So what else is new? The US has among the highest violent crime rates in the world, fueled by cheap media (sold as entertainment), it's so-called love of guns, it's warlike oppression of other nations and a theocracy hell-bent on earth-destruction.

How can the US be both anti-abortion and pro-war?

Wow. The bar keeps falling. Years ago when I taught HS English a popular story was Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery." It focuses on a small town getting ready for its big day, a traditional annual event that the reader doesn't recognize for its unapologetic, though normalized by the group, brutality until it's virtually underway. The lottery is a number system by which SOMEONE (and it could be anyone) is chosen each year to be stoned to death. It's a totemic ritual, not different from other ritual sacrifices societies of various levels of barbarism practice routinely. The belief in most is that by sacrificing a 'bad' or 'ill-fated' apple, the rest of the tribe prospers. Another story that comes to mind (became a film) is entitled "The Most Dangerous Game" where a man who loves to hunt, buys his own island and when there is a shipwreck, he first feeds the survivors to fatten them up, and then hunts them because "man" is a more strategic thinker than animals, i.e. a more interesting HUNT. Our entire solar system and universe is based upon the law of balance. Our own DNA is a marital union between equal sums drawn from both genetic parents. In chemistry for atoms to stay in their present form (without a fision reaction) an equal charge must operate between positive protons and negative electrons. Indeed, we have 2 equinoxes, where light between night and day is equalized. One happens around March 21 for spring, onset of Aries, season of Mars; and the other for the autumn equinox (September 22 or 23) for onset of Libra, ruled by Venus. Interestingly enough our planet was set in orb by the great clockmaker between Venus and Mars. Mars is the macho god of war, competition, and might makes right. To the degree this planet and the egregious example being set by its neanderthal excuse for leaders slouches towards Mars, we experience a collective Venus deficit. Venus rules the plants and animal kingdoms of earth (as Demeter, the Earth mother), and she rules Libra, the sign of justice. She also has a lot to do with women's rights and the degree to which the Divine equation is revered for its balance between Mars/yang/masculine idealized traits and Venus/yin/feminine idealized traits. Look around you, Venus is imploding to the degree our society invests in Mars rules. The barbarians are at the gate... and through media, casting a dark hypnotic spell guaranteed to desensitize and allow the hordes to grow. This aberration isn't pretty to any form of higher intelligence observing. Beam me up, Scotty!

Shane: Take a look at George Lakoff's "Moral Politics" to get some sense of how anti-abortion and pro-war attitudes so happily coexist amongst our rightwardly inclined fellow citizens.
With regard to the article, however, it seems that the film is a metaphor for the American capitalist system. The struggle for existence on an "equal" playing field while the strings are all pulled from above is a pretty apt description of how our system works, while the commodification of everything, including the "game" itself, as well as the endlessly downward spiral in taste and decency in the interest of profit (whatever sells, no matter how sensationalistic, violent, or debased) is an equally apt description of our "free marketplace."

"I have lived long enough"--McBeth

I'm surprised someone here wrote about a movie starring a pro wrestler. :)

The right loves war because it makes them money, does away with people in populations they don't like, and gives them an excuses to raze less powerful nations for their natural resources. They are anti-abortion because they want to keep women barefoot and pregnant.

"The Most Dangerous Game" is a great story btw and has spawned many imitators on other media. I read it a while ago.

The article made me think about how I often view people. I am one of those people who stews over things that were done to me unapologetically by other people and how I wish I could get back at them. There are times that I wish something bad would happen to George Bush.

I tend to view people in terms of "good" and "bad". Certainly not the little girl who was handcuffed in Florida. To me the teacher who called the cops and the cops who handcuffed and charged her were "bad".

Maybe it's because I try to treat people the way I want to be treated. I don't go around harassing or bullying people. I don't bother anyone. So when someone does something to me, it makes me angry. As a male (siouxrose may be onto something), I often feel that they only way to get certain men to treat me with respect is to lay them out. Not that I go around beating people up. I avoid violence unless it is in self-defense, but God, a lot of guys tick me off. It seems that there are a lot of men, particularly younger men, who will treat you however they like if they don't think you're going to leave them in a ditch somewhere. And you can't talk it over with them. Being thoughtful and kind is seen as weak. Being tolerant and respectful of others is seen as an affront to "your own", as if you can trust everyone who shares your race, gender, ethnicity, religion, or sexuality.

Well the real story of this in this article is the how the woman reported nearly all the (presumably American) audience would love to see this latter day gladiator fight performed for real. I wish I could say I'm shocked, but I'm not.

