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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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 Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 9:12 am Post subject: |
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And what are your thoughts on Tiger Beer's asserting Hollywood cultivates goodwill abroad...? Anyone have any evidence to cite to back up this claim? How about helping me see Tiger Beer's nice, neat separation of "foreign policy" and "economics" more clearly while we are at it?
Marxists have, for a century, elaborated on this link. I do not accept Marxism's reducing everything to this. But I do not see how we can separate these two things anymore, either. Indeed, no professional historian does. Yet here they are, according to Tiger Beer's counterargument: American foreign policy and exclusively American foreign-policy explains why people hate us; but American economics is one of the main reasons people like us and want to live here. I cannot follow that, On the other hand. Can you?
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I am not going to defend every single thing that Tiger Beer said, as we are two different people and I originally joined this discussion simply to refute the characterization of him as someone who bases his wouldview on simple-minded marxism and the X-Files.
As for Hollywood promoting goodwill toward America: probably to some degree, though again, it's not anywhere near being pivotal, in my view. Anyone in Asia, Africa, or South America who watched almost any Hollywood movie would probably get the idea that the USA has a far higher standard of living than the country they live in. Same if they were watching a movie set in Canada, Australia, or most parts of western Europe. But when Mr. Kim and Mrs. Kim in Seoul are deciding whether or not to relocate their family to New York, I doubt the conversation focusses too much, if at all, on the wonderful scenes of abundance they saw in Maid In Manhattan.
In my experience, a lot of Koreans I know who have spent time in or moved to the USA did so in order to take up some sort of academic position at a university. I would imagine that, prior to moving, they talked to people already living in the univeristy town, in order to find out if life there would be to there tastes. What they heard from these people was probably the deciding factor in determining whether or not to move.
Again, I don't know what Tiger Beer thinks about this. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 9:21 am Post subject: |
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| Tiger Beer wrote: |
Gopher,
Obviously, there are others on this thread besides just you and the people who disagree with you. One even supports you, and I'll copy and paste from page 4 (as it looks like you missed that page). Our other fellow Americans suggests the following which I was referring to:
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| We need to combat this by stopping the flow of antiAmerican ideas out of America. IMO in the case of antiAmerican movies and TV shows advertisers and businesses should boycott the people responsible for making them. And if we can't change their minds by controlling the information we still have the most powerful military in the world |
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| Hollywood is definately a problem when it comes to sowing the seeds of anti Americanism around the world, but the bigger problem is the LIBERAL MEDIA. Like he said right now the media is spreading the stories about the CIA around the world. This is just dirty muckraking like gopher said, and it should stay in the past. It was the same for abu ghraib, and I think the journalists who published the photos are borderline on treason. It's incredible that we're in the middle of a war but the media is still allowing to say anything they like irregardless of the consequences. There are some responsible journalists who think carefully about the type of things they cover (i.e. Bill O'Reilly) and I think FoxNews probably has the right kind of philosophy about this. The other ones should make some voluntary standards for not passing on news about America that can be misunderstood or twisted by the antiAmerican crowd. If the problem continues maybe the government could do something under the war laws, because ultimately it helps the terrorists which is treason. |
When I read this, it sounds like this particular poster would strongly prefer to see the U.S. adopt a North Korean approach to governing its people. |
When I wrote my previous comments, saying that Tiger had never said anyone on this thread had called for censorhip, I had forgotten about the comments from Page 4, quoted above. Having now re-read them, I can say that, yes, Lie Bot was coming pretty damned close to calling for shutting down free speech, with his comments about the media being "allowing to say anything they like" and "borderline treason". And Tiger was more than justified in pointing this out. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 10:46 am Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
| I am not going to defend every single thing that Tiger Beer said, as we are two different people and I originally joined this discussion simply to refute the characterization of him as someone who bases his wouldview on simple-minded marxism and the X-Files. |
Refute it all you like. If you are taking your cue on "American foreign policy" from Ron Paul's charges in the political debates, paraphrasing them, sometimes even verbatim, then you are taking your cue from Chalmers Johnson's muckraking and populist "blowback" triology, and you are indeed basing your worldview on simplistic Marxian antiAmericanism and also The X-Files' military-industrial complex assumptions -- consciously or not, it makes no difference to me, because these are more or less the contemporary sources of this wholly unnuanced and indeed unimaginative line of thinking.
Frankly, it is about as simplistic and unsophisticated an argument as I have ever heard. And he complicates it by strawmanning my position into an absurd "either-American-foreign-policy-or-Hollywood" choice that I never presented anywhere. And I cannot believe that you would endorse this, even part of it. But it is what it is, On the other hand.
| On the other hand wrote: |
| I had forgotten about the comments from Page 4, quoted above... |
That poster behaves an awful lot like a troll, at least in my view, On the other hand. I said "seriously" advocated such a thing, if you recall. But I get the feeling people are responding emotionally to the issue I raised, doing all they can to suppress it, and not actually reading my posts, so I doubt you caught my "seriously" qualifier. But if you want to reach out and assign credibility or allege other Americans commonly voice such thoughts, and that this somehow taints my position by association and also strengthens Tiger Beer's, then that is your business.
But you would be wrong and I would be disappointed. But c'est la vie. Still, it has nothing to do with me, it has no relationship with my arguments on this thread -- that in spite of your and others' vigorous denials, some in Hollywood enthusiastically and systematically hammer nails in the coffin, so to speak, and even if in some cases it might be ten obvious nails and in others it might only be one subtle nail, they remain nails-in-the-coffin nevertheless and are therefore significant and integral to the equation (coffins cannot remain shut without all their nails, On the other hand) -- and I would appreciate your and Tiger Beer's articulating your "justified" objections to such posters as this directly if such issues arise in the future.
Unfortunate that you would minimize and potentially even dismiss the powerful propaganda device partisans of all stripes have recognized since as early as Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin and Strike, Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, and the United Fruit Company's Why the Kremlin Hates Bananas, to cite but three or four famous examples, as not being of much importance at all where antiAmericanism is concerned. Or that contemporary filmmakers like Michael Moore and Oliver Stone are not fully conscious of this. Or that the far left as represented by William Blum and Chalmers Johnson -- Blum, who moved to Hollywood and tried to hitch a ride with Stone in order to get his "worse-than-the-Nazi-Holocaust" message to larger, global audiences, and Johnson, who has done his best to descredit Hollywood, "the empire's propaganda and recruiting service," from the other side of the argument I presented here -- is not either. Indeed, it has expended much energy and many pages on the issue.
But that is certainly your prerogative. And it is moot now, as I have already ceded the issue and the thread, and will not develop this argument further. That would pressuppose that you, Mindmetoo, or Tiger Beer could be convinced -- and would apparently be a waste of time.
Last edited by Gopher on Sun Jul 01, 2007 1:36 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 1:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Unfortunate that you would minimize and potentially even dismiss the powerful propaganda device partisans of all stripes have recognized since as early as Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin and Strike, Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, and the United Fruit Company's Why the Kremlin Hates Bananas, to cite but three or four famous examples, as not being of much importance at all where antiAmericanism is concerned. |
I have only seen one of the films in your list, Triumph Of The Will. And I don't think it made one whit's worth of difference either way as to how things went in Nazi Germany.
The entire Nazi propaganda apparatus in its totality, including films, newsreels, books, school curricula, pamphlets, speeches, radio shows, etc, quite likely had an effect. However, that stuff was being bombarded onto the German populace 24/7, in what can only be described as a closed media system. I don't see anything remotely comparable happening with Hollywood's anti-American output today.
Last edited by On the other hand on Sun Jul 01, 2007 1:44 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 1:43 pm Post subject: ... |
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| Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will |
Oopsy! You brought up the Nazis. Remember your rule? You lose.  |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 2:57 pm Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
| ...of little practical significance...[not] one whit's worth of difference either way. |
I understand your position.
You seemed skeptical when I reported Chalmers Johnson's position on the same issue I have raised here, so I will enter his complaints about the Pentagon-Hollywood proAmerican propaganda machine onto this thread in a day or so, as a matter of following-up. Interested to hear your response to that.
In the meantime, what about this...?
| Walter LaFeber wrote: |
| [United Fruit] began with enviable connections to the Eisenhower administration. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his former New York law firm, Sullivan and Cromwell, had long represented the company. Allen Dulles, head of the CIA, had served on UFCO's board of trustees. Ed Whitman, the company's top public relations officer, was the husband of Ann Whitman, President Eisenhower's private secretary. (Ed Whitman produced a film, "Why the Kremlin Hates Bananas," that pictured UFCO fighting in the front trenches of the cold war.) The fruit firm's success in linking the taking of its lands to the evil of international communism was later described by one UFCO official as "the Disney version of the episode." But the company's efforts paid off... |
Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions, 2d ed., 120-121.
