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

There is a lot of Negative in the World — This surprisingly made me feel great

There is a lot of negative in the world.

Particularly now, when seemingly the proponents of hate and intolerance have wormed their way into places of trust and power. From the police force, to the president.

We have somehow, transitioned from a nation that fought Nazis, that gave the lives of Fathers, Brothers, Sons, Uncles, Wives, Daughters, toward this pursuit of Liberty, and the dream of America; to now where the grandchildren and great grand children of the greatest generation, have put on the yolks of ignorance, and stupidity, and bigotry and hatred — have become the Nazis that, at great spill of blood, we pushed into the sea.

That’s fine. Nazis fell before, they will fall again.

What is not fine– is that you can not resolve a problem; if you can not grasp, or define, the scope and depth of the problem.

So a racist media, selling only fear and outrage, but never really concerned with resolving the issues they bring up (to garner ratings); they are concerned with profiting from the criminal and the caustic and the egregious, but never punishment or closure.

A racist media, which in many ways is a membership campaign for more racism; makes the problem amorphous, and too big for us, makes it an unchangeable reality, rather than what it is, a problem— to be understood, and worked, and fought, and solved,

Organizations that start putting into perspective the problem, specific locations, specific organizations, specific patterns, that tangibility of the problem, that definition of it, makes it something you can work. Something you can fight.

Particularly when we begin highlighting the ties between movements of  stupidity and corporations. When we start tracing the money and the history, we can then start attacking the finances of these movements of hate, and that is when you start having results. There are a lot of companies no person of color should be giving money to, just for their historic, and in some cases present ties to movements of intolerance.

If you are a person of color, or just a person of conscience, patronizing companies like SHELL and KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN, you may want to do your homework and add them to your “sanctions/do not do business with” list. Otherwise the bullet that ends you, or the rope that lynches you– you may have paid for. Yes, I have no tact. 🙂

Now helping to clarify the problem, that is not an ending, it is not even a solution, but by helping to define the problem, that is the only way to begin to work a solution.

I went to SPLC’s website, and signed up to be a member immediately. I already donate to NAACP, and EFF, and Catholic Charities, but I really, after an incredibly stressful day at work, looking at the SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER’s webpage, looking at the work they put in, looking at their hate map, and don’t take this the wrong way, but I felt— empowered, I felt better.

I don’t love the name, HATE MAP, it is to the point, but I think it gives these organizations the ‘bad boy’, fear inducing glamour they are looking for, call it ANTI-AMERICAN MAP call it TERRORIST MAP, and now you are painting these enemies of liberty with the brush, they would paint others with. Now you truly are defining them.

I felt in an age of fake, racist news, and public servants murdering the public, that  finally these — repeated failings of our nation, someone is taking the time to map them, to define — however rudimentary—the scope of the problem.

And God Almighty, give me a foe I can see, and a problem that I can understand, and that understanding is both lever and weapon, give me a big enough lever and I will move the world, to borrow a quote; that is how it felt finding the SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER and becoming a member. 

I’m going to be reaching out to them, because I think a Think Tank approach, devoted to resolving the issues of intolerance and hate and malfeasance in our law enforcement and elected officials ( I would love to see a JUSTICE or LIBERTY map, showing off organizations doing good, as a counterpoint to their hate map), is a great idea and can use contributors.

Do your own homework before donating, but heck you can donate for as little as $25, and just the good feeling I received from their website existing, is worth that $25. Do your own homework, donate, get involved.

And for people who do not like using credit cards or paypal online (especially with one time or new purchases), I can not blame you, I do not either. Do what I did, print out their donation form, fill it out, get a money order from the post office, and mail it in.

View the site here!

And if you choose Donate Here!

WEDNESDAY’S WORDS was postponed to bring you this post. I think it is a worthy substitution.

Thanks and enjoy!

And when you sign up, tell them HT sent you!!!

 

And if you found this post useful, if it made you breathe a little easier, or stand a little straighter, or feel not alone in the night. then do me a favor. Like, subscribe, comment, and share this with others.

