Letters to the Editor
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surprise?
In many respects I appreciated Goldberg's article. (I confess I skipped over all of the plot-revealing paragraphs as I intend to see it and, well, it hasn't been released.) I am after all a Salon subscriber and get my daily fill of analysis from many sources and derive a great deal of pleasure from that. But, mostly I left feeling confused: Is this piece a call to action? A passive critique? A chance for Ms. Goldberg to make a trip to her bank this week?
I don't mean to be too cynical--rather, I don't mean to be cynical at all. But, honestly, are we supposed to be surprised that the neo-con pundits are assailing Spielberg, of all people, for coloring nuanced portraits of historical events? That is the neo-con editorialists' stock in trade, is it not?
I would like to use this forum to ask Salon to begin de-emphasizing analysis and begin emphasizing practical theories for dealing with and replacing the horribly misguided attempts of both left and right. The system is obviously broken. Any regular reader of Salon is already a member of that choir. Can't we be discussing alternate ways of being citizens and of governing in these spaces rather than blatering away about the foibles of "the bad guys".
I would loved to have read instead a deep dicussion of what was right with Munich's lesson, and some ideas about how we might introduce that into the public sphere.
I'm a fan of Ms. Goldberg's and of Salon, but after awhile it's all going through the motions. Our country is not in a position to withstand such passivity.
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Thank you, sort of, Spielberg
We would all certainly have profited more from this movie if he had been honest enough to include the Norway murder, but this is still a good beginning. Maybe a few more people will now begin to realize that absolute power -- be it in the hands of traumatized Zionists or braindead Bushco -- corrupts absolutely. Oversight and the rule of law are our only hope for peace and justice in our lifetimes.
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Michelle Goldberg's views
I have not seen the film. Yet from the review, one can see where Ms Goldberg's sympathies lie. One sentence gives it away: "Yet even this much introspection and regret is considered verboten among some of Israel's most doctrinaire (or at least its loudest) partisans." There is an English word: "forbidden". The use of German here - with respect to Israeli supporters, not to do with the film, strongly suggests that the new, vile canard, so prevalent in European (I am a British Jew) and Muslim circles - Israel=Nazi Germany - is alive and well in her head.
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imaginary bias
That Philip Horowitz would find anti-Israeli bias in Michelle Goldberg's use of the word "verboten" in her column, even accusing her of equating Israel with Nazi Germany! - is laughable. It reminds me of Woody Allen in "Annie Hall," suspecting anti-semitism when he hears the question "D'you eat?" as "Jew Eat?"
The use of "verboten" in this context is just a common expression, Mr. Horowitz. Just as saying that something is "taboo," instead of saying "against social custom," doesn't automatically imply any bias for or against Polynesians.
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An unassailable platitude from the heights of the Big Rock Candy Mountain?
I suppose one could couch anything having to do with the middle east in unassailable platitudes such as 'anger is bad, violence is bad.' I'm not entirely sure that's useful, insightful or instructional. Or even artful. It seems like an awfully far way to go for Mr. Spielberg to make that point. One would think that such moral vacillating would find acceptance in movies about Native American atrocities against unarmed women and children or perhaps gangs of recently freed slaves who went on raping and pillaging. But of course that won't happen. Because we are not talking about facts, we're talking about belief systems. And no one can tinker with those. And I suppose we won't be ripping a page from Churchill who said [more or less] that in perilous times good men are called on to do very dark things. Maybe that's the real moral issue one should explore. Not the sense that everything is everything and everyone is a warcrminal and if only we all just got along in a drum circle. Maybe instead the issue is what do you when you are pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed? I'm waiting for Mr. Spielberg's movie version of 'Raisin the Sun', aren't you?
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David Brooks accidently or intentionally misleading?
You are too generous in your assessment of David Brooks - facts never get in his way when promoting the latest right-wing attack.
Like most of his ilk, he never accidentally misleads - he intentionally lies. All the time.
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The first law of human intercourse
Years ago, Malcom X angered a lot of Americans when he said, in response to President Kennedy's assassination, "The rooster has come home to roost...America is a violent society."
From their earliest exposition, human societies have expressed mayhem and violence, often times with more cruelity and degradation than any of its animal ancesters.
The fact humans suffer from a keen sense of self-delusion when it comes visiting mayhem and violence on its brethen, doesn't diminish its consequences.
Malcom X was wrong about America...all human societies are violent. Lastly, I find it ironic that our nation's neo-cons are so critical of a MOVIE featuring our ugly side, when their leadership brought us the quagmire of violence and mayhem that is Iraq.
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Did you make up that "Stephen Rifkin" letter?
I love it! I'm still laughing! A guy who looks at several million dead Indians and sees a John Wayne movie about atrocites against the settlers (oops, there's that word)! A guy who conjures up Nat Turner-esque versions of dangerous darkies, doubtless previously happy as slaves! A guy who makes "drum circle" and "everything is everything" references to tweak a liberal straw man! Confess--you made this joker up to get laughs, right? I mean, no one really sounds that Captain's Quarters/Drudge Report/Ann Coulter-ish in real life...
Thanks for the early-morning laugh. I really needed it.
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Dear Doc Amazing
That's exactly my point. One can't assail someone's belief system, even a little. If one is committed to the assertion that in the mideast that there is no right or wrong that one man's freedom fighter is another man's Rosa Parks and that, as a matter of laziness, like yours, it really doesn't matter in the end as long as your belief system is maintained then this is what you get. Your reaction to my silly examples prove my point. PLO terrorists are 'just a little bit in the right' as far as people like you are concerned, as much as 'Last of the Mohicans' is to you, a story of the White Man's destruction of the noble savage. It's also interesting to note you read for buzzwords and not for content. But that too is a belief system.
OK so pursuing certain activities is morally corroding, sort of. OK. We get it. It's just a belief system. And Mr. Spielberg is entitled to have it. It's just a very long and expensive way to go to assert that sunflowers are better than landmines but that anyone who holds a gun is equally guilty from General Custer to Pericles to the Khmer Rouge to the IDF.
Moreover it's really what I would think is the belief system of your 180 opposite on gun control; that old saw 'guns don't kill people, bullets do'. Which is kind of ironic, don't you think? Maybe not. Maybe you're too busy chuckling to yourself at your own brilliance. Who knows? Everything IS everything after all.