1. “How Your Taxpayer Dollars Subsidize Pro-War Movies and Block Anti-War Movies
The short-term impact of the military-entertainment complex was enlistment surges correlating to specific 80s box-office hits. As just one (albeit huge) example, recruitment spiked 400 percent when Top Gun was released, leading the navy to set up recruitment tables at theaters upon realizing the movie’s effect. Medium term, of course, is the Red Dawn effect. Contemporary missions are now named after the film (and various other militarist fantasies from the 80s), tapping into the hardwired psyches of the “Wolverines who have grown up and gone to Iraq,” as Milius recently called the 80s generation.
Then there are the standards that were set for the long haul. Today, the Pentagon offers Hollywood just as much enticement for militarism, and just as much punishment against antimilitarism, as ever. On top of the 80s militarism that is now endlessly recycled in the cable rerun-o-sphere, it’s a safe bet that whichever Jerry Bruckheimer or Michael Bay blockbuster is being fawned over by teen audiences is at least partially underwritten by the Pentagon, and as a condition of that support, these blockbusters typically agree to deliberately reiterate the morality of the military and war.
By contrast, as the director of The Hunt for Red October recounted, this new reality prompted studios in the 80s to start telling screenwriters and directors to “get the cooperation of the [military], or forget about making the picture.”
This helps explain why for every one decidedly anti-war movie that’s made, we see scores of movies made that glorify militarism. Since the 1980s, taxpayer dollars have been subsidizing militarist movies on the basis of their militarist content; at the same time those subsidies are withheld from anti-militarist movies on the basis of their anti-militarist content. That has created a movie market dynamic that then preferences the production of militarist films — militarist films which have an obvious and ongoing psyche-shaping effect on our larger attitudes about militarist ideology.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/how-your-taxpayer-dollars_b_836574.html?ref=email_share
2. “War On The Poor:
Minnesota Republicans Want To Bust Poor People Who Carry Cash
St. Paul, MN – Minnesota Republicans are pushing legislation that would make it a crime for people on public assistance to have more $20 in cash in their pockets any given month. This represents a change from their initial proposal, which banned them from having any money at all.
On March 15, Angel Buechner of the Welfare Rights Committee testified in front of the House Health and Human Services Reform Committee on House File 171. Buechner told committee members, “We would like to address the provision that makes it illegal for MFIP [one of Minnesota’s welfare programs] families to withdraw cash from the cash portion of the MFIP grant – and in fact, appears to make it illegal for MFIP families to have any type of money at all in their pockets. How do you expect people to take care of business like paying bills such as lights, gas, water, trash and phone?”
House File 171 would make it so that families on MFIP – and disabled single adults on General Assistance and Minnesota Supplemental Aid – could not have their cash grants in cash or put into a checking account. Rather, they could only use a state-issued debit card at special terminals in certain businesses that are set up to accept the card.
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Buechner testified, “We’ll leave you with this. It is not right to punish a whole group because of the supposed actions of a few. You in this room could have a pretty rough time if that was the case. It is not right to stigmatize and dehumanize women living the hard life of trying to raise children while living 60% below the poverty level. It is not right to use racist, bumper-sticker hate to inflict human misery for political gain.”
It may not be right, Angel. But it sure as hell is effective, and that’s why politicians without shame continue to use the poor as their own political punching bags.
Personally, if I lived in Minnesota, I’d be out looking for skeletons in the Republican closets. It seems to be the most effective way of purging these immoral creeps.
From Freakout Nation:
GOPers in Minnesota seem to be suffering from memory loss; an unemployed person has to utilize public transit to go out in the world and be proactive in seeking work. Instead, they present the poor with isolation, not letting them use their debit card, sit home and not seek employment. The poor can stay poor because they don’t give a damn.
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There is an obvious target on the poverty stricken in this country. Let’s not forget, just as many poor people are Republicans. This won’t fare well and they’re signing their own Get Out of the House certificate. As the classes divide even more with their assistance, this is further proof that their campaign against government spending was simply to gain power and now, they’ve gone power mad.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27717.htm
