[MD] The Greeks?

[Matt Kundert]

Hi Mary,

I went and saw Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time in the 
theatre yesterday (mainly because it is hot in the desert, 
and so is Jake Gyllenhaal).  I was surprised to find that it 
was a political allegory.  And not a good one.  It was 
horrible.  Jerry Bruckheimer fare is bad enough by itself, 
but adding ham-fisted political messages is just too much.  
The thrust of the movie begins when--with the King back 
home praying--the Princes are convened for a council to 
help Top Dog Prince decide whether or not he should 
attack a holy city on their borderlands that they happen 
to be passing by on their way to their enemy.  Bad Boy 
Brother goes, "Yay, I love blood," and Raven-haired Jakey 
goes, "Uh, no."  Turns out, however, that spies have 
discovered weapons being secretly exported from the 
city.  Well, fuck those guys.

It double-turns out, however, that upon capturing the city 
and confronting the Hot Holy Lady and asking her where the 
forges are that made the weapons, she says there are 
none, and that--you guessed it--the evidence was 
fabricated and they invaded on bad intelligence.

You can laugh at the first obvious parallel to real life, hah 
hah, hah hah, but as soon as the King shows up and says 
to Top Dog Prince, "are you crazy?  Our allies are not 
going to like this little adventure"--"allies" and "adventure" 
being coded political language--you go, "oh man, is he 
going to keep going with this nonsense?"  And then, and 
_then_, the King tells the Winsomely Smiling Jake that he 
should have _stood up_ for what he thought was right, 
what was in _his gut_, whatever what his orders were.

Clearly, this is about insiders to the Bush adminstration, 
and Not Even Swarthy Let Alone Persian Jake goes on and 
on about how he's going to expose the lies and the truth 
to the people (rather than going on about killing the bad 
guy, like in normal swords-and-sandals movies), but just a 
week ago, I had a conversation with an acquaintance who 
gives leftists a bad name.  She asked me--in all serious 
naïvité--how one can "support the troops" when the war is 
bad.  It blew my mind--there actually were people like this 
(meaning, leftists with moral compasses as sensitive as the 
on/off switch of the neocons of neoconservative rhetoric).  
Nevermind that she didn't know anything about history 
(during our long seminar in ethics, I had to explain to her 
what the Cold War was) or that she thought of herself as a 
pacifist (meaning, all war was bad, so it wasn't like she could 
"support the troops" in the first place).  It just blew my mind 
that somebody couldn't make the distinction between 
"people" and "people making the decisions."  Her argument 
being that, "well, they shouldn't carry out the orders."  I told 
her that that wasn't--it _couldn't be_--how a military works, 
but she was recalcitrant (though clearly conceding most of 
the common sense I trotted out, cagey rhetorical wizard that 
I am).  I told her that, until weapons have entirely 
disappeared and violence replaced with persuasion 
everywhere, we simply could not promote a professional 
culture in the area of life-and-death-actualization that 
taught each member to carry out their professional orders if 
they thought it was the right thing to do at that moment.  
Because when bullets are wizzing, there ain't no time for 
reflection.  Imagine if any us were soldiers--we'd never get 
anything done.

And here's this stupid movie, somewhat sloppily, and perhaps 
accidentally (though I have doubts), suggesting a Maverick 
Military Culture.  "You gotta' do what's in your gut.  Heh-heh, 
heh-heh."  That was, of course, George W. Bush, right before 
he took us into the holy city.

Which brings me to another absurd pile of garbage I heard 
the other day.  Apparently, baseball's been turned 
upside-down recently, what with a crappy call by an umpire, 
stealing the most difficult feat in sports away from a poor 
pitcher.  I couldn't care less about baseball, and apparently 
neither could Dr. Laura, who opened her comments on the 
subject with, "I don't follow baseball or sports, but..."  
Following Dr. Laura's huge but was an absurd rant railing on 
the umpire and the MLB (she apparently didn't even know 
enough to know that she was referring to "Bud Selig") 
before finally uttering the stupidest thing I've ever heard, 
though somehow entirely consistent with the recent 
neoconsertative worldview.  She said at the close, and I 
quote (I wrote it down right after she said it, so hysterical 
was it), "I hate it when stupid rules get in the way of 
fairness in sports."

And here I thought it was "the rules" that made sure things 
were fair, so despots didn't go all willy-nilly on the populace, 
like they did in one of those "good 'ole days" neocons like to 
refer to, ya' know, the one before the rule of law.  Take out 
"in sports" in Dr. Laura's gem apothegm, and you pretty 
much have the worldview of people who need charismatics 
to lead them, wherever, just so long as they can make it 
seem like it's coming from their collective gut.

Matt

> From: marysonthego at gmail.com
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2010 14:11:13 -0500
> Subject: Re: [MD] The Greeks?
> 
> Hi Matt,
> 
> A lazy Sunday afternoon for me.  My son has gone off somewhere with his
> Father and I am grateful.  I can't tell you how important it is to me that
> his Father is willing to spend time, any amount of time, with him however
> small.  Last night my son and I watched a retrospective of old Dennis Hopper
> movies together.  Turns out one of his earliest roles was a tiny one in
> "Rebel Without A Cause".  I inwardly cringed at the Sal Mineo character
> whose parents were absent throughout the entire film.  The young Sal feels
> rejected and worthless, making up all kinds of stories about how is Father
> was a 'war hero' or a big banker far away in New York City.  We never did
> learn what was really up with his Dad, but Sal discovered the child support
> check on his Mother's bedside table just before he decided to take her gun
> from under the pillow.  She too was out to lunch, having apparently spent
> the child support on a trip to Hawaii.  My heart went out to the poor Sal
> and I was wondering if my son would say he identified with him - even if
> only partly - since I'm always here.  A trip to Hawaii would be no fun
> without him.  That movie was a tear-jerker though.
> 
> Anyway, I rummaged around and here's what was originally said.  Sorry to
> have been confusing.  I have "obviously" (get it?) misinterpreted you.
> 
> Mary said:
> For Pirsig to say that the Intellectual Level is thinking itself 
> when this seems to surely fly in the face of all he has said 
> before must mean something
> 
> Matt:
> Heh, I suppose, but we have very different senses of the 
> obvious.
> 
> Mary
 		 	   		  
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