The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month: Armistice Day. No more violence.
Rumble Fish a film directed by Francis Ford Coppola with Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke, Dennis Hopper and Nicholas Cage is a surreal study of violence in society. The Mickey Rourke character aka "The Motorcycle Boy" takes the Rumble Fish (fighting fish) from the pet shop to the river to let them go thinking that if they were not in tanks and free to swim in the river, they wouldn't fight. When he was in the pet shop during the afternoon watching the Rumble Fish, his younger brother (Matt Dillon) shows up looking for him. The constant theme behind this in the film is the gangs and the rumbles they had. Violence continues to occur in this context.
He explains to his younger brother that if you hold a mirror up to the Rumble Fish in the fish tank where they are separated from one another, they will kill themselves trying to fight the image of themselves in the mirror. That night he goes back to the pet shop to take the fish to the river. His younger brother comes along. After breaking into the pet shop, he's shot by the police while taking the fish to the river. The police officer who killed him was the one who had a long standing grudge against him.
The film is in black and white. The only colour in the film are the Rumble Fish in the tanks: blue and red. Society is predicated upon violence. It keeps people employed, active, doing something and involved. Anyone who tries to stop the violence is destroyed by those who built their lives on violence. Violence organises society and makes life possible. Without violence they wouldn't know what to do. Non-violent people and especially anyone who reports their violent behaviour will be attacked violently. Bullies pick on these people. They see everything in black and white. There is no colour for them. "The Motorcycle Boy" was colour blind and hard of hearing. The only colour in a violent society is the Rumble Fish.
Elements of Greek tragedy are part of Rumble Fish including Plato's Cave Allegory from his Republic. Everyone knows the myths that form the Greek tragedies so it is unimportant that I revealed the ending above. The way the story is told constitutes the importance of the film as with a Greek tragedy which also carries with it the brilliance of the poetry. This seems to be absent here, but the people are those trapped in the ghetto and not the aristocratic ruling class of ancient Greek tragedy. They will speak in the vernacular.
The fish tank life existence in the slums where enemies are separated from each other except when they agree to fight is characterised by the stark dinginess of the environment below the highway and bridge by the river. There is a contrast with a carnival like area. It is quite brilliant story telling by film laced with bits of surreal fantasy. The world is so strange itself that it carries an element of the surreal, but this is the reality for those at the bottom of the social hierarchy and looks like every dead end estate in Britain.
Even a Greek chorus is present in the form of the cafe counter clerk and waiter: soda jerk they were called at that time. He commented on bits and pieces of action starting at the beginning of the film with his monologue patter and was instantly recognisable as the Greek chorus. If the Greek heritage was lost on the audience, there were references to Greek by the brothers' father (Dennis Hopper) and the older brother (Mickey Rourke). The younger brother (Matt Dillon) complains that he doesn't know these words that they use. The words are too big for him. At one point the Chorus is asked how mental illness is decided,and he replies "It depends on how many people say he is [mentally ill]." The older brother (The Motorcycle Boy) had turned away from violence and was considered mentally ill. This reminds me of Erich Fromm's statement: "A sane man in an insane society will be considered insane."
The Motorcycle Boy, a legend in his time, had escaped the ghetto to California but came back. This return resonates with Plato's Cave Allegory. He returns to the cave like ghetto to save his younger brother. Although he brings the lesson of light, i.e., enlightenment and nonviolence, back into the shadow world of the ghetto cave teaching nonviolence in subtle ways by trying to get others to think about what they are doing and how they are behaving, he is rejected by those who prefer to believe that the shadows are reality especially the powers that be in he form of a policeman. This is their life's structure, and he is challenging it. For this he is killed.
A similar archetypal pattern emerges in Mel Gibson's Braveheart
The head of the tribunal and executioner tells William Wallace in Braveheart while he was being tried after capture resulting from a duped betrayal involving Robert the 17th Bruce: "Confess and you will receive a quick death. Deny and you will be purified with pain."
The march toward kinghood (presidency, power call it what you will) is the same now as it was then. Betrayal and deceit are all around as those in authority seek more power. Peace and nonviolence are not allowed by those who want to control. This is an early theme in Braveheart. The violent society of the 13th Century continues today.
Eight and 1/4 years of surveillance driven torture carried out 24/7 by scores if not hundreds of people reveal that the pain of torture has been prolonged with new technology but the brutality of the human being still dominates for those who wish to maintain and increase their power. What better way to do that than to create an enemy for everyone to attack? No longer is the created enemy hung, drawn and disembowelled before execution in half a day as occurred to William Wallace. Now social control, confession and contrition can be carried out over many years with the use of surveillance technology. Democracy has failed in the UK.
There will be no armistice. All those lives lost in the wars of the 20th Century were sacrificed for nought. The violent, power driven society continues from within as always based upon deceit and betrayal. If you do not conform to the violent society in accordance with the demands of those in power and question what they are doing, they will destroy the nonconformist, the one who asks questions and tells the truth.
The great tragedy is that those who fought and died for the preservation of freedom and democracy have failed. What they were trying to preserve with the loss of their lives is now being destroyed from within by those who are using this surveillance technology which completely destroys democracy, its rule of law, institutions and freedom. Instead we now have Poppy tyranny as a symbol of that destruction. Conform or be deemed an outcast and general blighter.
