Despotism

[quade 4]

http://www.archive.org/movies/details-db.php?collection=prelinger&collectionid=00178

Made in 1946 and available in QuickTime or Real Media.

Just as relevant today.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[slug 1]

Is this a lead for a job opening

R.I.P.

[ltdiver 3]

Looks like alot of people still prefer our great country and wish to join us in the land of opportunity.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6489930/

And of course, we both know of several skydivers who have opted out of their country and joined ours as well...either by defection or marriage.

ltdiver

Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon

[narcimund 0]

Choosing to take refuge in the eye of a storm doesn't mean you're pro-storm.

First Class Citizen Twice Over

[jdhill 0]

Interesting... so where do you see your community on the scales?

J

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

[Tink1717 2]

Scary

Skydivers don't knock on Death's door. They ring the bell and runaway... It really pisses him off.
-The World Famous Tink. (I never heard of you either!!)
AA #2069 ASA#33 POPS#8808 Swooo 1717

[quade 4]

Quote

Interesting... so where do you see your community on the scales?

Finally a comment I can actually respond to!

I thought the film was interesting on a couple of levels. This was made right after WWII so obviously you have to look at it in the context of the times. While Hitler is frequently seen as a "last resort" attack on the internet in 2004, in 1946 it was a -very- relevant thing to bring up so people today shouldn't think that the film is being overly melodramatic just because it is using Hitler as an example.

I thought it was -very- brave of the film makers to say that you couldn't be assured that your society wouldn't fall toward despotism just because it has a particular form of government and the Germany example was not really meant so much as a dig at Germany but rather as a caution for the USA since the USA is also a republic.

I also thought it was very brave of them to point out a certain hypocrisy in the US by juxtaposing people saying the Pledge followed immediately by a photo of a lynching. BTW if you didn't notice, that version of the Pledge was pre "under God".

The film talks about some other issues like the uneven distribution of wealth and the squeezing out of the middle class as a sign of moving toward despotism and if you look at the years since the movie was made and the huge disparity between the highest wage earners and the lowest wage earners it looks like we've slid down the scale quite a bit. Take a gander at the differences between CEO pay scales then and now as a multiple of minimum wage.

Another thing the film talks about is who controls the media and if you look at the mergers of all the media companies and the influence the advertisers have on the media . . . again, we've slid down the democracy scales quite a bit.

I think shortly after this film was made the US entered an era that was spinning toward despotism with the McCarthy trials and whatnot, but we rebounded back for awhile, slid further down during the Reagan era (what with him pretty much castrating the unions), rebounded again a bit and are now, perhaps, sliding downward once more.

It'll be interesting to see what happens in the next four years.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver