American Gov. and films

Jon wrote:
An interesting point, although I think they successfully made Stalin and
communism a figure head for the enemy during the cold war. But what I find
more disturbing is the role Hollywood has played in promoting American
foreign polices to their audiences, or should I say the way the American
Goverment has manipulated Hollywood. For example films like Rambo 2 and
Rocky 4 (the one when Stallone is up against big bad Soviet boxer) did much
to promote anti soviet feelings in the 80s in America and the West and
helped Reagon get his second term in office. The end of the Cold War has
meant they have needed to find new enemies which have taken many new forms
like Terrorism (Patriot Games, The Siege) and even Aliens (ID4) - See I did
get some sc-fi in here.

See yer

Chris

In article <40C24C464D6FD21189090000C0F06ACF46A18B@>, White C <C.White@> wrote:
[...]
Of course, if you want an example closer to home, you can look at the many
films that portray those poor Irishmen struggling against the dead hand of
the evil imperialist English. Which, I suppose, helps raise money over in
Boston to buy guns and semtex for the IRA.

So if your little brother or sister is blown to bloody fragments when the
"ceasefire" finally breaks down, you can blame Hollywood for that, too.

ObSF: the other effect you'll get is the "pilot audience" effect, where no
SF film will ever be made if it cannot be understood by a typical American
audience. Of course, the typical Brit is so much more intelligent, as can
be seen on the football terraces every Saturday afternoon, but this is the
real reason for the "directors' cut" versions of such films as "Blade
Runner", "Terminator 2" or "Aliens". The "director's cut" is the one with
the extra bits in - the bits that were taken out to prevent confusion and
boredom among the members of the audience whose IQ's hover around room
temperature.

Oh, but life is good!


Simon

---
"This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind" -Ecclesiastes 4:16

simon@ | Not affiliated to any religion
simon@ | Not affiliated to any politics
H (+44/0)1784 431998 | Not affiliated to any ideology
W (+44/0)1784 434568 (GMT/BST) | What does that make me?

"I have been asked to point out, as if you couldn't guess, that my rantings
are not the opinions of One Chip Solutions. So now you know, don't you..?"

I think you've constructed a kind of circular argument here. We come
back to a situation where American ideology becomes dominant over
what might be called 'the truth'.
They genuinly believe that the English are horrible. remeber that the
pilgrims were being turfed out of England for their religious
beliefs, something with which Irish Catholics are likely to have a
lot of sympathy. And I'll have to carry this on later cause my class
has just quit and i can't get back to a computer for a while.

Jon

I think your giving the Americans a lot more credit than they are due,
they
like most people are very transisent in who they pick to be the bad
guys.
Once it was Germans, then South Africans, then Arabs, now it's the
English.
The movies generate this tend and then feed of the results. yes, the
Irish
Americans like to hate the English, but the Jewish commuties hates the
Arabs,
the Steel workers hate Korean and Japan etc. etc. etc. All of these are
siezed
on at one time by Holloway as a cheap way to write scripts.

Daniel

due,

I agree entirely, and thank you for making my point for me before i
had to reform my tangled web of arguments.

Jon

Couldn't agree more, but a belief system is the enemy, a figurehead
represents the face of this enemy.

Jon

Does the fear in the system have anything to do with her being a woman who
uses sex to get what she wants, an yet stil has respct?

Now there's something I hadn't thought of. what could possobly be
scarier to an American than a woman ruling the world?

Monica Lewinsky as President with Hilary as Vice ( ultimate dominatrix
combo)

Jon wrote:
Saddam would be a good example of this.
The Gulf War was not against Iraq but against Saddam. Saddam wasa protrayed
as Hitler.
Who needed this war? America
Only problem was most average Americans didn't want a war so the media was
again used to change public opinion
Who forced military action? America
Who after the war sold billions worth of arms to other Middle Eastern
Countries? Yes you have guessed it - America.

