6.25.2004
Fog indeed
**LONG POST WARNING**
This picture from my favorite photoblog induced me to change my monitor background from the previous and ever-cool interretron. Fascinating I know.
It was that and the fact that I finally bothered to fetch the Fog of War the other day, so I am kind of over it. It was good, excellent even, an important film superbly made. It is quite frightening. What Morris, I am given to understand, found most disturbing was the degree to which MacNamara denies how much direct power he had and overplays the forlorn subservient role.
I don't know. I think he knows we know and he doesn't have to say it. Probably what amazed him was MacNamara's consistency in playing the role. Morris (a Berkeley guy) knew his own bias and took every pain to balance the sympathetic and critical elements of the film to make a very convincing argument. I am impressed. Particularly by the closing which is the cincher: so if you disagreed with the war why didn't you oppose it once you stepped down?
Before elucidating my thoughts on his answer I have to back up (like MacNamara and Ford). Morris attended Berkeley as a philosophy student in the mid to late 70's. Just in time to hear first hand about the protesters' experience. In fact, his choice of Berkeley (and decision to leave liberal Vermont--again, not 100% sure on my facts and can stand correction) was probably influenced in part by events there in the previous decade.
Fast forward to the present. Here I am, 28. Never had any of my friends drafted. Never had to sell my Simon and Garfunkel records to afford to make rumballs to send to soldiers (yet...how much will my mp3's be worth when this Iraq thing drags on). I know the history, a bit, though mostly through my own reading since never once in high school did a history teacher make it past WWII if they even got there. Seems they were perpetually behind in the syllabus. Oh except I do remember Coach B reading to us from "On the Road" so we must have made it to the 50's, but not the 60's.
What I know is garnered from films and novels. Is that any way to learn about history? That and the idealization the media creates of hippies in catering to their baby boomer demographic--those folks watch a lot of tv.
What do I know about MacNamara? What do I know about Vietnam? I do, as it happens, know quite a bit about the firebombing of Japan (and its ill effects on the pitiable architecture here). This is the long way of saying that despite my imagination and passion for Morris' films, I feel like some of what is going on in this film might be lost on me...might have gone over my head.
Case in point, when Morris asked, why didn't you speak out? MacNamara's response, more or less, was "my words had too much weight". I think, but I could be wrong, that he means that he was afraid for the internal stability of the US. Of course this was before Kent State, but it was 1968 and the anti-war movement was in full swing (e.g. the protests at the Pentagon). MacNamara had spent the last decade controlling the kind of information that would fuel the most extreme of those passions. Morris' point, I guess, is it would have been just for him, now no longer able to push for what he saw as the rational course from inside, to tell it to the world at large.
I don't expect Morris was really suggesting MacNamara might have done such a thing. But it hangs out there. You've admitted you could be considered a war criminal. You've said you wanted to back out of Vietnam and felt your years under LBJ were more or less PR and damage control due to his (LBJ's) belligerence. You feel guilty now, and responsible. Why didn't you then? Why didn't you act?
This is the part where I have to start theorizing what is really being discussed. It's not as simple as switching sides, it's about how the two sides were so polarized, they could not have a discussion. The wall of misinformation on one side and self-righteous anger on the other made it impossible to communicate, which I suppose is why we have so many stereotypes about the 60's now.
I heard an interesting story on This American Life a couple of weeks ago about a Republican candidate for the New Jersey State Assembly. He didn't have a chance of winning, and most people were willing to engage in polite debate or discussion. That is till he came to an upper-middle class district populated by staunch Dems where he was berated about the war (something a State Assembly Member can do little about outside of passing a resolution in favor or opposed). His wife and family were harassed. Anyway, according to his account, they were the most intolerant of people.
Well, it's one-sided of course, but not unconvincing. One might well be intolerant, angry, and self-righteous about the war. I appreciate lunatics like Abby Hoffman and Michael Moore, for entertainment value. One might start shouting slogans and epithets. Bush is evil. Cheney is a goon. Rumsfeld is...
Mr. Death was one of Morris' best films (there are many but not yet enough). That someone so cruel could think himself humane. Someone so blind could be so long supported by the establishment.
This was Mr. Death on a global scale but more sympathetic...and it is frightening. The difference between life and annihilation is luck? The fate of the free world (as it were) rests in so few hands--someone chosen amidst such a coarse level of debate and by people more often voting "against" than "for"?
Sometimes I want to crawl away and hide. Kerry is not necessarily going to make the situation better and it's absurd to support Nader (sorry Ralph). We have no idea. Heads are still going to roll. This thing is going to drag on for years, decades maybe. I want to go to Vietnam, but then again, I don't. Oh to be a Canadian...
(Justin and Erin, you saw it recently...if you're reading this I'd be interested in what you thought. Jim? Col? You guys are politicos. Anyone else seen it? Anyone who was there in the 60's? I know I'm behind the curve here...)
This picture from my favorite photoblog induced me to change my monitor background from the previous and ever-cool interretron. Fascinating I know.
It was that and the fact that I finally bothered to fetch the Fog of War the other day, so I am kind of over it. It was good, excellent even, an important film superbly made. It is quite frightening. What Morris, I am given to understand, found most disturbing was the degree to which MacNamara denies how much direct power he had and overplays the forlorn subservient role.
I don't know. I think he knows we know and he doesn't have to say it. Probably what amazed him was MacNamara's consistency in playing the role. Morris (a Berkeley guy) knew his own bias and took every pain to balance the sympathetic and critical elements of the film to make a very convincing argument. I am impressed. Particularly by the closing which is the cincher: so if you disagreed with the war why didn't you oppose it once you stepped down?
Before elucidating my thoughts on his answer I have to back up (like MacNamara and Ford). Morris attended Berkeley as a philosophy student in the mid to late 70's. Just in time to hear first hand about the protesters' experience. In fact, his choice of Berkeley (and decision to leave liberal Vermont--again, not 100% sure on my facts and can stand correction) was probably influenced in part by events there in the previous decade.
Fast forward to the present. Here I am, 28. Never had any of my friends drafted. Never had to sell my Simon and Garfunkel records to afford to make rumballs to send to soldiers (yet...how much will my mp3's be worth when this Iraq thing drags on). I know the history, a bit, though mostly through my own reading since never once in high school did a history teacher make it past WWII if they even got there. Seems they were perpetually behind in the syllabus. Oh except I do remember Coach B reading to us from "On the Road" so we must have made it to the 50's, but not the 60's.
What I know is garnered from films and novels. Is that any way to learn about history? That and the idealization the media creates of hippies in catering to their baby boomer demographic--those folks watch a lot of tv.
What do I know about MacNamara? What do I know about Vietnam? I do, as it happens, know quite a bit about the firebombing of Japan (and its ill effects on the pitiable architecture here). This is the long way of saying that despite my imagination and passion for Morris' films, I feel like some of what is going on in this film might be lost on me...might have gone over my head.
Case in point, when Morris asked, why didn't you speak out? MacNamara's response, more or less, was "my words had too much weight". I think, but I could be wrong, that he means that he was afraid for the internal stability of the US. Of course this was before Kent State, but it was 1968 and the anti-war movement was in full swing (e.g. the protests at the Pentagon). MacNamara had spent the last decade controlling the kind of information that would fuel the most extreme of those passions. Morris' point, I guess, is it would have been just for him, now no longer able to push for what he saw as the rational course from inside, to tell it to the world at large.
I don't expect Morris was really suggesting MacNamara might have done such a thing. But it hangs out there. You've admitted you could be considered a war criminal. You've said you wanted to back out of Vietnam and felt your years under LBJ were more or less PR and damage control due to his (LBJ's) belligerence. You feel guilty now, and responsible. Why didn't you then? Why didn't you act?
This is the part where I have to start theorizing what is really being discussed. It's not as simple as switching sides, it's about how the two sides were so polarized, they could not have a discussion. The wall of misinformation on one side and self-righteous anger on the other made it impossible to communicate, which I suppose is why we have so many stereotypes about the 60's now.
I heard an interesting story on This American Life a couple of weeks ago about a Republican candidate for the New Jersey State Assembly. He didn't have a chance of winning, and most people were willing to engage in polite debate or discussion. That is till he came to an upper-middle class district populated by staunch Dems where he was berated about the war (something a State Assembly Member can do little about outside of passing a resolution in favor or opposed). His wife and family were harassed. Anyway, according to his account, they were the most intolerant of people.
Well, it's one-sided of course, but not unconvincing. One might well be intolerant, angry, and self-righteous about the war. I appreciate lunatics like Abby Hoffman and Michael Moore, for entertainment value. One might start shouting slogans and epithets. Bush is evil. Cheney is a goon. Rumsfeld is...
Mr. Death was one of Morris' best films (there are many but not yet enough). That someone so cruel could think himself humane. Someone so blind could be so long supported by the establishment.
This was Mr. Death on a global scale but more sympathetic...and it is frightening. The difference between life and annihilation is luck? The fate of the free world (as it were) rests in so few hands--someone chosen amidst such a coarse level of debate and by people more often voting "against" than "for"?
Sometimes I want to crawl away and hide. Kerry is not necessarily going to make the situation better and it's absurd to support Nader (sorry Ralph). We have no idea. Heads are still going to roll. This thing is going to drag on for years, decades maybe. I want to go to Vietnam, but then again, I don't. Oh to be a Canadian...
(Justin and Erin, you saw it recently...if you're reading this I'd be interested in what you thought. Jim? Col? You guys are politicos. Anyone else seen it? Anyone who was there in the 60's? I know I'm behind the curve here...)
