Happy Martin Luther King Day

 

By The Editor

 

Happy Martin Luther King Day! The biggest grossing film of all time over the MLK four day weekend was “American Sniper” grossing 105.3 million dollars, beating out the previous title holder, “Avatar”. Almost fifty years after MLK was murdered, our heroes have morphed from MLK to Chris Kyle and Hollywood is no longer making “Platoons” and “Full Metal Jackets”, but “Lone Survivors” and “American Snipers”. Seth Rogen drew a parallel between the American sniper, Kyle, and the hero worship of the Nazi sniper in “Inglorious Basterds”. Seth went on to clarify that he liked the movie, but it did remind him of the sniper in Quentin Tarantino’s film, ironically and completely missing his own point!

 

 

I guess this is the curse of living long enough to witness the slow descent into mindless adoration and blind faith in all things authoritarian. My father and his contemporaries fought this mindless blind faith in Europe and Asia from 1940 to 1945. They returned home heroes and beneficiaries of the democracy they preserved from those hell bent on subjugation and tyranny by military rule. Are the movie goers simply unaware the “entertainment” they paid for is reinforcing an empire expanding, unsustainable government policy backed by our corporate congress to the delight of big finance, big oil and weapons contractors?

 

 

A couple of decades ago this would have sounded like some loony conspiracy theory, but sadly it is our new reality. I bore myself repeating the obvious. Last one out, turn off the lights and tell that fat lady to stop singing, nobody is listening.

 

 

Alex Symington

Key West

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