Position Predictable

So the Modern American Right claims that Palin has a "secret weapon" she's about to use just in time to announce her candidacy for President.

Too bad this is the same thing she has used ever since she was vomited down into the socio-political stage of the "lower 48":

Shortly after Republicans swept last November to a historic victory in which Sarah Palin was credited with playing a central role, the former Alaska governor pulled aside her close aide, Rebecca Mansour, to discuss a hush-hush assignment: Reach out to conservative filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon with a request. Ask him if he would make a series of videos extolling Palin's governorship and laying to rest lingering questions about her controversial decision to resign from office with a year-and-a-half left in her first term. It was this abdication, Palin knew, that had made her damaged goods in the eyes of some Republicans who once were eager to get behind her potential 2012 presidential campaign.

The response was more positive than Palin could have hoped for. He'd make a feature-length movie, Bannon told Mansour, and he insisted upon taking complete control and financing it himself -- to the tune of $1 million.

The fruits of that initial conversation are now complete. The result is a two-hour-long, sweeping epic, a rough cut of which Bannon screened privately for Sarah and Todd Palin last Wednesday in Arizona, where Alaska's most famous couple has been rumored to have purchased a new home. When it premieres in Iowa next month, the film is poised to serve as a galvanizing prelude to Palin's prospective presidential campaign -- an unconventional reintroduction to the nation that she and her political team have spent months eagerly anticipating, even as Beltway Republicans have largely concluded that she won't run.

So Palin sent out the woman that writes her Facebook posts to convince a "conservative filmmaker" to make a propaganda film about her and the Fox"Nation" and all their drooling compatriots consider this a "secret weapon"? This is standard operating procedure for these people.

But let's consider their previous standpoints on documentaries of this nature......

By and large, documentaries can be divided into two categories: The Micheal Moore style and the Ken Burns style. While the former is largely and unblushingly predicated on a pure ideological message, the later is a purest form. Care to take a guess which one Stephen K. Bannon's is going to follow?

Moreover, one has to look at what Bannon is doing - putting up a meager sum ( most low budget, indie films spend MUCH more than this; as the producers of the box office disaster Atlas Shrugged spent upwards of 10 times as much ) of "one million dollars" - and this appears to me to be more of a calculated business move than one of blind allegiance to Palin. He'll likely pocket a rather substantial profit from this. Honestly makes me wonder who is bilking who in this whole laughable affair.

The Same Show, Different Packaging

Caught this over at Bob Cesca's blog - who really hit the nail on the head in reference to the factually challenged narrative that is presented in the film - but I thought I would approach this from a different angle all together.

Let's watch, shall we........



There has been more energy put forward in trying to ensure that Barack Obama and any and all that side with him are seen as destroyers of the very fabric of space-time than energy put forward in trying to correct the problems that were clearly, precisely, and accurately reported as being caused by conservative economic policy. Imagine what would happen if people like Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, and even Megyn Kelly actually did something to help this country out instead of just acting like a bunch of spoiled teenage girls who got their phone privileges revoked because they ran up a $500 bill.

Think about all the books, "documentaries", radio and television programs that were created just to push this poorly conceived narrative that Obama is going to ruin America. What if all that energy was used to ensure that the "common man" that conservatives claim to love could keep their job, their home; could be confident that their police force would have adequate funding, or their schools wouldn't have half their teachers fired. Think about how much better the country would be already.

That won't ever happen though, as their is too much money to be made by being the spoiled brats that conservatives prefer emulating. It boils down to one simple concept - thinking of yourself before thinking of your country. It's the conservative way of life.

From Page To Picture

I just recently finished Thomas Franks book that this documentary is based on.



( h/t Gryphen )

Gay marriage? Who gives a shit!

This is going to be interesting; even the trip the seemingly brainwashed teen takes with her family to visit the Creationist Museum which is - I'm ashamed to say - in my state.

You can read more about Thomas Frank's book here.

Some Thoughts For Your Day

- I'd say it's not quite the "eating their own" meme that conservatives love to use when liberals and progressives question the motives or actions within their own ideological set, but it's pretty close. Steven F. Hayward of The Washington Post posits that conservative thought has devolved to nothing more than sound-bites. He's pretty much spot on in his description. The modern conservative has to deal with living in a new ear of 24 hour news, the internet, and keeping up momentum with "fresh material".

- By and large, conservatives are willing to take their complete lack of knowledge in a variety of fields and spin it into this bizarre stew of "truth and revelation". Such is definitely the case when it comes to Hollywood and films. While Jonah Goldberg famously skewed the Pixar family film Wall-e into neo-fascist propaganda, Andrew Brietbarts "Big Hollywood" writer John Nolte turns his complete lack of understanding on how films make money into a hot meme about Micheal Moore. Historically speaking, documentaries will always fair poorly at the box office.

Christian Toto Has His PJs In A Twist

Toto is a writer for Pajama's Media.

You remember them. They financed the disaterous trip of Joe "The Gimmick" Wurzelbacher to Isreal as a "war correspondant.

Now, he's taking issue with a new documentary that shows just how hateful the McCain campaign's fanbase leading up to the election of Barack Obama.

...[N]ot everyone was in such a charitable mood as it became clear Obama’s lead wouldn’t go away. And those are the folks documentary filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi sought out for her new HBO program Right America: Feeling Wronged: Some Voices from the Campaign Trail.

The documentary, debuting tonight at 8 p.m. EST, captures the very worst elements of those who climbed aboard Sen. John McCain’s Straight Talk Express.

Close your eyes for a moment. What kind of documentary would you expect given the subject matter and the filmmaker (Pelosi is the daughter of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi)?

If you said the film would show conservatives as ignorant, racist, hateful folk who genuinely cling to God and guns, give yourself a prize. Bonus points go for those who predicted the film would characterize McCain/Palin rallies as hate events.

You wanna see hate? Check out the next anti-war march. Yikes.

Pelosi, who has displayed an ability to walk an unbiased line with documentaries like Journeys with George and, most recently, The Trials of Ted Haggard, lets her ideological flag fly this time ’round. She also proves incapable of revealing some inner truths about her subject matters, something that hurt her Haggard piece as well.

Toto takes issue with the very real fact that there was a healthy does of hatred leveled at not only Barack Obama, but those that voted for him as well.

He doesn't seem to realise that the divisive nature of the McCain campaign was, and still is, very real. Remember these people:





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In all fairness, I have to tell you, I haven't seen Pelosi's latest documentary feature.

So, I'm going to reserve my opinions on the film until after I have seen it.

The point of this post was to show that Christian Toto, and many like him, still can't seem to realize the dividing nature of not just the McCain campaign, but the party that they affiliate themselves with.

Films That Make You Think : V 1.0

Zeitgeist, The Movie

Zeitgeist, produced by Peter Joseph, was created as a nonprofit expression to
inspire people to start looking at the world from a more critical perspective and to understand that
very often things are not what the population at large think they are.

Click to start film.

The Cool School -- A Story About The Ferus Gallery

Last night on PBS ( KET2 for viewers in Kentucky ), they aired the documentary The Cool School. The film depicts the rise of the monderist movement in art in America.



The rise of L.A.'s Ferus Gallery, one of the key catalysts of the modern art scene, was the place where Ed Kienholz, Alan Light, Billy Al Bengston, Ed Moses, Robert Irwin, John Altoon and Craig Kauffman changed the face of art in America.

More info at the LA Times