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Gandalf Grey
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When Will America Awaken from "The Bush Ultimatum"?
Submitted by mark karlin on Sat, 08/11/2007 - 7:49am. Editorials
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
If you don't like a thinking-person's action film or don't want to know some
of the details of the just-released "The Bourne Ultimatum," then stop
reading here.
Of course, being BuzzFlash, this is not a movie review of a hot box office
seller, but rather a reflection on its political "message" - and its larger
symbolism as representing the difference between a fictional narrative and
reality.
If you are out of the loop with Hollywood box-office hits, the third sequel
in the red-hot "Bourne" series, starring Matt Damon, is drawing in record
crowds to the theaters this past week.
But there may be more at work than the pulsating "James Bond in search of
his real identity" quality to Matt Damon's rapid-paced survival skills that
is attracting viewers.
According to a Chicago Tribune cultural writer, Julia Keller:
People may be drawn to the film by the promise of thrilling chase scenes,
but what makes it deeply satisfying are three words of dialogue. Admittedly,
audiences haven't even had a chance to hear those words before they fork
over the admission price. Yet good movie dialogue can be prescient; it can
capture the zeitgeist so well that when you hear it for the first time, it
already sounds like an echo -- an echo of what you, and millions of your
fellow countrywomen and countrymen, have been thinking for a while.
The three words: "This isn't us."
They're spoken by CIA officer Pamela Landy (Joan Allen), when asked why
she's helping the bamboozled fugitive known as Jason Bourne (Matt Damon).
She means: Yes, covert action is crucial in a dangerous world, but there is
a line. A line you don't cross. Because if you do, you've broken something
more critical than a window. Something precious and irreplaceable.
The three words summarize the national discomfort over the Abu Ghraib
prison scandal, over the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. It's a
discomfort that knows no party or ideology. It is part of being an American,
of believing in the uniqueness of our ideals.
A movie is just a movie. Occasionally, though, in the midst of a fiction
that's slicing through the streets on hyper-drive, something odd suddenly
shows up in the rearview mirror: reality.
BuzzFlash won't ruin the film, particularly if you aren't familiar with the
prior two Bourne films, but suffice it to say, the bad guys in "The Bourne
Ultimatum" turn out to be a CIA head and Second-in-Command who are running a
black-ops department that is basically the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld
torture-rendition-illegal detention-murder program. The makers of the movie
leave little doubt about that.
Damon, in the three Bourne films, has a been a vulnerable super-killer
trying to find out his real identity and make amends for his actions. In
"The Bourne Ultimatum," he is ultimately assisted, as the Tribune reviewer
alludes to, by a hard-nosed but patriotic top-level CIA official, Pamela
Landy (played with just the right amount of controlled nuance by Joan
Allen).
And that is where the issue of who is a true patriot comes to a head, as the
Tribune critic identifies. For Pamela Landy the sanctioned killing of anyone
who might expose the clandestine black-ops program is "not what she signed
up for." The murder done in the name of America is now being conducted to
protect those who launched the illegal initiative, not to protect the
national security of the nation.
Individuals in the CIA have seized the power of who shall live and who shall
die, and their decisions, in the case of "The Bourne Ultimatum," are subject
to their own personal needs to keep the program secret in order to protect
themselves.
The conversion of Landy from blindly loyal CIA official to patriotic
whistleblower is, indeed, the route so many Americans have traveled since
9/11.
"The Bourne Ultimatum," of course, is Hollywood fast-paced fantasy, based on
a series of fictional suspense novels by Robert Ludlum. When you leave the
theater, you are eased back into the reality of everyday life in America:
family problems, cellphone calls, people walking on the street, the lure of
restaurants and stores.
And like "The Bourne Ultimatum," America has been held hostage to a
fictional narrative since 9/11 that has virtually nothing to do with the
reality at hand when it comes to America's needs, including our national
security. The continued acceptance of the Bush fictional narrative about
Iraq is like being in a darkened movie theater, in which reality only seeps
in when someone opens the rear door and a splash of light momentarily enters
into the darkened room.
