Which book/movie best describes our situation????

[garybeck]

Poll question: Which book/movie best describes our situation????

added film Bob Roberts

[peekaloo]

1. The Road To Perdition.

[formerrepuke]

2. Tim Robbins' prophetic film 'Bob Roberts' from 1992 seems to

predict the current political environment perfectly. Anyone who hasn't seen it will be astonished.. it's like he had a crystal ball and could see the near future as far as the RW Bush-cult is concerned: Dirty tricks, wealthy politicians pandering to average-joe values, equating dissent with treason; it's all there.

[deutsey]

10. I remember when it came out, someone on NPR said she thought it was

way too over the top; so exaggerated, she thought, that it was difficult to take the movie seriously.

I think it was maybe Cokie Roberts (I wouldn't be surprised if it was, anyway). I remember the comment from back when I used to listen to and support NPR.

Whoever said it, that comment has echoed in my mind over the past five years.

[Touchdown]

3. High Anxiety.

Where the doctors and nurses at the institute for the very, VERY nervous are crazier than the patients.

Been thinking about this movie a lot lately.:crazy:

EDIT: They made a movie version of Animal Farm? Is it a cartoon or like Babe?

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

33. There are both

the original (British) cartoon version was sponsored by the CIA as anti-Soviet propaganda in the fifties. More recently a Babe style live action version was made but I didn't think it was up to much.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,908925,00.html

[moggie]

4. Duck Soup (Marx brothers)

Hail Freedonia!

[Lautremont]

5. Seven Days in May

[cascadiance]

35. Yup, I was thinking the same thing...

Except in this version, Kirk Douglas's character sides with the general to get rid of the president that's about to declare himself a dictator instead of helping the sitting president prevent a coup.

[cascadiance]

37. The Handmaid's Tale would also be a good one though...

or if we're including TV series... Amerika!

[ihaveaquestion]

6. Wars without end

- the modern way of maintaining global economic domination!

[randomelement]

7. The Dead Zone

If Bush isn't Martin Sheen's character, I don't know who is ....

[Touchdown]

15. Oh' Greg Stillson!

..."Look. I saw a vision of my destiny, and I'll be God Damned if your going to screw it up. Now place your hand on the sensor before I cut it off and do it myself!"

[newyawker99]

47. Hi randomelement!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[bunkerbuster1]

8. Used Cars

"I go 50/50 on all the graft I take in."

[Joyce78]

9. The Emperor's New Clothes

[garybeck]

13. it's on there

sorry I had the title a bit wrong. I thought it was called "the emporer wears no clothes." I just fixed it. you can vote for it now.

[deutsey]

11. Mein Kampf

Couldn't resist...Actually, I voted for Animal Farm.

[Snotcicles]

12. Soylent Green 2022 n/t

[Swamp Rat]

14. oink!

:D

[Mizmoon]

16. Oceania was at war with Eastasia

Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.

They attacked us on 9/11, not Eurasia.

[oscar111]

17. Animal Farm: a RW book

yes, written by a LW author.

but the bottom line is that it has been used by the RW to harm the LW.

Or so it seems to me. comments?

[Mizmoon]

20. What the Right and the Left forget is that extremism=totalitarianism

extreme right wing= Nazis

extreme left wing = Khmer Rouge

The book is about totalitarianism which is why both sides can use it as a weapon against the other.

[oscar111]

34. extremism a useless term

extreme anarchists would have no totalitarianism. Extreme pacifists would probably be rather pleasant to live among.

also, tarring all extremes means you are letting whatever the middle happens to be, act as the definition of "desirable".

in history, that middle has swung all over the place. When Timur the Lame ruled central asia, a pyramid of skulls was the moderate political stance and practice.

In some Pacific islands, throwing a gal into a volcano was what "normal" leadership did. Only "extremists" in the tribe would ever object to it.

toss the word extremist. Useless.

[Mizmoon]

43. extreme may be relative, but it's certainly not useless

The Khmer Rouge and the Nazi were extreme. Just ask their victims.

[oscar111]

61. extreme is useless term .. toss it

In 1850 it was extreme to oppose child labor. Six year old girls pulled coal carts up inclined mine shafts and out of the mine.

So we should not be extreme? Should not oppose child labor?

At times we should be extreme. Ahead of the times. All progress comes by being ahead of the times.

Sometimes extreme ideas are bad. {like Nazis}. Sometimes they are good {like ending child labor}. So the term is useless. It is often used to club progressives.

The real measure of an idea is "does it reduce suffering?"

[deutsey]

30. I think if you only focus on its critique of Stalinist Communism,

it can be used to tar the Left.

However, if you look at it in its larger critique of how revolutions are often betrayed by its ideological leaders, then I think it attacks authoritarians of any ideological stripe.