Would you say that Why the Kremlin Hates Bananas, being a political film, and therefore not possibly making "a whit's worth of difference either way," even belongs in this narrative? |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 3:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| Earlier, Kuros wrote: |
| Moore had openly declared that Americans 'are possibly the dumbest people on the planet.' |
Calling Americans 'the dumbest people on the planet,' is an example of anti-Americanism. I'm not going to insult Canada to drive the point home, but surely you can think of some instances, on this board even, of blatant anti-Canada/Canadian sentiment. |
I think you're quote mining. Does Moore really think that or is he merely being sarcastic? I think at the end of F.9/11 where he talks about the desire of Americans to serve and defend their nation but they simply ask their leaders to be honest sums up his attitude towards Americans.
Now, if a Canadian said "Americans are dumb!" and really believed it, that would surely be anti-American. If an American quipped that exact phrase in response to some perceived government action and the ease with which his own people were duped, that would be fair social commentary.
I'm looking for a good objective definition. From my tarry, all I see is an argument that the left criticizing the government is anti-American.
So, if Michael Moore uses lies and distortions to criticize the Bush government, that's anti-American. And if Ann Coulter does the same thing, is that anti-American? |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 4:06 pm Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| Earlier, Kuros wrote: |
| Moore had openly declared that Americans 'are possibly the dumbest people on the planet.' |
Calling Americans 'the dumbest people on the planet,' is an example of anti-Americanism. I'm not going to insult Canada to drive the point home, but surely you can think of some instances, on this board even, of blatant anti-Canada/Canadian sentiment. |
I think you're quote mining. Does Moore really think that or is he merely being sarcastic? I think at the end of F.9/11 where he talks about the desire of Americans to serve and defend their nation but they simply ask their leaders to be honest sums up his attitude towards Americans.
Now, if a Canadian said "Americans are dumb!" and really believed it, that would surely be anti-American. |
Look at his movies, he ought to know whether Americans are dumb or not, because his movies are very popular among Americans. His movies are distortions and hardly journalistic in any sense of the term.
Again, if I can't use what a person says or how a person acts to judge their character, what point of reference am I supposed to come from? 
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| If an American quipped that exact phrase in response to some perceived government action and the ease with which his own people were duped, that would be fair social commentary. |
That's asinine.
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| I'm looking for a good objective definition. From my tarry, all I see is an argument that the left criticizing the government is anti-American. |
You're not looking for a good objective definition, because all you've done is asked a difficult question and shot down those who have come up with responses. Again, if I can't judge a person by their words and actions, how else does one judge? |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 4:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| Look at his movies, he ought to know whether Americans are dumb or not, because his movies are very popular among Americans. His movies are distortions and hardly journalistic in any sense of the term. |
That's circular reasoning.
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| Would he? I've always been amazed that the very people forced to live in the worst parts of town, go to the worst schools, and who have it the hardest are always the first to step up, to defend us. They serve so that we don't have to. They offer to give up their lives so that we can be free. It is remarkably their gift to us. And all they ask for in return is that we never send them into harm's way unless it is absolutely necessary. Will they ever trust us again? |
Is that an anti-American comment?
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| Again, if I can't use what a person says or how a person acts to judge their character, what point of reference am I supposed to come from? |
If you make the claim something is X, I would hope you have a good objective definition. Someone calling his own people stupid is "anti-American" to you but it is social commentary to me, even if wrong.
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| If an American quipped that exact phrase in response to some perceived government action and the ease with which his own people were duped, that would be fair social commentary. |
That's asinine. |
Why?
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| You're not looking for a good objective definition, because all you've done is asked a difficult question and shot down those who have come up with responses. |
Because your definition is not objective. "I know it when I see it" is not an objective definition. You can show me 100 examples of bad art but you're still not defining "bad art". Are you saying you can come up with no objective definition? I provided mine.
Non-Americans: a dislike of American people simply because they are American.
Americans: Actions against the basic rights framed in the constitution.