A majority of the members of Congress continues to pretend that America's
national security can only be protected by supporting the deeply and
profoundly detached from reality fiction peddled daily by the Bush
Administration. But that fiction is a destructive one, because it is so
divorced from reality that it leaves us as a nation more vulnerable to
terrorism with each passing day. It is a fiction created to hide other
political and personal agendas.
But one day, Congress - should no patriots like Pamela Landy emerge (and
let's
not forget the bionic Jason Bourne who seeks to restore his own purity of
motive) - is going to have to leave the movie theater of politics showing
"The Bush Ultimatum" and deal with the wreckage that has been left in the
wake of running a nation's foreign and domestic policy based on powerful
speciously constructed narratives that steam roll over the pavement of
reality.
When the credits for "The Bourne Ultimatum" roll, we have been temporarily
given the hope that the evil "Masters of the Universe" (read Cheney, Bush,
Gonzales and Rumsfeld) have been exposed and brought down.
But then you realize, as your eyes hit the first news stand and you read
about Congress giving the discredited perjurer and "torture boy" Alberto
Gonzales control over spying on Americans without a warrant -- and that
generals are predicting an indefinite stay in Iraq -- that reality is far
more harsh than fiction.
The Bush handlers - particularly Rove and Cheney - offer us a fiction of a
noble, benevolent empire. "The Bourne Ultimatum" symbolically reveals the
tarnished and betrayed integrity of our nation that has been compromised by
the reality of what is being done in our name and disguised, with the help
of the corporate media, by an endlessly unfolding "Scheherazade" White House
narrative. It does it in an adrenaline-paced thriller that tells a symbolic
story.
Isn't it tragically ironic that in a Hollywood movie -- a fantasy -- reality
and morality triumph over men of dastardly hubris, while when we leave the
fictional film we enter a world not of political truth, but a world of
another deadly fiction - one in which the cover-up continues?
In the real world we walk back into, the masters of war and diabolical
schemes that cut the heart out of our Constitution are still casting a spell
upon the nation.
Reality will, one day, hit America very hard, alas, very hard indeed.
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
Submitted by mark karlin on Sat, 08/11/2007 - 7:49am. Editorials
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
If you don't like a thinking-person's action film or don't want to know some
of the details of the just-released "The Bourne Ultimatum," then stop
reading here.
Of course, being BuzzFlash, this is not a movie review of a hot box office
seller, but rather a reflection on its political "message" - and its larger
symbolism as representing the difference between a fictional narrative and
reality.
If you are out of the loop with Hollywood box-office hits, the third sequel
in the red-hot "Bourne" series, starring Matt Damon, is drawing in record
crowds to the theaters this past week.
But there may be more at work than the pulsating "James Bond in search of
his real identity" quality to Matt Damon's rapid-paced survival skills that
is attracting viewers.
According to a Chicago Tribune cultural writer, Julia Keller:
People may be drawn to the film by the promise of thrilling chase scenes,
but what makes it deeply satisfying are three words of dialogue. Admittedly,
audiences haven't even had a chance to hear those words before they fork
over the admission price. Yet good movie dialogue can be prescient; it can
capture the zeitgeist so well that when you hear it for the first time, it
already sounds like an echo -- an echo of what you, and millions of your
fellow countrywomen and countrymen, have been thinking for a while.
The three words: "This isn't us."
They're spoken by CIA officer Pamela Landy (Joan Allen), when asked why
she's helping the bamboozled fugitive known as Jason Bourne (Matt Damon).
She means: Yes, covert action is crucial in a dangerous world, but there is
a line. A line you don't cross. Because if you do, you've broken something
more critical than a window. Something precious and irreplaceable.
The three words summarize the national discomfort over the Abu Ghraib
prison scandal, over the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. It's a
discomfort that knows no party or ideology. It is part of being an American,
of believing in the uniqueness of our ideals.
A movie is just a movie. Occasionally, though, in the midst of a fiction
that's slicing through the streets on hyper-drive, something odd suddenly
shows up in the rearview mirror: reality.
