Thinking out loud

A new movie is opening on Christmas Day titled “The Interview.” Being a comedy, one would assume that it’s an appropriate film for the celebration of the holiday season.

But, unfortunately, we are wrong. The story line is that 2 comedians get involved with the CIA in the conspiracy to kill a foreign head of state. On the surface this theme doesn’t present a problem.

We’ve had many films where assassinating a foreign head of state was a prominent theme. But, in those films, the target for assassination was a fictional character. However, the writers of “The Interview” decided to take this theme to a new level. They have identified the target of this CIA assassination as Kim Jong-un, the current presiding president of North Korea.

Many Americans might say, “but this is a spoof, a comedy, it’s not serious.” Well, that’s part of the problem. To make a film about assassinating a foreign leader is insulting. To disguise it as a comedy exacerbates the insult. Assassinating people is nothing to laugh at especially since the U.S. continues to assassinate people with drone strikes.

Imagine, if you will, Russia making and releasing a film about targeting Barack Obama for assassination. Would we, as a nation, see the humor? The U.S. relationship with North Korea is strained and hostile just as is our relationship with Russia. Since the end of the Korean War, the U.S. has maintained about 40,000 troops on the border between North and South Korea with their guns pointed north. Why are they still there? Are we still at war with North Korea and we, the people, do not know this? It seems to me that the only reason the U.S. has not attacked North Korea is because they have the nuclear capability to retaliate against us. [Editor’s note: Yes, we are still at war with North Korea. All that was signed by all sides was an armistice that stopped the fighting.]

To put a film on the open market for public consumption that promotes the killing of North Korea’s president is in very poor taste regardless of what you think of him. But, how do we know what to think of the North Korean leadership. The U.S. media has portrayed Kim Jong-un as an evil fool, a cartoon character who is to be laughed at and not taken seriously. This film continues that characterization.

I have to ask whether or not the CIA influenced the production of this film. Constant bombardment of the general public with certain images certainly has the result of effecting the public view of reality. Is this the purpose behind this creation?

The timing of the release of this film was also troubling. It’s scheduled for Christmas Day, a day in which most people in the U.S. celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Is the theme of this film in keeping with what Jesus stands for? I think not.

What I suggest is that we boycott this film and let the producers know that they cannot impose this kind of garbage on us and expect us to support it.

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This past weekend we had rallies and marches throughout the U.S. in support of the families of those black men and women who have been brutalized and/or killed by police.

In Washington, DC, this past Saturday, we had the traditional rally organized by Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network in which speakers talked to and rallied the people in attendance. The speakers included the parents of some of the victims, Mike Brown’s parents, Eric Garner’s mother, John Crawford’s father, Amadou Diallo’s mother, Tamir Rice’s mother, etc., as well as other activists, including Reverend Al.

What has not been part of the mainstream media’s coverage of this event was the interruption of the ceremony by at least a dozen young people from Ferguson, Missouri, who attempted to speak from the stage. Evidently, they were not invited to express their feelings and were quickly escorted off the stage. Many protesters in the audience began chanting, “Let them speak, let them speak.” Ultimately, rally organizers allowed Johnetta Elzie of St. Louis to address the crowd. “This movement was started by the young people,” she said. The group, mostly in their 20s, left the stage after she spoke. “I thought there was going to be actions, not a show. This is a show,” Elzie said.

Organizers called the interruption unnecessarily divisive. But some in the Missouri group said they were disappointed and found the rally staid and ineffective.

This episode was covered by Democracy Now and raised some questions in my mind. First, why were these young people from St. Louis and Ferguson not asked to address the crowd? After all, this is where the battle started and it’s been the youth who are out in the streets making it clear that “there will be no business as usual until we get justice.”

Secondly, even if this was an innocent oversight when organizing this event, why were they escorted off the stage and not allowed to speak? Could it be that they were calling for direct action while NAN, under Reverend Al’s leadership, wanted to take the more traditional route of rallies, legislative changes, and staying within the framework of the system’s acceptable behavior?

The young people are strongly invested in street action and civil disobedience, while Reverend Al seems to want to put a lid on the rage being felt by communities throughout the country. These rallies in Washington, DC, have limited value. They are a good experience where people can vent and feel that they are not alone. But, then, after the speeches and marches around the Capitol, everyone goes home feeling they’ve done something important.

Still, what have they really accomplished? Since the ‘60s, I have been part of numerous rallies and marches against wars, racism, etc. If we examine where we are now, we can see that these marches accomplished little. We have been at war in the Middle East for 11 years with no end in sight, and racism is stronger than ever.

What we have failed to do is to look at the big picture, to understand that the problem is not the individual cop or even Ferguson or Staten Island. The problem is a system which is corrupt and fosters racism, imperialism, injustice, wars, exploitation of working people and has institutionalized these attacks on people.

The cop who arbitrarily takes the life of an unarmed black man should be held accountable. But it is the judicial system that is structured to protect him or her. It is, as Michelle Alexander points out in her book by the same name, the “New Jim Crow.” Tens of thousands of black men and women are neutralized by being arbitrarily placed in prisons and stripped of their civil and human rights.

It is not really the individual racist who is the problem, it’s the institutional racism which supports the bigot and ensures that racism continues. The individual is nothing more than the messenger. Getting the killer cops punished will not solve any problem other than making us feel better. If we want change, we have to look at our political and economic systems (capitalism) and be willing to fight until we change to a more humane and accountable system where the focus is on human needs and safety and not on profit.

Remember, it’s not what our leaders say, it’s what they do!

Dave Alpert has masters degrees in social work, educational administration, and psychology. He spent his career working with troubled inner city adolescents.