All posts by meanderer007

Unite the Right with Hate

 

A transformational event for the far-right occurred on August 11 and August 12 2017 in the US.  This was during the presidency of Donald J. Trump and  It happened in a  college town called Charlottesville Virginia. As Professor Jacob Ware described this event to his listeners at Arizona State University, this was “where a group of outspoken, explicit, proud, white supremacists, and Neo-Nazis, and anti-government extremists gathered in what they called a ‘Unite the Right Rally.’

Before the event, one of the main organizers, Jason Kessler, had been publicizing the event for months by his protests against the proposed removal of the statue of Robert E. Lee. This helped to fire up white supremacists and other right-wing extremists around the country. Even right-wing Canadians wanted to attend this event.

The trigger for the event was a threat to dismantle a Confederate statute in that community. A young woman, Heather Heyer, was killed during a domestic terrorist attack led by white supremacists. The attack was led by James Alex Fields Jr. who deliberately drove his car into a crowd of people who were peacefully protesting the right-wing rally that was being held in Charlottesville. Only one person, Heather Heyer, was killed but 35 others were injured. As Wikipedia reported,

“Fields 20, had previously espoused neo-Nazi and white supremacist beliefs, and drove from Ohio to attend the rally. Fields’ attack was called an act of domestic terrorism by the mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia’s public safety secretary, the U.S. attorney general, and the director of the FBI.”

 

Some witnesses reported that Fields’ vehicle sent protesters “flying through the air.” After the initial impact, Fields changed the car into reverse to target more people. He backed up at high speeds for several blocks with protesters chasing him.

Fields was subsequently convicted in a state court of the first-degree murder of Heyer, as well as 8 counts of malicious wounding and hit and run. He also pled guilty to 29  hate crime charges  presumably in order to avoid the death penalty. In typical America hyperbolic legal “justice,” Fields was sentenced to life in prison as well as 419 years for the state charges, with an additional life sentence for the federal charges.

As egregious an event as it was, it soon became an international sensation when President Trump entered the aftermath with his infamous tweets and statements. At first president Trump wavered about whether or not he should condemn the terrorists. Trump just could not bring himself to condemn outright the terrorism since the right-wing attackers did not look like terrorists to him. They looked like supporters, which many of them, of course were. How could be publicly criticize his base? That is not like him.

The marchers had been chanting repeatedly, “You will not replace us. Jews will not replace us.” as they carried their patio torches. This of course is a direct allusion to the common white supremacist trope that members of the American left are trying to replace whites with more compliant people from other races.  It was also clearly antisemitic. The closest he could come to criticism of his adoring fans was to say “I think there’s blame on both sides. You also had people, on both sides, who were very fine people.”  What was so fine about whites who mowed down protesters while chanting those racist memes? Recall, he did exactly the same thing on January 6, 2021when his staff insisted he tell the rioters to leave he did ask them to leave but first told them he loved them.

Trump has demonstrated a pattern of praising violent people who support his causes. He is always willing to do his best to unite the right with hate.

The reason this was such a pivotal event in the history of the rise of right-wing violent extremism is that those extremists realized they had a powerful friend and ally in very high places. In fact, they had an ally in the highest place in the land and this filled them with exuberance and confidence.

 

Racism provided the infrastructure for growth of the far right.

 

In their book and their talk to us at Arizona State University, Ware and Hoffman point out how much members of these domestic terrorist movements learned from each other. The Internet of course has made such self-education much easier than it had ever been before. And as they said, racism provided the infrastructure for the amplification of their ideas.

During the Obama presidency another major battlefield arose that would have profound effects on the United States, Canada, and in fact, the world. This was the establishment of social media that provided the fuel, the bombast, and the energy for profound political and social change. We still don’t know how this will end. We have no idea.

As Professor Ware said in his talk, “the Obama administration faced the rapid almost blitzkrieg emergence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.”  This was very important for the development and normalization of the far right. It was supercharged by social media. ISIS showed how powerful social media can be. A small extremist group in a very short time grew into an organization that scared the entire western world. That could never have happened without social media. Social media was the powerful engine of modern far right terrorism.

The rise of ISIS led to an enormous increase of immigration into Europe which then was used by far-right extremists in Europe and around the world to amplify their movement. They latched onto the great replacement theory to enlist support virtually everywhere. They blamed the far left for trying to replace the white citizens with immigrants from countries around the world, but often with brown or black skinned people from places the whites had often not even heard of. No place in the world it seemed was immune to the invitations to hate the immigrants.

Immigration to many right-wing extremists, around the world was the key issue to justify their cause. Immigration was the issue that bonded Donald Trump and Steve Bannon into a dramatic force and is being used again in the start of the 2024 presidential election campaign. Immigration allows the right to pick scapegoats for every aspect as of the far-right agenda. It is impossible to imagine the far-right without immigration as a grievance.

Immigration at borders invariably is used to fire up domestic support for populist causes. It is usually the easiest cause to latch onto by populist leaders. Dissatisfaction with immigration is often the glue that holds together diverse unhappy actors into a powerful force for violent change.

Nowhere does it do that more than Arizona where we are currently living. Mention immigration and you are bound to obtain heated discussion.

 

The Return of the Right and racism rekindled

 

After the Oklahoma bombing the FBI started to realize the significance of the militia movement and clamped down on the more extreme of them. For a while it seemed to the terrorist analysts that the domestic problem was not so serious. In my view, this is partly because to so much of law enforcement the right-wing looks like home to them. And terrorists never look like your friends and neighbours, until they do. As Professor Hoffman said during his Arizona State University talk that Chris and I listened to,

 

“the last thing I ever imagined in my career was returning to this particular threat. Then in 2020 with the rise of the pandemic, I was amazed at how quickly, literally within days of the lockdown in March, anti-Sematic, anti-immigrant, anti-Asian and anti-Asian-American and also racist tropes began to surface attempting to target these groups to blame for Covid.”