BuzzFlash won't ruin the film, particularly if you aren't familiar with the
prior two Bourne films, but suffice it to say, the bad guys in "The Bourne
Ultimatum" turn out to be a CIA head and Second-in-Command who are running a
black-ops department that is basically the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld
torture-rendition-illegal detention-murder program. The makers of the movie
leave little doubt about that.
Damon, in the three Bourne films, has a been a vulnerable super-killer
trying to find out his real identity and make amends for his actions. In
"The Bourne Ultimatum," he is ultimately assisted, as the Tribune reviewer
alludes to, by a hard-nosed but patriotic top-level CIA official, Pamela
Landy (played with just the right amount of controlled nuance by Joan
Allen).
And that is where the issue of who is a true patriot comes to a head, as the
Tribune critic identifies. For Pamela Landy the sanctioned killing of anyone
who might expose the clandestine black-ops program is "not what she signed
up for." The murder done in the name of America is now being conducted to
protect those who launched the illegal initiative, not to protect the
national security of the nation.
Individuals in the CIA have seized the power of who shall live and who shall
die, and their decisions, in the case of "The Bourne Ultimatum," are subject
to their own personal needs to keep the program secret in order to protect
themselves.
The conversion of Landy from blindly loyal CIA official to patriotic
whistleblower is, indeed, the route so many Americans have traveled since
9/11.
"The Bourne Ultimatum," of course, is Hollywood fast-paced fantasy, based on
a series of fictional suspense novels by Robert Ludlum. When you leave the
theater, you are eased back into the reality of everyday life in America:
family problems, cellphone calls, people walking on the street, the lure of
restaurants and stores.
And like "The Bourne Ultimatum," America has been held hostage to a
fictional narrative since 9/11 that has virtually nothing to do with the
reality at hand when it comes to America's needs, including our national
security. The continued acceptance of the Bush fictional narrative about
Iraq is like being in a darkened movie theater, in which reality only seeps
in when someone opens the rear door and a splash of light momentarily enters
into the darkened room.
A majority of the members of Congress continues to pretend that America's
national security can only be protected by supporting the deeply and
profoundly detached from reality fiction peddled daily by the Bush
Administration. But that fiction is a destructive one, because it is so
divorced from reality that it leaves us as a nation more vulnerable to
terrorism with each passing day. It is a fiction created to hide other
political and personal agendas.
But one day, Congress - should no patriots like Pamela Landy emerge (and
let's
not forget the bionic Jason Bourne who seeks to restore his own purity of
motive) - is going to have to leave the movie theater of politics showing
"The Bush Ultimatum" and deal with the wreckage that has been left in the
wake of running a nation's foreign and domestic policy based on powerful
speciously constructed narratives that steam roll over the pavement of
reality.
When the credits for "The Bourne Ultimatum" roll, we have been temporarily
given the hope that the evil "Masters of the Universe" (read Cheney, Bush,
Gonzales and Rumsfeld) have been exposed and brought down.
But then you realize, as your eyes hit the first news stand and you read
about Congress giving the discredited perjurer and "torture boy" Alberto
Gonzales control over spying on Americans without a warrant -- and that
generals are predicting an indefinite stay in Iraq -- that reality is far
more harsh than fiction.
The Bush handlers - particularly Rove and Cheney - offer us a fiction of a
noble, benevolent empire. "The Bourne Ultimatum" symbolically reveals the
tarnished and betrayed integrity of our nation that has been compromised by
the reality of what is being done in our name and disguised, with the help
of the corporate media, by an endlessly unfolding "Scheherazade" White House
narrative. It does it in an adrenaline-paced thriller that tells a symbolic
story.
Isn't it tragically ironic that in a Hollywood movie -- a fantasy -- reality
and morality triumph over men of dastardly hubris, while when we leave the
fictional film we enter a world not of political truth, but a world of
another deadly fiction - one in which the cover-up continues?
In the real world we walk back into, the masters of war and diabolical
schemes that cut the heart out of our Constitution are still casting a spell
upon the nation.
Reality will, one day, hit America very hard, alas, very hard indeed.
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson