Pete Seeger wrote this song as an allegory for LBJ and the Vietnam War. But it applies just as well to Bush and Iraq – or to Obama and the Stimulus.
Tag Archives | Thank You Please May I Have Another
Conan the Avenger?
Behold, a script review of the new Conan movie. (Conical hat tip to AICN.) The reviewer seems to like it, but it doesn’t sound promising at all to me.
SPOILER ALERT: Because of a prophecy that a king will rise from the Cimmerians, the bad guys wipe out the entire Cimmerian people, leaving Conan as the sole surviving Cimmerian to track down the killers one by one for revenge. So it’s basically Kill Bill meets the Massacre of the Innocents.
Needless to say, this bears no resemblance to anything Robert E. Howard wrote; in the books Conan is happy to take revenge here and there for various things, but his main story arc is not one of revenge; and since Howard’s Cimmerians are supposed to be the ancestors of the historical Cimmerians, it makes no sense for them all to be wiped out.
In any case, the archetypal Conan image is not of the hero clanging his sword down on some fellow thug’s head as these screenwriters seem to think; it’s of the hero sneaking into an ancient, mysterious, exotic, ruined, vine-covered, demon-haunted temple to rob it. The whole lush atmosphere of Howard’s stories – the “shining kingdoms … spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars … Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery … Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold …” and “Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west” – has never come close to being captured in any movie version (whether for budgetary reasons, lack of imagination, or both), and this new script promises no improvement.
The reviewer also expresses disdain for the comic-book versions of Conan; but actually most of those have been pretty good (the high points being Marvel’s 1970s series Savage Sword of Conan and the recent Dark Horse series), and far more faithful to the original than this forthcoming mish-mash.
If Angels Were To Govern
The Atrocity of Hope, Part 2
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
A lot of people who voted for Obama probably thought he would be different from his predecessor on the whole kidnapping-people-and-taking-them-to-other-countries-to-be-tortured thing.
Turns out, not so much. (Conical hat tip to Stephan Kinsella.)
Yes he can!
Why I Slam the Mute Button
Just now Rachel Maddow’s show is featuring a clash between Maddow’s economically and historically illiterate assertion that FDR’s domestic programs ended the Great Depression and Mitch McConnell’s economically and historically illiterate assertion that World War II ended the Great Depression. Whee! Left-wing ignoramuses facing off against right-wing ignoramuses! Salvation through slaughtering piglets versus salvation through slaughtering people! Where’s that libertarian channel?
The Atrocity of Hope
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
One reason power corrupts is that it puts people in a position to choose options with which they would ordinarily never be faced. Our new President has just passed a significant milestone on the road to hell, one that he would be unlikely to have passed in ordinary life: he is now a murderer. (Conical hat tip to Manuel Lora and Lew Rockwell.)
I recall a line from that terrific late-80s tv series Wiseguy: “What good is a man who loves his own children but murders someone else’s?”
And while I’m on the subject of great lines from Wiseguy here’s another, from when Sonny (the mobster) finds out that Vinnie (his erstwhile right-hand man) is a federal agent:
Sonny: What do you get out of this, Vinnie, huh? I want to know. What do you get out of this – another pin on your lapel? an upgrade on your pension? Why are you trying to destroy me, man?
Vinnie: It comes with your territory, Sonny. You want a recitation? How about drugs killing kids, and fraud destroying pensions?
Sonny: Oh my god, oh my god. Who do you think you’re working for, man? You want to talk drugs? Let’s talk Agent Orange. Let’s talk LSD. Those are just two of the progressive efforts made on behalf of your friendly employer, Uncle Sam. Want to talk fraud? Let’s talk fraud. Why don’t you try explaining to a farmer why the federal guarantee loans are being recalled? Yeah, you’re the mob – you’re the mob in this room, Vinnie. I’m just your average entrepreneur.