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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 17, 2016 at 12:36 pm
Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln is more than a mesmerizing history lesson.
It’s a timely reminder that racism and repression are not confined to any one period or political party.
At the heart of the film: Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) wants to win ratification of what will be the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. An amendment that will forever ban slavery.
True, Lincoln, in 1862, had issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This—in theory—freed slaves held in the Confederate states that had seceded from the Union in 1861.
But Lincoln regards this as a temporary wartime measure. He fears that once the war ends, the Supreme Court may rule the Proclamation unconstitutional. This might allow Southerners to continue practicing slavery, even after losing the war.
To prevent this, Congress must pass an anti-slavery amendment.
But winning Congressional passage of such an amendment won’t be easy.
The Senate had ratified its passage in 1864. But the amendment must secure approval from the House of Representatives to become law.
And the House is filled with men–there are no women menmbers during the 19th century–who seethe with hostility.
Some are hostile to Lincoln personally. One of them dubs him a dictator–Abraham Africanus.” Another accuses him of shifting his positions for the sake of expediency.
Other members–white men all–are hostile to the idea of “equality between the races.” To them, ending slavery means opening the door to interracial marriage–especially marriage between black men and white women.
Perhaps even worse, it means possibly giving blacks–or women–the the right to vote.
In fact, the possibility that blacks might win voting rights arises early in the movie. Lincoln is speaking to a couple of black Union soldiers, and one of them is unafraid to voice his discontent. He’s upset that black soldiers are paid less than white ones–and that they’re led only by white officers.
He says that, in time, maybe this will change. Maybe, in 100 years, he guesses, blacks will get the right to vote.
(To the shame of all Americans, that’s how long it will eventually take. Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 will blacks be guaranteed legal protection against discriminatory voting practices.)
To understand the Congressional debate over the Thirteenth Amendment, it’s necessary to remember this: In Lincoln’s time, the Republicans were the party of progressives.
The party was founded on an anti-slavery platform. Its members were thus reviled as “Black Republicans.” And until the 1960s, the South was solidly Democratic.
Democrats were the ones defending the status quo–slavery–and opposing freed blacks in the South of Reconstruction and long afterward.
In short, in the 18th century, Democrats in the South acted as Republicans do now. The South went Republican only after a Democratic President–Lyndon B. Johnson–rammed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through Congress.
Watching this re-enactment of the 1865 debate in Lincoln is like watching the current Presidential campaign. The same mentalities are at work:
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Those (in this case, slave-owners) who already have a great deal want to gain even more at the expense of others.
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Those (slaves and freed blacks) who have little strive to gain more or at least hang onto what they have.
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Those who defend the privileged wealthy refuse to allow their “social inferiors” to enjoy similar privileges (such as the right to vote).
During the 2012 Presidential race, Republicans tried to bar those likely to vote for President Barack Obama from getting into the voting booth. But their bogus “voter ID” restrictions were struck down in courts across the nation.
Listening to those opposing the amendment, one is reminded of Mitt Romney’s infamous comments about the “47%”:
“Well, there are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what….
“Who are dependent upon government, who believe that–that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they’re entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you name it. But that’s–it’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them.”
Put another way: “Who says people have a right to obtain medical care, food and housing? If they can’t inherit unearned wealth the way I did, screw them.”
In the end, it’s Abraham Lincoln who has the final word–and leaves his nation the better for it. Through diplomacy and backroom dealings (trading political offices for votes) he wins passage of the anti-slavery amendment.
The ownership of human chattel is finally an ugly memory of the American past.
The movie closes with a historically-correct tribute to Lincoln’s generosity toward those who opposed him–in Congress and on the battlefield. It occurs during Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address:
“With malice toward none, with charity for all….To bind up the nation’s wounds. To care for him who shall have bourne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan….”
This ending presents a vivid philosophical contrast with the increasingly mean-spirited rhetoric and policies of 2016’s Republican candidates for President–especially those of Donald Trump.
Watching Lincoln, you realize how incredibly lucky America was as a nation to have had such leadership when it was most urgently needed.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on March 15, 2016 at 12:55 am
In 1964, Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, once again struggled against King Henry II for power over English citizens.
This time, the conflict was fought across thousands of movie screens, with Richard Burton as Becket and Peter O’Toole as Henry, as portrayed in Jean Anouilh’s 1959 play.
A quick summary:
Becket, a brilliant Saxon noble, is the favorite friend of Henry. They hunt, fight and bed women together. Henry even appoints him as Chancellor, the highest law enforcement officer in the country.
But there is a storm on the horizon: The power of the Catholic Church is steadily rising, and Henry needs a highly-placed ally against its power. When the Archbishop of Canterbury dies, Henry appoints Becket in his place.
But suddenly the entirely secular Becket undergoes a religious conversion–and an unexpected change in allegiance. He insists that priests accused of criminal offenses be tried only in the church’s own courts–thus making them immune from Henry’s secular ones.
As a moviegoer, it’s easy to root for conscience-stricken Becket, as played by the charming Burton. Henry, as played by O’Toole, is a brutish adolescent, alternately fearful and enraged at his own incompetence.
But in rooting for Becket/Burton, the audience can overlook the significance of allowing religious doctrine to trump secular law.
The consequences of this are now becoming clear in Indiana.
On March 26, 2015, its governor, Mike Pence, signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This will allow any individual or corporation to cite its religious beliefs as a defense when sued by a private party.
Mike Pence
Officially, its intent is to prevent the government from forcing business owners to act in ways contrary to strongly held religious beliefs. Unofficially, its intent is to appease the hatred of gays and lesbians by the religious Right, a key constituency of the Republican party.
In short, a bakery that doesn’t want to make a cake to be used at a gay wedding or a restaurant that doesn’t want to serve lesbian patrons will have the legal right to refuse to do so.
The same applies for a hospital that doesn’t want to provide care to a gay or lesbian patient.
The bill was passed overwhelmingly by both chambers of the Republican-controlled state legislature. And signed into law by a Republican governor.
“Today I signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, because I support the freedom of religion for every Hoosier of every faith,” Mike Pence said in a statement on the day he signed the bill.
