovely Asian actress playing an innocent and almost childlike non-hearing, non-speaking pharmacist! (Unfortunately I couldn’t catch her name or find it on the web.)
An unexpected twist that made a few scenes more touchingly poignant than the usual “romantic” element in these action flicks.
If some of the storyline seemed a little too predictable, well it’s a genre film and that’s to be expected. And anyway, some elements seemed too unpredictable, or unjustified given the narration and plot up to those points. But between the look and sound and style, as well as some of the plotting, it’s certainly a change from the usual Hollywood action flick of this kind, the Bourne trilogy etc. (though I have to admit I find the Bourne movies totally satisfying as movie experiences, and Matt Damon an equally compelling presence in them).
So, if you like action flicks but crave a change of pace in the usual way they’re made, BANGKOK DANGEROUS should give you a movie thrill.
And it was definitely a nice respite from the political concerns that can seem overwhelming these days, if you realize how much this election means and how much can go wrong. Although, in some ways, BANGKOK DANGEROUS could be seen as a metaphor for that kind of this-could-be-it turning point in the life of our nation situation.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Sunday, September 7, 2008
THERE THEY GO AGAIN
I’m afraid we’re in for a bumpy ride.
The Palin phenomenon reminds me of nothing less frightening than the Reagan one.
Peagan was a second tier Hollywood actor who had a great smile and came across like a nice guy, mostly, (though he could get angry in a very self-righteous pinched mouth way) but who represented ideas that a majority of U.S. citizens reject (the most stridently extreme being a belief in the imminent apocalypse which made worrying about future generations pointless and the belief in consulting astrology to determine what dates and numbers were best suited to governance decisions!).
His politics were much further to the right than most “Americans,” and his image and experience was built on a structure of half-truths and outright lies. But he was known as “the Teflon candidate” and later “the Teflon president,” because no matter how many of his, or his administration’s, lies were exposed, the charges mostly didn’t stick.
He actually would talk about WWII combat experiences when in fact he spent the war making movies in Hollywood, and the general populace (uninformed and unfortunately poorly educated when it comes to thinking objectively) would buy it totally and the media would let it drop.
Palin seems, to me at least, a new and even scarier version of that. And if her sudden rise to enormous national popularity helps McCain win the white house, and McCain declines or is unable to run in four years because of his age or age related illnesses, she could possibly extend their rule for another eight years.
The media will be a big help in all this, as they already have been. Notice there are no cries from the rightwing Republicans about how much attention she’s getting from the press (unless it’s press that questions her experience or attempts to expose the truth behind her many lies), whereas all they did was complain about any good press for Obama and spread the lie that he was getting more positive treatment from the media than McCain (when studies showed it was the opposite).
THE BIG LIE technique of the Republican Party—as I have written about before I know (as far back as the 1960s when I was a political columnist for various “alternative” newspapers, among other outlets)—isn’t much different (if at all) from those who most notoriously used that technique, the Nazis and Stalin, and his successors in the U.S.S.R.
I want to make it clear, though my rightwing critics won’t notice this, that I’m not saying every Republican or those who are sucked into voting for Republicans are liars. I have Republicans in my extended clan who genuinely believe these BIG LIES and don’t have the wherewithal, either intellectually or emotionally, to question them and are convinced by their leaders that it is the opposition that is lying about them!
But my point is simply that Palin may well become another “Teflon candidate”—as she seems to have been in the past in local and state politics in Alaska. There are plenty of her fellow Alaskans who don’t like her or trust her or believe she is a liar and a political opportunist. But the majority of the voters in that state approve highly of her tenure.
They either don’t believe or don’t care that she supported the “bridge to nowhere” until it was no longer politically expedient, and then presented herself to the world as someone who “fights corruption” and stood up to “the bridge to nowhere.”
Unfortunately the Democratic strategists seem incapable of creating an ad that shows footage of her supporting the bridge and then being against it after everyone else was, exactly as the right accused Kerry of doing on the Iraqi war.