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| Again, if I can't judge a person by their words and actions, how else does one judge? |
Who said we're not using that for our definition? Clearly, those things are used within a definition. What's is the definition of a "quack" medical practitioner? One who prescribes treatments for which there is no scientific evidence and a lack of biologic plausibility. What is a yellow journalist? One who presents one side and consciously ignores dissenting facts. Moore is clearly a yellow journalist. But is that "anti-American"? Is yellow journalism directed at the current government "anti-American"? If so, Hearst would be anti-American. Rush Limbaugh would have been anti-American during the Clinton administration.
I do not like George Bush. I think he's stupid and incompetent. I like the American political system and I like Americans. (I have no Canadian friends in Seoul, my friends here are all Americans.) Does being critical, even irrationally critical of the Bush administration, make me anti-American? |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 4:11 am Post subject: |
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Gopher quoted Walter LeFeber:
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| (Ed Whitman produced a film, "Why the Kremlin Hates Bananas," that pictured UFCO fighting in the front trenches of the cold war.) The fruit firm's success in linking the taking of its lands to the evil of international communism was later described by one UFCO official as "the Disney version of the episode." But the company's efforts paid off... |
"Why The Kremlin Hates Bananas" does not turn up on an imdb search, so I'm guessing that this wasn't a major, feature length studio production. Furthermore, LeFeber lists it in parentheses, separate from the rest of the text, which I take to mean that "the Disney version of the episode" refers not to the film, but to United Fruit's overall campaign.
As such, I think the analysis I applied to Triumph Of The Will would probably work here as well. A short film could be part of an overall media and public relations blitz, which in its entirety might have some effect on swaying public opinion. However, if I had been an anti-American activist at the time, I probably would not have wasted a lot of effort organizing conferences to denounce one film as being a significant part of the problem. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 9:49 am Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
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| Would he? I've always been amazed that the very people forced to live in the worst parts of town, go to the worst schools, and who have it the hardest are always the first to step up, to defend us. They serve so that we don't have to. They offer to give up their lives so that we can be free. It is remarkably their gift to us. And all they ask for in return is that we never send them into harm's way unless it is absolutely necessary. Will they ever trust us again? |
Is that an anti-American comment? |
No. The one where he calls Americans stupid is, though. I don't recall having stated any other position.
| mindmetoo wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Again, if I can't use what a person says or how a person acts to judge their character, what point of reference am I supposed to come from? |
If you make the claim something is X, I would hope you have a good objective definition. Someone calling his own people stupid is "anti-American" to you but it is social commentary to me, even if wrong. |
It may or may not be social commentary to call a whole nation of people stupid, but it is certainly anti-American. Do you think that just because a derogatory comment may or may not be true, that it makes the comment less derogatory? Note that Moore chose his wording. He did not call Americans uneducated or misguided or ignorant. He called them stupid.
| mindmetoo wrote: |
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| If an American quipped that exact phrase in response to some perceived government action and the ease with which his own people were duped, that would be fair social commentary. |
That's asinine. |
Why? |
See above.
| mindmetoo wrote: |
| Quote: |
| You're not looking for a good objective definition, because all you've done is asked a difficult question and shot down those who have come up with responses. |
Because your definition is not objective. "I know it when I see it" is not an objective definition. You can show me 100 examples of bad art but you're still not defining "bad art". Are you saying you can come up with no objective definition? I provided mine.
Non-Americans: a dislike of American people simply because they are American.
Americans: Actions against the basic rights framed in the constitution. |
The guidelines you put out are good ones, but I think they're just guidelines. The real problem I have with your guidelines in particular is that Americans operate under different criteria than non-Americans when it comes to being anti-American. Why is that?
I have no urgent need of an objective definition because anti-Americanism is not a crime and cannot be prosecuted in a court of law. As an American often critical of the government myself, I can often tell the difference between when someone says something anti-American and when someone is merely being critical of the government. Moore often explicitly sticks to the latter, but he has goofed up before and actually revealed himself to be anti-American, as I will explain below.
| mindmetoo wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Again, if I can't judge a person by their words and actions, how else does one judge? |
Who said we're not using that for our definition? Clearly, those things are used within a definition. What's is the definition of a "quack" medical practitioner? One who prescribes treatments for which there is no scientific evidence and a lack of biologic plausibility. What is a yellow journalist? One who presents one side and consciously ignores dissenting facts. Moore is clearly a yellow journalist. But is that "anti-American"? Is yellow journalism directed at the current government "anti-American"? If so, Hearst would be anti-American. Rush Limbaugh would have been anti-American during the Clinton administration.