“The Constitution of the United States and the Indiana Constitution both provide strong recognition of the freedom of religion but today, many people of faith feel their religious liberty is under attack by government action.”
Bill-signing ceremonies are usually highly public events. Governors–and presidents–normally want their constituents to see them creating new legislation.
Yet for all his praise for the bill, Pence signed it in a ceremony closed to the public and the press. The media were asked to leave even the waiting area of the governor’s office.
It’s almost as if Pence sensed that he was about to push open a door into a danger-filled room. And this may well be the case.
Through that door may soon march the First Church of Cannabis. The day after Pence signed the Act, church founder Bill Levin announced on his Facebook page that he had filed paperwork with the office of the Indiana Secretary of State.
Its registration had been approved–and Levin was ecstatic: “Now we begin to accomplish our goals of Love, Understanding, and Good Health.
“Donate $100 or more and become a GREEN ANGEL. Donate $500 or more and become a GOLD ANGEL. Donate $1000 or more and become a CHURCH POOHBA.”
And Levin had a personal comment for the governor who had made it all possible:
“Dear Mikey Pence…
“DUDE!.. keep crapping all over the state.. and I will plant a seed of LOVE, UNDERSTANDING and COMPASSION in each pile you leave.. and it will grow into a big skunky cannabis tree. Crap away Mikey.. Crap Away…”
No doubt many Indiana legislators are furious that their effort to attack gays may have brought legal marijuana to their highly conservative state. But worse may be to come.
Since 9/11, Right-wingers such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have warned that Muslims are trying to impose Sharia (Islamic law) on America. And now Indiana’s legislators, in elevating religion above the law, may have laid the legal foundations for making that possible.
Ironically, this may not be so far removed from the goals of the Republican party as many think. Both the party and adherents of Sharia agree:
- Women should have fewer rights than men.
- Abortion should be illegal.
- There should be no separation between church and state.
- Religion should be taught in school.
- Religious doctrine trumps science.
- Government should be based on religious doctrine.
- Homosexuality should be outlawed.
What will happen when some Muslims in Indiana claim their right–guaranteed in Islamic religious law–to have as many as four wives?
And when they claim that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act protects that right?
Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy nightmare.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law Enforcement, Social commentary, Uncategorized on January 21, 2016 at 12:01 am
Sean Penn is not the first celebrity to “get close to” a gangster.
Singer Frank Sinatra set the standard as far back as the 1940s when he was often seen in the company of notorious Mafiosi such as Charles “Lucky” Luciano and Willie Moretti.
(It was Moretti who is rumored to have freed Sinatra from his financially-limiting contract with bandleader Tommy Dorsey in the early 1940s.
His alleged method of persuasion: Jamming a pistol down Dorsey’s throat and threatening to kill him. Dorsey eventually sold the contract to Sinatra for one dollar.
But the mobster whom Sinatra was most-often linked with–by gossip and FBI reports–was Sam “Mooney” Giancana.
Giancana started out as a “wheelman” and enforcer for the teenage “42 Gang,” then joined the Chicago mob in the late 1930s. By 1957 he had been appointed its boss.
Sam Giancana
Sinatra often partied with Giancana, both in nightclubs and at his own residence in Palm Springs, California.
In December, 1959, financier Joseph P. Kennedy summoned Sinatra to the family compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. His son, Senator John F. Kennedy, was planning to run for President in 1960. And the elder Kennedy wanted Sinatra’s help.
Sinatra and the Senator were by now well-acquainted. They shared a taste for gossip, nightclubs and beautiful women.
According to Sinatra’s daughter, Tina, the Kennedy patriarch said: “I think that you can help [the campaign] in [the] West Virginia [primary] and Illinois [in the general election] with our friends.
“You understand, Frank, I can’t go. They’re my friends, too, but I can’t approach them. But you can.”
Frank Sinatra
By “our friends,” Kennedy meant the Mafia. Joseph P. Kennedy had done business with the mob as a bootlegger during Prohibition.
Now he wanted the Mafia to pressure local union members into voting for JFK–and making contributions to the Kennedy Presidential campaign.
Sinatra went to his friend, Sam Giancana, and asked for the mob’s support. And Giancana promised to deliver it.
In return, Giancana–and other mobsters–expected to win an ally in the White House. He was later overheard on an FBI wiretap saying he had been promised by Sinatra that “if I even got a traffic ticket, none of those fuckers [the FBI] would know me.”
Since 1959, Giancana and other “Top Hoodlum” mobsters had been under increasingly heavy FBI surveillance. Giancana wanted it stopped.
And Sinatra had assured him that, under a Kennedy Presidency, it would stop.
On Election Night, 1960, John F. Kennedy carried Illinois–and won the White House by a mere 120,000 votes nationwide.
Then, to the horror of the Mafia, JFK installed his brother, Robert Francis Kennedy, as Attorney General. From 1957 to 1959, RFK had pursued gangsters as chief counsel for the Senate Rackets Committee.
Now he declared all-out war on organized crime. Convictions against organized crime figures rose 800% during his four years in office.
Robert F. Kennedy
Sinatra tried to deliver for Giancana. He sent Peter Lawford–his Rat Pack pal and brother-in-law to the President–to talk with Robert Kennedy about laying off on the Mafia don.
Kennedy told Lawford to mind his own business.
Giancana came under even greater pressure. FBI agents put a 24-hour “lockstep” surveillance on him, following him even into church and restrooms.
“I was on the road with this broad,” Giancana raged to his murderous associate, Johnny Formosa. “There must have been 20 guys [FBI agents]. They were next door, upstairs, downstairs, surrounded all the way around!
“Get in a car, somebody picks you up I lose that tail–boom!–I get picked up someplace else! Four or five cars, back and forth, back and forth.”
In another exchange with Formosa, Giancana’s anger at Sinatra boiled over:
“The last time I talked to [Sinatra] was at the hotel in Florida. And he said, ‘Don’t worry about it. If I can’t talk to the old man [Joseph P. Kennedy] I’m going to talk to the man [President Kennedy].’
“One minute he says he’s talked to Robert, and the next minute he says he hasn’t talked to him. So he never did talk to him.”
Formosa suggested a remedy: “Let’s show ’em. Let’s show those fuckin’ Hollywood fruitcakes that they can’t get away with it as if nothin’s happened.
“Let’s hit Sinatra. Or I could whack out a couple of those other guys, Lawford and that [Dean] Martin. And I could take the nigger [Sammy Davis, Jr.] and put his other eye out.”
Giancana refused to issue the contract. But he seriously considered doing so, as he confessed to a Chicago associate named Tommy DiBella:
“One night I’m fucking Phyllis [McGuire, a member of the famous McGuire sisters trio], playing Sinatra songs in the background, and the whole time I’m thinking to myself, ‘Christ, how can I silence that voice?’
“It’s the most beautiful voice in the world. Frank’s lucky he’s got it. It saved his life.”
Sinatra’s Rat Pack “pally,” Dean Martin, summed it up: “Only Frank could get away with the shit he’s got away with. Only Frank. Anybody else would’ve been dead.”
Sinatra survived the murderous anger of a mob boss. It remains to be seen if Sean Penn can do the same.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law Enforcement on January 20, 2016 at 12:02 am
Actor Sean Penn believes the Mexican Government wants to put him at risk by convincing Joaquin “El Chapo” (“Shorty”) Guzman that Penn played a role—deliberately or negligently—in his capture.
“We know the Mexican government, they clearly were humiliated by the notion that someone found him before they did,” Penn told interviewer Charlie Rose.
“Nobody found him before they did. We are not smarter than the DEA, or Mexican Intelligence. We had a contact upon which we were able to facilitate an invitation.”
By “we” Penn meant himself and Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, who had actually arranged the meeting.
Actress Kate del Castillo
“They wanted to encourage the cartel to put you in their crosshairs?” Rose asked.
“Yes,” Penn answered.
This is entirely possible. Guzman’s escape from a “maximum security” prison in July, 2015, had proved internationally embarrassing for the Mexican Government
Even more embarrassing: He escaped through a mile-long tunnel that literally led to his cell. Almost certainly this happened with the collusion of some prison guards.
Penn–and del Castillo–could face dangers from at least three groups.
Danger #1: El Chapo
Already there is evidence that “El Chapo” regrets having given an interview to Penn and del Castillo in the Mexican jungle on October 2, 2015.
Sean Penn
Published in Rolling Stone on January 9, the article contained such Guzman boasts as:
“I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anyone else in the world. I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats.”
Juan Pablo Badillo, one of Guzman’s attorneys, has since claimed that the article contains falsehoods:
“It’s a lie, absurd speculation from Mr. Penn. Mr. Penn should be called to testify to respond about the stupidities he has said.
“He [Guzman] could not have made these claims. Mr. Guzman is a very serious man, very intelligent.”
This could spell danger for Penn and del Castillo. Guzman is responsible for the deaths of thousands of rivals, journalists and police.
Among the witnesses to the drug cartels’ savagery is Michael Levine, a 25-year veteran of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the author of Deep Cover: Mexican Government Drug Corruption From the Inside.
“Depending on what the cartels and/or the many corrupt Mexican cops and Mexican government officials believe El Chapo divulged during the interview, Penn, and whomever else was present, may be in more physical danger than he could ever imagine,” said Levine.
An anonymous law enforcement official said that not only could Penn be in danger, but so could his entire family.
“It won’t happen now. They [the cartels] wait. Him or people close to him are in danger. They don’t single out the one person. They go for the person’s family.
“He poked his head into a nest of vipers with an amazing global reach. He was a fool. As public as Penn is, he will be a sitting duck.”
Danger #2: Guzman’s Competitors in the Drug Trade
“The problem with dealing with someone like Guzman on this personal basis, where one is perceived as a ‘friend’ or an aide or a business partner of sorts to Chapo, is that you have to be prepared to inherit all his enemies, and there are many,” warned Michael Levine.
“These are some very kill-crazy people. The notoriety gained by killing someone like Penn or even del Castillo will actually turn these bastards on.
“It’s a step into the dark world of the kill crazies. Believe me it is there, and unwittingly these two may have stepped into a world where there is an actual competition to kill them,” said Levine, who has dealt face-to-face with Latin American drug lords.
Danger #3: Wannabe Cartel Members
Countless men–in Mexico and the United States–would love to “do El Chapo a favor” by gunning down Penn and/or del Castillo.
This could happen even if Guzman harbors no ill will toward either. It would be enough for someone to simply believe that he did.
An additional motive: The fame–or infamy–that the assassin of a “big celebrity” like Penn would receive. John Lennon died at the hands of such a fame-obsessed, psychotic gunman.
This means that literally anyone could be a potential assassin–making it that much harder to defend against.
When clients enter the Justice Department’s Witness Security Program, they are quickly asked: “Who do you think poses the biggest threat to you?”
Deputy U.S. marshals, who operate the program, assume that a witness is the best judge of who poses the greatest danger to him.
Witness Security Program protection detail
This works well when a witness is unknown and testifying against someone who is equally unknown to the public.
But when a witness is notorious–such as Sammy “The Bull” Gravano–and the defendant is equally infamous–such as John Gotti–all bets are off.
Of course, Federally-protected witnesses have two advantages going for them that Penn and del Castillo do not:
First, they are protected by the U.S. Marshals Service, which has an excellent track record in protecting its charges; and
Second, they are expected to assume a low profile, which serves as their best protection.
Sean Penn and Kate del Castillo aren’t Federally-protected witnesses. And they’re unlikely to assume a low profile by going into hiding.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law Enforcement on January 19, 2016 at 1:25 am
Actor Sean Penn is used to being a tough guy–onscreen.
In 2006, he played real-life mobster Mickey Cohen (1913 – 1976) in Gangster Squad. And in 2013, he played Willie Stark, a corrupt, Huey Long-type Southern governor in a remake of All the King’s Men.
As Cohen, Penn put out contracts on his enemies and even went mano-o-mano in a long-running (and fictional) fistfight with an LAPD detective.
And as Stark, he clawed his way to power and bullied both his enemies and his supporters.
Perhaps Penn should have paid more attention to the way those movies ended.
Sean Penn
Mickey Cohen goes to prison, where he is brutally waylaid by other inmates.