His change in position was based on more knowledge and the experience of what Junior’s administration did with the authority to deal with Iraq and the war. It was a reasoned and principled change of heart and mind. But he defended that change poorly and his party did an even worse job of it.
Palin’s flip flops are way more politically opportunist and obvious, but, and it’s a big but once again, she has that rightwing Republican BIG LIE expertise combined with that Reaganesque attractive presentation of unattractive ideas, so she just sticks to her story, no matter how fabricated, of standing up to the powers that be when it comes to earmarks (“pork”) and the press mostly goes along with it.
But even if the press exposes some of her flip flopping and lying about it, or the frightening parts of her political and religious beliefs that are NOT shared by most “Americans,” her smile and generally attractive image, her seeming to be just an ordinary “hockey mom” (which some see as code for “white” since it’s not a sport known for its racial diversity) will convince a lot of folks, especially those not educated about these kinds of BIG LIE tactics (which means most “Americans” or else they wouldn’t spend so much money on unnecessary and often badly made and bad-for-them-and-the-world-in-general consumer goods etc.) or how to see through them.
Nope. They’ll paint the media and Democrats as anti-regular-folks-like-Palin-and-them, and maybe win this thing and have a heartbeat from the presidency someone whose record shows that a lot of what her party claims for her and she claims for herself is based on lies.
And let’s not even get into the lies McCain and she are telling about Obama (the three top ones in the past few days have been that Obama will raise average peoples’ taxes, that he’s never accomplished anything as a state and United States Senator, and that he’s too partisan (or too “liberal”) to reach across the aisle—all completely and easily provably false, but if repeated enough, most voters will believe anyway).
The Palin phenomenon reminds me of nothing less frightening than the Reagan one.
Peagan was a second tier Hollywood actor who had a great smile and came across like a nice guy, mostly, (though he could get angry in a very self-righteous pinched mouth way) but who represented ideas that a majority of U.S. citizens reject (the most stridently extreme being a belief in the imminent apocalypse which made worrying about future generations pointless and the belief in consulting astrology to determine what dates and numbers were best suited to governance decisions!).
His politics were much further to the right than most “Americans,” and his image and experience was built on a structure of half-truths and outright lies. But he was known as “the Teflon candidate” and later “the Teflon president,” because no matter how many of his, or his administration’s, lies were exposed, the charges mostly didn’t stick.
He actually would talk about WWII combat experiences when in fact he spent the war making movies in Hollywood, and the general populace (uninformed and unfortunately poorly educated when it comes to thinking objectively) would buy it totally and the media would let it drop.
Palin seems, to me at least, a new and even scarier version of that. And if her sudden rise to enormous national popularity helps McCain win the white house, and McCain declines or is unable to run in four years because of his age or age related illnesses, she could possibly extend their rule for another eight years.
The media will be a big help in all this, as they already have been. Notice there are no cries from the rightwing Republicans about how much attention she’s getting from the press (unless it’s press that questions her experience or attempts to expose the truth behind her many lies), whereas all they did was complain about any good press for Obama and spread the lie that he was getting more positive treatment from the media than McCain (when studies showed it was the opposite).
THE BIG LIE technique of the Republican Party—as I have written about before I know (as far back as the 1960s when I was a political columnist for various “alternative” newspapers, among other outlets)—isn’t much different (if at all) from those who most notoriously used that technique, the Nazis and Stalin, and his successors in the U.S.S.R.
I want to make it clear, though my rightwing critics won’t notice this, that I’m not saying every Republican or those who are sucked into voting for Republicans are liars. I have Republicans in my extended clan who genuinely believe these BIG LIES and don’t have the wherewithal, either intellectually or emotionally, to question them and are convinced by their leaders that it is the opposition that is lying about them!
