Further
Responses to Salon.Com Article
- - - - -
On
September 17, 2004, Salon.Com
printed an article (since picked up by the U.K. newspaper
The Guardian) called "Flicks
for the Far Right", reviewing the American
Film Renaissance festival. The article included
an unflattering paragraph on Innocents Betrayed. Fans
responded with a variety of eloquent letters.
RE: "Flicks for the Far Right"
by Michelle Goldberg
I find Ms. Goldberg's writings to
be in many cases well-written and indicative of a
sharp intelligence. However, in her treatment of the
film "Innocents Betrayed", I take issue
with her dismissal of it as "outlandish".
She calls the depictions of mutilated
genocide victims "pornographic"-- a curious
word choice. I would agree that images of genocide
victims are disturbing and offensive. What's more
offensive, though, is that these things were ever
allowed to happen in the first place-- and that modern,
educated people would rather lapse into a fantasy
world than face the ugly realities that have so often
been the consequence of apathy (like their own) and
of a lack of self-defense on the part of the victims
Ever read "The Gulag Archipelago"
by Solzhenitsyn? The accounts within are horrible,
to say the least. Brutal and depressing, yes-- but
to dismiss it and say "I don't want to know about
this, it's not my problem" is the moral and intellectual
equivalent of hiding one's head in the sand.
In "Gulag Archipelago",
Solzhenitsyn comments that if the victims of the Blue
Caps had killed a few of these murderous thugs, the
brutes might have thought twice about the career choice.
Thanks to Soviet law, however, guns were not in the
common citizen's hands. Coincidence? It appears Ms.
Goldberg would have us believe so.
So-called "liberals" and
"progressives" claim to fear right-wing
extremists and the oppression that would result if
said extremists came to power unfettered; yet these
same "progressives" refuse to see the recurring
pattern of victim disarmament that's prerequisite
for regimes, including the extreme right-wing variety,
to turn tyrannical.
In the case of Ms. Goldberg's reaction
to "Innocents Betrayed", it appears some
people would rather leave the door wide open to history's
typical repetition than to think there might, just
might, be a preventable pattern. What substance, then,
has the saying "never again"?
CT
To
flippantly dismiss the concerns of JFPO is to be complicit
in the
process that will ensure history to be repeated.
Use the brane(sic) in your head for a change and examine
the facts.
Use the power of the media to inform people of other
than the diatribe
and fearful situation imposed on them by the thugs
of government.
Peter
Cunningham
Papua New Guinea