And Willie Stark, at the height of his power, is shot by a longtime enemy.
Had he thought about it, he might have decided it could be a mistake to meet with Joaquin “El Chapo” (“Shorty”) Guzman, the notorious Mexican drug lord.
On October 2, 2015, Penn met with Guzman in an undisclosed location in the Mexican jungle. He was there to interview him on behalf of Rolling Stone magazine.
Guzman wanted a movie made about him. So he had reached out to Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, asking her to meet with him to discuss such a project. She, in turn, referred him to Penn, whom Guzman said could come along for the meeting.
Penn had his own agenda: To write an article for Rolling Stone whose “purpose [would] contribute to this conversation on the war on drugs.”
Three months later, on January 8, 2016, Mexican Marines and Federal Police launched an early-morning raid on a house in Los Mochis, in northern Sinaloa, where Guzman’s drug cartel operated.
The Marines expected to find Guzman there, and they did–ending his almost six-month flight after escaping from prison in July.
One day after Guzman’s capture, Rolling Stone published Penn’s 10,000-word article.
Penn had not been allowed to bring a tape recorder or even take notes with pen and paper. So he had been forced to memorize as much of Guzman’s tale as he could.
Penn seemed to be enraptured by Guzman:
“There is no doubt this is the real deal. He’s wearing a casual patterned silk shirt, pressed black pants, and he appears remarkably well-groomed and healthy for a man on the run.
“He opens [actress Kate del Castillo’s] [car} doorand greets her like a daughter returning from college.
“It seems important to him to express the warm affection in person that, until now, he’d only had occasion to communicate from afar.”
Even so, Penn quoted Guzman as bragging: “I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world. I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats.”
Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman
After the interview’s publication, Penn came under fire for having allowed Guzman to approve the article. He claimed that, despite this, Guzman had not asked for any changes.
He also drew sharp criticism for having used his status as a movie star to play the part of a reporter.
But worse was to come.
Shortly after the capture of “El Chapo,” Mexico’s Attorney General Arely Gomez “credited” Penn with having played a vital role in the capture of the drug kingpin.
The meeting between Penn, Castillo and Guzman “was an essential element, because we were following [Guzman’s] lawyer, and the lawyer took us to these people and to this meeting.”
Suddenly, American experts on Mexican organized crime cartels began seeing Sean Penn in a new light–that of a movie star with a big target on his chest and back.
Suppose Guzman began suspecting that Penn had deliberately led Mexican authorities to him? Or that he had done so even accidentally, through negligence in how he had traveled?
“These cartels are very violent, they do not forgive any transgression and they will respond in a most violent manner,” said Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
“These are people who have been dismembered, who have decapitated individuals. So killing Sean Penn and del Castillo means absolutely nothing to them.”
Vigil believed it was careless for the Mexican Government to publicize any ties between the Penn meeting and Guzman’s arrest:
“If Chapo Guzman perceives that they cooperated with authorities in his capture, [the cartel] will go after them.”
He argued that the risk is likely likely for del Castillo because she was the one in contact with Guzman.
She was the one whom Guzman’s associates supplied with a Blackberry–the phone they believed most secure. And it was her and Guzman’s flirtatious exchanges that led to the meeting in the jungle with Sean Pean.
“Apart from that, [del Castillo] is originally from Mexico, she has all of her family in Mexico. One of the traditional violent methods [the cartels] use is if they can’t get to the target, they’ll go after their family members.
“If I were Kate del Castillo, I would run like the wind.”
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In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Social commentary on December 16, 2015 at 12:39 am
On August 31, 2014, the Huffington Post ran a story about trouble in Hollywood, under the headline: “Film Industry Has Worst Summer since 1997.”
Little more than one month earlier–on July 22–a headline in the Hollywood Reporter had offered this insight into moviedom’s current woes: “Average Movie Ticket Price Hits $8.33 in Second Quarter.”
Click here: Average Movie Ticket Price Hits $8.33 in Second Quarter
It’s hard to think of an industry that’s created a better recipe for self-destruction than the movie business.
Consider the following:
According to Rentrak, a company that keeps tabs on box office profits:
- Ticket sales to movie theaters in the U.S. and Canada were expected to sink to $3.9 billion by the end of 2014.
- In July, 2014, movie ticket sales were down 30%.
- That’s a 15% decline in movie revenues when compared to those racked up during the summer of 2013.
- For the first time in 13 years, no summer film netted $300 million in domestic ticket sales.
Among the films that disappointed movie studios in summer, 2014:
- “The Expendables 3″
- “Planes: Fire and Rescue”
- “Amazing Spider Man 2″
- “Sex Tape”
- “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For”
- “Edge of Tomorrow”
- “Transformers: Age of Extinction”
- “How to Train Your Dragon 2″
Click here: Film Industry Has Worst Summer Since 1997
Analysts had predicted a drop-off in movie attendance owing to increased use of online streaming. They also expected major television events like the World’s Cup to keep moviegoers indoors.
But they didn’t expect the summer of 2014 to prove the worst in ticket sales since 1997.
Which is outrageous. The wonder is that the movie business hasn’t collapsed already.
It’s hard to think of an industry more geared toward its own destruction than the movie business.
First, there’s the before-mentioned average ticket price of $8.33. You don’t have to be an Einstein at math to multiply $8.33 by, say, a husband, wife, and two to four children.
So a couple with two children can expect to spend at least $33.32 just to get into the theater. A couple with four children will be gouged $49.98 for a single movie’s entertainment.
And that’s not including the marked-up prices charged for candy, soda and popcorn at the concession stand.
Second, it’s almost guaranteed that even the biggest potential movie “draw” will be released on DVD or streaming within three to six months after it hits theaters.
So if you need to save enough money each month to meet the rent and other basic needs, you’re likely to wait it out for the DVD to hit stores. Wait even longer than six months, and you can probably buy a cheaper used DVD.
With that, you can watch your new favorite movie as many times as you want–without being charged bigtime every time you do so.
This is especially tempting to those with big-screen TVs, whose prices have steadily fallen and are now affordable by almost everyone.
Third, there used to be an unspoken agreement between theaters and moviegoers: We’ll pay a fair price to see one movie. In return, we don’t expect to see TV-like commercials.
Naturally, that didn’t include previews of coming attractions. These have been a widely enjoyed part of the movie experience since the 1930s.
But starting in 2003, theaters began aiming commercials at their customers before even the previews came on. Some industry sources believe cinema advertising generates over $200 million a year in sales.
Click here: Now showing at a theatre near you – Louisville – Business First
But for those who feel they’ve already suffered enough at the ticket booth, being forced to watch TV-style ads is simply too much.
Fourth, while some theaters provide lush seating and special help for their customers (such as closed-captioning for the deaf) many others do not.
At AMC theaters, an onscreen advisory tells you to seek help if you need it. But your chances of finding an available usher range from slim to none at most theaters.
In fact, only one floor of a multi-storied AMC theater offers a concession stand. This means that people have to take the elevator down several floors to the second-floor snack bar.
Not many moviegoers are going to lose that much time while watching a movie just to get a second high-priced bag of popcorn.
To sum it up: What was once thought a special experience has become a jarring assault on the pocketbook and senses.
Just as airlines are now widely considered to be “flying buses,” so, too are movie theaters fast becoming expensive TV sets for moviegoers.
In the 1950s and 1960s, theaters lured customers from small-screen TVs with film spectacles like “Ben Hur” and “Spartacus”.” Or with new “you-are-there” film experiments like Cinnemascope.
“Family-friendly” movies like “Mary Poppins” and “The Sound of Music” proved box-office champs with millions.
But now theaters have allowed their greed–for high ticket prices, quick-release DVDs and/or streaming and TV-style ads–to drive much of their audiences away.
Unless the owners of movie studios–and movie theaters–quickly smarten up, the motion picture business may ultimately became a pale shadow of its former Technicolor self.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on September 24, 2015 at 12:04 am
On November 7, 2013, American television culture took yet another step deeper into Toiletville.
It was the Two and Half Men episode, “Justice in Star-Spangled Hot Pants.” And it starred Lynda Carter as the target of a crush that was both infantile and obscene.
Carter, of course, is the singer/actress best-known for her role as Wonder Woman (1975-1979).
And watching this episode of Men, it was hard to tell where the real-life Carter left off and the fictional character she was playing took over.
Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman
Here, in brief, was the plotline:
Alan Harper (Jon Cryer) learns that his roommate, Walden Schmidt (Ashton Kutcher) knows Lynda Carter.
Having an enormous crush on Carter from his years of watching her as Wonder Woman, Alan asks Walden to set him up on a date with her.
Against his better judgment, Walden agrees to invite her to the house for dinner.
Now, if Carter had been playing a fictional character, there wouldn’t have been anything wrong with this premise. Nobody, after all, would have mistaken Laurence Olivier for Richard III.
But she wasn’t. She was playing herself.
And, in her real-life self, she was then 62. An admittedly good-looking 62, but, even so, a woman about 40 years older than the character (Alan) who wants to meet her.
And not simply meet her. Bone her.
Bone her? Yes–that’s exactly what he says when Walden initially turns down his request to introduce him to her: “Now I’ll never get to bone Lynda Carter.”
And since Carter was playing herself, it’s useful to recall that she is, in real-life, a married woman (since 1984 to attorney Robert Altman).
And the show achieved an even lower level of crassness when Walden says Alan is so desperate to meet Carter that he’d skulk around in the bushes in front of her house.
“Wow, Lynda Carter’s bush,” says Alan, practically salivating over the contemplation of a 62-year-old woman’s vagina.
But males weren’t the only gender who got to descend to new depths of bad taste in this episode. There was the character of Jenny (Amber Tamblyn), the lesbian sister of the departed character Charlie (Charlie Sheen).
Again, the show’s writers simply couldn’t resist the temptation to mix real-life with fantasy.
Jenny is, at first, not even aware who Lynda Carter is until Alan, shocked, clues her in on the juvenile series she’s best-known for.
And, after meeting Carter, Jenny remains unimpressed. There’s an edginess in her voice as she comes face-to-face with the actress who’s well-known for supporting gay and lesbian rights.
“I understand you’re into cuffs,” she tells Carter–a reference to the “magic bracelets” worn by her character, Wonder Woman.
But it’s also a double entendre, conjuring up the image of Carter (perhaps in her Wonder Woman outfit) staked out on a bed in a bondage fantasy.
For all of Alan’s over-the-top infatuation with Carter, it’s not him that she’s interested in. It’s his buddy, Walden (Ashton Kutcher).
Lynda Carter and Ashton Kutcher
And to prove it, she gives him a real smackeroo of a kiss.
Which may well have conjured up, for him, real-life memories of his May-December marriage to the actress Demi Moore.
Kutcher was 27 when he tied the knot with Moore in 2005. Moore, by contrast, was 42.
The marriage ended in 2013, amid tabloid reports that Kutcher had cheated on her with Sara Leal, a 22-year-old San Diego-based administrative assistant. Moore by then was 51.
Kutcher, born in 1978, was still rolling around in his cradle while Carter–born in 1951–was wrapping up her third and final season as Wonder Woman.
So, for Kutcher, maybe it was a case of deja vu all over again.
So much for network TV censors’ attitude toward sleaze. Now for their attitude toward patriotism.
On Veterans Day from 2001 to 2004, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) aired the 1998 Steven Spielberg World War II classic, Saving Private Ryan, uncut and with limited commercial interruptions.
Both the grity, realistic battle scenes and profanity were left intact.
Storming the beach at Normandy in Saving Private Ryan
But in 2004, its airing was marked by pre-emptions by 65 ABC affiliates.
The reason: The backlash over Super Bowl XXXVIII’s halftime show controversy (starring the infamous bared breast of Janet Jackson).
The affiliates—28% of the network—did not clear the available timeslot for the film.
And this was even after the Walt Disney Company–which owns ABC–offered to pay all fines for language to the FCC.
No complaints, however, were lodged with the FCC.
It speaks volumes to the priorities–and values–of American television when a film honoring the wartime sacrifices of American soldiers is banned from network TV.
And it speaks volumes as well to the priorities–and values–of American television when a casually juvenile and crudity-laced series like Two and a Half Men becomes CBS’ biggest cash cow.
"AMERICAN SNIPER, 2003 IRAQ WAR, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, AL QAEDA, ALBERT SPEER, BARACK OBAMA, BRADLEY COOPER, CBS NEWS, CHRIS KYLE, CLINT EASTWOOD, CNN, DICK CHENEY, DONALD RUMSFELD, FACEBOOK, GEORGE W. BUSH, GERMAN ARMY, INSIDE THE THIRD REICH, INVASION OF POLAND, ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND SYRIA, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, OSAMA BIN LADEN, PROPAGANDA, SADDAM HUSSEIN, SIENNA MILLER, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TWITTER, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS DINNER, WMDS, WORLD WAR ii
In Entertainment, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 30, 2015 at 12:15 am
Naturally the common people don’t want war, neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood.
But, after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along….
All you have to do is tell them that they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger. It works the same way in any country.
–Rcichsmarshall Hermann Goering
Much of the moral basis for American leadership was destroyed by the dark parallels between Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939 and George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Among these:
ADOLF HITLER
Adolf Hitler (third from left) with his generals
In 1970, Albert Speer, Adolf Hitler’s former architect and then Minister of Aramaments, published his bestselling postwar memoirs, Inside the Third Reich. In a striking passage, he revealed how the Fuehrer really felt about German soldiers who were suffering and dying in a war he had provoked.
One evening during the middle of the war, Speer was traveling with Hitler on the Fuehrer’s private train. Late at night, they enjoyed a lavish dinner in the elegant rosewood-paneled dining car.
As they ate, Hitler’s train slowed down and passed a freight train halted on a side track.
From their open cattle car, recalled Speer, wounded German soldiers from the Russian Front–starved, their uniforms in rags–stared across the few yards to their Fuehrer’s dining-car window.
Albert Speer
Hitler recoiled at seeing these injured men intently watching him–and he sharply ordered an adjutant to lower the window shades.
Hitler had served as a frontline soldier in World War 1 and had won the Iron Cross for bravery as a dispatch runner.
As Fuehrer, he often boasted of his affinity with the average German soldier. He claimed that “my whole life has been one long struggle for Germany.”
Yet throughout the six years of World War II, he refused to visit German cities ravaged by British and American bombs.
Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, despaired at this.
Joseph Goebbels
Winston Churchill, prime minister of Great Britain, often visited cities hit by German bombers, and Goebbels knew these visits greatly boosted British morale.
Goebbels urged Hitler to make similar visits to bombed-out German cities, but the Fuehrer refused.
Albert Speer believed that Hitler couldn’t bear to see the carnage wrought by his decision to provoke a needless war.
George W. Bush “looking” for WMDs in the White House
GEORGE W. BUSH
Similarly, Bush showed his contempt for the soldiers suffering and dying in his own unprovoked war.
On March 24, 2004, at a White House Correspondents dinner, he joked publicly about the absence of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs).
To Bush, the non-existent WMDs were nothing more than the butt of a joke that night. While an overhead projector displayed photos of a puzzled-looking Bush searching around the Oval Office, Bush recited a comedy routine.
“Those weapons of mass destruction have gotta be somewhere,” Bush laughed, while a photo showed him poking around the corners in the Oval Office.
“Nope-–no weapons over there! Maybe they’re under here,” he said, as a photo showed him looking under a desk.
In a scene that could have occurred under the Roman emperor Nero, an assembly of wealthy, pampered men and women–-the elite of America’s media and political classes–-laughed heartily during Bush’s performance.
Only later did the criticism come, from Democrats and Iraqi war veterans–especially those veterans who had suffered grievous wounds to protect America from WMDs.
Click here: Bush laughs at no WMD in Iraq – YouTube
In his Presidential memoirs, Decision Points, Bush failed to mention his joking about the “missing WMDs” at the correspondents dinner.
In writing about discovering insights into the human character, the ancient historian, Plutarch, said it best:
And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men.
Sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations, than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever.
* * * * *
So add it all up:
- Two all-powerful leaders.
- Two nations lied into unprovoked wars.
- Adolf Hitler’s war costs the lives of 4.5 million German soldiers.
- George W. Bush’s war costs the lives of 4,486 Americans.
- Germany’s war results in the deaths of millions of Europeans and Russians.
- America’s war results in the deaths of an estimated 655,000 Iraqis, according to a 2006 study in the Lancet medical journal.
- Hitler is literally driven underground by his enemies and commits suicide to avoid capture, trial and certain execution for war crimes.
- Bush retires from office with a lavish pension and full Secret Service protection. He writes his memoirs and is paid $7 million for the first 1.5 million copies.
- Hitler is branded as a symbol of demonic evil.
- Bush becomes a target of ridicule for comics.
Who says history is irrelevant? Or that it doesn’t repeat itself?
"AMERICAN SNIPER, 2003 IRAQ WAR, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, AL QAEDA, ALBERT SPEER, BARACK OBAMA, BRADLEY COOPER, CBS NEWS, CHRIS KYLE, CLINT EASTWOOD, CNN, DICK CHENEY, DONALD RUMSFELD, FACEBOOK, GEORGE W. BUSH, GERMAN ARMY, INSIDE THE THIRD REICH, INVASION OF POLAND, ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND SYRIA, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, OSAMA BIN LADEN, PROPAGANDA, SADDAM HUSSEIN, SIENNA MILLER, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TWITTER, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS DINNER, WMDS, WORLD WAR ii
In Entertainment, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 29, 2015 at 12:01 am
In late April, 1975, Vietnam veterans stared in horror at their TVs as the army of North Vietnam swept toward Saigon.
The “peace with honor” that former President Richard M. Nixon had claimed to fashion had lasted no more than two years.
American news media captured the appalling sight of United States military and Intelligence personnel being frantically airlifted by helicopter from the roof of the American embassy.
The eight-year war had cost $600 billion and the lives of more than 58,000 U.S. servicemen. Suddenly, before the eyes of American TV viewers, the longest and most divisive war in United States history was ending in shame.
And now, it’s deja vu all over again.
From 2003 to 2013, the war in Iraq cost the United States $1.7 trillion and the lives of 4,488 servicemen.
America completed its military withdrawal from Iraq in December, 2011. And now, less than two years later, Iraq seems about to self-destruct in religious civil war.
But there is more to the United States’ tortured intervention in Iraq than most Americans know.
There is a dark historical parallel to the events leading up to the Iraq war. A parallel that has its roots in Nazi Germany.
Among the similarities between these two conflicts, fought 64 years apart:
ADOLF HITLER
When Germany’s Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, decided to invade Poland in 1939, he refused to consider any efforts to avert a conflict: “I want war. I am the one who will wage war.”
Despite frantic efforts by the French and British governments to resolve the crisis that Hitler had deliberately provoked, he refused all offers of compromise.
“I am only afraid,” Hitler told his generals at a military conference on August 22, 1939, “that some Schweinehund [pig dog] will make a proposal for mediation.”
GEORGE W. BUSH
Similarly, Bush made it clear to his closest aides that he sought a pretext for invading Iraq.
On the evening after the September 11 attacks, Bush held a private meeting with Richard Clarke, the counter-terrorism advisor to the National Security Council.
“I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything,” said Bush. “See if Saddam did this. See if he’s linked in any way.”
Clarke was stunned: “But, Mr. President, Al Qaeda did this.”
“I know, I know,” said Bush. “But see if Saddam was involved. I want to know.”
On September 12, 2001, Bush attended a meeting of the National Security Council.
“Why shouldn’t we go against Iraq, not just Al Qaeda?” demanded Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense.
Vice President Dick Cheney agreed enthusiastically.
Secretary of State Colin Powell then pointed out there was absolutely no evidence that Iraq had had anything to do with 9/11 or Al Qaeda. And he added: “The American people want us to do something about Al-Qaeda”-–not Iraq.
On September 22, 2001, Bush received a classified President’s Daily Brief intelligence report, which stated that there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11.
The report added that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda.
Yet on November 21, 2001, only 10 weeks after 9/11, Bush told Rumsfeld: It’s time to turn to Iraq.
ADOLF HITLER
Adolf Hitler knew that Poland’s government could never accept his demands for the Polish city of Danzig.
GEORGE W. BUSH
So, too, did George W. Bush make a demand he knew could never be accepted. On the eve of launching war on Iraq, Bush issued a humiliating ultimatum to Saddam Hussein:
“Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of our choosing.”
ADOLF HITLER
Hitler never regretted his decision to invade Poland. Only hours before committing suicide in his Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945, he asserted in his “final political testatment”: “It is untrue that I or anyone else in Germany wanted war in 1939.”
GEORGE W. BUSH
Similarly, Bush never regretted his decision to invade Iraq, which occurred on March 19, 2003. In his 2010 memoirs, Decision Points, he wrote:
“For all the difficulties that followed, America is safer without a homicidal dictator pursuing WMD and supporting terror at the heart of the Middle East.”
And in an interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer on November 8, 2010, Bush again sought to justify his decision to go to war:
LAUER: Was there ever any consideration of apologizing to the American people?
BUSH: I mean, apologizing would basically say the decision was a wrong decision, and I don’t believe it was a wrong decision.
ADOLF HITLER
On September 1, 1939, Adolf Hitler announced his attack on Poland before Germany’s rubber-stamp parliament, the Reichstag.
Hitler–a decorated World War I veteran–said: “I am from now on just the first soldier of the German Reich. I have once more put on that coat that was the most sacred and dear to me.”
GEORGE W. BUSH
On May 1, 2003, Bush–who hid out the Vietnam war in the Texas Air National Guard-–donned a flight suit and landed a Navy jet aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
A banner titled “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED” was displayed on the aircraft carrier as Bush announced–wrongly–that the war was over.
The effect–and intent–was to portray Bush as the triumphant warrior-chieftan he never was.
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In Entertainment, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 27, 2015 at 1:50 am
Clint Eastwood’s latest movie, American Sniper, has become the most controversial film now being considered for Best Picture at the upcoming Oscars.
The Academy Awards telecast is scheduled for February 22.
Clint Eastwood
The criticism is coming from the Left, and this has triggered outrage on the Right. Some of this criticism is correct and fair, but some of it isn’t.
CHARGE: The film implies that the Iraq was was in response to 9/11.
There’s a scene where Kyle (Bradley Cooper) and his wife, Taya (Sienna Miller) are watching TV as the World Tradd Center crashes. Then the scene cuts to him serving in Iraq.
FACT: The movie is a biography of Kyle, who became the deadliest sniper in American history, not a documentary on the Iraq war. And, in fact, Kyle did his service in Iraq.
Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle in American Sniper
CHARGE: The movie depicts a terrorist sniper who becomes Kyle’s nemesis.
Named “Mustafa,” he is portrayed as a Syrian Olympics champion marksman. In a furious mano-a-mano duel with Kyle, he almost nails the SEAL sniper. But in the climax of the movie, he meets his end with a well-placed bullet from Kyle’s rifle.
FACT: Mustafa is mentioned in a single–and short–paragraph in Kyle’s autobiography. Writes Kyle: “I never saw him, but the other snipers later killed an Iraqi sniper we thought was him.”
So the climatic duel never happened. But Eastwood clearly thought he needed the duel to make a dramatic and satisfying finish for his movie. This is what’s known as “dramatic license” in moviemaking.
CHARGE: The movie portrays Chris Kyle as tormented by his rising casualty rate among Iraqis.
During his fourth tour of duty in Iraq, as depicted in the film, he agonizes over his possible need to shoot a child who’s about to pick up a rocket launcher. “Don’t pick it up,” he mutters, and when the child drops it and runs off, Kyle is visibly relieved.
FACT: Throughout his autobiography–on which the film is based–he refers to Iraqis as “savages.” He brags of telling a military investigator: “I don’t shoot people with Korans. I’d like to, but I don’t.”
And having been credited with 160 confirmed kills, he writes: “I only wish I had killed more….I believe the world is a better place without savages out there taking American lives.”
CHARGE: Chris Kyle was a hate-filled killer, but the movie turns him into a hero.
FACT: It’s entirely natural for soldiers to hate their enemies. They know that they–or their comrades–can be blown away at any moment. So they fear and hate those intent on their destruction.
The toughening-up process starts in boot camp, where the restraints of individuality and pacifism are shattered. The purpose of boot camp is to turn “boys” into “fighting men,” and this must be done in a matter of weeks. So the process is shockingly brutal.
Soldiers who aren’t toughened up in boot camp are by the battlefield. As General George S. Patton famously warned: “When you put your hand into a bunch of goo, that a moment before was your best friend’s face, you’ll know what to do.”
General George S. Patton
During the Indian wars, soldiers called Indians “Red niggers.” In World War II–“the Good War”–America’s servicemen fought “Japs” and “Krauts.” During the Vietnam war, Vietnamese became “gooks” and “dinks.”
Today our servicemen and women refer (unofficially) to their Islamic enemies as “ragheads” and “sand niggers.”
CHARGE: “In Kyle’s version of the Iraq war, the parties consisted of Americans, who were good by virtue of being Americans, and fanatic Muslims, whose ‘savage, despicable evil’ led them to want to kill Americans simply because they are Christian.” –Laura Miller, in Salon
FACT: British military historian B.H. Liddell Hart noted in his introduction to the memoirs of World War II German General Heinz Guderian, the creator of the Blitzkreig theory:
Heinz Guderian
“[Guderian] did not question the cause which he and his troops were serving, or the duty of fighting for their country. It was sufficient for him that she was at war and thus in danger, however it had come about.
“As a dutiful soldier, he had to assume that his country’s cause was just, and that she was defending herself against would-be conquerors.”
What proved true for Guderian proved equally true for Kyle–and for soldiers in armies throughout the world.
Moreover, every great war movie tells its story from a given viewpoint–such as American, German, Russian or British. Audiences are invited to identify with the leading character.
In All Quiet on the Western Front, the narrator is a young, idealistic German soldier who becomes disallusioned with the horrors of war. When he dies at the end of the movie, we feel saddened by his loss, even though he served in the ranks of America’s adversaries.
Similarly, when we learn, at the end of American Sniper, that Chris Kyle was killed while trying to help a fellow veteran, we feel a similar loss.
In the end, a historical or biographical movie can tell only so much. Its audience must then decide its meaning–and whether to learn more about the subjec through their own researches.
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“LINCOLN”: A MESSAGE FOR TODAY
In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 17, 2016 at 12:36 pmSteven Spielberg’s Lincoln is more than a mesmerizing history lesson.
It’s a timely reminder that racism and repression are not confined to any one period or political party.
At the heart of the film: Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) wants to win ratification of what will be the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. An amendment that will forever ban slavery.
True, Lincoln, in 1862, had issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This—in theory—freed slaves held in the Confederate states that had seceded from the Union in 1861.
But Lincoln regards this as a temporary wartime measure. He fears that once the war ends, the Supreme Court may rule the Proclamation unconstitutional. This might allow Southerners to continue practicing slavery, even after losing the war.
To prevent this, Congress must pass an anti-slavery amendment.
But winning Congressional passage of such an amendment won’t be easy.
The Senate had ratified its passage in 1864. But the amendment must secure approval from the House of Representatives to become law.
And the House is filled with men–there are no women menmbers during the 19th century–who seethe with hostility.
Some are hostile to Lincoln personally. One of them dubs him a dictator–Abraham Africanus.” Another accuses him of shifting his positions for the sake of expediency.
Other members–white men all–are hostile to the idea of “equality between the races.” To them, ending slavery means opening the door to interracial marriage–especially marriage between black men and white women.
Perhaps even worse, it means possibly giving blacks–or women–the the right to vote.
In fact, the possibility that blacks might win voting rights arises early in the movie. Lincoln is speaking to a couple of black Union soldiers, and one of them is unafraid to voice his discontent. He’s upset that black soldiers are paid less than white ones–and that they’re led only by white officers.
He says that, in time, maybe this will change. Maybe, in 100 years, he guesses, blacks will get the right to vote.
(To the shame of all Americans, that’s how long it will eventually take. Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 will blacks be guaranteed legal protection against discriminatory voting practices.)
To understand the Congressional debate over the Thirteenth Amendment, it’s necessary to remember this: In Lincoln’s time, the Republicans were the party of progressives.
The party was founded on an anti-slavery platform. Its members were thus reviled as “Black Republicans.” And until the 1960s, the South was solidly Democratic.
Democrats were the ones defending the status quo–slavery–and opposing freed blacks in the South of Reconstruction and long afterward.
In short, in the 18th century, Democrats in the South acted as Republicans do now. The South went Republican only after a Democratic President–Lyndon B. Johnson–rammed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through Congress.
Watching this re-enactment of the 1865 debate in Lincoln is like watching the current Presidential campaign. The same mentalities are at work:
During the 2012 Presidential race, Republicans tried to bar those likely to vote for President Barack Obama from getting into the voting booth. But their bogus “voter ID” restrictions were struck down in courts across the nation.
Listening to those opposing the amendment, one is reminded of Mitt Romney’s infamous comments about the “47%”:
“Well, there are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what….
“Who are dependent upon government, who believe that–that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they’re entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you name it. But that’s–it’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them.”
Put another way: “Who says people have a right to obtain medical care, food and housing? If they can’t inherit unearned wealth the way I did, screw them.”
In the end, it’s Abraham Lincoln who has the final word–and leaves his nation the better for it. Through diplomacy and backroom dealings (trading political offices for votes) he wins passage of the anti-slavery amendment.
The ownership of human chattel is finally an ugly memory of the American past.
The movie closes with a historically-correct tribute to Lincoln’s generosity toward those who opposed him–in Congress and on the battlefield. It occurs during Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address:
“With malice toward none, with charity for all….To bind up the nation’s wounds. To care for him who shall have bourne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan….”
This ending presents a vivid philosophical contrast with the increasingly mean-spirited rhetoric and policies of 2016’s Republican candidates for President–especially those of Donald Trump.
Watching Lincoln, you realize how incredibly lucky America was as a nation to have had such leadership when it was most urgently needed.
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