Dissident Veteran For Peace: Carlin on the "American Dream" & Carpenter on "Our Masters"

Dissident Veteran For Peace

"I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America." —Alexis de Tocquevile. Democracy in America, Book I, Chapter XV.

With a nod to the Most Rev. Dom Helder Camara: When I support Palestinians some call me an 'anti-Semite', when I try to explain why I stand in solidarity with Palestinians they call me a Nazi.

"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." —Major General Smedley Butler, USMC (ret.)

"... no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end." —character of O'Brien in 1984, part 3, ch. 3 by George Orwell.

"Every prophet has realized that nobody loves you for being the enemy of their illusions. Every prophet has realized that most of us want peace at any price as long as the peace is ours and somebody else pays the price. That is why the prophet Jeremiah said, ' "Peace, peace," they say, when there is no peace,' ..." —The Rev. William Sloane Coffin. "Not to Bring Peace, But a Sword."

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Carlin on the "American Dream" & Carpenter on "Our Masters"

The George Carlin bit above is self-explanatory but the video ~~montage~~ (YouTube deleted the original montage video) below from John Carpenter's 1988 film, They Live (THEY = The Hierarchy Enslaving You), could stand a little explanation. The 'sermon' soundtrack is from the opening scenes which feature a Christian minister preaching in a Los Angeles park until the police stop him. Part of the text of the Street Preacher's (his name in the film's closing credits) sermon is taken from Paul's epistle to the Romans (3:13-18), which, in turn, hearkens back to Isaiah 59. Here are some of the representative verses from Romans 3: "... they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. ... in their paths are ruin and misery ... There is no fear of God before their eyes."

12 Sep 2021 addendum: As noted in Reason, more than four years ago, John Carpenter issued a Tweet that said: "THEY LIVE is about yuppies and unrestrained capitalism. It has nothing to do with Jewish control of the world, which is slander and a lie." Okay, it's pretty clear who the "yuppies" and capitalists are but who do the alien ghoul overlords disguised as humans represent in the film?

Elsewhere, Carpenter has said the film was a critique of Ronald Reagan, his policies, and the 1980s cultural milieu. All of this make perfect sense and is persuasive but how do Carpenter's ghouls fit in and why are they aliens?

By the way, I read Jonathan Lethem's book about the film (mentioned in the Reason article) and thought Lethem did a poor job. Among other things, he makes no mention of the opening sermon by the Street Preacher and, thus, he does not analyze it's biblical origins or its relevance to the film's overall theme.

Labels: class, critical thinking, culture, film & television, repression, United States, video