 

The election of Barack Obama as the first black President of the United States unleashed an ugly and powerful streak of backlash. The FBI suppression of the far-right movement after the Oklahoma bombing led to the movement lying dormant in the US for 8 or 10 years. It was dormant, but it was not dead. It was revived by the election of Barack Obama. Racial fear by whites of being replaced by blacks is part of the bedrock of the modern right-wing and white supremacist movement.

As Professor Jacob Ware said at that same ASU talk, the election of a black president “also led to a huge surge in hate crimes.” White supremacy and anti-government extremism also exploded after that election.

During his first election the volume of threats against Obama led to the greatest secret service protection so early in an election in the history of the country. There was a tidal wave of hate against him and his family. As Ware said. “this was a harbinger of things to come.

During his terms in office Obama faced two major terrorist attacks. The first was in Norway in 2011in Oslo and Utoeva island by a massacre by Anders Breivik. 77 people were killed the large majority of whom were children. It was a summer camp of the youth wing of the Norwegian labor party. He published a long Manifesto in which he called his victims cultural Marxists, a term since adopted widely in the American right. He said that by attacking the next generation of the left he would be cutting off the head of the snake of multi-culturalism. He saw what he thought was a movement to replace ethnic Norwegians, resembling of course, similar fears of replacement of white nationalists in other parts of the world such as New Zealand, America, and many other places.

In 2015 the Obama administration faced another attack by the right, this time in Charleston North Carolina. There a young white supremacist, Dylan Roof, who killed 9 people during a Bible Study in a black church.

According to Ware these were both highly significant events because “they both provided tactical and ideological inspiration.”

The Historical picture of Domestic Terrorism in the United States

 

Hoffman and Ware argue in their book, Gods, Guns, and about how  and spoke to us at ASU about how violent extremism in the United States has been a story of a historical trajectory that they believe is well described by the title of the book. According to the two of them this variant of extremism which has existed in the US since at least the period of reconstruction by groups like the Ku Klux Klan, was suppressed in part by the creation of the Department of Justice at another time of insecurity in the country for the purpose of suppressing that violent extremism. The Klan was revived again in the 19 teens as well as 1920s and one more time in the 1960s.

The 1970s violence was mimicked in the current era. Particularly xenophobia, and  distrust and dislike of immigrants, the gradual unsuccessful ending of a quarter of a century war in South East Asia contributed to a malaise that upset many Americans, especially those who felt America was losing its greatness. At the same time in the 1980s members of various religious groups helped give some justification for the white sheet part of the Klan and the Brownshirts of the neo-Nazis from Biblical scripture. The religious right became an enthusiastic supporter of the political right. This mixture of right-wing politics and conservative religion became acutely toxic.

White Supremacist churches became active in support of the American right, particularly the church of Jesus Christ Christian attempted to unite a group that was actually very diverse. It included anti-government extremists, tax resisters, gun advocates, racists, anti-Semites, xenophobes, and militant anti-abortionists needed uniting, they thought. Many of the leaders of the political movement were also Pastors or Reverends who also led churches or organizations of churches.

The guns part of the movement became prominent in the 1990s. Terrorist groups according to Hoffman, always are looking for ways to broaden their appeal. They started to advance the cause for gun rights coupled with salient religious rights as well. During the Clinton administration gun enthusiasts became convinced that the federal government would try to expropriate their guns while the religious right accepted that, but was also deeply concerned about the perceived immorality on the left. This was exemplified by the what they thought was the absolute corruption and immorality of the Clintons.

It was this fear of losing guns and freedoms to an aggrieved federal government that inspired Timothy McVeigh to launch an attack on the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. 169 persons, many of them children, died in that attack and it is still the most lethal internal terrorist attack in the history United States. I remember when that attack occurred and how most people, including at first me,  assumed it had been caused by Jihadist terrorists.  That was where the fear of terror was born. No one thought at the time that home grown terrorists were a serious problem. That bombing changed that point of view.

Hoffman said when he first started his career as an analyst of terrorism 43 year ago, he was concerned about right-wing terror but that dissipated after 9/11 when American learned to fear Islamic extremism first with Al Qaeda and later ISIS.

Domestic Terrorism in America

 

When we visit Arizona each winter, we always connect with Arizona State University (‘ASU’) because they have so many programs to which they invite the public—like us. Not just scholars, but ordinary people like us. We have found many of them fascinating. This year the first one we watched we watched online as it was not offered live. It was called God, Guns, and Sedition. The title caught my eye.

Shocking acts of terrorism across the country have erupted from violent American far-right extremists in recent years, including, among many incidents, the 2015 mass murder at a historic Black church in Charleston and the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Sadly, however these incidents, however, are neither new nor unprecedented, but are common. Frankly, they happen all the time.

One of these events, a mass shooting, happened about an hour by car from where we are staying here in Arizona. On January 8, 2011, Gabrielle Dee Giffords  who at the time was serving as a member of the United States House of Representatives. She was a member of the Democratic Party representing the 8th congressional district. She was shot in the head outside a Safeway Grocery store in suburban area outside of Tucson, by a man who ran up to a crowd of people participating in a political event and fired his 99mm pistol with a 33-round magazine.  His bullets hit 19 people killing 6 of them.

The speakers at the ASU event were Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware who are leading experts on domestic terrorism in the US.  In their book God, Guns, and Sedition In that book they provide a brief synoptic history highlighting developments including the use of cutting-edge communications technology; the embrace of leaderless resistance or lone actor strategies; the emergence of characteristic tactics and targets; infiltration and recruitment in the military and law enforcement; and the far right’s intricate relationship with mainstream politics. The history of domestic terrorism is what interested me the most.

This is what these two extremely knowledgeable intellectuals talked about in the ASU program.  Bruce Hoffman professor emeritus of terrorism  at St Andrews University and has written  a number of books on terrorism. Jacob Ware is a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. The moderator was Peter Bergen another expert in the field and a professor at ASU. In addition to being a professor at ASU he is also the Co-Director of the Future Security Initiative, at ASU. The first question they answered was, ‘Why is a book on far-right terrorism at this time?”

Professor Bruce Hoffman, made it clear there also  many other terrorist threats facing America today. He insists it was not a partisan choice that they focused on the far-right out of all those choices.  Although there are left-wing terrorists in the US as well, they are greatly outnumbered by those on the far-right. He also acknowledged that one of the most significant terrorist events from recent years occurred in June of 2017 by someone on the far left who claimed to be a supporter of Bernie Sanders a well-known left wing politician and Senator in the United States. This was the event where he attacked several members of Congress who were practicing for an annual Congressional baseball tournament. He seriously wounded 5 members of Congress.

According to Hoffman it is just “that the numbers on the far right completely eclipse the threats from the far left as well as other actors. Cynthia Miller-Idriss Professor, School of Public Affairs and School of Education Department of Justice, Law and Criminology and a recognized expert on violent extremism in the United States “put the number of armed far-right extremists at an estimated 75,000 persons. Needless to say, that is a lot of violent extremists.

A few years ago, the New York Times put the number of armed members of militia movements at 20,000.  Many of the violent extremists come from that pool. Added to that if you read the FBI reports it is easy to see where the overwhelming majority of threats come from—i.e. the far-right not the far left or any other group including Jihadis, Antifa, eco-terrorists, indigenous groups, or any others. The far-right is the main reservoir for terrorism in America. Unfortunately, many on the less extreme right-wing in America are blind to this uncomfortable fact.

Hoffman reported,

“In 2019 for example the FBI had 850 active domestic terror investigations. That number doubled in 2020. It tripled in 2022…that includes 3 big buckets: racially motivated violent extremists, home grown violent extremists of both the left and the right, and others such as INCEL, eco-terrorists, animal rights people, militant anti-abortion. But even within those figures the overwhelming majority of the current over 2,000 investigations, are the violent far-right extremists.”

 

There is no domestic terrorism statute in the US just like there is none in Canada. As a result, scholars like Hoffman and Ware have to rely on non-governmental organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (‘ADL’) and Southern Poverty Law Center for figures. Although the numbers are not yet available for 2023 , according to the ADF, all 25 of the extremist related murders in about a dozen incidents in 2023 were linked to violent far right extremists and according to  Hoffman of that number , “of that number 95% were committed by white supremacists or white nationalists.” Hoffman also said, “this is part of a decades long trend that the ADL has followed. Since 2012 75% of the people who have been killed were killed by far-right extremists and of that number 73% were killed by white supremacists.

I am frequently bothered by right-winger complaining about extremists on the left without mentioning that there are vastly more extremists on the right. It is difficult to call out people who look like us as extremists. After all, we are the good guys.

 

The Oscars are Great

 

You may scoff at the title to this post. How could the Oscars be great? They are not good at determining which films and which actors or technicians did the best job?  No of course not. How naïve can you be?

But they are good at one thing. They point to some very good movies and, of course some dogs.  Yet they have made suggestions to me about movies I might not have notice otherwise. In fact, that I probably would not have noticed otherwise.

Every year I try to watch all the films nominated for Best Picture and this year, I believe for the first time I did it. I watched all 10 of those films so nominated. I watched 2 of them in Steinbach before leaving on our southern journey and then the other 8 in Arizona.  I watched 4 in one week since it was hard for me to find them all until a local theatre chain here had an Oscar film festival. They showed every film at theatres around this huge city and charged a mere $5 a pop. What a great deal!

As a result I saw films I would have never seen before. For example, I likely would not have seen Zone of Interest or Anatomy of a Fall or Past Lives because of the heavy use of subtitles. I find subtitles difficult.  I would have missed each of these 3 films is a gem. Actually, I liked all 10 of the films. Some more than others, but all worth it.  Some were outright gems of civilization. I think I am a better person for seeing them. Isn’t that what great art if for?  I am still not good let alone great, but I am a little better. That is enough for me.

I wanted to blog about the films so I have reflected on them. In some cases I actually read the entire screenplay. That is sometimes a task. But I have learned a lot about the films.  I have enriched my life.

Is the Academy Award ceremony absurd? Absolutely. How can you compare films and say this is the best? It is an absurd task. But looking carefully at films is well worth the effort. I actually think it is part of my spiritual quest in the modern world.

Now what is the best Film? I don’t think the Academy Award ceremony will help us determine that. I don’t know which is the best. I know the pundits have a very hard time predicting too. This year most critics say Oppenheimer will win. Will it? I have no idea at all. So I will just say which of all of these wonderful films I liked the best.  That was The Holdovers!

I am writing this literally one minute before the ceremony starts. So soon we will know. I also really like Past Lives, Zone of Interest and Killers of the Flower Moon. I also liked Oppenheimer a lot but don’t want to vote for the favourites.