It is bloody America's fault. The Gulf War could easilly have been prevented
through negotiations, but of course then America would not have got the
Desert War she wanted.

Cheers

Chris

I could be wrong, but I think Kuwait needed the war as well.

Daniel

needed is the key word here....

Probably only in the 'freedom' sense since historiacally Iraq and
Kuwait have very similar cultures and traditions. the key difference
is the form of dictatorship they represent (remember that Kuwait is
still a monarchy) and the relations that the authorities have with
the west as represented by (drum roll) America.

Jon

If you look at it from the start then you relise that Iraq had overall right
for Kuwait being incorporated into its country anyway. After the WW2 the
allies decided to create another small country called Kuwait when infact it
should have just been a part of Iraq. Plus arguable Kuwait could be seen as
the cause of the Iraq hostility to its territory because it demanded
immediate payment of all loans given to Iraq incurred in the war against
Iran. This obviously pissed off Iraq.
But again the gulf war could have been avoided quite easilly by the
Americans if they didn't want the war in the first place.
My point is quite simple - the Americans are the bad guys here. I mean how
can you believe in anything America does with its track record i.e The
assasination of JFK and of course his brother just so America could get her
war in Vietnam. (I mean you don't really believe in that Lee Harvey Oswald
crap do you?)
There was some poetic justice however because America got twated in Vietnam.

Cheers

Chris

Vietnam.

Entriely true, but both countries were created in the twenties at the
end of British colonialism, not after WW2.

Jon

It sound like you put historical precidence over self-determination.
Give the Brit back their Empire, or the Rome control of Europe...

The Americans are playing a very British game in the middle east,
trying to maintain the balance of power. We did it in Europe for
many years, going to war without any other reason. It's a game
all superpowers play.

Could the Gulf war have been avoided... we will never know. You could
be rigth. Could the Falklands war been avoided, or the any of
the other wars - maybe. The biggest problem with the Iraqis and
Kuwait is the line between them, it was draw with a penci, which
had a thick lead, looks good on a map, but converts to 10's of
miles of oil rich ground, this area has always been in dispute. Things
left in displute too long nearly always at some time lead to war.

So you think America should scare countries into doing what it
wants, be nice or we bomb you - yeah that's always works - like
agaisnt the Serbs, Libria and currently Iraq. In fact recently the
Americans have only really succeeded where they have gone in gun-ho
(Greneda, Kuwait). There have been a few exceptions such as Ethonia,
but low intensity conflict is a new thing and sits between the gun-ho
approach and the be-nice-or-get-bombed approach.
The track record seems to be slightly different to the way you see it.

Daniel

P.S. The Gulf War was the biggest intelligence failure this century -
we attacked with 100,000's when a few 10,000 could of done it. Why,
because the intelligence services told us it was going to be a hard
fight...

Ahh, 'twas but a trifle.

Anyway, I'm rather inclined to believe the earlier opinions that it was a
political ploy to bolster local support, and show off American technology to a
global marketplace.

Either that, or it was the Greys controlling the government through Majestic-12
and instructing them to bomb the colony of desert-dwelling subterranean aliens
they've been at war with, who are now trying to establish a base on earth.

(There's a cute short story in the aged Penguin SF Omnibus, which has earth
repeatedly "rescued" by opposing factions of aliens in a war which totally
destroys the planet in the process. It may not look like the most exciting book
in the world, but there's some really cute SF in it. IFIS used to have a copy,
but it's not showing up on the library now. Probably out of print too. It's
seriously old.)

Dominic.

"A psychiatrist is a fellow who asks you a lot of expensive questions
your wife asks for nothing." [Joey Adams]

I think you're getting your technical terms in a twist here.
Modern theory tends to describe a response to terrorism as a 'low
intensity conflict' as it is niether an all-out war nor a police
action. Put another way if a democratic government (or any other type
for that matter) admits that the actions of an internal terrorist
organisation consttute war then by definition they must accept the
terrorists' motivation as political and they are no longer justified
in merely arresting activists wherever possible. However an admission
of a state of war allows any military forces involved in a disputed
region to adopt battlefield rules of engagement, ie shoot-to-kill. In
this instance there would be public outcry over the 'assassination'
of fellow citizens.
The kind of conflicts that occoured in the Gulf and the Falklands
are what have become known 'colonial enterprizes' and the reason the
western world becomes involved is to attempt to maintain, believe it
or not, diplomatic stability. Put another way, they are trying to
avoid having to redraw their maps because believe it or not the
system that we have in plce at the moment by and large seems to be
working.
The difficulty in the former Yugoslavia is that the dynamic and
resoning for the conflict resembles Northern Island but the powers
supporting the two factions mean that the hardware and the politics
are more like Vietnam; which is far and away the best analogy to
draw.



Jon

Jon,
I be happy to continue this off IFIS chat...
Just say the word and I will correct you on a few points.

Daniel

White C said:
[and various others have contributed to this too]

'Scuse me, it's time for me to suggest that war talk should be taken
off of this list unless it's seriously Sci-Fi or IFIS-related, ok?
Take it to private email, or find a kuwait mailing-list somewhere.

Thanks.

---

Nick Waterman. Network Consultant / Sysadmin - LEOnet
nick-sig@ Team *AMIGA*!
You have the capacity to learn from mistakes. You'll learn a lot today.

Nick wrote:
Sorry I try to keep it sci-fi where possible. I added JFK conspiracy near
the end of my rant but obviosly that was not enough.
I accept that this was not really sci-fi or IFIS related but its not like
there was much else to talk about on this list today.

See yer

Chris

In article <40C24C464D6FD21189090000C0F06ACF46A1B4@>, White C <C.White@> wrote:
Excuse me: I did not realise IFIS Chat was here as a challenge to produce
as much junk to fill our mail-boxes as possible. Very soon, I expect to
*pay* for downloading e-mail, and therofore I want to only read the lists I
am subscribed to, rather than Middle Eastern politics, on the basis that
subscribers cannot think of any on-topic discussions that day..

I find it sad that my few posts, which I generally have spent several weeks
thinking out get ignored without response. I accept that my interests do not
coincide with many people, I now realise, having gone to a few conventions
that there *are* other people out there who care in some ways about some
things which I do.

I understand that most people use this list for fairly snappy opinion
making, rather than examining their innermost feelings about topics which
deeply motivate them. Unfortunately, the volume of thess exchanges has
driven off the list a large number of people around here who's opinions I
do respect.

I have carried on reading the list as it has been giving me a small insight
into the opinions and interests of segments of the science-fiction fans who
I know and interact with less often. This has struck me as important even
when I have felt many of the me-too or Janeway is horny or no she isn't oh
yes she is posts deeply disappointing in their lack of depth or even
relevance to my interests.

But, please, desist: the list now appears to have become overwhelmed by a
thread which has in almost all posters not even an attempt at making it
SF-relevant or IFIS socialising-relevant. Do you few have any conception as
to what this list is about- or has the purpose of the list been changed
without me being informed?

If there are groups of people on list who wish to share discussions, there
are other mechanisms for doing so. The numbers innvolved in this discussion
seems fairly small, so I cannot see why this discussion has not gone to
private e-mail long since. Alternatively, there are such things as chat
rooms, I beleive, although I know very little about this. If the offenders
need help with this, I'm sure Nick or Chris would be happy to explain how to
do this.

Oh, and *please* no long flame-wars about the rights and wrongs of these
discussions. Let us just reiterate (or decide ) a policy about the use of
this list, and stick to it. We might even be able to start two new lists
i.e. IFIS-anything-goes and IFIS deep-and_meaningful-once-in-a-blue-moon, if
that's what people wanted. I would be pleased if that happened, especially
if I could add some non-IFIS people to the latter.

Jenny Gould

---
jenny@

"Share and Enjoy"
-Marketing Division, Sirius Cybernetics Corporation


"Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. It
eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the
business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation."
-- Johnny Hart

(The above opinions do not represent a policy statement for or on behalf of
One Chip Solutions)

Okay, seeing as I started this I think its about time I put a stop
to it.
Basically all I was trying to do was add a bit of context to a
sci-fi related point I was trying to make. Since the things have
gotten completely out of hand and I would like to apologise and ask
people to leave it alone for a while.
I never meant for things to get out of hand, and I'm sorry that they
did. If anyone really desperately want to carry on with this topic
e-mail me at:
980818136@
If not I propose that we call a complete halt to it all now.


Jon

jenny@ said:
[blah]
[ sorry to reduce weeks of well-thought-out mail to "blah", by the way ;-) ]
Non-IFIS people are welcome to join any of the IFIS lists... at the
moment. In the unlikely event that the load grew really huge, I might
change my mind, but at the moment I've got no objection to the
occasional non-member wanting to join, and as far as I know, none of
the committee (or members, for that matter) are that worried either.

As for creating more lists... If there REALLY WAS a serious need for
them, I've got no objection to creating them (I remember what caused
us to split into "chat" and "announce" in the first place), but I'd
rather see it properly discussed first.

Whilst we're at it... The "guidelines for what goes on CHAT and what
goes on ANNOUNCE" are just some that I threw together myself in what
seemed like an emergency at the time... If anyone wants to propose
changes to these guidelines too, they're more than welcome.

... In case you can't read www.ifis.org.uk/social/forums/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
* announce is for the broadcasting of important information amongst
IFIS members. Meetings, new books just released, new series about
to appear on our TVs, etc. This might (perhaps) later be moderated
so that only comittee members can post directly. All other posts
will be sent to a comittee member to check first.
* chat is for members to generally chat about anything sci-fi
related. Anything at all. Burning the books, how crap last night's
episode of "Voyager" was, who would win if the death star met the
borg, anything. This list is not moderated. Anyone can post to it.
[blah]
Some time ago I wrote some approximate guidelines for the 2 lists, and
nobody's objected to them, so I'll quote them here:

For the moment I suggest (but won't enforce) the following guidelines:

* announce: "Video evening tomorrow"
* announce: "Christmas dinner arrangements"
* announce: "sci-fi convention next weekend in birmingham"
* announce: "AGM next week in ALT3"
* announce: "that sci-fi shop in egham is having a book sale!"
* announce: "New series of blakes 7 starts december 12th" if you're
just telling us?
etc.
* chat: "New series of blakes 7 starts december 12th" if you're
intending to chat about it too.
* chat: "that sci-fi shop in egham is actually quite expensive"
* chat: "where's our bloody library"
* chat: "grumble moan insult jenny whine whinge"
* chat: "gripe mutter insult jacqui whilst we're at it, criticise
nag"
* chat: "Why have I got too much email"
* chat: "how should we REALLY split the list"
* chat: "what should we do about all these damned ex-students"
* chat: "what should we do about all these damned students"
* chat: "borg v death-star, value of pi near black holes, etc etc
etc"
* chat: "isn't terry's / douglas's / whoever's new book really
cool?"

ifis-chat should probably be the kind of stuff we TALK about down at
the pub. ifis-announce should probably be the kind of stuff we grab
everyone's attention for and SHOUT about down at the pub, and/or put
up posters for, give out leaflets, etc.

These are just my guidelines. As you can see, I'm not even certain
about all of them myself. Better suggestions are welcome - rant and
rave about this on CHAT please, not ANNOUNCE.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

... so go ahead! :-)

---

Nick Waterman. Network Consultant / Sysadmin - LEOnet
nick-sig@ Team *AMIGA*!
Help! I'm trapped in a PDP 11/70!

Sorry this is probably my fault seeing as I started the debate long
ago and now people just seem to want to talk politics and I think you
should let them.
Let's face it there's nothing more sci-fi than global management.

Jon

Yes, but then Chris wouldn't get to rant.

Iz