Note that Tuco Ramirez, himself a villain, continues to shoot until the other guy was unable to shoot back:
That one scene overturns decades of Hollywood propaganda about self-defense and fair play. William A. Levinson’s piece elaborates:
Eliminating the death penalty was always the motive behind Hollywood’s portrayal of self-defense and fair play. Going back to the Saturday afternoon westerns, movie makers led the push to eliminate the death penalty. One of the arguments against the death penalty is that only the powerless are executed. The flaw in that argument is that the powerful will get away with even more heinous crimes after the death penalty is abolished. Death penalty opponents would fix the system by not executing anyone rather than correcting a system that allows the privileged to get away with murder.
Televison, the great “educator” is suffocating viewers with shows about horrible murders containing scenes of autopsies. TV show murderers are usually arrested in the final minutes of the show with a hint that he or she will be executed, or spend forever in prison. No mention is ever made of the decades of appeals at taxpayer expense; often followed by release and a big cash settlement, as is the case in real life.
On the other side of the scale there are countless television shows where the defendant is always found not guilty. In TV Land, the death penalty vanishes somewhere between the murderers and the wrongly accused.
Another argument that is used against the death penalty is that it is a form of revenge. Capital punishment can hardly be called revenge in any society that gives as much care to an accused defendant’s Rights as does the United States. More protections are added after a convicted criminal is sentenced to die.
Hollywood is even more schizophrenic than is TV. Liberals are always railing against the death penalty, but you never hear a liberal attack vengeance in movie plotlines. That is odd because vengeance is the premise in most Hollywood bloodbaths, and has been going all the way back to the big studio days —— only nowadays the kill numbers keep rising.
Vengeance is the climax of every violent plot. The audience is led to revenge by the villain’s cruelty. A revenge-driven plotline is not much different than sexual arousal ending in an orgasm. The audience is relieved, gets off so to speak, when the villain gets his or her comeuppance in the final gory minutes. If liberals are truly against the death penalty why aren’t they fighting to save the villains in Hollywood movies?
Democrats are Hollywood’s biggest supporters. They are the caring folks who claim that it takes a village to raise a child —— assuming liberals do not murder the child in the womb or shortly thereafter.
Hollywood has taught generations of moviegoers that getting even is acceptable behavior; so after decades of the same message it should not surprise liberals when a generation of kids comes along determined to carry fictional revenge on a personal level to its logical end in the real world.
Of course, liberals wring their hands in dismay and blame guns whenever children turn to killing. Liberals do not get it. It is not the gun, nor are children trying to imitate the on-screen killing as some claim; nasty little bastards are simply imposing justice on their perceived enemies.
The Left extends the revenge argument to protest the execution of the perpetrators of terrorist acts. It is so fashionably International. The line I like best is: America loses its moral legitimacy when it imposes the death penalty on anyone. Yeah right. Let’s abolish the death penalty and concentrate on infanticide, euthanasia, and initiating population controls.
Insofar as leading Democrats are concerned, their assertions on any subject are always stated for the sole purpose of undermining the American political system. Once they have total control they will inflict their brand of revenge upon anyone who dared stand in their way before they had the power.
The revenge argument was also used against President Truman for ending WWII by dropping A-bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki. The story is that Truman took revenge on Japan, but never would have dropped atomic bombs on Germany or Italy. I certainly hope not since it was Japan that attacked America.
All of the Left’s caterwauling about “torture” is nothing more than an extension of opposition to the death penalty. Abu Ghraib was subliminally portrayed as a death camp, while innocent Muslims being held in Gitmo supposedly go from a turn on the rack to nearly being drowned. Make no mistake about it, abolishing the death penalty is the end game.
In one sense I agree with no death penalty for terrorists. Instead of giving terrorists the death penalty remove their eyes, tongues and hearing. They don’t mind dying for Allah; so they shouldn’t mind walking into walls the rest of their miserable lives. Ultimately, my suggestion is more humane than beheading them.
Just so you do not misinterpret my position:
1. I am for executing murderers without exception. That includes abolishing the so-called insanity defense.
2. I am one hundred percent in favor of war when it is a clear case of self-defense. Legitimate self-defense —— like when the country is attacked —— not the philosophical kind espoused by dirty little moralists in order to bring about a new world order.
3. I am in favor of preemptive strikes against aggressive enemies when they have, or are about to acquire, the means of carrying out a threat.
On the other side of the coin, I oppose infanticide, euthanasia, mercy killing, genocide, forced sterilization, and doctor-assisted suicide.
I also oppose population controls with one, and only one exception: Control America’s population by controlling our borders.
Mass murder is the death penalty on steroids
Have you noticed that brutality and mass murder done by governments increased dramatically throughout the last century while death penalty opponents were gaining ground? Those who claim that all institutional killing is revenge of one kind or another are the same people who want more government. Before I buy into more government, I want to hear liberals explain why governments take revenge against their own people? Scapegoating a specific group for political gain is not the answer I am looking for.
Critics
A movie critic’s job is to increase ticket sales. For the most part they comment on the acting, the directing, the plot, and so on. On rare occasions a movie is so terrible a critic might actually say “Don’t go see this stinker.”
First off, no one needs a movie critic telling them what is good and what is bad any more than they need an art critic telling them which painting is a masterpiece and which one a piece of schlock.
Secondly, movie fans are addicted to moving pictures with sound; so they will watch anything —— either in a theater or on a DVD, or on broadcast TV.
In addition to selling tickets movie reviews are opinions no different than opinions on message boards. My main objection to movie critics is that their opinions never criticize the political lies in movie plots. Example:
Countless spy movies made during the Cold War told moviegoers that America was no better than the Soviet Union. That was the Hollywood Left’s way of saying that America was wrong rather than come out and say that the Soviet Union was right. A few of those movies went so far as to portray Soviet spy masters as sympathetic characters. Our guys in the field were naive children being manipulated by an evil big shot in one or another US intelligence agency. Soviet opponents were always brimming over with humanity after fascism had been defeated. It was all part of the Left’s ongoing propaganda that says fascism was the greatest evil known to mankind; whereas, socialism/communism is good. The truth: There is not a whit of difference between the two.
Not one movie critic ever addressed that Cold War lie as far as I know.
Nowadays, the pendulum has swung so far to the Left, the majority of Hollywood films are pure liberal propaganda. One way or another the Socialist/Communist message is included in every film. Contemporary movies contain little that entertains and nothing that can be considered art. Movies are so terrible, I am convinced that technology has the movie industry on life support. Were it not for technology Hollywood would be a ghost town today.
Finally, here’s my review of Lifeboat.
There was a movie released in 1944 titled Lifeboat that still fascinates me though I have not seen it in 69 years. I got the following info from IMDb:
John Steinbeck (1902 - 1968) & Jo Swerling share the writing chores with Ben Hecht (1894 - 1964) (uncredited). Alfred Hitchcock directed.
Here is the cast:
Tallulah Bankhead
William Bendix
Walter Slezak (The U-boat captain named Willy.)
Mary Anderson
John Hodiak
Henry Hull
Heather Angel
Hume Cronyn
Canada Lee
Alfred Hitchcock (uncredited)
William Yetter Jr. (uncredited)
Here is the plot summary written by Col Needham:
I got a kick out of the last line in the summary. As an old merchant seaman I can tell you that being in an open boat in the North Atlantic is trouble enough.
I think John Hodiak played the part of the Communist engineer. No matter considering Hollywood’s Socialist leanings even back then. I can guess he was portrayed as a sympathetic character. In fact, I do not recall the conflict between socialism and fascism. I was too young to take note of that political nicety.
This is what I do remember:
Soon after Willy is fished out of the water, he amputates William Bendix’s foot. Probably the left one, but I cannot swear to it. Before long Willy is in command of the lifeboat because he knows how to navigate, and he is a natural leader to boot. Willy also has a water jug hidden in his shirt. I recall Willy rowing the boat and singing German songs while the rest of them are dying of thirst. It’s good to be king.
Before long the Americans turn into a pack of snarling brutes. They gang up on Willy and beat him to death. Again, I cannot swear to it, but I think the shoe with the foot in it was one of the weapons that was used to do in Willy. That is as much as my memory is giving me.
Treacherous memory aside: To this day I do not know what the hell Steinbeck, Hecht, and Swerling were trying to say? They may have started out with Communist sympathies in mind, but the Nazi was the only one with any freaking brains; everyone else turns out to be a mindless animal. Lifeboat ended up as one hell of a propaganda piece for fascism if you ask me.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=DZXlhSgq7us]When you have to shoot...Shoot! Don't talk - YouTube[/ame]
That one scene overturns decades of Hollywood propaganda about self-defense and fair play. William A. Levinson’s piece elaborates:
Eliminating the death penalty was always the motive behind Hollywood’s portrayal of self-defense and fair play. Going back to the Saturday afternoon westerns, movie makers led the push to eliminate the death penalty. One of the arguments against the death penalty is that only the powerless are executed. The flaw in that argument is that the powerful will get away with even more heinous crimes after the death penalty is abolished. Death penalty opponents would fix the system by not executing anyone rather than correcting a system that allows the privileged to get away with murder.
Televison, the great “educator” is suffocating viewers with shows about horrible murders containing scenes of autopsies. TV show murderers are usually arrested in the final minutes of the show with a hint that he or she will be executed, or spend forever in prison. No mention is ever made of the decades of appeals at taxpayer expense; often followed by release and a big cash settlement, as is the case in real life.
On the other side of the scale there are countless television shows where the defendant is always found not guilty. In TV Land, the death penalty vanishes somewhere between the murderers and the wrongly accused.
Another argument that is used against the death penalty is that it is a form of revenge. Capital punishment can hardly be called revenge in any society that gives as much care to an accused defendant’s Rights as does the United States. More protections are added after a convicted criminal is sentenced to die.
Hollywood is even more schizophrenic than is TV. Liberals are always railing against the death penalty, but you never hear a liberal attack vengeance in movie plotlines. That is odd because vengeance is the premise in most Hollywood bloodbaths, and has been going all the way back to the big studio days —— only nowadays the kill numbers keep rising.
Vengeance is the climax of every violent plot. The audience is led to revenge by the villain’s cruelty. A revenge-driven plotline is not much different than sexual arousal ending in an orgasm. The audience is relieved, gets off so to speak, when the villain gets his or her comeuppance in the final gory minutes. If liberals are truly against the death penalty why aren’t they fighting to save the villains in Hollywood movies?
Democrats are Hollywood’s biggest supporters. They are the caring folks who claim that it takes a village to raise a child —— assuming liberals do not murder the child in the womb or shortly thereafter.
Hollywood has taught generations of moviegoers that getting even is acceptable behavior; so after decades of the same message it should not surprise liberals when a generation of kids comes along determined to carry fictional revenge on a personal level to its logical end in the real world.
Of course, liberals wring their hands in dismay and blame guns whenever children turn to killing. Liberals do not get it. It is not the gun, nor are children trying to imitate the on-screen killing as some claim; nasty little bastards are simply imposing justice on their perceived enemies.
The Left extends the revenge argument to protest the execution of the perpetrators of terrorist acts. It is so fashionably International. The line I like best is: America loses its moral legitimacy when it imposes the death penalty on anyone. Yeah right. Let’s abolish the death penalty and concentrate on infanticide, euthanasia, and initiating population controls.
Insofar as leading Democrats are concerned, their assertions on any subject are always stated for the sole purpose of undermining the American political system. Once they have total control they will inflict their brand of revenge upon anyone who dared stand in their way before they had the power.
The revenge argument was also used against President Truman for ending WWII by dropping A-bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki. The story is that Truman took revenge on Japan, but never would have dropped atomic bombs on Germany or Italy. I certainly hope not since it was Japan that attacked America.
All of the Left’s caterwauling about “torture” is nothing more than an extension of opposition to the death penalty. Abu Ghraib was subliminally portrayed as a death camp, while innocent Muslims being held in Gitmo supposedly go from a turn on the rack to nearly being drowned. Make no mistake about it, abolishing the death penalty is the end game.
In one sense I agree with no death penalty for terrorists. Instead of giving terrorists the death penalty remove their eyes, tongues and hearing. They don’t mind dying for Allah; so they shouldn’t mind walking into walls the rest of their miserable lives. Ultimately, my suggestion is more humane than beheading them.
Just so you do not misinterpret my position:
1. I am for executing murderers without exception. That includes abolishing the so-called insanity defense.
2. I am one hundred percent in favor of war when it is a clear case of self-defense. Legitimate self-defense —— like when the country is attacked —— not the philosophical kind espoused by dirty little moralists in order to bring about a new world order.