You do that and in little ways and in big ones, we win. We win the moment, if not the day. And win enough moments, well who can say.

I’m going to keep shouting out people and organizations that I think our winning the moment, Come shout with me.

The silence of good men and women, is all evil needs to triumph.

So reach out, and make a joyous noise. Join me here, as we speak in these— Heroic Times. 🙂

 

Thanks and enjoy!

 

Kudos to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey

 

We tend to be a society that is heroic — in retrospect, heroic when it is easy, heroic when heroism involves cheering a battle someone else has won, heroic when we have nothing to lose by taking a side.

We boo World War II nazis in movies or in tv shows, made into a pat, safe, ‘mustache twirling’ villain by the lie of time, we the inheritors of victory —taking courage in a war won for us, that millions fought and bled and died for.

But real Nazis, the ones of today, who infest our penal institutions (even to the management of it, as a breeding ground for more Nazis), our courts, our schools, our representation, our corporations and even our law enforcement— we turn a blind eye to.

Forgetting that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and the price we owe soldiers is not insipid platitudes of ‘Thank you for your service’, but to insure they did not die or sacrifice in vain. That the scourge of Nazism and Intolerance and Brutality that was beat back– less than 75 years ago, we do not allow to take root or be imposed on subsequent generations.

The allies can not have beaten the third Reich, only to allow the spirit of the 4th and 5th and 6th Reichs to take root in the lands of those who won. So much of what is wrong with America, from mass shootings, to police brutality, to unreasoning divisions and hatreds of creeds and colors,– is this apathy, to good and to reason and to rationality, playing out… unhindered.

Unchallenged.

So when you have a DA Marilyn Mosby,  and in today’s case Minneapolis Mayor Frey, who must challenge evil not in retrospect, not from the comfort of watching fiction,  but must take a stand in their 9 to 5, and speak out against wrong, in this day and age when the cost of being right is high, when there is much to risk for speaking for what is moral and right; well they deserve our recognition, and our respect and our support.

 

 

Ferguson New York Baltimore – States of Emergency-

 

 

I like the above poster.

It sums up my take on our seasons of discontent.

Your roving reporter on the ground here.

My take on ‘the State of Emergency’.

I think it has been blown out of proportion, by a media that sells advertising by blowing things out of proportion. I think the bad behavior of a few knuckle heads has also been blown out of proportion by a Law Enforcement public relations arm that is eager to obscure the fact that there are valid reasons for the peaceful protests; and reasons for community outrage. Namely a law enforcement that needs more oversight and control.

Instead the knuckle heads, who also lack oversight and control, ignorant of their own best interest, play into a policy of increased and ramped up policing and therefore more reckless, them and us, policing, which will lead to more injustices that caused the current state of unrest.

So what you have is a small minority of bad apples on both sides, that think they are above the law, And the majority suffer for their… hubris.

To weed out the bad apples, is not just a lesson and mandate for the protesters, it is a lesson for the police. If there is to be an end to unrest, the police can not be an occupying force, and they can not be above the law they have sworn to serve, nor deride the population they have sworn to protect.

Whether New York, Ferguson, or Baltimore the population protected, must be policed by those who are of the population, not those who are outside of, or anathema to, said population.

That process requires a family system, an educational system, a judicial system, and an economic system that prepares a population to be responsible for themselves… Take positions of responsibility, and control, and of respect, onto themselves.

I fear all those named cities have a way to go, but it has to begin with a step in the right direction. And making police crimes, no less punishable than anyone else’s crimes… is a start.

Ferguson, Missouri, Palestines in the making , Apartheid States… And how to turn it all around!

Ferguson, Missouri.

I practice an unpopular habit these days, I try not to speak till I know.

So to get a grasp on what this sleepy little town is in today’s media, I wanted to get a picture of what it was before it made national headlines.

I feel perspective give us an idea of how we got here, and where we can go from here.