As you say, Orwell was LW (a lifelong socialist, I believe), but he detested ideological purists on the Left as much as he did those on the Right.

In 1984, after all, he cites the Nazis and the Soviets as the forerunners to Oceania's totalitarian government.

[KansDem]

18. "Cool Hand Luke"

Bush is Strother Martin, the guards are his cabinet and the rest of us are the prisoners; toiling and slaving away beneath their iron boots of oppresive social/economic policies.

Oh, and I'm Paul Newman!

Gotta get your mind right!

[moggie]

32. Who's washing the car? n/t

[bvar22]

19. Lord of the Rings

bush* STILL needs the last ring.
Lets make sure he doesn't get it.


The Matrix
Which pill?


The Terminator
The scenes from the future. Hi Tech machinery flying over the rubble shooting at rebels (insurgents) with sophiticated weaponry. The insurgents fighting back with beat up pick-up trucks and AK-47s.

[McCamy Taylor]

21. "Heart of Darkness" by Orsen Wells PSYCH was never made so

it will have to be "Apocalypse Now" which was the closest thing we will ever get to a serious exploration of the impulse that guides some people to invade other countries and shed their humanity in the pursuit of power---and why the people at home turn a blind eye to what is being done in their name abroad.

[blm]

22. Red Dawn....our country is invaded by Christo-fascists intending to

eliminate all those who truly cherish human rights and freedoms.

[anarch]

23. The Road Warrior

Well, before too long it'll be like that, anyway.

[one_true_leroy]

24. BRAZIL!!

that movie so creeped me out when i watched it a coupla years ago.

second place would be bob roberts.

[Flying Dream Blues]

60. I second...

[Minstrel Boy]

25. Okay, it's a TV show, but

Twin Peaks.

You don't think the Black Lodge exists?

[julialnyc]

53. My favorite TV show of all time!!!

I think I would have a heart attack if I bumped into the actor that played BOB in real life!!

[lildreamer316]

26. THEY LIVE

C'mon.Really.

[DanCa]

28. I can see that

seriously climate change, sublimal programming, thought control, class warfare, and self sacrificing heroes.

[DanCa]

27. The lord of the rings triliolgy

Especialy since aaragorn was at camp casey a few days ago.
Seriously though all the parts fit it's just not in one neat package.

[FSogol]

29. Catch 22 [NT]

[PurityOfEssence]

31. Ship of Fools

n/t

[nothometoday]

36. The Dead zone

It is ...................To close for words.............

[newyawker99]

48. Hi nothometoday!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[earthmama]

38. This is pathetic but I swear I am in a life time movie.

If there isn't already one that is telling my story then I need to sell my story to them. ( wonder how I do that?).

I have alot of in law problems. they think I am weird PLUS they are wacko

[cascadiance]

39. Starship Troopers...

The way Paul Verhoeven shows the fascist state we become there, no matter how much it was an attempt at satire at the time, seems frighteningly real now!

[tomg]

40. It Can't Happen Here

by Sinclair Lewis seems about right, if seventy years too soon. For a movie, I would go with Brazil.

[kohodog]

41. Been down so long it looks like up to me. n/t

[hopein08]

42. "The Pelican Brief" by John Grisham

I swear it's prophetic about SCOTUS.

[nicehuman]

44. Manchurian Candidate

[newyawker99]

49. Hi nicehuman!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Deep13]

45. Decline and Fall of the Roman Republic

[Connie_Corleone]

46. The Matrix and Matrix Reloaded.

The country hasn't gotten to Matrix Revolutions...yet.

[julialnyc]

50. Inherit the Wind, Paths of Glory and Network all at once

Inherit the Wind, Paths of Glory (with Bush and Cheney being the french generals sending the troops into the impossible mission while living in their lavish palace) and Network all at once

[julialnyc]

51. oh... I forgot Dr. Strangeloveand Three Kings

N/T

[julialnyc]

52. and Citizen Ruth

N/T

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

54. The Marching Morons

- C M Kornbluth

[cascadiance]

56. When I see "March of the Penguins" poster out there...

I keep thinking of "The Penguin" Karl Rove due to be "frog marched" soon...

[marions ghost]

55. Lord of the Flies

[SuperWonk]

57. Inherit the Wind

...that's all your getting.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

58. Wag The Dog

[sweetheart]

59. soylent green

mega-rich, mega-poor... earth polluted as shit, corrupt police state
with the poor poisoned from the food supply. Women are "furniture"
and belong to houses, with neo-slavery well entrenched.

[sakabatou]

62. Gundam Wing

[julialnyc]

63. Apocalypse Now

N/T

[julialnyc]

64. A Very Long Engagement

with us being the french in WW1