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, two
of which are reprinted below. [Read
more reader letters here.]
Dear [author] Ms. Goldberg,
I have not been able to access your complete article,
but have read excerpts such as the following:
Amazingly, Cashill's film wasn't the most outlandish
documentary on offer. It was trumped by Innocents
Betrayed, which attributes most of the 20th
century's genocides, as well as lynching, the Japanese-
American internment and the rape of Nanking, to
gun control. Jumping from country to country, it
first explains how a particular government passed
laws limiting the ownership of weapons, and then
cuts to pornographic montages of mutilated corpses.
Walking out, a conservative journalist from Washington
looked at me and said, “OK, that was offensive.”
I've been researching the issue for years, and the
collective memory is short. Knowing the history of
Nazi Germany, Mussolini's Italy and Stalin's Russia
did not prevent the “Killing Fields” of Cambodia or
the mass graves of Saddam's Iraq, Amin's Uganda, Rwanda,
today's Sudan... the list is long and wearying.
One of the most disturbing images I have ever seen
is “The First Million Mom March.” [Hyperlink below].
There are dozens of naked women, first alive and in
line, guarded by men with rifles, crying, holding
babies -- then dead or dying in a field appropriate
for picnics, killed by their own countrymen. One girl
who was only wounded by the firing squad is being
shot again at close range, her mouth open in a futile
scream for mercy.
I always find “The First Million Mom March” extremely
offensive -- but in no way pornographic. Maybe the
word you were looking for was "obscene."
But not because of nudity.
It is obscene when people strip their neighbors of
rights, then dignity, then their clothes, then their
lives. But first they must be stripped of their weapons,
as these citizens were. People named Goldberg, Blumenthal,
Rosenberg -- like you, your neighbors and co-workers
-- herded and murdered by their own country's policemen
and soldiers after they traded their guns for the
promise of protection.
To be naked is to be vulnerable. To be disarmed
is to be helpless. To be helpless and die senselessly
is not only a tragedy, it is a sin against nature
and whatever deity one might acknowledge. That is
for prey animals.
I'm sorry the images of senseless, sadistic deaths
were offensive.
Sometimes numbers alone do not penetrate. When one
is more offended by the images than by the act, one's
priorities are out of whack. Perhaps it is a lack
of empathy, an all-too-common problem in our modern
era.
I can imagine hearing the
manacled kneeling person next to the person next to
me shot dead, then the person next to me, then...
I can imagine my sisters
or granddaughters as part of an anonymous pile of
worm fodder in a grainy photo.
I feel outrage. But not at the filmmaker who shows
me the photo. At the fact that the film is necessary
at all. Innocents Betrayed is the culmination
of the diligent research and the financial contributions
of people who say “Never Again!” in a desperate attempt
to sway people whose actions and votes could lead
the way to “Again! And Soon!”
It is historic fact, not speculation, that prohibiting
a race, class or ethnic group from owning weapons
always precedes persecution
of that group. One exception I can think of might
be American black slaves, who were brought here in
chains and then forbidden to have weapons in order
to keep them subdued. They were most likely disarmed
[individually, not by laws] and then captured by rival
tribes and sold.
Innocents Betrayed is not meant to shock
for the sake of being shocking, but to shock people
awake. No amount of fictional movie violence
is deemed too offensive for our jaded culture. To
have the proof of the actual tortured, terrified deaths
of ordinary men, women and children called that --
proves the need for such a documentary. It is neither
right-wing nor left, but human, just as the
subject matter of The Laramie Project is
not only a cause celebre of the Left, but a plea for
humanity.
Thank you for listening.
J.C.
Chesterfield, Virginia
The First Million Mom March photographs are available
for viewing here.
Dear Editor:
I have been informed by Jews
for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, of
which I have been a member for 13 years, that one
of your writers, Michelle Goldberg, has written a
disparaging review of JPFO's anti-gun-control documentary,
"Innocents Betrayed."
I too wrote a review of this film when it was first
released. Since I have also lived through the disarmament
of a country (Jamaica), and the subsequent carnage
ensuing from draconian gun-control visited upon a
civilian population, perhaps I am more qualified to
write about the real consequences of disarmament and
gun control than your reviewer, Ms. Goldberg. A link
to my story is under my signature, and is also included
in my review, which can be read at:
http://www.strike-the-root.com/3/terry/terry2.html
The idea that Ms. Goldberg termed "Innocents
Betrayed" - but not the real-life disarmament
and slaughter of innocent citizens - "pornographic"
is incredible, to say the least. It is hard to believe
that someone could be both so ignorant of history
and out-of-touch with the dark and genocidal side
of human nature.
In addition, I challenge her to produce the name of
the unnamed "conservative" from D.C. who
allegedly told her, "Well, that was offensive."
Making up quotes is easy when you don't cite your
source. Pulitzer Prize winning journalists have been
fired for such concoctions - let's have Ms. Goldberg
name her source. If she won't, then her journalistic
integrity is definitely in question - something I
hope your editorial staff will take seriously.
Below is the email alert I received from JPFO. I would
suggest that Ms. Goldberg read the Dr. Sarah Thompson
article "Raging Against Self-
Defense: A Psychiatrist Examines the Anti-Gun Mentality"
(http://www.jpfo.org/ragingagainstselfdefense.htm)
She might find something of herself in this piece.
Sincerely,
Tina Terry
Arizona
http://www.jpfo.org/jamaica.htm
