Rusted Sky

On an article about WHY people aren't going to anti-war movies. (General consensus - they sucketh like an Electro-Lux with a new bag - why waste the money? The movies aren't being made for US audiences - they're being made for overseas critics.)

Hollywood is casualty of war as movie-goers shun Iraq films

The Hollywood elitists will never understand that the average American does not hate his country, does not think her country is evil, and does not believe that their children in the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, or Air Force, are killing babies, burning down grasshuts, and the like. There are far too many negative stereotypes being endlessly paraded around by the left-wing. Where are the positive stories? No where to be found, like me at a movie theater for any of the socialist drivel pushed by the Hollywooders

The problem is that for liberals, EVERYTHING is political. I understand that there is a lot of disagreement about the decision to go to war in Iraq, and as someone who supported it from the outset I admit that I was wrong about how difficult it would be . I don’t think that Bush lied about WMD - though I think he and pretty much every western intelligence agency were wrong (there is a difference between being wrong and lying). I guess I don’t care too much about that point, because it seems that Saddam was would have reconstituted his WMD programs as soon as the scrutiny was off - which would have been relatively soon, since there was tremendous pressure to ease off on the sanctions.

However, that decision is in the past - it now belongs to the historians. We are now in Iraq, and what matters is winning and coming home. What also matters is finding a way to debate the war intelligently without bashing the troops - who are doing a very difficult job, one they were ordered to do, and since the start of the surge this year, doing it with increasing success.

How about a movie that just follows a company of troops at a forward operating base, preferably based on a book or screenplay by someone who served there - no high level debate, no presidential politics, but just a group of young Americans doing their job - their triumphs, fears, losses and good times? If the production values were halfway decent, this would be a guaranteed success for the studio that made it.

As far as the Bush=Hitler equivalency thinking... Well - WE don't believe that. I don't. None of my friends do. I'm really surprised at the vocal minority of folks on-line to whom Bush DOES equal Hitler, and Guantanamo is worse than the Gulags.

I know it's simple rhetoric - I know that what they're trying to do is take control of the dialog and turn it to THEIR concepts. The important thing is winning the argument.

Regardless of the cost.

I've wondered at times just what has impelled the left to go so blasted far in their disagreements with the center and right that they WOULD insist there's no difference between Bush and Hitler. Or why there's such a strident insistance that there's a supposed imminent Christian theocracy about to be imposed on everyone in the US... when the real danger comes from a religion that would eagerly kill them if they didn't convert.

I think, though I'm not at all sure about this, that they'd rather hyperventilate over something that MIGHT happen even though there's virtually no chance of it, than actually pay attention and have to respond in an appropriate manner.

When you take action to avert a non-existant threat, anything you do is correct. Sure, your actions might not make much sense - but they're demonstrably the RIGHT actions to take because the threat didn't materialize. You can look like a hero, because you've managed to negate the threat.

And in politics - appearance is all that's important. Substance doesn't matter one bit - the important thing is to make your constituency THINK you're doing something constructive. Get that down - and you're assured of a job for life.

However - going up against a REAL threat brings the possibility (the very REAL possibility) of making a mistake in dealing with that threat. And with appearance being all-important, making a mistake can ruin your career quickly. So you waffle, evade, be non-committal as you possibly can - anything to avoid actually taking a position that someone can look at later and say "You were wrong!"

Nobody likes being told they were wrong. And the folks in Hollywood even less so - the concept of 'wrong' doesn't exist, if they think money can be made from it. So they make movies THEY would go see - can't figure out why they're not popular, and figure it's because they weren't anti-war ENOUGH - and the next round gets worse.

Well, they might figure it out some day. Hopefully before the industry goes bust. I'll pay to go see a movie in which our military are the heroes. I'd pay good money to go to movies based on Michael Yon's works. I won't pay to see a movie which details the US military as being evil. I realize it's hard for Hollywood to believe - but they simply aren't in tune with the domestic audience.

J.