According to City-Data.com The 2012 census tells us Ferguson is a town of approximately 21,135 people (no doubt a few less since the hostilities), the median age is 33.1 years, the mean of salaries was $36121, housing prices were right around $91808, and Blacks made up 64.9% of the population. As opposed to Whites being 30.6% of the population.

Add in other ethnic groups, of Hispanic, Asian, Indian, mixed (an odd designation, since few in America that would not apply to) and the total Colored population of Ferguson, is nearly 70% of that total population of 21,135 souls.

And yet a cursory glance of the news feeds coming out of Ferguson, shows a law enforcement that does not at all represent that population, does not represent that 70% of Blacks and Asians and Hispanic. Rather you see a heavily armored, virtually all White, armed response unit, prepped with the latest in federal government provided killing weaponry making a show of being ready to kill (ironically enough kill a colored population, with weapons paid for by the taxes of that same Colored population. Something wrong in that).

The news feeds and any calm examination of the facts show us Ferguson’s local Law enforcement as ,rather than an outgrowth and a part of the community… happily protecting and serving, instead an occupying army, a hostile, invasive minority trying to maintain an untenable power-base of master and slave, majority and minority. Watch the news and you see an American Palestine, an American Apartheid regime, local law enforcement as occupying armies, rather than integral peace-keepers.

And like Palestine and like South Africa, there is no way to reconcile that disparity of rule by the few. Therefore the roads open to America, the idea, and to us, the people, become few… but clear.

We can, all of us, nobly win, or meanly lose… our freedom. Lose it or win it in an embroiled conflict that will keep the mass of the population divided and wasted, fighting wars that were worthless and stupid when our grand fathers were young, while a few, laughing at these crabs in a barrel (Black, and White, and Yellow, and Red), shake their heads with mirth and win the only true war that matters… the class war. The war to define your life and to put their hands in your pocket while doing so.

So how do we win this 21st century war? First we have to learn how to fight it in a 21st century way. And that’s not by tossing rocks at tanks and helicopters and killer drones, and it is not by just marching, it’s by making a fiscal choice, have a fiscal cost.

Ferguson Government has staffed an all-White militarized police to in essence run rough shod over a mostly Black population that does most of the living and working and buying and selling and dying in Ferguson. Here’s the thing every one gets mastered, for better or worse, a society depends on codes of conduct, it depends on limitations of personal freedoms, it depends on sacrifice and responsibility, and it depends on heroes, and an understanding of right and wrong and holding that line. All of us either master and police ourselves, or we are mastered and policed.

The Black/colored population of Ferguson needs to use this incident as a wakeup call, to now put a new name up for mayor, a new name for chief of police (a step that I see, has been done by the Governor) a new name for city council. But it can’t stop there, if young people are going to be more than targets for the police, it is incumbent upon those with a sense of responsibility, to become the police for their neighborhoods; to be not an occupying army, but an integral part of maintaining the peace.

Until the person Ferguson residents call when they dial 911, is someone who respects and reflects them, bigoted and murdering police will continue to be the norm, rather than the exception.

And political and appointed offices do not live and run in a vacuum. Fiscal imperatives must drive people to do the right thing, must drive local police forces to demilitarize and be staffed by those from and representative of the neighborhoods.

The major banks in Ferguson are the UMB and U.S. Bancorp, so if you want to make people take notice of this outrage, you start there.

Get residents to close and pull all their accounts from the bank or bank that will not sign on for a petition requesting more diversity from Ferguson Law Enforcement. Same with the major schools or churches or department stores, any place where Black Dollars are consumed gladly, (which is most places), you petition them “show us you respect this population you make your money off of, sign this petition for more diversity, help us censor and change the Local Ferguson police and courts, or do without our dollars.”

Outrageous you say?

I would argue not.

We’re so removed from the age of strikes and civil disobedience, in our digital age, we forget, that the liberties most of us take for granted today, child labor laws, desegregation, 8 hour work day, were all won, not just by marching up and down meaninglessly, but were won by making bigotry and ignorance and evil… have a fiscal cost. It was won by making the cost of doing wrong, more trouble than the cost of doing right.