I often encounter such repulsive attitudes among my fellow Americans - usually in the form of a desire to end the troubles in the middle east by simply "nuking then all" or a similar murderous attitude toward the US inmate population. I often assume they are flippant, but in the instance where I asked a co-worker saying such a thing, he said he was dead serious.

It is disturbing and sickening to think appears that the capitalist media system in the USA has pretty much bred a country of inhuman monsters, but this increasingly appears to be the case. Like I've said before, I didn't ask to born here.

George Carlin's two most recent HBO specials worked up similar themes. On one of them he had the rectangular states like Kansas fenced off (rectangular states are easier to fence)and put all the criminals and crazies in there with a couple of doors that only open briefly once a month. In the other one he proposed a televised event where "all those macho assholes" were confined in a space to fight it out until there was only one left -- then shoot that one.

Read the history of the Romans and their coliseums and glatiatorial events. Those were bloodier than any of our current video games -- and the blood and death were in "real time," real all the way, and they were wildly popular and not just the men. Gladiators who survived a fight or two were hot items among the women. It's a part of human nature; not a pretty part, certainly, but there.

Anyone seen ultimate fighting on cable TV? Any doubts that hard core blood sports, fights to the death, would draw a television audience?

"It's a part of human nature; not a pretty part, certainly, but there."

Sorry, but like those arguments for war and capitalism, I reject your "human nature" argument. Such use of violence as entertainment historically appeared only during the corrupt end-stage imperial Rome, and now, the corrupt end-stage of the USAn empire.

So it sounds like it is normally NOT human nature to me.

@jp, thanks for the tip to read George Lakoff's Moral Politics. I read Ch 2 at:
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/467716.html
and this is eye-opening, and it represents a way to look at US (and worldly) political systems in a way that I had never considered. Good tip.

What else is new? Rome did this same thing millenia agoi.

I'm just reading American Fascists, by Chris Hedges and a lot of the ideas in George Lakoff's Moral Politics seem related. The book is subtitled The Christian Right and the War on America. It tells how some of the ideas of hating other people not in your group are promoted by leaders of some of the fundamentalist churches and how they make it O.K. to kill "the Other," and not to care about the poor, or about unfortunate people. It suggests that success and wealth are equated with God being on your side,

I agree with PJD in hearing disturbing "bomb them all" from numerous people around me. Like zanyEdie, I think it comes from the of good people=sympathy, bad people cannot get anything bad enough or have any right to complain nor any right to our sympathy. I have said as much in the first and only post of truthrevival.org, it is new. Below is the relevant quote which mentions the "bomb them all mentality we have descended to and why.

The tragedy of America in these days is the 'writing off' of other culture's views, especially upon our own actions, as irrelevant and uninformed. To not want to see and know yourself from other culture's points of views, I have said before, not only makes you something ugly, something deformed in the light of general human development, it is to write off their perspectives as meaningless. They might as well not exist. And in that light as in so many other nations in the past, we are doing 'good' to 'remove' them. ... Most Americans like most in any other country are peaceful people who are sent to war because that is the machinations of leaderships that do not hear them and do not respond to their wishes. But there is a dark side in all people, and in Americans as well. I have heard many voices since I have been back advocate genocide, the murders of thousands, even millions, and not just on television. "Bomb them all," "Nuke them and take their oil," and so on. This is not just because of shameless propaganda outlets like Fox News, it is almost a natural reflex when you think your side is good and the other side is bad or evil.

"Bomb them all," "Nuke them and take their oil," and so on. This is not just because of shameless propaganda outlets like Fox News, it is almost a natural reflex when you think your side is good and the other side is bad or evil."

ONCE AGAIN, I categorically reject your characterization of the "bomb them all" sentiment as human nature, a "dark side" or any other such thing.

In spite of the hell we've rained on them, I have yet to hear a report of ANY popular Iraqi sentiment expressing a desire to kill all Americans. They are alway careful (excessively so in my opinion) to distinguish the US government from the people. Even Bin laden hasn't ever expressed the desire to kill all Americans although, like all military tacticians, he accepts a generous amount "collateral damage" as a necessity for his objectives. The "kill them all" sentiment seems unique to the population of imperial cultures - particularly ones like the US which is founded on the extermination of an entire people.

Sitting here in the US, I offer the hypothesis that "kill them all" is generally unique to USAns or possibly other similar cultures like Australia. I'd like to hear evidence to the contrary. Please, people from other countries reading this, have you heard similar sentiments where you live?

By the way, Kurt Vonnegut died last night.

He in one a handful Americans who witnessed and survived the hell of Dresden. Through all of his writing ran a profound disappointment in what humans do to each other, but he never gave up hope.

I never met him in person, but he was a one of the most influential persons in my life. He was a great humanist and socialist and one of a dwindling number of American voices for sanity in a utterly morally damaged nation. As soon as I hear of funeral plans whether in New York or Indianapolis, I'll get there.

I leave for prison in 4 days. Just that I am going to prison shocks folks. For weeks I felt "bad". What was my crime, I protested at SOA...crawled through a fence. Yet the "prisoner" part was all I could focus on because I was made to feel as if I was "bad" for going to prison.

In the coming days and month, I am sure I will witness time and time again the dehumanization of human beings...dominiated by fear. It is so easy feel like a "bad" guy to feel a little less human because you are an "inmate".

Tina Busch-Nema

"our inhumanity toward each other in real life"

I wonder why SAW I, II & II along w/ crap like "Theses Hills have Eyes", is prominently displayed at many local libraries throughout NYC?

I see kids renting them. Is what a library is intended for?!

What kind of Librarians (probably from a Stephen King reading group) would think that part of their job is to make this crap accessible to kids?

In a letter sent to the Main Branch I requested that all of the inspiring and empowering films (classics, foreign, biographies, documentaries, etc.) be seperated from the crap (bloodlust, gratuitous horror).

No reply.

Start with one unrepentant, genodicidal, Aryan slave empire, constructed to transfer wealth wealth from the Many to the Few through conquest and by owning our labor. If you recognize our history in that sentence, you understand how easy it is for our Masters to devour us. Besides, we spend our lives spinning straw into gold so the Master can use it to forge better chains for us all.

If there was an After-Life, Mr. Vonnegut would have had a special place in it. In the meantime Kurt, so long, and thanks for all the fish. Chronosynclastic Infinidibulae RULE! Happy Gran Falloons.
Peace

The idea "American exceptionalism" as turned we the American people into uncaring, unsympathetic people, with seemingly have no regard for others cultures or believes.
A large majority of the world sees us the U.S. as the aggressor in Iraq and recent
Polls say they also see us , as the biggest threat to world peace.
The American people need to start asking themselves some serious questions
as to why a large majority of the world, views us this way..
The delusion as got to stop.

WHAT DO WE WANT? FEAR?

What do we want as a people? Americans all from all parts of the world and now we fear a good portion of the planet.

Do we wish fear to rule our lives as we give up much freedom to save what? A life of fear? A home? A car? There is no future in fear and it leads to an abyss.

Fear of terror or the terror of fear. How can there be any life in this country we all love with only these choices to make?

It was at one time the words "there is nothing to fear but fear itself" and now we hear that we are at war and will be for a very long time this is not life but existence.

Many people believe in a creator and all being different, there are many paths to the same destination. Does anyone think that fear will help here?

The solid things to get, if one is so inclined, to get from fear of terror are an Orwellian government that demands secrecy and demands to take the peoples right to privacy.

With the mantra "if you have nothing to hide" they would know all, in the name of safety, a myth for fear cannot guarantee safety and should it not be what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander?

Greed is big in the fear and terror business and only the elite will profit and the majority will pay and this is just counting the U.S of A! Is this honor for those that suffered and died?

This is my biggy; What of the children and grandchildren to come who will reap what we sow today? We already know they will pay in money and quality of life because of money. This is arrogance and greed beyond conscience.

One final note, fear recognizes no future, we see the symptoms and results in the way we treat other peoples and the environment. Is this what we wish to leave for a legacy? A whimper and a footnote in history. Tony

The "war of all against all" and "survival of the fittest" paradigms have been common attributes of many human societies over the millenia. Strangely enough, in past eras these societies were quaintly called "primitive" and "savage" by the civilized and Christian nations of Europe as indications of Western superiority.

The attraction of Christianity in the Roman Empire was partly in response to the savagery and hopelessness of the dominant Roman culture.

Are we a Christian nation, a civilized nation, or a savage nation?

-Gill

"...so long, and thanks for all the fish."

Vonnegut didn't write that.

Douglas Adams did, in the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" - shame he died so young.

Americans LOVE to get their hate on. I have read many a time on supposedly liberal boards people's gleeful posts about how somebody will/should be raped in jail. Because rape is a good liberal value I guess.

Huge number of americans go to movies that are thin plots wrapped around terror, torture and eventual killing of people who have minor moral faults. It's a guaranteed profit center.

We don't have the skills or facilities in this country to imagine that the tortures we prescribe for others in the US could someday be applied to us. We should all remember that we are all just a few drinks and a car ride away from a jail cell.

Whatever you wish for others may it happen to you.