3. I am in favor of preemptive strikes against aggressive enemies when they have, or are about to acquire, the means of carrying out a threat.
On the other side of the coin, I oppose infanticide, euthanasia, mercy killing, genocide, forced sterilization, and doctor-assisted suicide.
I also oppose population controls with one, and only one exception: Control America’s population by controlling our borders.
Mass murder is the death penalty on steroids
Have you noticed that brutality and mass murder done by governments increased dramatically throughout the last century while death penalty opponents were gaining ground? Those who claim that all institutional killing is revenge of one kind or another are the same people who want more government. Before I buy into more government, I want to hear liberals explain why governments take revenge against their own people? Scapegoating a specific group for political gain is not the answer I am looking for.
Critics
A movie critic’s job is to increase ticket sales. For the most part they comment on the acting, the directing, the plot, and so on. On rare occasions a movie is so terrible a critic might actually say “Don’t go see this stinker.”
First off, no one needs a movie critic telling them what is good and what is bad any more than they need an art critic telling them which painting is a masterpiece and which one a piece of schlock.
Secondly, movie fans are addicted to moving pictures with sound; so they will watch anything —— either in a theater or on a DVD, or on broadcast TV.
In addition to selling tickets movie reviews are opinions no different than opinions on message boards. My main objection to movie critics is that their opinions never criticize the political lies in movie plots. Example:
Countless spy movies made during the Cold War told moviegoers that America was no better than the Soviet Union. That was the Hollywood Left’s way of saying that America was wrong rather than come out and say that the Soviet Union was right. A few of those movies went so far as to portray Soviet spy masters as sympathetic characters. Our guys in the field were naive children being manipulated by an evil big shot in one or another US intelligence agency. Soviet opponents were always brimming over with humanity after fascism had been defeated. It was all part of the Left’s ongoing propaganda that says fascism was the greatest evil known to mankind; whereas, socialism/communism is good. The truth: There is not a whit of difference between the two.
Not one movie critic ever addressed that Cold War lie as far as I know.
Nowadays, the pendulum has swung so far to the Left, the majority of Hollywood films are pure liberal propaganda. One way or another the Socialist/Communist message is included in every film. Contemporary movies contain little that entertains and nothing that can be considered art. Movies are so terrible, I am convinced that technology has the movie industry on life support. Were it not for technology Hollywood would be a ghost town today.
Finally, here’s my review of Lifeboat.
There was a movie released in 1944 titled Lifeboat that still fascinates me though I have not seen it in 69 years. I got the following info from IMDb:
John Steinbeck (1902 - 1968) & Jo Swerling share the writing chores with Ben Hecht (1894 - 1964) (uncredited). Alfred Hitchcock directed.
Here is the cast:
Tallulah Bankhead
William Bendix
Walter Slezak (The U-boat captain named Willy.)
Mary Anderson
John Hodiak
Henry Hull
Heather Angel
Hume Cronyn
Canada Lee
Alfred Hitchcock (uncredited)
William Yetter Jr. (uncredited)
Here is the plot summary written by Col Needham:
I got a kick out of the last line in the summary. As an old merchant seaman I can tell you that being in an open boat in the North Atlantic is trouble enough.
I think John Hodiak played the part of the Communist engineer. No matter considering Hollywood’s Socialist leanings even back then. I can guess he was portrayed as a sympathetic character. In fact, I do not recall the conflict between socialism and fascism. I was too young to take note of that political nicety.
This is what I do remember:
Soon after Willy is fished out of the water, he amputates William Bendix’s foot. Probably the left one, but I cannot swear to it. Before long Willy is in command of the lifeboat because he knows how to navigate, and he is a natural leader to boot. Willy also has a water jug hidden in his shirt. I recall Willy rowing the boat and singing German songs while the rest of them are dying of thirst. It’s good to be king.
Before long the Americans turn into a pack of snarling brutes. They gang up on Willy and beat him to death. Again, I cannot swear to it, but I think the shoe with the foot in it was one of the weapons that was used to do in Willy. That is as much as my memory is giving me.
Treacherous memory aside: To this day I do not know what the hell Steinbeck, Hecht, and Swerling were trying to say? They may have started out with Communist sympathies in mind, but the Nazi was the only one with any freaking brains; everyone else turns out to be a mindless animal. Lifeboat ended up as one hell of a propaganda piece for fascism if you ask me.
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