From Neo-Neocon's Blog

My apologies for the length of the post; I am combining several short replies to items that came in while I was away.


This is what I’m getting at - this is either meant seriously, which indicates a really messed-up view of people who disagree with you politically, or its a really bad joke that…well, indicates a really messed-up view of people who disagree with you politically.

Code Pink does not qualify as “anyone who disagrees with me politically.” My best friends of 16 years "disagree with me politically." Code Pink holds mockeries of military funerals—outside of Walter Reed Medical Center. Code Pink physically assaults people attempting to enter recruiting stations of their own free will. Code Pink compares President Bush to Hitler for his invasion of Iraq (historical inaccuracies aside, the irony of a group publicly identifying themselves as having a socialist agenda attempting demonize someone by comparing him to a former head of the German National Socialist (Workers?) Party is just outstanding).


And aren’t liberals supposed to be the whiny cry-babies who can’t stand criticism? Come on! If you’re in the military, man up! You’re supposed to be made of tougher stuff than that. No? Who cares if Hollywood makes fun of you? (About which I’m a little incredulous, since I can’t really think of any movies I’ve seen that portray the military negatively.)

I don’t recall whining; I’m quite proud to have people like Code Pink think of me as an enemy. If I am to be hated by someone, I’d much rather be hated by bullying postmodern socialist wackos than by people who actually go out to make the world a better place.


Ok, here’s a clarification: maybe I was wrong, but I interpreted the above comment about collaboration as being a dig against liberals qua traitors.


I saw a comment about a movie. Perhaps you could clarify how it ties into treason for those of who haven’t seen that particular movie?


It must be tiring, getting worked up so much.


I wouldn’t know. Why don’t you ask those people who are spending entire days assaulting people and disrupting local businesses near the USMC recruiting station in Berkeley?


In the same comment thread, we have one commenter expressing his entertainment over a scene in a movie (True Lies) in which Arabs, the villains, are hilariously gunned down by a dropped, spinning weapon. We also have another commenter bemoaning the fact that liberal Hollywood refuses to depict Arabs as villains.

“True Lies” came out in 1994. Try finding one post-9/11! Even “The Kingdom,” probably the best treatment I have seen of the subject by Hollywood, in the end turned into a moral-equivalence argument between mass-murdering terrorists and the FBI agents trying to stop them—which simply isn’t valid, no matter how emotionally involved agents might get in any particular case.


Part of the problem here is the assumption that “Hollywood” is a single, undifferentiated entity, rather than a huge array of writers, producers, directors, etc etc etc, ad infinitum, all working together and competing to get their projects made.

Two volcano movies in the same summer. Two mass-extinction by impact movies in the same summer (one by asteroid, the other by comet). Two alien invasion movies the same summer. 99% of vampire movies treat vampirism as a disease which renders its victims allergic to ultraviolet light, rather than the historical idea of demonically-possessed corpses who were less powerful in sunlight due to its symbolic connection to life. There hasn’t been a movie since “The Green Berets” in which the infantry wins by doing what the infantry does—closing with and destroying the enemy. In Hollywood, it’s always “hide and wait to be rescued by tanks or helicopters.” If any offensive action takes places, its usually immoral and lead by some schmuck who’d rather be smoking pot in his parent’s basement. Need I continue?


do you honestly imagine there exists such a (liberal) human being who thinks to himself “the best way to really take a crap on that jerk Heinlein, who expressed some conservative ideas, is to take a book - a book widely considered to be critical of fascism in a subversive, satirical manner - of his and spend months or years of my life immersed in the material, creating a film that’s a really dumb version of the book that’s sure to piss off legions of devoted, nerdly fans”?

No, I know that there was a working script by the Heinlein estate that was faithful to the original work, and Ver Hoeven refused to use it. His depiction of the military had to be fascist and incompetent—as a beginning of the changes he made. I doubt the feelings military personnel or fans of Heinlein actually entered his mind. I’m not familiar with “Starship Troopers” being directed particularly against fascism—and certainly not in a subversive manner, which would require that fascism actually be in force in the U. S.