I'm going to be giving you spoilers here. So if you haven't seen Restrepo, you might not want to read on. But if you have no intention of seeing it, or have seen it, or are sick of war movies, then this is for you.
First off, Restrepo is the name of a soldier who was killed in action. He was with the platoon of U.S soldiers chronicled in the film, Restrepo. As a reaction to his death, which devastated his comrades, they set up an outpost and named it after him, O.P. (outpost) Restrepo. Now I have complete respect for the men of this platoon and Sgt. Restrepo, in terms of their service to their country. But the problem is that their service is in vain and effectively useless.
Sgt. Restrepo's death, while being quite dramatic material for a film, was in vain. This is not to diminish his worthiness as an individual, a serviceman, comrade, and friend to the other men of his platoon. But therein lies the rub. Right wing warmongers exploit men like these and their plight (which they impose on them to begin with). This film is overflowing with camaraderie, buddy love, friendship, honor, glory, patriotism and all those heartwarming, good feelings we're supposed to have about our country. There is no better subtle propaganda tool than a film like Restrepo to prop up this useless futile extravagant waste of a war. We feel for these soldiers and what they have to go through. But why the fuck do they have to go through it in the first place? That question is never asked.
Now I am not faulting the filmmakers. I have plenty of respect for them and their bravery in risking their lives to make this film. After all, if they hadn't done so, I wouldn't be able to rant about it, and it is questionable that the film is a propaganda tool of the right. It only works that way if you're a fucking moron, like people who believe what they hear on Fox News, or don't have any mental capacity to read between the lines. Pretty much, that would include all the brain-dead right wing and other warmongers. The filmmakers have exposed a piece of this war not seen before in the right wing owned and operated biased media.
So perhaps the left (and people like me) can exploit this film as well. In that respect, it is quite an awesome film. The film actually covers the bombing of a civilian neighborhood, and we actually see wounded children. But that hardly exposes the real tragedy of the many thousands of civilian deaths and injuries that are neatly cleaned from any and every media account of the war. The filmmakers have a good cop out for this. They were covering the troops and what the troops go through, bleeding heart conservatives who sign up for war and then can't deal with it when they get shot or their buddy is killed. What did they think war was?
To balance out the reality of what war is, if you see Restrepo, you should also see the HBO documentary produced by James Gandolfini, Wartorn, a film about PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress - a nice name for being fucked for life up after seeing your buddy's head get blown off, or after watching a three year old take a hit of automatic weapons fire).
While I agree with the students here, I question what part of the PPACA (Affordable Care Act) will actually survive to do any good. We've already seen the provision that blocks rates to increase repealed. With rate increases already in effect (or taking effect 1/1/2011) insurance companies now have raised rates by as much as 39% to make up for having to put 26 year olds back on their parents plans (among other things).
Plus they have now made new restrictions on what meds and services are covered. It's business as usual in the suck Americans' health dry for profit game.
The cumulative effect is that PPACA has decreased health care and made things much worse. By 2014 it will require all Americans to buy insurance and submit to this mandated corporate oligarchy, giving Americans less coverage, with continued denial of care and pre-existing condition exclusions at higher costs, guaranteeing the corporate oligarchy a steady stream of government mandated corporate welfare to the insurance industry.
Repealed or not, that is exactly what will happen. The difference is that with repeal, people just might get pissed off enough to take to the streets and refuse to pay for health care insurance (and you can bet repeal will not reduce any rates), which amounts to corporate graft. It is naive to think that PPACA will have any positive effect. It is a 2000+ page monster health care legislation written by and for the corporate health insurance oligarchy that runs America. Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Marc Sapir is a primary care physician in Alameda County, CA and graduate of the Stanford University School of Medicine, M.D. 1970. He has been traveling with the Mad as Hell Doctors on their 2010 California tour. He sent out the following account of his trip.
Dr. Sapir also appears eloquently in the upcoming release of my documentary film, "got healthcare yet?"
