PoliticalChic
Diamond Member
Excellent Film In Need Of Context. The film is ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7.’
1.While I am more than capable of explaining the events, in full disclosure I must admit that they took place before my time. That is probably true, also, of those reading this or seeing the film.
We are led to believe that, for the most part, the revolutionaries who took part, and those who ended up on trial, were simply good Americans who were infused with the desire to stop the slaughter of young Americans during the Viet Nam War.
I give the real description of them below.
2. The NYTimes puts it this way…..and I couldn’t agree more:
Aaron Sorkin and an all-star cast re-enact a real-life ’60s courtroom drama with present-day implications.
"The Trial of the Chicago 7" is the rare drama about the 1960s that's powerful and authentic and moving enough to feel as if it were taking place today.
‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’ Review: Aaron Sorkin’s Counterculture Docudrama Is a Knockout — the Rare Profound Movie About the 1960s
"feel as if it were taking place today." Truer words have not been written. And a deep understanding of the events portrayed go far in explaining the political milieu in which we are currently engrossed. A film worth seeing….but more importantly….worth understanding.
3. The same machinations that supported the ‘heroes’ of this film have been used to install the Leftists in the occupied city of Washington, D.C., today. It is eminently simple, but deeply effective: provide some simple feel-good statement to motivate their supporters. In the case of the radical movement of the late 60s, it is ‘peace, not war.’
Peace, not war……who isn’t moved in that effort???? Add a civil rights overlay and you have a winning movement. Ignore the riots, arson, looting, mayhem…..and you have the repeat of the same propaganda in the recent election.....and the same victory.
And a winning movement it is…..it has taken over the Democrat Party.
4. Here is the context that the film does not provide. The lead-up to the Chicago Riots of 1968 began almost a decade earlier.
It coalesced in June of 1962 at the AFL-CIO camp at Port Huron, Michigan.
Some prior rumblings had been heard in a nascent civil rights movement, and from the Free Speech movement at Berkeley- but it was the Port Huron meetings that represented the heart of Sixties radicalism.
5. And the most succinct description of what was behind it, an understanding of those who were arrested and who beat the establishment, is here, from one of the leaders of the movement: “four-square against anti-Communism, eight-square against American-culture, twelve-square against sell-out unions, one hundred and twenty againsti an interpretation of the Cold War that saw it as a Soviet plot and identified American policy fondly.”
Todd Gitlin, “The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage,” p. 109-110
....against anti-communism.
...against American culture
...against any indictment of the Soviet Union
...against any view that saw America as standing for liberty and freedom for oppressed nations.
These are the people made heroes in the film "The Trial of the Chicago 7."
You must see it.....in context.
You won’t walk away from the movie with this understanding…..but Karl Marx would have been proud of those on trial.
1.While I am more than capable of explaining the events, in full disclosure I must admit that they took place before my time. That is probably true, also, of those reading this or seeing the film.
We are led to believe that, for the most part, the revolutionaries who took part, and those who ended up on trial, were simply good Americans who were infused with the desire to stop the slaughter of young Americans during the Viet Nam War.
I give the real description of them below.
2. The NYTimes puts it this way…..and I couldn’t agree more:
Aaron Sorkin and an all-star cast re-enact a real-life ’60s courtroom drama with present-day implications.
‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’ Review: They Fought the Law
Aaron Sorkin and an all-star cast re-enact a real-life ’60s courtroom drama with present-day implications.
www.nytimes.com
"The Trial of the Chicago 7" is the rare drama about the 1960s that's powerful and authentic and moving enough to feel as if it were taking place today.
‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’ Review: Aaron Sorkin’s Counterculture Docudrama Is a Knockout — the Rare Profound Movie About the 1960s
"feel as if it were taking place today." Truer words have not been written. And a deep understanding of the events portrayed go far in explaining the political milieu in which we are currently engrossed. A film worth seeing….but more importantly….worth understanding.
3. The same machinations that supported the ‘heroes’ of this film have been used to install the Leftists in the occupied city of Washington, D.C., today. It is eminently simple, but deeply effective: provide some simple feel-good statement to motivate their supporters. In the case of the radical movement of the late 60s, it is ‘peace, not war.’
Peace, not war……who isn’t moved in that effort???? Add a civil rights overlay and you have a winning movement. Ignore the riots, arson, looting, mayhem…..and you have the repeat of the same propaganda in the recent election.....and the same victory.
And a winning movement it is…..it has taken over the Democrat Party.
4. Here is the context that the film does not provide. The lead-up to the Chicago Riots of 1968 began almost a decade earlier.
It coalesced in June of 1962 at the AFL-CIO camp at Port Huron, Michigan.
Some prior rumblings had been heard in a nascent civil rights movement, and from the Free Speech movement at Berkeley- but it was the Port Huron meetings that represented the heart of Sixties radicalism.
5. And the most succinct description of what was behind it, an understanding of those who were arrested and who beat the establishment, is here, from one of the leaders of the movement: “four-square against anti-Communism, eight-square against American-culture, twelve-square against sell-out unions, one hundred and twenty againsti an interpretation of the Cold War that saw it as a Soviet plot and identified American policy fondly.”
Todd Gitlin, “The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage,” p. 109-110
....against anti-communism.
...against American culture
...against any indictment of the Soviet Union
...against any view that saw America as standing for liberty and freedom for oppressed nations.
These are the people made heroes in the film "The Trial of the Chicago 7."
You must see it.....in context.
You won’t walk away from the movie with this understanding…..but Karl Marx would have been proud of those on trial.
Last edited: