Category Archives: On Politics

A tale of two Hillarys?

By Dennis Hartley

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I knew it! I knew it was a plot:

Yes, of course. They only want us to think that Hillary “recovered” after obviously dropping dead yesterday. Besides, the evidence that Hillary has a kagemusha is overwhelming. In fact, I saw it on TV once:

…or twice

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It all seems reasonable to me. WAKE UP, sheeple!

Trump rolls up his sleeves for 49 seconds of disaster relief!

By Dennis Hartley

Donald Trump is the salt of the earth. Here’s the proof, in real time:

As guest host Joy Reid noted on Friday’s All In on MSNBC, that’s 49 seconds of toil by Mr. Trump on behalf of Louisiana flood victims (from 1:00 to 1:49-when he asks for “a big strong man” to help him).

As Doktor Zoom noted over at Wonkette:

Eh, why would someone important like Donald Trump want to consult with the governor of a state that’s in the middle of an emergency? Donald Trump goes where he wants! Despite the fact that a presidential visit involves a small army of aides and security, and would divert police and other emergency resources away from search and rescue operations, the Wingnut Media had a field day pointing out that while Trump actually went to the disaster area to spread around the compassion (and autographs), Barack Obama selfishly stayed on vacation like the uncaring monster he is, and Hillary Clinton remains too frail to even wave a palsied hand at the suffering Louisianans […]
Watching the Donald manfully unloading Play-Doh for nearly a full minute (just like the blue-collar hero he continually assures us he is), I was reminded of another hard-working man of the people, who similarly came to the aid of a community in its most dire time of need:

A Trump White House, by any other name…

50 years gone: Lenny Bruce is not afraid

By Dennis Hartley

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Today is the 50th anniversary of comedian Lenny Bruce’s death.

On August 3, 1966, he was found dead in his Hollywood Hills home, from (what was ruled as) an accidental overdose of morphine.

For years following his passing, he was arguably more famous for the suffering he endured for his art, rather than the visionary nature of it.

In fact, it wasn’t until 2003, after years of lobbying  by members of the entertainment industry and free speech advocates, that New York governor George Pataki issued Bruce an official posthumous pardon for his 1964 obscenity conviction. It is worth noting that no comedians have  been jailed in America for telling jokes to roomfuls of drunks  since Bruce died (yet…I’m currently working on a review for a sobering new documentary called Can We Take a Joke? It’s an eye-opener).

Of course by now everybody has jumped on the bandwagon and acknowledges the man’s genius and the groundbreaking nature of his material. But I can’t help but wonder how Lenny would have fared in the age of social media, or in front of a modern college audience (oy).

Would today’s audiences grasp the subtlety of this bit, for example? Or would Lenny suffer a virtual lynching by an outraged Twitter mob before he could reach the end, when its true message becomes clear?

“Lenny Bruce”,  by Bob Dylan  

Lenny Bruce is dead but his ghost lived on and on
Never did get any Golden Globe award, never made it to Synanon
He was an outlaw, that’s for sure
More of an outlaw than you ever were
Lenny Bruce is gone but his spirit’s living on and on.

Maybe he had some problems, maybe some things that he couldn’t work out
But he sure was funny and he sure told the truth and he knew what he was talking about
Never robbed any churches, nor cut off any babies heads
He just took the folks in high places and he shined a light in their beds
He’s on some other shore, he didn’t want to live anymore.

Lenny Bruce is dead but he didn’t commit any crime
He just had the insight to rip off the lid before its time
I rode with him in a taxi once, only for a mile and a half
Seemed like it took a couple of months
Lenny Bruce moved on and like the ones that killed him, gone.

They say he was sick ’cause he didn’t play by the rules
He just showed the wise men of his day to be nothing more than fools
They stamped him and they labeled him like they do with pants and shirts
He fought a war on a battlefield where every victory hurts
Lenny Bruce was bad, he was the brother that you never had.

    
Related posts:
Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
When Comedy Went to School & a Top 5 list
Funny People
Hotel Lux
Winnebago Man

Dystopia now

By Dennis Hartley

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In Paul Verhoven’s 1987 sci-fi crime thriller, Robocop, the director and  his screenwriters Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner envision a “near-future” Detroit that has become a dystopian nightmare. Vicious gangs of criminals with high-powered weapons plunder and terrorize  the city with impunity.  Local law enforcement has been farmed out to a corporatized paramilitary outfit (a la Blackwater). Under-manned and out-gunned, the beat cops have become increasingly ineffectual at keeping up with the crime wave.  A gravely wounded cop becomes a guinea pig for the corporation’s R & D division,  which has been experimenting with robotic enhancements.

The meme reappeared  in Neill Blomkamp’s 2015 film Chappie. The backdrop is South Africa, but the tableau is similar.  From my review:

In this outing, Blomkamp returns to his native Johannesburg (which provided the backdrop for his 2009 debut, District 9). And for the third time in a row, his story takes place in a dystopian near-future (call me Sherlock, but I’m sensing a theme). Johannesburg has become a crime-riddled hellhole, ruled by ultra-violent drug lords and roving gangs of thugs. In fact, the streets are so dangerous that the police department is reticent to put its officers on the front lines. So they do what any self-respecting police department of the dystopian near-future does…they send droids out to apprehend bad guys.

Imagine that.

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Hang on, this just in…the future is now. It started Thursday, in Dallas:

Now, I’m sure we can all agree that the use of deadly force was appropriate to neutralize the Dallas shooter; as Chief Brown outlined in his CNN interview this morning, the perpetrator was barricaded in such a manner as to render direct assault too dangerous for officers, and despite 2 hours of attempted negotiation, the gunman continued to taunt and threaten the police. With five dead, seven wounded, and all practical possibilities exhausted,  the standoff simply had to end.

That said, now that the smoke has cleared, this troubling precedent begs some ethical (and legal) questions. While  robotic technology has been an accepted law enforcement tool for some time now, it’s chiefly purposed for reconnaissance and surveillance, so officers needn’t take unnecessary personal risks in precarious situations.

The robots have also proven an invaluable tool for bomb squad units as well; they are used to seek out and/or safely detonate otherwise unreachable explosive devices. Naturally,  it was only a matter of time (and circumstance) where the light bulb would go off over someone’s head, somewhere: “It can retrieve a bomb. It can detonate a bomb. Doesn’t it stand to reason that it can deliver, then detonate a bomb?”

I’ll be Captain Obvious and mention the use of drones, which have become de rigeur for facilitating this type of “special delivery” to bad guys in exotic lands. Then again, that is one of the primary missions of our military (to take out bad guys in exotic lands).  Last I checked, the primary mission of domestic law enforcement is to protect and serve.

I am aware that it’s easy for me to Monday morning quarterback Chief Brown’s decision. I wasn’t there, and he was, amid the horror and the carnage. The buck stopped with him. He didn’t have time to stand around pondering the history of social unrest in America, and/or the possible ripple effects of setting such a precedent.  I’m sure that he felt that his priority, his mission, if you will, was to do everything in his power to avoid further horror and carnage. And he did. He brought the standoff to an end, and likely saved many lives.

So why does this still trouble me? The  “precedent”  is the delivery system only; the bomb (C4) is eerily familiar. From my 2013 review of Let the Fire Burn, a documentary about the the 1985 MOVE incident:

[MOVE leader] John Africa (an adapted surname that all followers used) was a charismatic person. He founded the group in 1972, based on an odd hodgepodge of tenets borrowed from Rastafarianism, Black Nationalism and green politics; with a Luddite view of technology (think ELF meets the Panthers…by way of the Amish). Toss in some vaguely egalitarian philosophies about communal living, and I think you’re there.

The group, which shared a town house, largely kept itself to itself (at least at first) but started to draw the attention of Philadelphia law enforcement when a number of their neighbors began expressing concern to the authorities about sanitation issues (the group built compost piles around their building using refuse and human excrement) and the distressing appearance of possible malnutrition among the children of the commune (some of the footage in the film would seem to bear out the latter claim). The city engaged in a year-long bureaucratic standoff with MOVE over their refusal to vacate, culminating in an attempted forced removal turned-gun battle with police in 1978 that left one officer dead. Nine MOVE members were convicted of 3rd-degree murder and jailed.

The remaining members of MOVE relocated their HQ, but it didn’t take long to wear out their welcome with the new neighbors (John Africa’s strange, rambling political harangues, delivered via loudspeakers mounted outside the MOVE house certainly didn’t help). Africa and his followers began to develop a siege mentality, shuttering up all the windows and constructing a makeshift pillbox style bunker on the roof. Naturally, these actions only served to ratchet up the tension and goad local law enforcement. On May 13, 1985 it all came to a head when a heavily armed contingent of cops moved in, ostensibly to arrest MOVE members on a number of indictments. Anyone who remembers the shocking news footage knows that the day did not end well. Gunfire was exchanged after tear gas and high-pressure water hoses failed to end the standoff, so authorities decided to take a little shortcut and drop a satchel of C-4 onto the roof of the building. 11 MOVE members (including 5 children) died in the resulting inferno, which consumed 61 homes.

Apples and oranges? Yes; that was then, this is now, I totally get that. But here is the heart of the matter (and the relevancy)-as I continued:

Putting aside any debate or speculation for a moment over whether or not John Africa and his disciples were deranged criminals, or whether or not the group’s actions were self-consciously provocative or politically convoluted, one simple fact remains and bears repeating: “Someone” decided that it was a perfectly acceptable action plan, in the middle of a dense residential neighborhood (located in the City of Brotherly Love, no less) to drop a bomb on a building with children inside it. Even more appalling is the callous indifference and casual racism displayed by some of the officials and police who are seen in the film testifying before the Mayor’s investigative commission (the sole ray of light, one compassionate officer who braved crossfire to help a young boy escape the burning building, was chastised by fellow officers afterward as a “nigger lover” for his trouble).

Again, what happened in Philadelphia in 1985 and what happened in Dallas last Thursday may be dissimilar in crucial ways, yet certain elements within our sociopolitical climate that contributed greatly to both incidents remain stubbornly constant. I hate to put sci-fi writers out of work, but if we don’t engage in some semblance of a civil and constructive discourse to address these core issues, all I can say is:

Welcome to The Near Future.

# # #

UPDATE 7/11/16:

Well, there you go…

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h/t to Digby and Tom Sullivan

America: A history of violence

By Dennis Hartley

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It’s happened again. Another mass shooting. Yawn. That’s not detachment, it’s numbness.  I’ve written about horrific act after horrific act until my thumbs are blue. I don’t know how to react anymore; how do you even begin to make sense of such insanity? it’s overwhelming. It’s been occurring here in the land of the free and home of the heavily-armed with such frequency, and over so many decades, that it’s become as American as apple pie; so much so that I find myself reflexively compartmentalizing each incident by sub-genre anymore.

‘Sub-genre’? WTF am I raving about…you may be wondering? Allow me to explain. Take this latest  incident in Dallas, for example. As soon as some of the particulars became known, my brain (in order to keep my head from exploding, no doubt) began to process it all thusly:

“OK. We have a shooter, who goes on a (allegedly) racially-fueled rampage;  Ex-military. African-American. Five dead cops. Shocking, unthinkable, but sorry…not unique. Been there, done that, America.”

From The Times Picayune archives:

Mark Essex’s campaign of terror against the New Orleans police climaxed on Jan. 7 in an 11-hour rampage at the Howard Johnson’s hotel on Loyola Avenue, where he killed seven people, including three police officers, and wounded eight.

A week earlier, he had killed two other police officers and wounded one.

Mark James Robert Essex was born in Emporia, Kansas. Kicked out of the Navy after two years with a general discharge for unsuitability for “character and behavior disorders,” the 23-year-old took up radical Black Panther politics and developed an intense hatred for the police. He came to the city to meet up with a friend who shared his politics.

In late December 1972, Essex mailed a note to WWL-TV warning about a Dec. 31 attack on the New Orleans Police Department. The note wasn’t opened until the day before the hotel attack. And indeed, On New Year’s Eve, he gunned down a police cadet and another officer who chased him to Gert Town. He eluded police for a week until he wounded a Gert Town grocer and then headed for the Howard Johnson’s.

In front of room 1829, Essex shot to death Dr. Robert Steagall and his wife Betty Steagall. He soaked telephone books with lighter fluid and set them ablaze under the curtains of the Steagalls’ room. On the 11th floor, Essex shot his way into rooms and set more fires. He killed Frank Schneider, the hotel’s assistant manager, and shot Walter Collins, the hotel’s general manager.

As dusk approached, Essex was trapped in a block house on the hotel roof. The U.S. Marines volunteered a helicopter to get to him. During passes over the roof, officers poured gunfire at the block house while Essex popped out sporadically to fire back.

For hours after they killed him, police searched vainly for a second sniper who they erroneously believed was on the loose. In the days before SWAT squads, the police response was chaotic.

While we obviously do not have a complete pathology of the Dallas shooter yet, there are a lot of spooky parallels . But I’m not going to dwell on matching the psychological profiles; I’ve been there, done that in enough posts over the past several years, and it leads nowhere.

No, crazy is as crazy does; whether you’re white (the Charleston shooter), Muslim (the Orlando shooter), or African-American (the Dallas shooter). My point is, if America has reached a juncture where we can circle back and cite historical precedent for nearly every such unthinkable, heinous variation of mass violence…it’s been going on for far.too.fucking.long. But hey, now’s not the time to talk about gun control legislation, amirite?  Oh look, America’s Got Talent is on!

Related posts:

Orlando’s Silver Lining (?)

The Death Hour: How Hollywood Tried to Warn Us

A Sad Sequel: The American Assassin on Film II

Star-spangled ban: thoughts on the 1970 Atlanta Pop Festival

By Dennis Hartley

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46 years ago today, the 3-day 1970 Atlanta International Pop Festival opened.  Attendees were estimated to be around 200,000.

Historically overshadowed by Woodstock (held 11 months earlier), it still boasted an equally impressive roster of performers. Granted, a number of Woodstock luminaries were there (Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Winter,  Ten Years After, John Sebastian, Richie Havens, Mountain et.al.), but there were top acts exclusive to the Atlanta Festival like The Allman Brothers, B.B. King, The Chambers Brothers, Procol Harum, Grand Funk Railroad, Spirit, Rare Earth, Mott the Hoople, and It’s A Beautiful Day (just to name a few).

The cost of a ticket?  $14.  I’ll spell that out, so you don’t think it’s a typo: fourteen dollars. Yes, I know, inflation, yadda yadda…but still (a front row seat at this fall’s Desert Trip will only set you back $9,400).

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But I digress. Back to Atlanta, 1970.  At midnight on July 4th, Jimi Hendrix performed to the biggest domestic audience of his career (sadly, just over two months later, he was gone forever). He played a rousing set, which is documented in the excellent 2015 Showtime production, Jimi Hendrix: Electric Church (currently available  on Showtime’s In-Demand feature, if you haven’t caught it yet). Hendrix included his idiosyncratic “Star Spangled Banner” salute (how could he not do it on the Fourth?), with fireworks. Pretty awesome stuff.

Unfortunately, despite the “right of the people peaceably to assemble”  (not to mention that whole freedom of expression thing) someone didn’t find Jimi’s paean so awesome (there’s one in every crowd). The “someone”?  Governor Lester Maddox. Two days after the festival, he announced he was going to push for legislation to ban any future such DFH events in his state.  Because you know…freedom.

Oh, Georgia. Happy holiday weekend, everyone!

Orlando’s silver lining (?)

By Dennis Hartley

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‘Wait’ has always meant ‘never’ – Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Now is not the time to talk about [insert gun-violence related meme here] .” We’ve heard that before; predictably, we’re hearing it again.

But there is something about this mass shooting that screams “Last call for sane discourse and positive action!” on multiple fronts. This incident is akin to a perfect Hollywood pitch, writ large by fate and circumstance; incorporating nearly every sociopolitical causality that has been quantified and/or debated over by criminologists, psychologists, legal analysts, legislators, anti-gun activists, pro-gun activists, left-wingers, right-wingers, centrists, clerics, journalists and pundits in the wake of every such incident since Charles Whitman  perched atop the clock tower at the University of Texas and picked off nearly 50 victims  (14 dead and 32 wounded) over a 90-minute period. That incident occurred in 1966; 50 years ago this August. Not an auspicious golden anniversary for our country. 50 years of this madness.  And it’s still not the appropriate time to discuss? What…too soon?

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Everything old is new again: The cover of Time, Aug. 12, 1966

The Orlando incident contains nearly every hot-button trigger. The gunman: spousal abuser,  obsessed with firearms, mental issues, of the Muslim faith. The weapon: a legally purchased assault rifle. The target: a nightclub popular with the LGBTQ community. The motivation: too early to say definitively, but history points to  a likelihood of either personal, political, ideological, or perhaps ‘all of the above’. The initial rush to judgement per social media and the MSM: that this was a terror attack on America, pure and simple, end of story.http://ww3.hdnux.com/photos/47/24/15/10306394/3/1024x1024.jpgAll I can say is, if this “worst mass shooting in U.S. history” (which is saying a lot) isn’t the perfect catalyst for prompting  meaningful public dialogue and positive action steps once and for all regarding  homophobia, Islamophobia, domestic violence, the proliferation of hate crimes, legal assault weapons, universal background checks, mental health care (did I leave anything out?), then WTF will it take?