The Republican Party's Suicide Squad: Is Hollywood Taking the Mickey out of the GOP?

by Nomad

The plot of the summer blockbuster, Suicide Squad, seems so familiar for some reason. 

As far as I can remember, I haven't done a film review on this blog. 

There are reasons for that. I have been called a snob when it comes to film preferences. The kinds of films I usually like are not what most people do.
"Quirky tastes," I think was how one person defined by film preferences. I wouldn't deny that.

So I lay off the film critiques.

The last film I sized up was as a budding journalist at my high school newspaper. I wrote that "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" was a better film than "Star Wars." ("What's up with that chick's hair??")

And that pretty much ended my career as a film reviewer. 

In any case, there's a new film about to be released that caught my attention.  Technically, since I haven't actually seen the film, this is actually more a comment on a film than a review of it.

Here's a synopsis of the new film Suicide Squad:

Assemble a team of the world’s most dangerous, incarcerated Super Villains, provide them with the most powerful arsenal at the government’s disposal, and send them off on a mission to defeat an enigmatic, insuperable entity.

It's yet another one of those films based on comic books for audiences that like that sort of thing. Frankly I am getting sick to death of them when there are so many more interesting stories to tell.
Just say it already. "Snob!"

Mob Control: Do Trump's Mafia Connections Reflect His Lack of Ethics and Accountability?

by Nomad

Any presidential candidate should expect some in-depth scrutiny about his business relationships. In Donald Trump's case, his past contact with the Mafia opens up a lot of questions.

As a rule, front-runner presidential candidate Donald Trump likes to denigrate reporters who report things he doesn't like. Or things he doesn't want the public to become aware of.
As an egomaniac, he likes to be in control of the message. And the message must always display the positive side of the Trump story.

For instance, when New York journalist Wayne Barrett published an unauthorized biography of Trump, Trump blasted the author and his reputation.
Insinuating that the author was on some kind of personal vendetta, Trump called Barrett “a second-rate writer who has had numerous literary failures" and his book "boring, non-factual, and highly inaccurate.”

In fact, Barret has been an investigative reporter and senior editor for the Village Voice for over 20 years. Trump might try to paint Barrett as some kind of tabloid columnist but Barrett is currently a Fellow at the Nation Institute and contributor to Newsweek.

Barrett's bio reads:

He has been an adjunct at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism for years, teaching courses on investigative and political reporting, as well as advising students on investigative projects.

In addition, Barrett was awarded the 1990 Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Alumni Award as well as numerous other journalism prizes.

As far as the book, James B. Stewart, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, has called it "exhaustively researched"a penetrating portrait" and "the definitive account of how Trump got ahead and why he fell." If Trump fell, he was not too badly bruised or otherwise traumatized.

Trump might think otherwise or he might wish the rest of the world to think Barrett is "second-rate" but Barrett is no hack. Not any more than Trump is a failed real estate mogul.

Of course, the tycoon-turned presidential candidate has every reason to consider the author a threat and was apparently ready to silence him. 

Ben Franklin: To Shut the Eye of Reason

by Nomad

Political Theater: How Orson Welles Used Julius Caesar to Warn Against The Rise of Fascism

by Nomad

This post will take us on a merry ride through history, both ancient and modern. It involves a murder of a tyrant and a play about that murder and how that play served as a warning about the rise of another, more ruthless, dictator.

Like a Colossus

When the 22-year-old Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre players took on a Broadway production of Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, he made some interesting changes. 

Only a man like Welles would have had the audacity to "streamline" Shakespeare, but he dared to do so for a very good reason. 

In fact, anybody coming to see a Shakespeare play or yearning for a play of spectacle and diversion would have been in for a shock. For one thing, a modern-dress with sparse stage decoration.  But it wasn't just about costumes.

Czar Vladimir: How Putin Wasted Russia's Best Chance for a Liberal Democracy 3 / 3

by Nomad

In this final installment of the three-part series, we turn to the realities of Putin's attempt at empire-building and the tragedy of lost opportunities. We also ask "Quo Vadis, Mother Russia?"

Part One
Part Two

A Very Dangerous Neighbor

Although he might be nostalgic for the good old days of the Soviet era, Russian President Putin is intelligent enough to know there's little hope of returning to that time. One of the main drawbacks to that period was the failure to move hearts and minds. The dull and drab years could not possibly inspire a nation.

He seems much more interested in a revival of Russian imperialism, steeped in a largely imaginary czarist past and supported by a national religion.

Author of the book, Putin’s Wars : The Rise of Russia’s New Imperialism, Marcel H.Van Herpen notes:

This official revival of old imperial pomp and glory coincided with an increasingly aggressive behavior vis-à-vis the former Soviet republics.

In 2009, Putin's policies really moved out of the domestic arena. In August of that year, a new law came into effect which allowed the use of Russian troops in foreign countries “to protect citizens of the Russian Federation.” 

The threat of the law lay in its interpretation and application.

These measures seemed to be meant as a legal preparation for eventual armed interventions in Russia’s Near Abroad and were interpreted as a growing Russian bellicosity, experienced as a threat by its neighboring states.

As we have seen, those fears about the implications of the law were entirely justified with the invasion of Ukraine.

In 2014, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attempted to justify the use of Russian troops sent into neighboring Ukraine’s Crimea region as a necessary protection for his country’s citizens living there.

Lavrov told the UN Council on Human Rights in Geneva:

“We are talking here about protection of our citizens and compatriots, about protection of the most fundamental of the human rights – the right to live, and nothing more.”

He assured the audience:

“Human rights are too important to make it a bargaining chip in geopolitical games, to use it to impose one’s will on others; less so to instill regime change,”

However,  absolutely nobody was fooled by Lavrov's remark.