Ferguson, Missouri. Boycott any business that doesn’t employ people that look like you in significant positions. Create a petition, ask business to support it. Boycott the one’s that won’t. Boycott the targets, the kfcs, the mcdonalds, the walmarts, the libraries, the schools, the autoshops, the restaurants, the banks… and this doesn’t mean walk around carrying signs, you can do that if that’s your thing, but more importantly it means deny them your dollars, your patronage, YOUR RESPECT, and spread the word. The Montgomery Boycott was one of the most pivotal acts of fiscal reprisal, and we generations later are all benefiting from it.

Ferguson, it is now your turn to create your own fiscal reprisal. And by so doing, show the rest of America… the way.

Here endeth the lesson.

Best and Worst Police Procedural’s on Amazon Prime! Under Construction

THE SHIELD- Shawn Ryan’s THE SHIELD is a show glorifying a racist bunch of dirty cops, and the un-redeeming stereotypes they beat on. It’s a dire, depressing, largely detestable show, that is not dissimilar to a slog through the sewers.

I watched a couple episodes in season #1 and then an episode in season #7, and there is absolutely no growth in the show, what a waste. Three episodes more than enough of this show. A classic example of Black faces, White messages. It’s a modern day minstrel show.

How it made it seven seasons, says something about the acceptance of great doses of bigotry. Not my thing. Pass on this and see either HOMICIDE or NYPD BLUE Season 1 instead.

NYPD BLUE- I’ve never been a fan of police procedurals, but the first season of NYPD BLUE was something else, a game changer in terms of dramatic intensity for television, and a clinic in style and the acting prowess of David Caruso. He was effectively the show. Which left later seasons… uninteresting. Get season 1, forget the rest.

JUSTIFIED- I found this modern cowboy drama incredibly uninteresting in the first season with largely unlikeable characters. Pass on this and see LONGMIRE or DEADWOOD instead.

LIFE- Both seasons are fantastic. Transcends a simple police procedural, by its protagonists quirky pursuit of Zen and Justice.

COPPER- Police work late 19th century style. Not really interested.

LUTHER- First few episodes are magnificent, though it loses its way toward the end, but still season 1 is a recommended view. Season 2 however is utter garbage.

HOMICIDE- Clearly the best police procedural ever, and largely because it is not about the procedure. A rich, ethnically strong cast of powerhouse actors, especially Andre Braugher in a star making performance, creates that rarest of television shows… a smart one. Highest recommendation.

15 May 2014 American Flag at Half Staff

So I’m walking around downtown on my brunch break and I’m noticing all the American flags are flying at half mast.

It not being a holiday or a day of mourning I find this curious. Checking with coworkers and random gawkers I find they likewise have no idea about this incident.

Doing a bit of research courtesy of everyone’s favorite non-google search engine I turn up that today is Peace Officers Memorial Day.

President Barack Obama seemingly yesterday signed into law a proclamation establishing basically a new holiday and a police week.

Now I appreciate what peace officers do as well as the next guy, however crafting a holiday out of whole cloth, with no discussion, no public input seems… wrong. There is something wrong in its overnight inundation onto the public consciousness. Using an obscure JFK era law to fashion this doctrine from on high.

It goes against the idea of representative government, to have the governed so outside the process of government. A one day turnaround, and taadaa… new holiday.

We already have a memorial day honoring the fallen of wars foreign and domestic. This new memorial while seemingly an innocuous thing, cannot be separated from the ever more paramilitary presence that law enforcement is taking on in the communities they were once tasked with serving.

An adversarial relationship between law enforcement of all stripes and the people, that has grown only more so since the Patriot Act, and President Obama’s numerous sacrifices of liberties and freedoms in his two terms.

We are not on the verge of a police state… we are well into the first tentative days of one, and this whole cloth creation of police holidays while hopefully innocuous, is tainted by the times and is hard not to see… as a dangerous sign, a steeper slide into a nation of unquestionable authority backed by flag waving propaganda.

Or it could just be a flag at half-mast. :). I leave you to judge.

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.