no War for Oil

Post by **mccutcheon** » Sun Jan 19, 2003 6:31 pm

We are about to go to war. I'm growing my hair out in protest. Hair peace. You know we sent so many kids off to die in Vietnam because we had to stop communism, and now in hindsight it seems almost ridiculous, that all those young lives were wasted. I'm sure that the Gulf War 2 once again staring a Bush, won't see as much American casualties on the front. But what about the world? How is this going to affect Americans when we piss off the whole world? Many people already think that the attacks on the World Trade centers were our own bad karma coming to haunt us. That we had caused so many horrific injustices in the world that we got our just deserve, that everyone cheered because David got Goliath. I don't want to get too political, it's not in my nature and I don’t have the energy of Abbie Hoffman, besides look where that got him. I will say, Make Love Not War. I'm all for sex. (That's what that slogan from the 60's means, right? Shoot your load not a riffle?)

So I think it’s time to start watching anti-war movies. The first two and a half I recommend are what I call 'Hunks in Wheelchairs'. The first one to watch is the brilliant Coming Home featuring Jon Voigt (The dad of On The Bus Anjolina Jolie) and Hanoi Jane’s tits. The second is Born On Fourth of July, if Ollie Stone has to blow so much hyperbole bullshit we might as well have him doing it for a good cause. And the half is the only good thing, Lieutenant Dan, from that piece of shit Forest Gump. Except I will say it could have been so much better if they would have shown a little body of the she’s so lovely pre miss Penn from Princess Bride. Leave it to crap like Forest Gump to have a woman come on stage naked and not show any flesh. And why did she die again? Because she was promiscuous and took drugs. AHHHH!

Anyway this is a start of a few anti-war movies I recommend for the nights to come. What are your favs?

martino · Post by **martino** » Mon Jan 20, 2003 9:03 am

the best war movie i have seen is Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. it shows how vietnam was pointless and brutal, and how men are dehumanized by war. i think it also tells a great story of how killing and fighting can be terribly attractive.

another great war film by kubrick is Paths of Glory. it may not be the best war film but i don't know a better WW 1 movie.

one thing that has been a constant for me over the past 20 or so years has been my fondness for John Huston. Let There Be Light was one of his first films: an army-financed documentary about war-induced mental illness. it is incredibly moving to see how normal guys who have simply lost it during battle try to cope with their own shame, and attempt to regain control over their lives. the hidden punch line of this movie is that the army refused to let it be screened for about 40 years.

maybe i should mention, as an afterthought, what i feel about this war thing, apart from my obvious anti-war sentiment.

it is great to see that normal guys like you who are not in the political anti-war movement are protesting, in their own way. (yeah mcc i realize this may be the first time somebody has called you normal).

with all the worldwide anti american sentiment around it would be a lot harder to say i love the US if i couldn't quote things like pax acidus, that prove that plenty of americans are still sane. (i know, sane may also not be the right expression in conjunction with PA).

rabbit · Post by **rabbit** » Mon Jan 20, 2003 4:53 pm

Angelina Jolie is hot hot hot!

Brett · Post by **Brett** » Mon Jan 20, 2003 5:11 pm

This will seem silly, but one of the most powerful scenes I've ever seen relating to WWII was in the beginning of X-Men. It's when the eventual bad guy is just a kid and is so distraught about being torn from his parents by the Nazi's that he bends steel. Something about that scene got to me.

Post by **mccutcheon** » Mon Jan 20, 2003 6:23 pm

Kubric was a master of anti-war and violence. Paths of Glory and Full Metal Jacket were his best. But also the absurd farce of Dr. Strangelove or; How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb, and also Clockwork Orange with it’s ultra-violence (and banned in England for 20 years or so.) was also a fine touch on humanity. And I’d like to Make Love Not War with a few of those model types in Eyes Wide Shut even though the McCutcheon jury is still out on that one- sweeping swathes of masterpiece or boring drudgery?

Martino you get my email?

martino · Post by **martino** » Mon Jan 20, 2003 7:39 pm

eyes wide shit: boring drudgery

your mail: exciting stuff. reply to follow

Post by **Sloth** » Tue Jan 21, 2003 12:40 am

eyes wide shut...

what was that piece of shit film supposed to tell me that I couldnt have learned from rewatching The Shining?

I remember when I was 12 and saw that beautiful women turn old and ugly and I thought to myself... sloth... you better get some kicks while the getting is good.

As for war... anybody stupid enough to join the army after watching all those war movies like Full Metal Jacket deserves what he/she gets.

As we learned in Gangs of New York (pretty good film btw)... even the illiterate Irish immigrants in 5 Points New York in 1850 knew that there was no sense dying for the rich politicians ego.

Nothing has changed in the last 150 year except the mf propoganda.

Post by **mccutcheon** » Tue Jan 21, 2003 8:05 am

I'm growing my hair out, I'm extending olive branches, I'm making love not war, I'm a peacenik.

And I'm listening to County Joe and the Fish.

and I'm watching Hamburger Hill.

Post by **mccutcheon** » Tue Jan 21, 2003 4:19 pm

That is the point I was going to make at the end of this thread but you called my hand, so here it goes, anyway this is actually a piece in progress for the PA film page.

But the point is that we learn nothing from the anti-war films. They are nothing but entertainment. Remember that Sly Stone fled to Sweden to teach girls soccer and dodged the draft during Vietnam. Then he goes on to make his fortune with the Rambo flicks (first one good- the rest, 2-10 quack quack glorifying war) so we know where that shit is going to end up on judgment day.

We are moved, maybe even outraged for a few minutes after a film, but it never changes anything. How can it when we don’t even learn from reality! How long has to pass until a new generation is ready to go off and die? A few years at best. And it is always new propaganda. Now they are saying ‘oh it won’t be Vietnam’, that is why I started my list with the ‘chunks of hunks in wheelchairs’ series. Because even if the soldiers don’t come home in body bags, they will still be crippled, if not physical than mentally. Look at Desert Storm sickness. For all good intentions we kicked ass over there. We lost very few kids, but the veterans of that War, I use the term War loosely- Bill Hicks said a War is two armies fighting.

Anyway just last week a vet from the Gulf drove his pickup into a used car parking lot and open fired killing 12. The papers were outraged and then the background came out. The 36-year-old was a star on the football team, and a ready and willing soldier. Of all the pictures they showed of him he looked happiest while in fatigues saving Kuwait- a job well done as they are now so grateful they are our strongest allies and want us to go kick Sadam's ass. NOT! But after he had headaches, started drinking, became anti-social, got divorced, became estranged from his kids, went to the Vets hospital and was under mental care, but they just gave him a perspiration and sent him on his way. The pills didn’t work because he got dressed up in his fatigues one last time, dorve to the car dealers and because they wouldn’t trade in his dodge pick up he took out his riffle, and since he was arny trained he knew how to use it and BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, 12 DEAD. He miss fired a few. I guess he didn’t learn anything from watching The Three Kings.

Post by **mccutcheon** » Tue Jan 21, 2003 4:30 pm

Oh yeah, 13 dead, he was also killed when the Swat team moved in and a sniper put one in his head. That reminds me of when we were living through the sniper scare this past fall. They were intervieing other snipers who had US military training to get a profile on the assassin, and two of them said that the most realistic scene they ever saw of a sniper was in the film Full Metal Jacket. When the Vietcong sniper wounded a US soldier and as they tried to rescue their friend the sniper kept picking them off one by one.

Well the woman who played that sniper in the film was the girlfriend of one of my professors in Paris (Von Bowey –Sloth) and I got to meet her at a diner party. I said to her, “Wow you were in a Stanley Kubrick film that must have been a wonderful experience. How was it working with him?”

All she said was, “Slow.”

martino · Post by **martino** » Tue Jan 21, 2003 5:11 pm

wow so you met that sniper girl! i'm impressed.

the scene at the end is pure porno. when the sniper is wounded and matthew modine can't bring himself to finish her off and she sighs "kill me, kill me" -- it's like in a porn movie when a girl say "fuck me, fuck me". and when he does her, the other soldiers smirk and all that's missing is for them to high-five each other and to say "dude, we scored!".

Post by **mccutcheon** » Tue Jan 21, 2003 5:25 pm

Yeah, my teacher Von Bowy said he had 'yellow fever'. The intellectuals ain't to politically correct over there in Paris. At least not the ones I know. They even make Polish jokes.

Post by **mccutcheon** » Tue Jan 21, 2003 5:38 pm

Everyon run, don't walk, run, to your local newsagent and buy the Feb issue of Uncut. it costs $7.95 US or a few quid and not only does it come with great articles on music and film, (I buy Uncut and Mojo every month) -The Clash, Richard Pryor, Jack Nicholson, but also a free cd, and track 18 is the late great Bill Hicks mouthing off about War. "I;m for the war, but against the troops."

Buy it today!

Post by **mccutcheon** » Tue Jan 21, 2003 7:01 pm

At least one gunman opened fire on an SUV carrying two American civilians near a U.S. military camp Tuesday, killing one and wounding the other in what the U.S. Embassy called a terrorist attack. The men, contractors working for the U.S. military, were the first civilians to come under fire in recent attacks on Americans in Kuwait.

In unusually blunt terms aimed at pre-empting the United States, France said today that it would not support any Security Council resolution for military action against Iraq in the coming weeks. France's foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, accused Washington of "impatience" in the confrontation with Baghdad over illegal weapons and added, "We believe that nothing today justifies envisaging military action."

tashasimone · Post by **tashasimone** » Tue Jan 21, 2003 7:13 pm

Okay, here's the thing, we all hate war, we all think its disgusting and ridiculous and obsene, and yet, where would we be without the wars we've had? Sometimes winning just a small battle isnt enough, and us damn americans, are so ful of pride we'd be damned to let someone catch us on the shitter if you know what i mean. I am a member of a group called the Michigan Peace Group, we go all over the world and try to maintain peace in sometimes very frightening situations. The thing I've learned is, Its not just us. Its them, It's everyone, It's the Human spirit, saying, No, i will not be your victim, and fighting back. Yes, a lot of people uselessly die, a lot of bad things happen and god damnit, a lot of innocents are caught in the middle, but could you really see us sitting there and just taking it? If we let them beat us up for long enough without fighting back, what does it say about us? It says we are as weak as they think we are, and we arent willing to stick up for this "wonderful country" that we all "love so much" Im not really sticking up for it, but some of the greatest things we have, are because we went in and beat some ass, and i dont know about you, but i appreciate the fact, especially being a woman, that i can dress how i want and marry who i want and have as many kids as i want and work, etc.. etc.. so maybe before we all jump on the anti-war bandwagon we should think about what we have and take advantage of, because nothing worth having is really free.