[Reader-list] Operation Strangelove:Show your dissent. Show the movie.

Wed Apr 30 15:44:10 IST 2003

What a great idea. I wonder what Kubrick (and Peter 
Sellers) would make of the present dramas of 
globalization. Cynical British empire building
under the paranoid world beating Vandalism of a steroid
crazed and completely ignorant Global Power, the USA.
Like a mad wrestler led by a latter day Kipling. It
is all completely nuts. Who wrote this script?

Surely America can top its best satire of the 60s
with work on the 'end times' dramas of the 00s or
noughties. The world they present is so bleak
and unsustainable one can only cry, or laugh, despair 
or defy with all the creativity we can muster. 

One of the purposes of the present 'new great game' is 
to coopt media content and attention away from the 
absurdities of national and local government, with 
their new repressive laws that seem designed to cover 
up their slight understanding of how the world works, 
and what motivates people to make culture.

In Toronto we are presently dealing with a new
phenomenon, 'globalization protesting against you'
with the sudden arrival of SARS from Hong Kong by
airliner last month and the World Health Organisation's 
travel advisory inclusion of Toronto, which became 
pariah in North America overnight. The media and mayor 
suggest every one go out for lunch to help the local 
entertainment and tourist industry which was hit immediately. 
Not the best advice obviously when dealing with a potential 
pneumonic plague that could, unless isolated, spread 
through the North American continent. 

I wonder how Sellers or say vim Venders would cope with
the comic potential of such government and such media. 

Otherwise it looks like the disease has been controlled here
by patient caring Health work - half of the sufferers are health 
care workers and their families - their professional altruism 
stands in sharp contrast with the quality of media advice and 
the government of idiots. Nice people perhaps but they should 
be doing something else, less dangerous, like delivering the 
newspaper to peoples homes or cleaning the washrooms in government 
buildings, and let journalists and editors make news, and real 
politicians make government.

It seems to me that this disease has been proof with the way 
ordinary people have coped with the situation that there is 
indeed something called society and that without it there would 
be no individual men or women, or their families.

George Lachlan Brown
Toronto

> >Dear friends, family, etc. --
> >
> >Stop cowboy diplomacy:  Operation Strangelove has
> >arrived!
> >
> >Be part of a national action of dissent on May 14,
> >2003.  This may be the easiest, and funniest,
> anti-war
> >protest youll ever be involved in.  All you have to
> >do:  Put on a screening of "Dr. Strangelove"  in
> your
> >living room, at the local theater, on campus, on your
> >laptop, anywhere you can.
> >
> >Its as simple as that.  And if you want, you can
> also
> >raise money for groups still working hard for peace,
> >justice and relief in Iraq.  We have large theaters
> >booked in New York and Los Angeles already.  Check
> out
> >our web site
> >http://www.operationstrangelove.org
> >for a complete do-it-yourself event kitno screening
> >is too small to count.  Pass it on.  The only way
> this
> >works is if we get the word out quickly!
> >
> >Keep checking our web site for added features.  If
> you
> >cant register your screening yet, come back soon.
> >Life is a work in progress.  The rest of this message
> >is more info on Operation Strangelove, but let me
> >know if you have any questions, and most important if
> >youre gonna host a screening.  Thanks!
> >-- Patrick, Lizzy, Jen and the folks at Operation
> >Strangelove
> >_______________________________
> >
> >Pre-emptive strikes. Cowboy diplomacy. Men conspiring
> >in the War Room, bent on world domination. Weapons of
> >mass destruction. And most terrifying of all, an
> >invasion begun for one overwhelming reason: precious
> >fluids.
> >
> >Forty years after its filming, the dark and
> >explosively funny "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Stopped
> >Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb" seems like a
> >satirical time bomb planted by Stanley Kubrick and
> >Terry Southern, set to detonate on Bushs doctrine of
> >unilateral warfare, anytime, anywhere.
> >
> >As the war on Iraq winds down (at least on TV), as
> the
> >perils (and profits) of occupation loom, and as the
> >Bushies plot the next pre-emptive strike, Operation
> >Strangelove aims to show the lunatic warmongers in
> >their true light.
> >
> >On May 14, put on a screening of "Dr. Strangelove" 
> >in your living room, at the local theater, on campus,
> >on your laptop, anywhere you can  and say no to
> >unilateral invasions, to endangering our troops for
> >the sake of oil, to flouting international law and
> the
> >world community in the name of empire. Follow the
> film
> >with discussions, forums, debates. Keep talking. Keep
> >acting. Lets give new meaning to the old Strategic
> >Air Command motto: "Peace Is Our Profession."
> >_______________________________
> >
> >Operation Strangelove grew out of the Lysistrata
> >Project which inspired more than 1,000 groups to
> stage
> >readings of Aristophaness bawdy anti-war play in 59
> >countries and all 50 US states early this March and
> >raised more than $100,000 for peace and humanitarian
> >groups.
> >
> >Now, more than ever, its critical that we raise our
> >voices above the din and keep our message focused.
> >
> >Remember:  "War is too important to be left to
> >politicians."
> >
> >http://www.operationstrangelove.org
> 
> 
> ________________________________________________________________________
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Lachlan Brown

T+VM: +1 416 666 1452
eFax: +1 435 603 2156

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