Plato's Allegory of the Cave from Chapter XXV the last comment by Socrates:
"Yes, my friend; for the truth is that you can have a well-governed society only if you can discover for your future rulers a better way of life than being in office [emphasis added when I first read The Republic in a Greek seminar at the age of 15 in the autumn of 1958]; then only will power be in the hands of men who are rich, not in gold, but in the wealth that brings happiness, a good and wise life. All goes wrong when, starved for lack of anything good in their own lives, men turn to public affairs hoping to snatch from thence the happiness they hunger for. They set about fighting for power, and this internecine conflict ruins them and their country.* The life of true philosophy is the only one that looks down upon offices of state; and access to power must be confined to men who are not in love with it; otherwise rivals will start fighting. So whom else can you compel to undertake the guardianship of the commonwealth, if not those who, besides understanding best the principles of government, enjoy a nobler life than the politician's and look for rewards of a different kind?" (Plato, The Republic, translated with introduction and notes by Francis MacDonald Cornford, Fellow of Trinity College,Cambridge, Oxford University Press, New York & London, 1945, p 235.)
*"Aristotle, Politics iii. 6: 'Nowadays men seek to be always in office for the sake of the advantages to be gained from office and from the public revenues.' Thucydides, iii. 82 (on the revolution at Corcyra): 'The cause of all these things was the pursuit of office for motives of greed and ambition.' " (ibid., p 235.)
"Accordingly, in so far as the quality of justice is concerned, there will be no difference between a just man and a just society [emphasis added as noted above in the autumn of 1958]." (ibid., p 131.) These are the standards to which I was educated at an early age in a special programme at a division of Emory University dedicated to studying the history of western civilisation. Nothing much has changed about the human being in the last 3,000 years, but technology and the means to destroy have constantly advanced. The tragedy is that it's in the hands of those who are driven by their corrupt self interest: greed, glory and power at the expense of others.
The Independent Saturday, 11th November 2006
MI5 chief says Iraq war is driving British Muslims into terrorism
By Kim Sengupta and Jason Bennetto
British Muslims have been driven towards extremism and terrorist acts because of the UK's part in the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the head of MI5.
Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller's warning of the violent threat from more than 1,600 suspects in 200 groups lasting more than a generation, was backed yesterday by Tony Blair.
Dame Eliza stated, however, that the Government's policy had directly contributed to attacks in this country. She said: "My service needs to understand the motivations behind terrorism to succeed in countering it. The video wills of British suicide bombers make it clear they are motivated by perceived worldwide and long-standing injustices against Muslims; an extreme and minority interpretation of Islam promoted by some preachers and people of influence; and their interpretation as anti-Muslim of UK foreign policy, in particular in Iraq and Afghanistan. Killing oneself and others in response is an attractive option for some citizens of this country and others around the world."
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Subject: "They Are All at Arlington" said Petter Sissons. Yes, and my father too.
Date: Saturday 11 November 2006 16:25
From: Gary D Chance
To: news24@bbc.co.uk
My father a survivor of the attack on Pearl Harbour who fought the Pacific War as a fleet tug captain and then took supplies to Korea during that conflict is buried in Arlington.
I served in the armed services [USAF Security Service as an intelligence analyst] for my national service for 3.5 years from the time the Berlin Wall went up through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of JFK and then left the military as LBJ was elected. It's been downhill be degrees ever since.
The military and US government have been corrupted beyond imagination and are the antithesis of democracy. I've experienced that impact here in North Kensington for many years. Please read
http://garydchance.bravejournal.com/archive/11/11/2006 [that's this web journal entry]
It is a disgrace to see George W Bush at Arlington. I sent him an Email to that effect some years ago, and he stopped going. It's a shame that he showed up today. Bush is a draft dodger who even funked it as a reserve [Air National Guard] pilot. Deceit, deception and betrayal is all that Bush and Blair have given us.
*****End of the Email*****
I grew up in a home that was completely free of bigotry of any kind. I was born in Honolulu in December 1942 a year after the attack on Pearl Harbour. I was told that we had a Japanese gardener who brought a blanket as a gift at my birth although I cannot personally verify this. There was never a bit of prejudice against the Japanese in anyway whatsoever during the years I was growing up. All people were considered as individual human beings and not associated with any group that was hated. Sadly, racism came to the Hawaiian islands later. This was never the case before WWII.
There was no hatred in my family at all. I never learned about anti-semitism at home although during the 1950s I did learn about the Holocaust from TV programmes about WWII and recognised the intense anti-semitism which exised in Nazi Germany. It was not until I was living in New York City that I fully understood this terrible religious bigotry as it existed in the US. While living in the south during the 1950s, no black person ever came to our back door, and a maid when rarely employed always ate lunch at our dining room table. I used to ride on the back seats of the buses. It was my favourite place to ride on a bus.
BBC News Friday, 10 November 2006, 17:45 GMT
TV's Snow rejects 'poppy fascism'
 Jon Snow says he will not wear any symbols on air |
Channel 4 newsreader Jon Snow has sparked controversy by refusing to wear a Remembrance Day poppy on air in protest at "poppy fascism".
Writing on a Channel 4 blog, Mr Snow admitted the absence of a poppy on his lapel had prompted viewer complaints.
He said he respected the armed forces and wore a poppy off-air but did not believe in wearing symbols on air.
Veteran broadcaster John Humphrys said the poppy was a sign of respect and Mr Snow had "missed the point, entirely".
However, the Royal British Legion said wearing a poppy was a voluntary gesture and Snow was entitled to his opinion.