I do not like George Bush. I think he's stupid and incompetent. I like the American political system and I like Americans. (I have no Canadian friends in Seoul, my friends here are all Americans.) Does being critical, even irrationally critical of the Bush administration, make me anti-American? |
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It depends on what your criticisms of Bush are. If you criticize Bush for authorizing torture, that would not necessarily make you anti-American. If you criticize Bush for not wiretapping enough Americans or not detaining American citizens, you might be anti-American by your own definition.
Moore is most certainly a yellow journalist. His characterization of America is one-sided and negative, whereas he is pollyanna concerning other nations or regimes (be it Canada in regards to Gun Control in Bowling for Columbine, the Taliban or Iraq in Fahrenheit 9/11, or the French and Cuban health care systems in Sicko). He is against America. I hear in Sicko, he actually makes the point that at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detainees receive free medical treatment. If they didn't receive free medical treatment, America would be in contravention of the Geneva Conventions. But apparently, Moore seems to imply that the American government is too incompetent or something else to supply their people with the medical care that detainees receive.
Now, we could argue over whether this consistent pattern constitutes anti-Americanism or not, but I have provided you with the quote showing Moore bragging to Europeans how stupid Americans are. Having seen his movies, marketed primarily to Americans, it seems to me Moore is being quite honest when he proclaims Americans are stupid. The fact that the movie is also directed towards the rest of the world indicates to me that he is anti-American.
The salient point here is that Moore may or may not provide social commentary even while he is being anti-American. It is likely that many Americans are stupid, and it might be social commentary (not the most sophisticated kind) to say so, but to say that all Americans are stupid in front of an audience of non-Americans, who were Western Europeans at this day in age in particular, seems to me to be anti-American. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 12:08 pm Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
| "Why The Kremlin Hates Bananas" does not turn up on an imdb search... |
My point is this: most who describe United Fruit's role in PBSUCCESS cite this film as an apparently critical part of the story. I have not heard anyone lecture on PBSUCCESS without mentioning the film, either. Thomas McCann discusses it in his memoirs.
Apparently this film matters more than "a whit" to these people. You may make counterfactual assertions until the cows come home, On the other hand. The fact is, this history unfolded in this way, and in this particular way, this film played its part.
I forgot to mention that most have not watched this film (although McCann must have). I also have been unable to locate it anywhere. Leftists like LaFeber (he calls himself one of "the New Left," others in the New Left like Buzzanco call him one of their own, so please do not object to my calling him "a leftist") discuss it as if this company propaganda piece were an integral part of the story, and therefore partly drove American policymakers' perceptions as United Fruit wanted.
LaFeber is aiming to establish the truth of this assertion, of course...
| Karl Marx wrote: |
| ...the bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of Modern Industry and of the world market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative state, exclusive political sway. The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. |
In any case, I do not doubt that United Fruit's lobbyists showed this film to at least some in official Washington. But definitely not State's Bureau of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs, who was always quite hostile to the company. And I know that Ed Whitman's wife served as Eisenhower's secretary. But I do not know that she somehow got the President to watch this film. And no one else knows this, either, although many allege it must have been true -- LaFeber seems to employ innuendo in this case, where I have excerpted him, above. Yet here is nothing in the famous Whitman File, a large treasure of Eisenhower Administration documents at the Eisenhower Library, to show this. And I can assure you the Whiteman File shows quite a lot.
However this may be, I believe that United Fruit showed this film to at least some Congressmen and others in official Washington, namely journalists and news editors. And, yes, I believe Why the Kremlin Hates Bananas played its part in shaping perceptions and contributing to the overall momentum that led to PBSUCCESS.
I further believe that most historians are correct in citing it as significant enough to belong in the narrative. You might not understand that professional writers like LaFeber must constantly edit and condense their narratives. Word limitations. The final cut usually contains the essential, at least according to the author -- and the same goes for filmmakers, who deal with time and not word limitations. Nothing appears randomly and everything that appears is important.
All of this, incidentally, has nothing to do with antiAmericanism or Hollywood's antiAmericanist products, which I am no longer expending time and energy on on this thread. This merely goes to show the relevance of film to perceptions, politics, and political history -- antiAmerican or otherwise. It is, indeed, a hotly-contested battleground in the ideological hearts-and-minds war. And it is hardly the ineffective tool you seem to want to dismiss it as, On the other hand. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 7:34 am Post subject: |
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My point is this: most who describe United Fruit's role in PBSUCCESS cite this film as an apparently critical part of the story. I have not heard anyone lecture on PBSUCCESS without mentioning the film, either. Thomas McCann discusses it in his memoirs.
Apparently this film matters more than "a whit" to these people. You may make counterfactual assertions until the cows come home, On the other hand. The fact is, this history unfolded in this way, and in this particular way, this film played its part.
I forgot to mention that most have not watched this film (although McCann must have). I also have been unable to locate it anywhere. Leftists like LaFeber (he calls himself one of "the New Left," others in the New Left like Buzzanco call him one of their own, so please do not object to my calling him "a leftist") discuss it as if this company propaganda piece were an integral part of the story, and therefore partly drove American policymakers' perceptions as United Fruit wanted.
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Well, let me ask you this then...
Suppose that today, the kremlin hates bananas film were to be distributed throughout Latin America, in the same manner that Oliver Stone's films are. Not part of any larger lobbying campaign, with United Fruit honchos sitting next to you to put an extra spin on things, but simply as just another movie, advertised in the papers and screened in the cinemas like any other film. Do you think it would have any influence on making how Latin American audiences perceived the United Fruit Company? |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 2:19 pm Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
| Suppose that today, the kremlin hates bananas film were to be distributed throughout Latin America... |
United Fruit produced this film for specific American audiences. Your hypothetical goes pretty far off point.
How about we return to those contemporary American filmmakers who produce antiAmerican product for foreign and domestic audiences, to influence people's perceptions vis-a-vis America so that, they hope, increasingly larger numbers of people will share their worldview and have "the right idea" about the United States and American foreign policy.
Still, however, I do not expect you to follow my thinking on this. It is clear you oppose it and will continue to oppose it. My point now is that polical films make more than "one whit's worth of difference" and have more than "little" practical significance with respect to opinion-making, in and outside of America.
Did you know that Jonathan Haslam began The Nixon Administration and the Death of Allende's Chile (London: Verso, 2005) with these words...?
| Jonathan Haslam wrote: |
| Readers not strangers to this subject will doubtless remember the disturbing scenes in Costa-Gavras's film Missing, which I watched at the time it was released, seated with Chilean exiles who relived a trauma they had never anticipated...[my emphasis][xiii] |
Haslam not only watched this film with a number of Chilean exiles. He also seemed to assume that this film made such an impact on shaping peoples' perceptions with respect to this historical event that they would doubtless remember Costa-Gavras's historical reconstruction. This film, then, influenced peoples' worldview on the Chilean coup d'etat and America's role in it. Haslam, a British citizen, and the Chileans he referenced apparently accepted what Costa-Gavras told them about it not only as an authoritative voice, but also as the truth.
You do not need to go so far as to ask someone like former Vice-President Al Gore how important and effective film is as a tool to get out a political message and influence large numbers of peoples' thinking on this or that, On the other hand. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 3:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
The guidelines you put out are good ones, but I think they're just guidelines. The real problem I have with your guidelines in particular is that Americans operate under different criteria than non-Americans when it comes to being anti-American. Why is that? |
For the same reason I can call a member of my family an idiot but you can't. Or why Jews can make jokes about being Jewish. Or why black people can use the N word. That's a whole other debate, surely.
| Quote: |
I have no urgent need of an objective definition because anti-Americanism is not a crime and cannot be prosecuted in a court of law. As an American often critical of the government myself, I can often tell the difference between when someone says something anti-American and when someone is merely being critical of the government. Moore often explicitly sticks to the latter, but he has goofed up before and actually revealed himself to be anti-American, as I will explain below.
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If you have no definition then you set yourself up for the moving goal post fallacy. You can simply change your definition anytime an argument is presented. Being a quack is not a crime either but in skepticism where we operate under rules of evidence and logic, we have good definitions. A good definition of something is a basis for debate. |
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