But my point is simply that Palin may well become another “Teflon candidate”—as she seems to have been in the past in local and state politics in Alaska. There are plenty of her fellow Alaskans who don’t like her or trust her or believe she is a liar and a political opportunist. But the majority of the voters in that state approve highly of her tenure.
They either don’t believe or don’t care that she supported the “bridge to nowhere” until it was no longer politically expedient, and then presented herself to the world as someone who “fights corruption” and stood up to “the bridge to nowhere.”
Unfortunately the Democratic strategists seem incapable of creating an ad that shows footage of her supporting the bridge and then being against it after everyone else was, exactly as the right accused Kerry of doing on the Iraqi war.
His change in position was based on more knowledge and the experience of what Junior’s administration did with the authority to deal with Iraq and the war. It was a reasoned and principled change of heart and mind. But he defended that change poorly and his party did an even worse job of it.
Palin’s flip flops are way more politically opportunist and obvious, but, and it’s a big but once again, she has that rightwing Republican BIG LIE expertise combined with that Reaganesque attractive presentation of unattractive ideas, so she just sticks to her story, no matter how fabricated, of standing up to the powers that be when it comes to earmarks (“pork”) and the press mostly goes along with it.
But even if the press exposes some of her flip flopping and lying about it, or the frightening parts of her political and religious beliefs that are NOT shared by most “Americans,” her smile and generally attractive image, her seeming to be just an ordinary “hockey mom” (which some see as code for “white” since it’s not a sport known for its racial diversity) will convince a lot of folks, especially those not educated about these kinds of BIG LIE tactics (which means most “Americans” or else they wouldn’t spend so much money on unnecessary and often badly made and bad-for-them-and-the-world-in-general consumer goods etc.) or how to see through them.
Nope. They’ll paint the media and Democrats as anti-regular-folks-like-Palin-and-them, and maybe win this thing and have a heartbeat from the presidency someone whose record shows that a lot of what her party claims for her and she claims for herself is based on lies.
And let’s not even get into the lies McCain and she are telling about Obama (the three top ones in the past few days have been that Obama will raise average peoples’ taxes, that he’s never accomplished anything as a state and United States Senator, and that he’s too partisan (or too “liberal”) to reach across the aisle—all completely and easily provably false, but if repeated enough, most voters will believe anyway).
Saturday, September 6, 2008
NO QUESTIONS ALLOWED
Well, since they have Palin in protective custody, forbidden from answering any questions from the public and the press, guess we gotta find our answers elsewhere. Thanks to The Kid for this link.
Friday, September 5, 2008
VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA
Just the relief I needed. I’ve never seen a Woody Allen movie that didn’t have something worth watching in it, for me. His failures are still more original than most moviemakers’ triumphs. And watching his best leaves me as satisfied as a film experience can.
VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA is one of his better films. As soon as it began I was grinning, knowing here comes that Woody-Allen combination of familiar and unfamiliar movie fantasy, along with story lines and character interactions rooted in complex realities that few movies ever address.
It’s always compelling to watch, at least for me, wondering—where is this thing going? And even when I’m pretty sure I know, I’m never certain how it will get there.
As someone who made my living for several years writing screenplays in Hollywood, or doctoring them, I have a pretty good notion where most movies are heading as soon as the first few scenes have gone by. But Woody keeps me guessing in ways that made all the French New Wave movies of the ‘60s—and the American independent movies they influenced or vice versa—as fun and surprising as any cultural or social event of the time.
That rush of, oh yeah, this is what movies can do that gives me so much pleasure and satisfaction and delight. That’s what this flick did for me.
As usual for an Allen film, the acting is impeccable, mostly because of the usual brilliant casting but also the Woodman’s way with film actors.
There’s the known and expected—Scarlett Johansson and Patricia Clarkson—and the not-so-known but recognizable and equally expected—Chris Messina and Kevin Dunn.
And then there’s the almost unexpected—Javier Bardim as the charming and disarming but conflicted and confusing artist around which the film swirls, and the cause and consequences of his complex motivations and actions, Penelope Cruz, as the female version only more so.
