The Iraqi Candidate
"To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he may have the less." ~ Socrates
It's the day of the 2004 presidential election. People swarm into public school gymnasiums, fill the voting booths, and escape a while later into the crisp autumn air. The trees have turned and the streets are covered in reddish-brown debris and yet, America is tense today. Today, the day when many people find out whether all of their efforts have been in vain. Today is the day when the future of America is decided. Today is not just any day; it has the power to change Tomorrow.
With so much riding on the 2004 election it is not surprising to find that presidential campaigns have gone to a whole new level. People are using media that has never been used before to express their opinions about the election.
The Michael Moore movie Fahrenheit 9/11 about the September 11th attack and the war that followed was a big step in using popular media to present political issues. That film was intended to swing votes away from President Bush by examining closely many of the mistakes he made during his presidency.
Fahrenheit 9/11 is the first example of a movie trying to have a direct impact on an election. It is a documentary which was made to articulate Michael Moore's feelings on certain political issues for the general public. Because it is an independent film it is not so surprising that it is also biased. Unfortunately political propaganda has invaded mainstream movies as well, where people are not prepared for it and the messages are more subtle and difficult to discern.
I was shocked and appalled to see a mainstream movie filled with political messages where there didn't need to be any. After watching the 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidate the only question that I am left with is whether the movie was meant to reflect the way Americans feel about terrorism or instill in us a fear of terrorism which would cause the election results to lean favorably towards George W.
Moore insists that all his facts are correct and even hired an old fact checker for the New Yorker to make sure. But this, of course, doesn't come to grips with the fact that much of the Bush statements he objects to are also, strictly speaking, factually correct. The truth about facts is not self evident, as he knows; the significance of facts can be manipulated by those with just a camera just as easily as by those in power. In an era of mass-media politics-a far cry from the original political debates in Athens-"Fahrenheit 9/11" is an uneasy compromise between populism and propaganda. The things it has to say are relevant and important and should be heard - but hopefully, they are just part of a larger, more even-handed discussion. Perhaps, the success of this movie is a recognition of the fact that the way this discussion gets carried out in the modern age is by turning it into a form of entertainment.
Many responders would believe that this movie is a misleading act based on Mike Moore’s self-promotion. When looking beneath the surface however, we can see that the film is trying to say something about America, even though there is no clear answer to the question being asked. This is why the film is a post-structural text. There is more than one answer and texts are interpreted depending on the responder’s context. It is not a documentary however because a documentary is a discussion based on evidence for and against. Although Bowling for Columbine provides facts, it is biased. Mike Moore presents a film that is dialogical in nature. He arranges questions and scenes in the film to get the answer or response that he wants. Also, the camera used is analogous to Moore’s own gun. He targets certain people and appears on the scene so as to make himself seem bigger. His camera is also used to ‘shoot’ people with questions that he already knows the answer to. This happens to people such as the bank employees and youths Bent and BJ and this is why responders may think the film is a reason for self-promotion.
Bullying has evolved into a monster with many heads. There are many different types of bullying “traditional bullying is any type of bullying that is carried out through non-electronic means” (Differences between Cyberbullying and Traditional Bullying). Examples of non-electronic bullying are verbal, physical, and social bullying. Traditional bullying is what most parents think of when bullying is proposed. The one question that is usually asked is why? There are many reason why bullying may occur. “Bullies may have underlying psychological factors that contribute to their aggressive behavior or impair their ability to interpret social interactions” (Bullying at School). Bullying can cause another person long or short term problems throughout their whole life. Bullies are also likely to have problems throughout life, such as drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and spouse abuse. Bullying is not only wrong, but inhumane.
Now the whole philosophy has changed. Before the 1992 election was even over the Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report ran a story on the possible Republican hopefuls for the 1996 campaign. We have gone from a country who denounced campaigning to one in which candidates start campaigning for seats that haven't even been decided in the current elections.
Hudson, William E. American Democracy in Peril: Eight Challenges to America's Future. Washington, DC: CQ, 2010. Print.
Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, showcases a world alternate from ours, a dystopian setting. Where human morals are drastically altered, families, love, history, and art are removed by the government. They used multiple methods to control the people, but no method in the world state is more highly used and more effective than propaganda. The world state heavily implemented the use of propaganda to control, to set morals, and to condition the minds of every citizen in their world. However such uses of propaganda have already been used in our world and even at this very moment. The way the media sways us how to think or how we should feel about a given situation. Often covering the truth and hiding the facts. One of the goals in propaganda is to set the mindset of the people to align with the goal of a current power, such as a
Nursing is a professional discipline and it provides a direct service to individuals. Nursing is a service which offers comfort, gratification and assistance at those times when individuals are under stress and in relation on their basic human needs. Nursing also offers indirect service which makes a specific contribution to the promotion of health and the recovery from illness. It involves the ability to access situation, arrives at decisions and implements a course of action designed to resolve nursing problems. Although the friendliness and the discipline my interest orthopedic in nursing came so far.
Propaganda even was expelled in the form of Hollywood movies. The most infamous storyline was that anyone you knew could possibly be, or is becoming a Communist. These movies became a very proficient way to add to the already paranoid public, with scare tactics and nationalism. Since Americans were terrified by the idea of suddenly being attacked, producers promoted thoughts of post-explosion people, with grotesque features, cities in complete wasteland. Filmmakers made anti-communist films to influence, but more importantly, because they were being investigated by Washington D.C.'s Red Raiders. Because the United States wanted to remain allies with the Soviet Union, they continued to produce pro-Soviet films. This continued until the House Under American Activities Committee was questioning their motives. The HUAC was worried that these films would influence Americans to engage in Communism. Because of these investigations, filmmakers started filming obvious anti-Communist films, such as I Married a Communist (1950) and My Son John (1952) (Gustainis 550). One of the films that was created was titled Fail-Safe, which was about bombers who worked for the American side who were mistakenly asked to bomb the Soviet Union, with no way to be
Hudson, William E. American Democracy in Peril: Eight Challenges to America’s Future – Fourth Edition. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2004.
The movie premiered in June, and according to a friend of mine the opening night was jammed pack in Tallahassee itself, which was showing the film only at the Miracle 5 Theater. All across the nation, Moore’s film was number 1, grossing huge amounts of money. It was expected to generate huge profits all across the globe, for it was a film many who oppose President Bush were waiting to see. I was amazed at how this film was treated as if it were Moses handing down the law, and with all the hype I decided that it was time for me to see it
His first redeeming attribute is his real and true love for Lolita. Humbert infact confesses that, “I loved her. It was love at first sight, at last sight and ever sight”(270). If the reader thinks back to the beginning of the novel Humbert refers to Lolita as someone who only brought him lust. Humbert also makes it a point to tell the audience that he only like girls who fall into his nymphetic criteria and anyone who is too old does not appeal to him. When Humbert sees Lolita though after three years of being apart he says that “I insist the world know how much I loved my Lolita, this Lolita, pale and polluted, and big with another’s child, but still gray-eyed, still sooty-lashed, still auburn and almond, still Carmencita, still mine”(278). No matter how she has age and move past her nymphetic stage of life Humbert still loves her. Humbert even goes on to say that, “No matter, even if those eyes of hers world fade to myopic fish, and her nipples swell and crack, and her lovely young velvety delicate delta be tainted and torn-even then I world go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of your dear wan face, at the mere sound of your raucous young voice, my Lolita”(278). This is true love that he is feeling. No matter what happens to her he will still love her. Humbert has
The lines that define good and evil are not written in black and white; these lines tend to blur into many shades of grey allowing good and evil to intermingle with each another in a single human being. Man is not inherently good or evil but they are born innocent without any values or sense of morality until people impart their philosophies of life to them. In the words of John Locke:
The unreliability of the narrator should be the key point of interpretation when discussing Lolita, however, this is generally not the case within the classroom. In my educational career I have studied Lolita in two classroom settings, one as an undergraduate and one as a graduate student. In both of these classes the discussions ignored the science of the unreliable narrator and chose to focus exclusively on the moral implications presented by Humbert Humbert concerning twelve-year old girls. I would have expected such a discussion in the undergraduate setting; the novel’s sh...
Attorneys and their agents are bound by the duty of confidentiality to their clients forever. This means after the case is closed and even after client has passed away. The exce...
Movies such as the one's mentioned above have been used create revenue for mighty Hollywood, but along the way it has brought awareness to the issue. From terrorism to global warming, issues like these are volatile in the world today and Hollywood knows this and is producing such films with capital as its real intention but at the same time imposing the issue on the people of the world today.