Berkeley, Nov 2, 2010 ~ The Mad as Hell Docs tour ended 3 weeks ago today and part IV of my 2010 CA travelogue is long gone. But I promised to find a little part III and here it comes bubbling up:
The MAHD 2010 California tour covered about 2,500 driving miles (though those intrepid Oregon guys—Paul, Mike, Phillip--drove well beyond 3,500 miles in the 18 days). In 2009 the first MAHD tour drove 6,000 miles through the “heartlands” on the way to D.C. Complementing this year’s 2,500 miles, MAHD played to a combined California audience of 2,500 folks, beginning and ending with large audiences (in Arcata—250-- and Chico--300). With the larger audiences the enthusiasm and Mad doc mirth became infectious. In the 18 days running there were, I believe, 28 events. Three or four of these were small group interactions and a slide show that Mike Huntington put together for med students. A few outdoor events—such as at Pasadena and San Diego--precluded showing of any video clips (no socialist plot to protect our homes from fires could be screened). About 22 events were the full bore program. No, not boring, I said “full bore,” at least according to this reporter’s perspective.
The MAHD moderator always asks himself out loud: “self, why are we preaching to the choir?” and gives the answer that “we’re trying to be sure the choir is well armed to make the case for Medicare for All/Single Payer, fully understands how weak the PPACA reform is and how badly the public option would have fared; to help people gain confidence to talk with neighbors, friends, and Uncle Joe (who is a Tea Bagger) at Thanksgiving”. And we’re there to motivate and excite people. That sounds right over here at my desk, but what a number of organizers of events have also reported is that they have actually recruited good numbers of new members to the local organizations from these events, including the smaller ones. Let’s hope the new members’ enthusiasm translates into a lot of activity for those organizations.
Pretty much at every MAHD event there were 2 local docs or a doc and a nurse on the stage as part of the panel (in a few cases there were 3 local health professionals on stage). Audiences particularly appreciated hearing from their own community people. That changes the typical U.S. medical equation of “docs at a distance”. Some of these local docs were true heroes which we learned about only as we heard of their life’s work. In some cases they had set up clinics for people without resources, or successfully gotten smoking removed from prisons and been able to promote health education, or done battle with local institutions to pressure them to provide more services for people who needed them most, and so forth. And in some places, like Chico, by the time we left the locals were already talking about launching their own local mini tours to various outlying communities, towns, cities. Do it, guys.
At USC the audience at the School of Social Work forgot to show up. Maybe that was because MAHD event was set up with only a few days notice and came during exam week (duh!). But we corralled several students coming to and from classes and study groups and held extended one on one or one on 3 discussions in front of the school with our banners splayed all over the place. The response was very positive (I guess that with the word “social” in their line of study they must be just another bunch of damned socialists like Barack Obama); MAHD promised the Rev. Dr. Peter Sabey (the host) not to worry but MAHD will be back, with better notice and collaboration next time.
Back home now, I’ve been wondering where this all leads to. If you heard my own 4 minute talk you may remember words to the effect of turning the Single Payer movement outward and re-creating a good old fashion civil rights movement, like in the 60s, to rejuvenate Martin King’s call to arms on health care. Mike mentions civil disobedience tactics. That is part of the broadening of vision, I think, but a social movement isn’t just about tactics. It’s about culture and strategy--seeing the Single Payer connection between politics and culture, between politics and class, between our goals and racism. I’m ready to get arrested more than once if would help achieve Medicare for all in the U.S. But I know there’s a big difference between symbolic civil disobedience and planning a movement that can use it to great effect. At the present moment I don’t believe that tactics are as important as figuring out how to merge our efforts with the rights struggles of undocumented immigrants, the unemployed workers, youths who are frequently gunned down unarmed by cops in Black urban communities and who gravitate toward gangs for self-preservation, people who are still being evicted and have no place to live, no way to survive, workers who would choose a union but have been denied the Employee right to choose act, and so on. That means first off figuring out how to join the struggles of people of a different class, by and large, and prove to them that their wellbeing is what our cause is about, not just when it comes to access to health care as a right. On the tour I talked with a few HCA/Single Payer chapter leaders who believe as I do and have already tried that kind of outreach, with somewhat mixed and marginal results. It ain’t easy. But what I think I detected from them is that we are usually working from the perspective of trying to get those reached out to “to join us” when it may be that the question is how do we learn how to join them, so that they can then join with us or how to create a broader context.
Since 1994 I have not forgotten that Proposition 186, the California Single Payer initiative campaign which failed dismally at the polls, was not led by people most effected by the lack of access to care. There were docs and union leaders and other mostly white middle class folks carrying out the campaign. And in the final analysis 186 was led by people who could not see the importance of standing firm on inclusion of all—including the undocumented—in their press statements. It was a campaign that did not reach out in any meaningful way to the Black, Latino and Philippino communities, churches, and other organizations. And as I reflect upon how we might move Medicare for All efforts in the right direction and center stage, I never cease believing that now, not later, is the right time to make the turn we could not make in 1994, the turn that King’s echoing words call out to us--to forge a multi-ethnic leadership by using the call to a new civil rights movement that can unite us on multiple rights demands and issues. Sure, doing that practically won’t be easy. But we can do this if we all agree that it’s something that must be done just as much as supporting any particular piece of legislation.
I read a very disturbing blog on the film industry a few days ago by James Fair (lecturer in Film Technology at Staffordshire University).The thing that made me sick was the site of a corporatist organizational chart. If you're anything like me, the site of these charts makes you want to puke (You may want to put your hand over it).
So here we have a film scholar (as if good filmmaking was ever a scholarly endeavor) telling us that business models are questionable in light of the artistic and creative aspects of filmmaking. Then he goes on to suggest there may be a better model out there, even though this one is working. But the current system isn't working. It never did work. The film industry is having one of its greatest depressions. Even when it was on top, 50% of all industry product never made a profit.
The problem is not that we need a better business model. The problem is that even having a conversation about a business model is absurd, which brings me to David Lynch. When I listen to him talk about the process of making a film, there is no business model or organizational structure. You may say even he has departments run by department heads, which may be true. But in a truly harmonious film production these departments operate as single entities to fulfill their respective tasks, and like our scholar mentions, none of this is ever set in stone.
The problem that 99% of the film industry continues to have is that film is not a business, nor is it purely an art. It's the business of making art, and that means that the art has to come before the business, since you can't sell your art if you don't go about making it first. This may depend on your definition of "art", which is an abstract word much like love. I think of art as stuff that moves people emotionally and even physically. That has absolutely nothing to do with making money in itself. If the moving of people can be achieved then I think the money making potential is there. You don't start out with the idea of having to make money and then come up with art that has that goal. That is not art. Nor should business have as its goal to make money without first having some higher purpose, to fill a need or fix a problem or help society.
Of course, failed American corporatism and its decades of authoritarian conservative ingrained tradition will continue to insist to its dying day that pure business models (regardless of product and with no other goal than money) are the way to go about doing any business, even art. But, like the Roman Empire, blind leading the blind (no one knows anything in Hollywood) kind of thinking is ultimate doom.
Pull out David Lynch's Inland Empire DVD. You do have one right? There, not only will you find David Lynch show you a great quinoa recipe (maybe you eat too much meat to be able to make good films that can sell on their own merit) but you'll also hear him talk about his artistic "business model", which amounts to getting one idea, then getting another idea, and eventually putting these ideas together. But if you were to talk to a good sample of great artists, you'd find that each of them have different ways of doing their art.
Even most indie filmmakers have a model where they come up with a script, and even a cast an crew, and sometimes even make the film before they go about looking for an "executive producer" (since often the only real business aspect of films is the distribution after they're made). They may or may not take notes from that producer. My understanding is that most indie producers act as patrons and seek to fund artists with no expectation of return. That is the traditional model of artistic endeavor around the world.
The one reason that any good films even exist in America, I think, is that there are indie renegades out their like David Lynch and there is also the independent spec screenwriter factor. Screenwriting can be done in a vacuum away from all the failed corporatist bullshit. So in that regard, screenwriters have the ability to be true artists, going about writing in whatever artistic way suits them (as George Lucas did far away from Hollywood). For that reason, we have some great screenplays in existence that Hollywood then gets it's greedy clammy little hands on and plugs into its organizational chart to end up with something resembling art (so long as no dogs are killed).
Another fallacy about the chart above, with the quintessential executive asshole at the top, is that there is no marketing department. Anyone and everyone knows that in the Hollywood studio system marketing is god. They only make films that project (as proven under failed corporatist business formulas) to make money. So we end up with trilogies and sequel after sequel riding on the success of previous success. We see film stories (like Inception) ripped off of other films (like The Matrix) that worked and we see a plethora of remakes that are again remade on a regular ten year schedule, just like regular old white men on Exlax.