But the most unexpected, the usual new card in what is always an evolving group of familiar faces in Allen’s movies, is Rebecca Hall, whose screen presence is both familiar and refreshingly new (at times she evokes the less glamorous more natural beauties of the movies of my childhood—Theresa Wright, Gene Tierney et. al.—at others a new kind of leading lady, more real, more complicated, and sometimes more neurotic—like she’s channeling Woody, which actors working with him for the first time often seem to do).
I’ve always been taken with Johansson, and now equally by Hall, part of Allen’s genius at discovering new(er) talent or discovering new ways to use that talent. (I know there are those who can’t get past his marrying a person who was practically his step-adopted-daughter, and therefore see ulterior motives in his casting of younger female actors or even of his story lines that ruins what is exuberant about his films, but I’m not one of them, at least not for long, meaning the thoughts do occur to me but are wiped away by his artistry and his movies’ much deeper complexity than simple reflections of his foibles and experiences.)
What I’m trying to convey, and doing a poor job of it after the exhaustion of my emersion in the political action of the past few weeks in politics, is that seeing this movie in a movie theater felt like why I went to movies as a kid, and later as a more culturally and socially aware and experienced young adult. It made me remember how great, and even just good movies—and maybe all art—inspires the idea of “the infinite possibilities of life”—both “good” and “bad”—as my friend Selby used to say.
I came away feeling happy, fulfilled, and deeply accepting of life’s surprises, whether they come as unexpected rewards or unexpected disappointments, or the usual combination of both.
VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA is one of his better films. As soon as it began I was grinning, knowing here comes that Woody-Allen combination of familiar and unfamiliar movie fantasy, along with story lines and character interactions rooted in complex realities that few movies ever address.
It’s always compelling to watch, at least for me, wondering—where is this thing going? And even when I’m pretty sure I know, I’m never certain how it will get there.
As someone who made my living for several years writing screenplays in Hollywood, or doctoring them, I have a pretty good notion where most movies are heading as soon as the first few scenes have gone by. But Woody keeps me guessing in ways that made all the French New Wave movies of the ‘60s—and the American independent movies they influenced or vice versa—as fun and surprising as any cultural or social event of the time.
That rush of, oh yeah, this is what movies can do that gives me so much pleasure and satisfaction and delight. That’s what this flick did for me.
As usual for an Allen film, the acting is impeccable, mostly because of the usual brilliant casting but also the Woodman’s way with film actors.
There’s the known and expected—Scarlett Johansson and Patricia Clarkson—and the not-so-known but recognizable and equally expected—Chris Messina and Kevin Dunn.
And then there’s the almost unexpected—Javier Bardim as the charming and disarming but conflicted and confusing artist around which the film swirls, and the cause and consequences of his complex motivations and actions, Penelope Cruz, as the female version only more so.
But the most unexpected, the usual new card in what is always an evolving group of familiar faces in Allen’s movies, is Rebecca Hall, whose screen presence is both familiar and refreshingly new (at times she evokes the less glamorous more natural beauties of the movies of my childhood—Theresa Wright, Gene Tierney et. al.—at others a new kind of leading lady, more real, more complicated, and sometimes more neurotic—like she’s channeling Woody, which actors working with him for the first time often seem to do).
I’ve always been taken with Johansson, and now equally by Hall, part of Allen’s genius at discovering new(er) talent or discovering new ways to use that talent. (I know there are those who can’t get past his marrying a person who was practically his step-adopted-daughter, and therefore see ulterior motives in his casting of younger female actors or even of his story lines that ruins what is exuberant about his films, but I’m not one of them, at least not for long, meaning the thoughts do occur to me but are wiped away by his artistry and his movies’ much deeper complexity than simple reflections of his foibles and experiences.)
What I’m trying to convey, and doing a poor job of it after the exhaustion of my emersion in the political action of the past few weeks in politics, is that seeing this movie in a movie theater felt like why I went to movies as a kid, and later as a more culturally and socially aware and experienced young adult. It made me remember how great, and even just good movies—and maybe all art—inspires the idea of “the infinite possibilities of life”—both “good” and “bad”—as my friend Selby used to say.
I came away feeling happy, fulfilled, and deeply accepting of life’s surprises, whether they come as unexpected rewards or unexpected disappointments, or the usual combination of both.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
HUH?
That was mindbogglingly twisted logic almost impossible to comprehend, but it sounded like what McCain and his convention was trying to convince the country of, was that the solution to all the problems that have been brought about by eight years of Republican rule is to put some more Republicans in charge. (loud cheers) If they win on that, we need more than a better educational system, we need new brains.
TOP REPUBLICAN LIES
It would take the rest of my life to list the lies the Republican Party has been promulgating for the past several decades. So I’m going to resort to my favorite trinity lists.
TOP THREE LIES REPUBLICANS TELL ABOUT THEIR PARTY
1. LIE: The Republican Party stands for reducing the size of the federal government.
FACT: Under Reagan, Bush senior and Bush junior, the federal government grew, all three left (and are leaving) behind them a vastly enlarged government than the one that existed when they became presidents. The only administration to reduce the size of the federal government since Reagan expanded it, was, you guessed it, Bill Clinton’s.
2. LIE: The Republican Party stands for fiscal responsibility (or sometimes stated as they are “fiscally conservative” or that they will “cut spending”).
FACT: Under Reagan and Bush senior, spending increased and the federal deficit grew to the largest in history—larger in fact than all previous deficits throughout our history combined! But that was outdone by Bush junior, who has exceeded even that excess in spending and fiscal irresponsibility, especially considering that he inherited the largest surplus in history from the most fiscally responsible administration in recent decades, Bill Clinton’s.
(Oh, and the much touted “experience” of Palin as a mayor of a “city” (population slightly over 5,000 when she was elected) at the Republican convention also includes a record of inheriting a surplus and leaving behind the largest deficit her hometown has ever had.)
3.
LIE: The Republican Party stands for national security.
FACT: The worst attack on U. S. soil by foreign agents occurred under a white house and congress controlled by Republicans, who were warned that the attacks were imminent but chose to ignore those warnings while Bush junior took a month-long vacation and his subordinates drew up a plan for attacking Iraq before terrorists from Saudi Arabia attacked us on 9/11 led by a Saudi living in Afghanistan who retreated to Pakistan.
The Republican response to their lapse in judgment and lack of preparedness—after an initially successful and widely supported defeat of the Taliban running Afghanistan—was to invade Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, and meanwhile to increase support of Saudi Arabia, many of whose leaders financially back Bin Laden and Al Queda and whose government supports the spread of a radical jihadist fundamentalist branch of Islam, and on top of that to increase support of Pakistan, where Bin Laden was hiding and where the Taliban was regrouping and is now operating out of to take back much of what we “liberated” from them in Afghanistan.
All that is a result of the party that talks about “supporting the troops” but ignored the military leaders and experts (or had them fired or forced them to resign) who pointed out that the job wasn’t finished in Afghanistan and that an invasion of Iraq not only went against all the beliefs of the Founding Fathers and American tradition and the Constitution, but would be a diversion from the main goal of capturing or killing Bin Laden and destroying Al Queada, but if Junior and his Republican team insisted on invading Iraq then more troops would be needed to do the job or the result would be chaos and civil strife.
Not only did the Republican leaders ignore the advice of their own military experts and leaders and send too few troops to Iraq guaranteeing more death and destruction and hardship than was necessary, let alone the complete collapse of the country’s capacity to self govern etc., but they sent them without proper armor for the troops or their vehicles leading to even more death and destruction, not to mention more tax payer money going to waste.
I could go on with examples for this one for years (e.g. the only two wars the USA “lost”—Viet Nam and Korea—were “lost” under Republican administrations), but I have a life to live.
THREE TOP LIES THE REPUBLICAN PARTY TELLS ABOUT MCCAIN
1. LIE: McCain is a “maverick” who goes against the Republican powers that be.
FACT: McCain has occasionally taken a stand against the most outrageous offenses committed by Bush junior’s administration—torture, tax cuts for the wealthiest while everyone else pays more, etc.—but, since beginning his presidential campaign he has flip flopped on every major issue he had a difference with Bush-Cheney on, including torture, tax cuts for the wealthiest while the rest of us pay more etc. until, as the record shows, he now has voted over ninety percent of the time in favor of Bush-Cheney policies, and otherwise his stated positions are in line not only with the Republican Party but with the most conservative factions in it, promising, for instance, to appoint justices in the mold of “Scalia” to ensure the reversal of Roe vs. Wade, etc.
2. LIE: McCain stands up for the troops and veterans.
FACT: He did not support the recent G.I. Bill for Iraqi veterans that the Democrats had been trying to get passed and finally did because too many Republican Senators were afraid to have it on their record that they voted against veterans benefits. McCain has it on his record though, among other votes against measures to better protect the troops and, especially, to get them out of harm’s way and let the Iraqi government, which has an almost eighty billion dollar surplus, take care of its own security.
3. LIE: McCain tells it like it is (the so-called “straight talk”).
FACT: McCain has been caught in many lies, some of the more recent ones seeming (worryingly, remember Reagan’s later years) more like confusion than lies, but just one example was his famous “stroll” through an open market in Baghdad after which he claimed he had not warn armor and that it was safe and back to normal, when video showed he was wearing armor and surrounded by dozens of security guards and armed troops as well as armed vehicles with helicopter gun ships hovering overhead.
THREE TOP LIES THE REPUBLICAN PARTY TELLS ABOUT OBAMA
1. LIE: Obama, and his wife, are part of a privileged elite who are “out of touch” with “normal Americans” and their lives.
Obama and Michelle both were scholarship students from working-class—and at times impoverished—family situations, who through discipline and hard work were able to study at the best colleges in the U. S. and then instead of turning those educations into opportunities to make themselves wealthy, chose to work with the needy and the powerless to help them learn ways to empower themselves and improve their communities.
While McCain and his wife (who inherited such extreme wealth she is worth over a hundred million dollars) flew around in their private jets to their excess of houses (so many McCain can’t remember the number) and who both come from wealth and privilege and have always been part of an elite sector of America that has never had to worry about money and never will.
2. LIE: Obama plans on raising the taxes of “middle-class” citizens, and struggling working families.
FACT: Obama plans on cutting taxes on the poor and “middle class” but restoring the tax rates on the wealthiest citizens that Bush junior cut and McCain opposed saying it was bad policy and bad economics, until he needed Bush supporters in his campaign and then he changed his position and now wants to make those tax cuts for the wealthiest permanent, which will increase the burden on the actual middle class not what McCain considers “middle class” (i.e. anyone making less than $5 million a year as he stated!).
3. LIE: Obama has never done anything other than “organize” (which the Republican strategists have cleverly turned into a pejorative).
FACT: Well yes, he has proven himself to be one of the greatest “organizers” in our history, beginning with neglected neighborhoods in Chicago where he helped residents win much needed services, to millions of young people and internet users who he has turned on to the political process for the first time etc.
But, he has also initiated, sponsored and gotten enacted through bi-partisan cooperation laws that provide healthcare for uninsured children, ethics reform laws for elected officials and elections themselves, lower taxes for working families, G. I. Bill benefits for veterans of Iraq (who were sorely neglected and even spurned except for photo opportunities by many in the Bush junior administration etc.) and many other laws that have benefited those without the corporate lobbyist connections.
And here’s a bonus LIE and FACT, pointed out to me by a fellow veteran: McCain is touted by himself and the Republican Party as someone who would never use the suffering of our troops for personal political gain. But McCain often points out the wristband he wears to commemorate one of our troops killed in Iraq and given to him by his family (I think it was his family, that detail I don’t remember but will check). He points it out to crowds he talks to, and to gatherings of fellow Republicans, like at this convention.
Obama has a wristband just like it, given to him under the same circumstances, which he wears always, but has never pointed out to any crowd or reporter etc. because he doesn’t take advantage of this personal connection to a fallen troop for his personal political gain.
TOP THREE LIES REPUBLICANS TELL ABOUT THEIR PARTY
1. LIE: The Republican Party stands for reducing the size of the federal government.
FACT: Under Reagan, Bush senior and Bush junior, the federal government grew, all three left (and are leaving) behind them a vastly enlarged government than the one that existed when they became presidents. The only administration to reduce the size of the federal government since Reagan expanded it, was, you guessed it, Bill Clinton’s.
2. LIE: The Republican Party stands for fiscal responsibility (or sometimes stated as they are “fiscally conservative” or that they will “cut spending”).
FACT: Under Reagan and Bush senior, spending increased and the federal deficit grew to the largest in history—larger in fact than all previous deficits throughout our history combined! But that was outdone by Bush junior, who has exceeded even that excess in spending and fiscal irresponsibility, especially considering that he inherited the largest surplus in history from the most fiscally responsible administration in recent decades, Bill Clinton’s.
(Oh, and the much touted “experience” of Palin as a mayor of a “city” (population slightly over 5,000 when she was elected) at the Republican convention also includes a record of inheriting a surplus and leaving behind the largest deficit her hometown has ever had.)
3.
LIE: The Republican Party stands for national security.
FACT: The worst attack on U. S. soil by foreign agents occurred under a white house and congress controlled by Republicans, who were warned that the attacks were imminent but chose to ignore those warnings while Bush junior took a month-long vacation and his subordinates drew up a plan for attacking Iraq before terrorists from Saudi Arabia attacked us on 9/11 led by a Saudi living in Afghanistan who retreated to Pakistan.
The Republican response to their lapse in judgment and lack of preparedness—after an initially successful and widely supported defeat of the Taliban running Afghanistan—was to invade Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, and meanwhile to increase support of Saudi Arabia, many of whose leaders financially back Bin Laden and Al Queda and whose government supports the spread of a radical jihadist fundamentalist branch of Islam, and on top of that to increase support of Pakistan, where Bin Laden was hiding and where the Taliban was regrouping and is now operating out of to take back much of what we “liberated” from them in Afghanistan.
All that is a result of the party that talks about “supporting the troops” but ignored the military leaders and experts (or had them fired or forced them to resign) who pointed out that the job wasn’t finished in Afghanistan and that an invasion of Iraq not only went against all the beliefs of the Founding Fathers and American tradition and the Constitution, but would be a diversion from the main goal of capturing or killing Bin Laden and destroying Al Queada, but if Junior and his Republican team insisted on invading Iraq then more troops would be needed to do the job or the result would be chaos and civil strife.
Not only did the Republican leaders ignore the advice of their own military experts and leaders and send too few troops to Iraq guaranteeing more death and destruction and hardship than was necessary, let alone the complete collapse of the country’s capacity to self govern etc., but they sent them without proper armor for the troops or their vehicles leading to even more death and destruction, not to mention more tax payer money going to waste.
I could go on with examples for this one for years (e.g. the only two wars the USA “lost”—Viet Nam and Korea—were “lost” under Republican administrations), but I have a life to live.
THREE TOP LIES THE REPUBLICAN PARTY TELLS ABOUT MCCAIN
1. LIE: McCain is a “maverick” who goes against the Republican powers that be.
FACT: McCain has occasionally taken a stand against the most outrageous offenses committed by Bush junior’s administration—torture, tax cuts for the wealthiest while everyone else pays more, etc.—but, since beginning his presidential campaign he has flip flopped on every major issue he had a difference with Bush-Cheney on, including torture, tax cuts for the wealthiest while the rest of us pay more etc. until, as the record shows, he now has voted over ninety percent of the time in favor of Bush-Cheney policies, and otherwise his stated positions are in line not only with the Republican Party but with the most conservative factions in it, promising, for instance, to appoint justices in the mold of “Scalia” to ensure the reversal of Roe vs. Wade, etc.
2. LIE: McCain stands up for the troops and veterans.
FACT: He did not support the recent G.I. Bill for Iraqi veterans that the Democrats had been trying to get passed and finally did because too many Republican Senators were afraid to have it on their record that they voted against veterans benefits. McCain has it on his record though, among other votes against measures to better protect the troops and, especially, to get them out of harm’s way and let the Iraqi government, which has an almost eighty billion dollar surplus, take care of its own security.
3. LIE: McCain tells it like it is (the so-called “straight talk”).
FACT: McCain has been caught in many lies, some of the more recent ones seeming (worryingly, remember Reagan’s later years) more like confusion than lies, but just one example was his famous “stroll” through an open market in Baghdad after which he claimed he had not warn armor and that it was safe and back to normal, when video showed he was wearing armor and surrounded by dozens of security guards and armed troops as well as armed vehicles with helicopter gun ships hovering overhead.
THREE TOP LIES THE REPUBLICAN PARTY TELLS ABOUT OBAMA
1. LIE: Obama, and his wife, are part of a privileged elite who are “out of touch” with “normal Americans” and their lives.
Obama and Michelle both were scholarship students from working-class—and at times impoverished—family situations, who through discipline and hard work were able to study at the best colleges in the U. S. and then instead of turning those educations into opportunities to make themselves wealthy, chose to work with the needy and the powerless to help them learn ways to empower themselves and improve their communities.
While McCain and his wife (who inherited such extreme wealth she is worth over a hundred million dollars) flew around in their private jets to their excess of houses (so many McCain can’t remember the number) and who both come from wealth and privilege and have always been part of an elite sector of America that has never had to worry about money and never will.
2. LIE: Obama plans on raising the taxes of “middle-class” citizens, and struggling working families.
FACT: Obama plans on cutting taxes on the poor and “middle class” but restoring the tax rates on the wealthiest citizens that Bush junior cut and McCain opposed saying it was bad policy and bad economics, until he needed Bush supporters in his campaign and then he changed his position and now wants to make those tax cuts for the wealthiest permanent, which will increase the burden on the actual middle class not what McCain considers “middle class” (i.e. anyone making less than $5 million a year as he stated!).
3. LIE: Obama has never done anything other than “organize” (which the Republican strategists have cleverly turned into a pejorative).
FACT: Well yes, he has proven himself to be one of the greatest “organizers” in our history, beginning with neglected neighborhoods in Chicago where he helped residents win much needed services, to millions of young people and internet users who he has turned on to the political process for the first time etc.
But, he has also initiated, sponsored and gotten enacted through bi-partisan cooperation laws that provide healthcare for uninsured children, ethics reform laws for elected officials and elections themselves, lower taxes for working families, G. I. Bill benefits for veterans of Iraq (who were sorely neglected and even spurned except for photo opportunities by many in the Bush junior administration etc.) and many other laws that have benefited those without the corporate lobbyist connections.
And here’s a bonus LIE and FACT, pointed out to me by a fellow veteran: McCain is touted by himself and the Republican Party as someone who would never use the suffering of our troops for personal political gain. But McCain often points out the wristband he wears to commemorate one of our troops killed in Iraq and given to him by his family (I think it was his family, that detail I don’t remember but will check). He points it out to crowds he talks to, and to gatherings of fellow Republicans, like at this convention.
Obama has a wristband just like it, given to him under the same circumstances, which he wears always, but has never pointed out to any crowd or reporter etc. because he doesn’t take advantage of this personal connection to a fallen troop for his personal political gain.
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