Let the show begin! Let the best show win!

The Oscars are great. They inspire me.

Zone of Interest.

 

 

The greatest films and novels are those that change your life. That is the purpose of art.If seeing this film does not change your life, you should quickly make an appointment to see a psychiatrist before it’s too late.

This is the story of blind human indifference to the suffering of others. Not just by Nazis either! It is a story about all of us! It tells the story of an ordinary German family of a Commandant in Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.  The family lived on the very edge of Auschwitz Concentration camp in Poland.

According to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, unlike some of the other German Concentration camps during the Second World War,

“the Auschwitz camp was above all a place of extermination. In other camps, the death rate was lowered from 1943 in an effort to conserve the labor force. In Auschwitz, however, where new transports, mostly of Jews, arrived continuously and kept the camp supplied with labourers, human life never had any great significance.”

As a result, historians estimate that around 1.1 million people perished in Auschwitz during the less than 5 years of its existence. Of course, around 90% of these were Jews and it is estimated that the majority, around 1 million people, were Jews. Coming in a distant second were Poles. 70,000 to 75,000 of those killed were Poles and coming in third were approximately 20,000 Roma.

That are a lot of people who were slaughtered here, but this fact is ignored by nearly everyone in the film. The film is an examination of the way this carnage was ignored while people went about the minutia of their daily lives. The victims did not count.  They were outside the zone of interest. The Germans who lived their lives and tried to establish a civilized life next to the crematoriums were the ones who counted. How is that possible?

The German family of Commandant Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) presided over their family home immediately adjacent to the Concentration Camp, from which sounds are emitted from time to time but pleasantly ignored. The Commandant is in charge of a facility in which thousands of people are murdered each week, but he is more engaged by the fact that the locals have insufficient respect for his prized lilacs while Hedwig, his wife, has time mainly for her children and her lovely garden of which she is justifiably proud. Rudolf and Hedwig were like the Lord and Lady of the castle. Hedwig loved it when Rudolf called her “the Queen of Auschwitz.”

The family has no time to give attention to the people being murdered. They don’t see them or hear them. It is as if they are not there. The victims don’t count. Only the Höss family counts. That is as far as their zone of interest stretches.

The Höss family appreciates their privileges but assumes they are natural and fully earned. The film shows how easy it is to take for granted one’s privilege. Privilege slips on as easily and as comfortably as a glove.  The discomfort—and much worse—on the other side of the wall is not allowed to disturb the peace of the Höss family. There is a complete moral vacuum in the family.

Even if you see the smoke from the Crematoriums, as we do from time to time, and even if people are being incinerated, and even if you hear gunshots or snarling guard dogs, you can ignore them and make a comfortable life for yourself and your family. As a result, Hedwig is able to curate carefully the clothes that are available as a result of Jews dying. She takes a fur coat for herself and gives dresses to her staff. She was disappointed that she was outbid by others when she tried to purchase clothes that had belonged to her Jewish neighbour before she was carted off to be transferred to a Concentration Camp—perhaps even Auschwitz itself. Hedwig just tried to create the best life for her and her family. No one else mattered. She was not interested in any one else.

Someone called this a “cerebral” movie. In some ways that is accurate. It makes you think.  But in other ways, it is completely wrong. This is a movie about how people don’t think. They don’t think about those outside their zone of interest.

I was particularly struck by the German officers—including Rudolf Höss—who dispassionately discuss how to improve the efficiency of the killing machine of the camps. They are each eager to make their own camp more efficient thus improving their chances of promotion. The more people are killed the better for the officers. The effect on the camp residents is entirely irrelevant. After all, they are outside the zone of interest.

It is important to remember that the Höss family was just an ordinary German family. Really, they were like families around the world during the war and at other times.  Ordinary people—people like you and I—are often indifferent to the suffering of others. Those victims are outside our zone of interest. How many of us consider how indigenous people on Canadian Indian Reserves live? How many of us worry about how poor African Americans live in American cities? How many ordinary citizens were interested in how slaves lived on American slave plantations? They were all outside the zone of interest.

We can appreciate how the Nazis in the concentration camp were not monsters. They were ordinary people. They were people like us! And this makes the film even more disturbing. Ordinary people could turn themselves with enthusiasm to the task of making the murder of people more efficient. The spouse of the Commandant could cheerfully ignore that a fur coat she coveted was owned by a neighbour. She could feel the injustice of a minor privilege being taken away from her, but could not feel the injustice of an innocent person being murdered right beside her. And the really scary thing is that we would probably be exactly the same in such circumstances. Do any of us have the right to think for one minute that we would have acted differently?  What gives us the right to think that?

I watched an interview with Jonathan Glazer the director of the film on Amanpour and Company.  He pointed out how the significance of the German family beside Auschwitz was that “they were so grotesquely familiar.”  They, like us, were able to compartmentalize the suffering. Those people on the other side of the wall were “them” not “us.” Here on this side of the wall, the family (us), played in the pool, enjoyed the lovely garden while other people (them) were burning on the other side. This raises the question of how this is possible. How can there be such a grotesque disparity between the treatment of us, our family, and the others on the other side of the wall? Why are some lives more important than others?

The victims of the holocaust are never seen in the film. We hear some vague and disturbing sounds but they are invisible. Glazer said enough films had been made showing the victims and how we should empathize with them. He wanted to make a film where, “rather than empathizing with the victims, we have the discomfort of feeling like the perpetrators.”  Our perspective is from the garden side of the wall. As Glazer said, “It is a film not about ‘look at what they did;’ it’s a film about ‘look at what we do.

The only element of hope in the film comes from a 9-year-old girl who lives nearby and fills small packages of food for the prisoners. Glazer actually met that girl, now an old woman, and talked to her. She still lives nearby. She demonstrated the best of humanity.

The deep horror is that the Germans living next to the concentration camp were people just like us. Not monsters at all. Ordinary people. They are us. We are them.

 The film establishes what Hannah Arendt said. Evil is not monstrous. Evil is banal. Evil is every day. Evil is ordinary. Evil is us and we are its cheerful and enthusiastic instruments. And that should scare the hell out of all every one of us. Sadly, our zone of interest is incredibly small. It is so small that we are moral pygmies.

Sometimes there is nothing more scary than us!

 

Killers of the Flower Moon

 

Killers of the Flower Moon is an outstanding movie directed, written, and produced by Martin Scorsese.  It is part of a larger story of the Osage Indigenous people in Oklahoma forced to relocate their against their will but it turned out the rocky stony land they got, which everyone thought was worthless  had oil and the Osage became fabulously rich. The richest people on earth with white servants.

At first, the Osage people were discriminated against in Oklahoma. “When they first moved to Oklahoma territory, people put up signs…”read “NO DOGS, NO INDIANS.”   Once they were rich, of course, they were much more welcome. In fact their wealth attracted a lot of hungry predators—white men.  Amazingly, wealth became almost as big a problem as poverty because it pulls in the white predators. I listened to a fascinating interview with Martin Scorsese in which he said, “I have made films about the gangsters, Cape Fear  and things like that, but this movie was about day-to-day evil which may be part of our human nature. How much of that are we capable of?”

We see Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) an unconventional leading man. First of all, he is not that smart. In fact, often he seems pretty stupid. Goofy might be the best way to describe him.  When he arrives on the railway platform, a well-dressed person hands him a flier – he reads it: “Make it Rich.” We instantly know we have arrived in a place where the American fantasies are running amok. People are unhinged. They are living in the Fantasy Land of the American dream. We should not be surprised if reality is kept firmly at bay. We also see 4 or 5 sketchy white men standing around, looking entirely unproductive, tipping over a common misconception, and they are looking hungrily at the well-to-do and well-dressed Osage who are sitting in their beautiful cars. You can just see it, they want them.

William King Hale (Robert De Nero) Ernest’s uncle,  is seen surveying his kingdom with a knowing smile. He knows the score. Nothing can surprise him except innocence.  He greets his nephew:

Times like this people put castles in the air, held aloft by hysteria, rush blind with greed, based on fear, unfounded fear. Fear running all over the place and screaming like animals. This is a cattle ranch. There’s no oil here. So I’m settled with no fear. These Osage have had enough trouble, they’re down to not too many of them left. There’s a way that nature moves and changes direction and that’s happened upon them. Time will run out, this wealth will run dry drier than the seven years of famine that plagued the Pharaohs of old. They’re sick people. Big hearted but sickly.

 

Hale tells his nephew there is a lot of money in Oklahoma now. More than Texas. He made a fine choice coming there.   Then Ernest makes an astonishing admission: “I love money, sir.” this of course is the problem with Ernest. He is a a good man, we think, but he loves money. Like so many white men he is driven by a lust for money that corrupts him absolutely. It mixes him up. He even hurts those he loves.

 Later Ernest realizes “I just love money! It’s true. It’s true. I damn near love it as much as I love my wife! I can’t help myself once I get thinking on things .” There is the crux. Ernest loves his wife, but maybe he just loves money more!

Hale tells Ernest, “You call me Uncle or King… remember?” Ernest is quick to reply, “King.”  Hale, like so many white men, wants to be king and his nephew is very quick to oblige

Then Hale asks Ernest if he likes women and once more Ernest is quick to reply, not bothering to hide his sins, “Yes, King, course I do, it’s a weakness.” And that is Ernest’s problem. He is a good man, with weaknesses, who is not shy about acknowledging them When asked if he likes women red, Ernest says unabashedly, “Red and white, I don’t mind. I like all of ‘em, I’m greedy. I like heavy ones, pretty ones, soft ones, ones that smell good.” 

King Hale wants to educate his young nephew. He tells him,

 

“Osage are sharp. They don’t talk much so that might make you run your mouth to fill the space. ‘Specially if you’ve been drinkin,’ but it’s better to be quiet if you don’t have something smart to say. Don’t get caught on that – it’s just what they call “blackbird talk” (imitating) “cheep cheep”. Just because they’re not talking doesn’t mean they don’t know things about everything. Osage are the finest and most beautiful people on God’s earth.

 

This is one of the great mysteries of the film.  Hale is a predator. He is a top predator, but he respects his prey. He knows they are smart. He likes them. But he wants their money. He thinks he is entitled to their money. To us I hope this seems astonishing, but in his day, it was not surprising. It was ordinary. I was every day evil. Banal.

King is mean, nasty, and ruthless, but he is smart. He recognizes that Osage are good people. Like Ernest, he knows Osage are good smart people but that does not mean he won’t try to cheat them to get money. He will do anything to get their money. That is a predator to be respected. And feared.

Lily Gladstone) Gladstone who plays the role of Mollie who marries Ernest  , is indigenous, though not from the Osage Nation, and she is a central character in the film. She is not just window dressing. Her role is important. Her character is important. This film is not just about white guys.

Mollie asks Ernest if he is scared of his uncle King. Ernest says no, “He’s the King of the Osage Hills. He’s the nicest man in the world but I know if you cross him what he can do. I’m my own man, I do my own work. I’m a businessman.” But Ernest is not very bright. He should be scared of his uncle King! We should be scared of any man who wants to be King.

Yet, like so many indigenous women I know, she tends to be quiet. She does not speak much but when she speaks, she makes sense. She is deeply worthy of respect. But she does not say a lot in the film. She is mainly quiet and listening.  At one point she tells Ernest, “We need to be quiet for awhile. Sit down. A storm is… well it’s powerful. So we need to be quiet now.” They need to respect the power of nature.

When Mollie arrives in town she does so with her guardian. Just like the Indian Act in Canada, the white people in Oklahoma have managed to manipulate the law so that many, but not all, Osage people need white guardians to hold their money in trust for them. When she comes for her monthly check she had to bring her guardian, who is Pitts Beaty—in his 50s, white, and a grand wizard KKK. That should be a reliable guardian!

When Hale suggests to Ernest that he should take an Osage woman for a wife, to get her money, Ernest says he has been driving Mollie around. Hale tells him she would be a good choice, “that Mollie’s easy to like and a full blood Estate at that, that’s something a man could work with…”. The fact she is full blood estate means she will get a full share of the money from her tribe.

 Ernest heeds the advice of his uncle King to read up on the Osage.  You must learn about your victims. One night after playing pool and gambling all night he reads that for the Osage “Dawn was always a sacred time for prayers…”  That explains why Mollie’s mother prays at dawn by the creek near the house.

Mollie’s mother, prays at dawn by a creek near the house. He also learns that they call the sun ‘grandfather.’ The moon ‘mother.’ Fire, ‘Father.’” He sees a sun through the clouds as they are driving. This is a crescent moon. They also see a wildfire burning the prairie. Wild fires were common on the prairies and often deliberately started because it helped new growth which in turn brough bison, a staple of their diet. A Wildfire burning the prairie they called a “flower moon.” The flowers will follow the moon. As the narrator said, “They call it the “flower moon” – when tiny flowers spread over the blackjack hills and prairies. There are so many, it’s as if a spring festival of the gods left confetti there.” As a wild flower guy myself I loved this idea. The spring flowers are like confetti spread by the gods.

Ernest also learned about the baby naming ceremony where the child is given an  “Osage name – it’s how you will be called to the next world – your Osage name can never be taken away from you.” I understand this because I have an indigenous grandson who was recently given such a name. Ernest also learns the word Wah-Kon-Tah, which means God. The special ones who went ahead in the fog to new places are called, “Travelers in the Mist.”

Unlike her husband Ernest, and even though she needs a white guardian to take care of her money, Mollie is smart.” She is smart and beautiful. Ernest tells her she has a nice color of skin and wants to know what color would she say it is?  She replies, wisely, “my color.” Mollie calls Ernest coyote, the trickster. She wants to know if he wants money. Ernest replies, “Well that money’s real nice, especially if you’re lazy like me… I want to sleep all day and make a party when it’s dark.” She also asks if he likes whiskey. He says, “I don’t like whiskey, I love whiskey.” At least Ernest does not hide his flaws from Mollie. He is completely open about them. He flaunts them.   If she is so smart, why doesn’t she run away? Is love blind?

Mollie has an interesting conversation about white men with her sisters. She tells them about Ernest: “He’s not that smart but he’s handsome.” Her sister Minnie says “he wants our money.”  One sister says that can’t be true for his uncle is rich. He doesn’t need more money. Of course, she completely misunderstands white men. They always want more money.  Mollie understands, this “Of course he wants money, but he wants to be settled. He’s not restless…”  She likes that about him. Another sister says she won’t need her guardian if she has a white husband. But that is still a problem. Even her white husband will want her money! Her sister Reta says he doesn’t want her money because he loves her. Again, that is still a big problem. Even husbands can’t be trusted.

Ernest tells his uncle he really loves Mollie and loves her and thinks she is a lady. King, pleased, tells him, I think you found a wife. After they get married King Hale says,

“I’ve known Mollie and her sisters since they were little girls running around making trouble… I just want to say on behalf of my wife Myrtle and my daughter Willie, I’m just so glad a member of my family is mixin’ with the great Pahsoo-oh-leen. Mollie’s dear departed father, Nah-kah-e-se-y, was my beloved friend of the heart. He used to tell the white men to just call him Jimmy, but I called him by his proper name…”

 

And Hale is not lying. He loves the Osage. But, of course, that does not stop him from exploiting them. Hale, is a complicated man. He understands what Whites have brought to the Indians. They have brought white man diseases that destroyed them. As he tells Minnie, “So many troubles. What we’ve brought on you… I’m sorry… I hear it in the wind, it screams like a woman who has the evil spirit.Hale even prays to the Spirits to take away her sickness. “Great Mystery Remove the sickness from her Remove the evil spirit from her You bless those who are sick I want you to bless Minnie He even prays in the language of the Osage!

Hales seems genuinely concerned but we suspect her disease is not accidental as so many diseases were brought by white men to Indigenous people. But with the Osage some were deliberate because the white men wanted the money the Osage had.

When Mollie inevitably gets sick too, Hale wants to make sure Ernest does it the right way. And Ernest listens attentively to his uncle. First, Hale asks Ernest how Mollie is feeling.  Ernest says, “Alright. She takes care of the little one…”  Hale understands, “That’s the Osage way. They’ll tolerate anybody – even whites – for their children. That’s their riches.”  Osage women don’t need money. Their riches are their children! Ernest starts to understand too.

What is clear is that the “reign of terror” has begun. That was the time when Osage died in waves and their money went  eventually to their white heirs. It was a mass killing that the FBI failed to investigate. They just blamed a few bad apples. Funny how that happens. In the movie a long list of suspicious deaths is referred to and in each case, there was “No investigation.” And many of these were young people, healthy before they contacted white people and yet they died mysteriously.

As well, some were outright shot. In those cases, no one thought it necessary to camouflage the murders. The white men were killing the flowers of the moon. In other cases, they made the murders look like suicides.

Mollie changes her legal documents so Ernest to replace her current guardian so the money stays in the family. He tells Mollie: “I love you. I love you. I’ve always loved you, Mollie.” That is probably true but did he love money more?

It is sometimes difficult to remember, when watching this film, that it is a love story. A very complex love story. It is not a Hallmark film where everything works out fine in the end. It is complex. The characters are complicated.  For one thing, it is a remarkable story about a man, Ernest, who loves his wife, but has a hard time  stopping from trying to poison her for her money. What is more powerful in him we ask—his love for her or his love for money? And how can be possibly love both?  That is the real question. How is that even possible? These are interesting questions this film addresses, even if it does not provide answers that are obvious.

 

 

The Holdovers

 

The film takes place over the Christmas and Hanukkah holidays in 1970, mainly at a New England boarding school. Barton, for the sons of wealthy parents. Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) has no love for the students clearly believing they are, privileged and entitled philistines. He  is a strict teacher of ancient history who is unpopular or even hated by the students and fellow staff members. Because he refused to “lift up the marks” of a wealthy donor’s son, who as a result was not accepted in Princeton, Paul was punished by the headmaster and made to stay over at school to chaperone 5 students who had no place to go for the holidays. He was  stubborn that the school should not “sacrifice our integrity on the altar of their entitlement.” In each case the parents had reasons for leaving these students at the school rather than bringing them home for the holidays.

Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph),  the black cook, whose husband died earlier,   understands why Paul had to flunk the boy: “He was a real asshole. Rich and dumb. Popular combination around here.”  Mary was another holdover, but by choice, because she did not want to go home where she would be reminded of the recent death of her son in Vietnam where he had been stationed. These were “the Christmas orphans.” 4 of the boys get lucky and were rescued by the father of one of them, leaving the unlikely three alone at school. It is their Christmas story.

Paul has little sympathy for the students who don’t religiously follow the rules. As a result, he punishes them to

“clean the library. Top to bottom. Scraping the underside of the desks, which are caked with snot and gum and all manner of ancient, unspeakable proteins. On your hands and knees, down in the dust, breathing in the dead skin of generations of students and desiccated cockroach assholes”

 

And then he tells them that are lucky and they should

“consider yourselves lucky. During the third Punic campaign, 149-146 B.C., the Romans laid siege to Carthage for three entire years. By the time it ended, the Carthaginians were reduced to eating sand and drinking their own urine. Hence the term punitive.”

The students, needless to say are unimpressed with this ancient history.

Angus Tully (Dominic Sesa) the one Baron student who did not get released because Paul could not reach his parents for consent, and Paul approach each other as opponents, if not enemies. Yet they come to realize that they have a connection.

Paul gives the other two a Christmas gift of a classical book, “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius. Paul says, “For my money, it’s like the Bible, the Koran and the Bhagavad Gita all rolled up into one. And the best part is not one mention of God.” Maybe Paul’s quest is not a religious one.  At least he doesn’t think it is.  

The three of them enjoy a lovely Christmas dinner in a huge room in the school. They exchange looks and all seem to realize there is in fact an intimacy of some sort between them. Much to his surprise, Angus, finds out that “I don’t think I’ve ever had a real family Christmas like this. Christmas dinner, I mean — family style, out of the oven, all the trimmings. My mom always just orders in from Delmonico’s.

Each of three them learns a valuable lesson. It is a lesson from a great Classic writer, much admired by Paul, Cicero, who said, “Not for ourselves alone are we born.” It really is a religious insight. Each of them must learn it in their own way. I think it is the theme of the film.

Paul as a teacher of ancient civilizations knows that, but  he does not really understand it. He needs to really learn it, like the other 2. Paul must learn it by living it, as do the other 2 members of the trinity.

Paul has an unexpected gift that helps him.   Underneath his crusty surface, he has a surprising amount of empathy.  He is not a cynic. To Mary, spending her first Christmas without her son, he says “Mary, we remember Curtis as such an outstanding and promising young man, and we know this holiday season will be especially difficult without him. Please know that we accompany you in your grief.” The students have to learn it however.

When the privileged students mock Mary Paul says,

Will you shut up! You have no idea what that woman has… (reining it in) For most people… life is like a henhouse ladder — shitty and short. You were born lucky. Maybe someday you entitled little degenerates will appreciate that. If you don’t, I feel sorry for you, and we will not have done our jobs.”

Paul must teach empathy to his students.They have a lot to learn.  After Angus annoys young boys in a bar who want to exact retribution from him, Paul buys them each a beer to keep Angus out of harm’s way. Angus wonders why Paul would do that for such “assholes,” but Paul asks him to look at them. One has a metal hand.

“How many boys do you know who have had their hands blown off? Barton boys don’t go to Vietnam. They go to Yale or Dartmouth or Cornell, whether they deserve to or not.?”

Angus catches on quickly.  He learns. He says, “except for Curtis Lamb.” Curtis was Mary’s son who joined the armed forces in Vietnam to earn enough money to go to a university, but he died there. He never got to go to college.

Mary has to teach Paul that he must also have empathy for his students, Angus in particular. Paul gets mad at Angus when Angus begs him to let him go back to a party so he can try to connect with a young lady. As a result, Paul yells at him and says he did not want to be with the Christmas orphans. Mary rebukes Paul “You don’t tell a boy who’s been left behind at Christmas that you’re aching to cut him loose. That nobody wants him. What the fuck is wrong with you?” This helps Paul to come to his senses. Paul catches on and realizes that Angus deserves some empathy too. He has actually had a difficult life even though he was the son of a woman who had married a rich man.

Paul told Miss Crane that he taught because he thought he could make a difference and she asks him what that means. He says,

“I used to think I could prepare them for the world, even a little — provide standards and grounding, like Dr. Green always drilled into us. But the world doesn’t make sense anymore. It’s on fire, the rich don’t give a shit, poor kids are cannon fodder, integrity’s a punch line, trust is just a name on a bank.”

 

But I guess I thought I could make a difference. Miss Crane smiles at him, “dazzling even with the dark sentiments. A bittersweet Christmas moment.” She tells him that if that’s all true then now is when they most need someone like you.”

Paul tells Angus,

“I find the world a bitter and complicated place, and it seems to feel the same way about me. I think you and I have this in common. Don’t get me wrong — you have your challenges. You’re erratic and belligerent and a gigantic pain in the balls, but you’re not me, and you’re not your father. You’re your own man. Man. No. You’re just a kid. You’re just beginning. And you’re smart. You’ve got time to turn things around.”

 

 In the film Angus makes a big sacrifice for Paul and Paul makes a big sacrifice for Angus.  They are life changing moments. They complete, for each of them, what I have called their religious quest. The film does not use this expression, but I do. In a sense each gives his life for his new friend. It is no accident that the words “sacrifice” and “sacred” have the same root.   At the end, Paul dismisses that any suggestion that he was heroic. “All I did was tell the truth, mostly” he says. But that is enough.

But that is not easy. Sacrifices are never easy. And Paul’s face reveals “the terror and hope.” The consequences of telling the truth can be painful. But they are important.

American Fiction

 

American Fiction  is , as its title suggests, yet another film about Fantasyland.  In some respects it is not real. In other respects it is all too real.  This is a very appropriate title for a film that explores one of America’s many Fantasy Lands. Walt Disney’s Fantasyland is an American creation that has stood the test of time. Just like America as Fantasyland itself.

The protagonist in this film is Thelonious “Monk” Ellison a black writer and professor in Los Angeles. His novels have received academic praise, but sell poorly, and publishers have rejected his most recent manuscript for not being “black enough.”

Monk’s literary agent tries to urge Monk to be realistic and take another approach. Give the public what it wants, even if it is crap. The agent says to Monk, “Your books are good but they’re not popular.” His publisher has rejected his latest book. The agent tells him  “They want a black book.” What is a black book? Monk has an answer: “They got a black book. I’m black and they’ve got the book.” But this incident causes Monk to embark on a flight of apoplexy.

Meanwhile his the University where he teaches has put him on suspension over intemperate politically incorrect remarks he made to his students about racial issues. Teh university bosses  suggest he attend a literary seminar  and spend time with his family in Boston. Of course, he doesn’t really want to be with his family. As he says, “All successful writers are tormented by their families.” His family is certainly no exception.

Monk’s mother is in the early stages of dementia. HIs sister Lisa is a physician who  tries to cheer Monk up. Lisa tells him, “Your books change peoples’ lives!” But Monk asks her, “Has anything I’ve ever written changed your life?” She responds, “Absolutely, my dining room table was wobbly as hell before your last book came out. It was like perfect!”

Monk attends a literary event in Boston in which black novelist Sintara Golden is reading from her new novel We’s Lives in Da Ghetto which seems to pander to black stereotypes. It is immensely popular, unlike his work.  It is filled with black stereotypes that Monk cannot stand. How could she be a successful “black” writer while he is suffering in the wings of the boondocks?

Monk’ literary agent encourages him to do the same thing that worked so well for Sintara. Monk listens to her reading from her novel which he despises. In disgust, Monk decides to write his own black novel as a joke. As Monk said, “If they want stereotypes, I’m going to give them stereotypes. “Dead beat dads. Rappers. Crack.”   He calls the book My Pafology and it contains every trope white readers expect from black novels. It has a melodramatic plot involving bad dialogue, deadbeat dads, gang violence, and drugs. As Monk says, “I just want to rub their noses in it.” And much to his surprise the book publisher loves it and pays him a $750,000 advance which is money he really can use. They won’t even take back their offer when he insists the book be called “Fuck.”

And it turns out to be a book the whites in the Hamptons will love. His black book is a spectacular success. Even though he wrote it as a joke, as his agent says, “its the most lucrative joke you ever told.”

Yet I kept wondering if his book was  really as bad as he claimed. Maybe the readers knew that his “serious” books were crap and his “junk novel” was actually a gem. In the world of fantasies who knows where the truth lies? Not I.

Monk’s family adds elements of great comedy. The film is filled with surprises.  Monk’s brother Cliff is a cantankerous gay man who does everything he can to rock the boat.  When a white neighbour, married to “the rules,” tells them they can’t spread the ashes of their mother in the ocean as she had requested,  Cliff tells him if you try to stop me, “I’ll eat your sweater vest for dinner.”

This film is a black comedy in more than one sense of that word. It really mocks the woke world of liberal white society. And there is no easier target in modern American society than that. The move is an intellectual romp through the racist memes of the publishing world and beyond.  It will make for a fine cinema experience.