I ran into Alexia's project, Adventures in Plymptoons ( a documentary on animator Bill Plympton), on IndieGoGo, where I was amused with her (and Bill's) total irreverence to anything conservatively morally straight. They have since launched a Kickstarter.com campaign to fund post production of the film. Check out Alexia's trailer:This was enough to get me to pony up $50 to help her out. We need more indie films like this and as an indie filmmaker I sincerely believe we should all help each other out. What goes around comes around. The bottom line being that if a couple thousand indie filmmakers help each other out that's enough of an audience right there to launch a film to success. There are easily a few thousand indie filmmakers out there. Something like 5000 to 6000 enter Sundance every year, not to mention thousands of other film festivals. Billions of dollars are spent every year on indie films and only a handful of them ever see the light of day, even when they're good. We have no one to blame but our collective selves.
Do you really like the crap coming out to the cineplex every week? Wouldn't you rather see indie films out there? Well do something about it. Put your money where your mouth is. Support indie filmmakers. Buy their films. Demand to see then on OpenIndie.com. Chip in a few bucks at Kickstarter or IndieGoGo. We can do this. It's a no brainer. Have you seen Ants? You know, that animation with Kevin Spacey as the bad ass grasshopper that controls hundreds of ants with his little gang, until they all realize they have him outnumbered and scare the shit out of him.
Well, we are the ants; we the indie filmmakers. The studios are the thug grasshoppers trying to control us. Why do we put up with their shit?
Alright, so anyway, I checked out Bill's booth at Comic Com, where Alexia was a guest, and interviewed her, just for kicks. Check it out.
Protesters on various sides of the recent health care insurance reform issues, actively debated around the U.S. in the summer of 2009, are depicted as people at street rallies, protests, and town hall meetings give their views to filmmaker Jon Raymond. The film is not formally narrated but instead uses the interviews as a sort of narration and ongoing dialog that explains various aspects of the issues involved, from the question of socialism, to reports of people dying for lack of health insurance, to arrests of protesters at sit-ins. A new 90 minute (festival cut) DVD is now available.
The following is an email I received from a very trusted nurse and friend to the healthcare reform movement.
I DO NOT RECOMMEND GIVING TO THE RED CROSS. I volunteered as an RN and also worked for Red Cross in the 1980's. They are not that same organization since Elizabeth Dole became the first of several questionable 'CEOs' in the 1990's. ARC DOES NOT ALWAYS USE THE MONEY COLLECTED FOR THE PURPOSE IT AS DONATED! ARC controversies ensued after 9/11, Hurricaine Katrina and after the SriLankin Tsunami. ARC has a much lower ranking with www.charitynavigator.org than many other worthy service groups and relief providers.
I did medical relief work in New Orleans just after the hurricaine...and the Red Cross was shameful in it's hands off distancing from those in need. They even refused to give aid to Latino resident hurricaine vicitms who didn't have their ID's. Gathering millions of dollars in donations, ARC sent trucks to the Common Ground Relief storage, attempting to take our donated supplies which we were distributing to areas in need that Red Cross wouldn't even go to! Some Medical volunteers who came with the Red Cross defected to other groups due to frustration with the organization's lack of genuine assistance to the disaster victims.
Read about these scandals /problems if you are interested. Articles from the LA Times, NY Times, Wash Post, Toronto Star detailing ARC transgressions can be found at www.commondreams.org . search.
1. Partners In Health 888 Commonwealth Avenue 3rd Floor Boston, MA 02215 tel: (617) 432-5298 fax: (617) 432-5300 EIN: 04-3567502 http://www.standwithhaiti.org Mail donations to: P.O. Box 845578 Boston, MA 02284
MEDICAL care. Dr. Paul Farmer and Tracy Kidder longtime Haiti advocates recommend this group. They have operated in Haiti for 20 years. Mission
Founded in 1987, Partners In Health's (PIH) mission is to provide a preferential option for the poor in health care. The work of PIH has three goals: to care for our patients, to alleviate the root causes of disease in their communities, and to share lessons learned around the world. Through long-term partnerships with our sister organizations, we bring the benefits of modern medical science to those most in need and work to alleviate the crushing economic and social burdens of poverty that exacerbate disease. PIH believes that health is a fundamental right, not a privilege. PIH works in Haiti, Rwanda, Peru, Russia, USA, Malawi and Lesotho, and supports projects in Mexico and Guatemala.
2. Doctors Without Borders, USA 333 Seventh Avenue 2nd Floor New York, NY 10001 tel: (888) 392-0392 fax: (212) 679-7016 EIN: 13-3433452
RANK 61.22**** Providing trauma and surgical care.
Mission
Doctors Without Borders, USA (DWB-USA) was founded in 1990 in New York City to raise funds, create awareness, recruit field staff, and advocate with the United Nations and US government on humanitarian concerns. Doctors Without Borders/Mรฉdecins Sans Frontiรจres (MSF) is an international medical humanitarian organization that provides aid in nearly 60 countries to people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe, primarily due to armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, exclusion from health care, or natural disasters. In 2007, MSF-USA raised $152.1 million and sent 200 aid workers to work overseas.
Doctors Without Borders/ Mรฉdecins Sans Frontiรจres (MSF)
Haiti Earthquake Response - Doctors Without Borders donate.doctorswithoutborders.org Your gift today will immediately support emergency medical care for the men, women, and children affected by the earthquake in Haiti. Please give as generously as you can to our Haiti Earthquake Response and help us save lives.
3. Operation USA
Disaster relief & development since 1979
International : Humanitarian Relief Supplies
Operation USA 3617 Hayden Avenue Suite A Culver City, CA 90232 tel: (800) 678-7255 fax: (310) 838-3477 EIN: 95-3504080
Founded in 1979, Operation USA helps communities alleviate the effects of disasters, disease and endemic poverty throughout the world by providing privately-funded relief, reconstruction and development aid. We provide material and financial assistance to grassroots organizations that promote sustainable development, leadership and capacity building, income generating activities, provide education and health services, and advocate on behalf of vulnerable people. Operation USA rapidly and expertly provides on-the-ground aid by sending vital life-saving supplies and cash grants to assist communities in rebuilding. Partnering with grassroots organizations, Operation USA specializes in reaching vulnerable populations who are in the greatest need, yet who are often ignored by governments and larger aid organizations.
4. Oxfam America 226 Causeway Street 5th Floor Boston, MA 02114 tel: (800) 776-9326 fax: (617) 728-2594 EIN: 23-7069110
Oxfam assigned to lead aid groups on water and sanitation Update: During the next two weeks, Oxfam will coordinate international aid groups on the ground in Haiti in the delivery of emergency water and sanitation services. Water is the most critical need in a country where this week’s earthquake left at least 250,000 people homeless.
5. United States Fund for UNICEF 125 Maiden Lane New York, NY 10038 tel: (800) 367-5437 fax: (212) 779-1679 EIN: 13-1760110
The United States Fund for UNICEF was founded in 1947 to support the work of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) by raising funds for its programs and increasing awareness of the challenges facing the world's children. The oldest of 37 national committees for UNICEF worldwide, we are part of a global effort to save, protect and improve children's lives. Every moment of every day, UNICEF is on the ground providing lifesaving help for children in need. We provide families with clean water and sanitation, we vaccinate against childhood illness, and we help protect children against malaria. We provide nourishment to fight malnutrition, and we care for children affected by AIDS. We protect children from abuse, and we give them an education. We are here to make sure that all children lead a healthy, humane, and dignified life.
I had a thought after listening to Tim Westergen talk about Pandora Radio and The Music Genome Project , and how that should be applied to films. Many filmmakers are frustrated with the rejections they get from film festivals. Arin Crumley and Susan Buice really shed a lot of light on this process with Four Eyed Monsters and the accompanying vlogs where they talk about the festival and marketing processes they went through. So add 2+2 and what you get is this: a gnome film festival.
If you're not familiar with Genome, listen to Tim on the Workbook Project's This Conference is being Recorded archives. The Genome project categories music, one track at a time into about 400 attributes with ratings in each one (as I understand it). As Tim says, this translates into a truly democratic form of music promotion based on these categories and based on comparing the music that a listener wants to hear with other music that has the same characteristics.
So there would really be no direct all encompassing human judgment factor on rating an entire film. It's more on these individual traits. In film you could have categories like acting, actor, directing, director, photography, DP, genre, running time, locations, production company, on and on.
This makes so much sense for film festivals where fairness really is an important issue and one that is now clearly forsaken over branding, theme, diversity and other marketing factors that really are what drive film festivals.
Of course the Genoming [sic] of thousands of films submitted to festivals would be a monumental undertaking. So I think it would have to be something of a universal service for all festivals (like Withoutabox, which in fact already does this on a very small scale of non-merit factors), where you have a company categorize films and then you'd have festivals look at that database and select what they want. But again you could end up with festivals choosing films based more on marketing factors than quality or originality or other more merit type factors, and you'd also have to deal with devising a good objective way to rate acting, writing, directing and artist type performance.
Perhaps there could be a new wave of festivals that would choose film solely on the merit and quality categories, or at least those could be the primary factors with marketing playing a secondary role.
Another important point here is that filmmakers need and even crave objective feedback. This would give them that feedback and could even serve as a marketing information database for the entire industry. Filmmakers, studios, distributors and anyone involved with film production or distribution should be willing to pay at least something for such a service.
I'm both a filmmaker and an experienced data-driven software project developer and I think his would be really not a big deal to make happen. But it would cost. It would take a lot of labor to categorize films, and ongoing labor to maintain it; plus coming up with categorization strategies would also be a major hurdle. But probably Tim and the Gnome Project could help out with some insight on that.
It's 2010! Happy New Year, whop-dee-do, and all that! I've decided the world has brought us to a new place, a new beginning of a new decade where we will see great new things happen.
Lets take stock of what brought us here. First of all we now have corporations in this country that are "too big to fail," so big in fact that they don't even have to make a profit to stay afloat. They get government corporate welfare. Now what other country has that shit going for it?
I think we should all welcome this new change in America as we move now toward a corporate socialism, where companies will no longer have to worry about competition, or those antiquated ideas like "build a better mouse trap" or " the customer is always right" or making money because they "EARN" it. It's the new millennium folks and time we all move on from the antiquated failed industrial ingenuity capitalism of the 18th century to the new corporate socialized welfare state.
Now, in celebration and as part of the PR campaign to bring this new change home, it's time we upgrade our flag. 13 stripes and 50 stars? Come on. Are we kidding? How many hundreds of years have we had that crap? Sure it was exciting when every few years they added a new star. But those times are long gone. Ain't no more states gonna join this union. No fucking way. The only union anyone is gonna join is the E Union. I mean come on now. One currency and multilingual, plus they got the Riviera, nude beaches, and the Cannes film festival. Sheeeet. I'm going EU baby. Screw this USA bullshit.
So to upgrade our flag and at least make like we even want to be an EU contender I say with spiff it up with the AIG, CitiBank and Bank of America logos. Money talks folks. Yesserieebob. Ain't but one thing that will garner people's attention away from boobs on the beach, and that's green currency baby.
Now while we're at it, we have to set people straight on what the good ole USA is all about. This whole equality thing is getting way too embarrassing. How can we have a Declaration of Independence and a Constitution that talk about equality when we have to get on with racial tazer profiling and Muslim only lines at our airports? Everyone knows that when our forefathers spoke of all men being created equal, what they really meant was all rich whitey men who married their cousins. They didn't mean "women." They didn't mean blacks or Hispanics or any of all these other growing hoards of races infiltrating our country to the point of actually making whitey the minority. So it's time we clarify this shit for all people to understand. RICH - WHITEY - MARRIED THEIR COUSINS. That's it! Everyone else can go fucking die.
Which brings me to health care in this country. If your ain't rich and white, then go die. Whitey ain't paying for non 'a y'all.
So let's review. We'll need to amend the Constitution to rewrite the Constitution to more accurately reflect the reality of the USA. Hey, this is nothing more than truth, honesty and the American way. Equality ain't truth. Capitalism ain't truth. But, Whitey rules in America? Now that' s a truth we can all agree on. Ain't it the truth?
