MATEWAN By John Sayles – A masterpiece made in 1987 that is absolutely relevant in 2020

 

‘You think this man is the enemy? Huh? This is a worker! Any union keeps this man out ain’t a union, it’s a goddam club! They got you fightin’ white against colored, native against foreign, hollow against hollow, when you know there ain’t but two sides in this world – them that work and them that don’t. You work, they don’t. That’s all you got to know about the enemy.’

-MATEWAN [2 syllables, pronounced MATE(as in your spouse)- WAN (as in WAND)]

 

Click on the above image to purchase.

 

People use words like masterpiece and great, and sometimes the true weight of what you may be getting across may be lost.

Let me therefore explain MATEWAN to you thusly, I just finished watching the film yesterday. And I’m watching and listening to the, newly cut 2019 Criterion interviews today. (quick aside, i really appreciate that criterion went to the expense of doing new interviews and features for this film, which is something i am critical of them not doing, in other films. These 2019 featurettes are really— stunning, and on top of the greatness of the film, make the blu-ray a must own purchase.)

 

This morning I watched the news of Resident Trump dressing up essentially unidentified strike breakers and thugs, and letting them loose in Portland Oregon, and calling it the law.

 

“If you have vacation benefits, if you have unemployment benefits, worker’s compensation— these things weren’t given to you; they were fought for by people throughout this country. And i’m passionate about the fact that people have actually made an effort to fight for other people’s rights.”

—Karen VuRanch, THEM THAT WORK (2004) Documentary/featurette on the Matewan Massacre

 

Watching MATEWAN, a stunningly beautiful film, referencing a caustic bit of American history,  from exactly 100 years ago, gives me, and I think it will give you, one of the greatest gifts art can can give— perspective. Perspective on the mistakes we have made, and the tyranny we have allowed.

And perspective helps us deal with the present, without ignorance, and if not without fear, without hopelessness. Because we can see others have seen these days of Gethsemane, and endured it, triumphed over it.

You can go many days of your life without gaining that type of perspective, that barest hint of —- grace. Looking at the world, many people go their whole life without finding the type of perspective, that glimpse of grace— that MATEWAN hints at.

For $30 to $40, Criterion’s MATEWAN blu-ray is one of the best purchases you can make. And ultimately, what it has left me with, like the best of true art, is priceless.

 

 

 

” The way she poured herself into her song— it can make a doubting man religious.”

—James Earl Jones on Hazel Dickens’ song in the film

On Muammar Khadafi, Grapes of Wrath, American Liberty and Rome

Henry Fonda/Tom Joad:

Maybe it’s like Casey says. A fellow ain’t got a soul of his own, just little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody, then –

Jane Darwell/Ma:

Then what, Tom?

Henry Fonda/Tom Joad:

I’ll be all around in the dark – I’ll be everywhere. Wherever you can look – wherever there’s a fight, so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be there in the way guys yell when they’re mad. I’ll be there in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready, and when people are eatin’ the stuff they raise and livin’ in the houses they built – I’ll be there, too

— Grapes of Wrath

Iraq, Afghanistan, Liberia, Haiti, now Libya… but a few names on that list of Dark Countries that America has been toppling like dominoes. Invasion, bombing, mass murder, terrorism of the rich… on an unprecedented scale, since just prior to the start of the 21st century.

“We need breeding room” Adolf said then, and the talking puppets of Bush and Obama have said now.

The last time a country had killed this many nations this fast, we called it Rome or Nazi Germany. But today they own the press, so we call it nothing at all.

What does it mean when the most terrorist nation on the planet calls other nations terrorist?

It means they resist a bully. They harbor in their hearts difference, a different religion, a different style of government, a different people, a different value structure, and most damning of all a non-business friendly structure, ie they don’t want their natural resources exploited by outside forces.

Enter trumped up reasons to invade.

Enter the crusades 21st century style. Rawanda, Kosova, the Congo region. Uprisings of surprisingly well backed, and brutal (mostly Christian) factions in heretofore relatively homogeneous non-Christian nations.

The use of child soldiers to declare war on their own. The destruction of social order. The plunging into chaos of an entire region.

And you follow the money of all these bloody uprisings, and it leads unsurprisingly back to people not of the countries pushed into endless civil war. And the countries we can’t get to destroy themselves, quick or fast enough, we move in and do the job, with patriotic flags a flying, and to the swell of horns and drums… while the blood and monuments of people older than American liberty, stains the sand and veldt.

Tripoli has fallen.

The greatest libraries and seat of learning in the world. Delicate architecture and cultural artifacts, fragile beauties irreplaceable in the history of the world, blown to hell by planes without the decency to even have pilots, and offshore barrages from monstrous warships at sea.

We are killing indiscriminately people we don’t even have the courage to see. People we might actually like, and smile with and laugh with and love upon the seeing.

Whole blood lines, and families, and castes of people, as fragile and irreplaceable as their architecture, and language and culture… blown to hell by the Barbarians at their gate.

It’s empire building 101.

They say they’ve killed Muammar Khadafi.

The new Rome says he was a bad man.

An evil man.

And Rome would not lie to you.

But if I may, This is what I know about Muammar Khadafi…

I know that when the new Rome was sicking dogs and fire hoses on people of color it was Khadafi who spoke out an offered not just words but financial and cultural support to Rome’s criminals of the time such as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

But this same Rome, that still holds slavery and their apartheid regime of the early 20th century as not a mistake, but a lost but not relinquished battle, this new Rome, sire to Israel, this new Rome says Muammar Khadafi was a bad man.

And the new Rome would not lie to you.

But with all this blood on their hands, perhaps their definition of good… is in question.

By the fruit will you know the tree, and by god what a bloody, crippled harvest has been the fruit of the new Rome.

Perhaps their definition of good and evil… should be questioned. Before any more irreplaceable men and nations lose their lives… for breathing room.

And perhaps… before we lose our souls.

The war to define America or Making it against the law… to watch the Watchmen?!

A country is never defined by the comfort of its richest, but by the calamity of its poorest. And by that same measure a country is only as rich as its poorest, and only as strong as its weakest. By that definition, America stands on perilous ground indeed.

Example? The latest tact of our totalitarian regime is attempting to make videotaping a cop in the commision of brutalizing someones rights… a crime.

I don’t make them up kids:

Making it against the law… to watch the Watchmen?!

And I’ll leave you with some other noteworthy links:

I keep warning you guys against Flash and here it is…. Flash Zombies want to eat your cookies!?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20011871-245.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

I really want my tax dollars back, if all America can think to do with it is build deadlier toys for their endless war!

More soon. Particularly on that first story. And if you are as sick of this type of raping of liberties labors as I am… then do your part… you damn, dirty, stinking apes!

(Sorry, went all Charlton Heston there. 🙂 )

Join the ACLU, and EFF and help them… help you. And here’s more links to other soldiers fighting for your rights to be.