Bin Charges: Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater Once More

 

Way back in July 2016, bin charges were expected to arrive on our laps. Essentially the idea was, and still is, that the more you dump into the black bin, the more you will pay. According to a very helpful Q&A by the Irish Time’s Sorcha Pollak, it will become mandatory under law to accurately calculate these charges. The scheme would hand over all responsibility for waste collection and disposal to private companies. These companies are literally household names: Panda, Oxigen, City Bin Company etc. However, last July, the concern was that these companies, if given total control around price setting and calculation, would run away with themselves and increase the cost to consumers drastically. There was and is a valid concern here. Historically, the private sector driving up prices when handed a largely unregulated market is a very predictable occurrence. And so, the plan was put on hold so as to allow for an assessment of this new system to take place.

This freeze came to an end on Saturday 1st July 2017.

Like all good Irish citizens, when the concerning thing went away, we forgot entirely about it. Now, a year later, it’s back and it’s once again time to dust off that pitchfork, light those torches and scribble the word WATER off your placard so that we can tell the government to shove their BIN charges up their arse.

As can be predicted, the media are ramping up their coverage in line with opposing political parties. On Ivan Yates’ Sunday lunchtime show (Newstalk, July 2), Solidarity TD for Dublin South West, and professional agitator, Paul Murphy did not deny that a sizable amount of a post-Jobstown trial press conference to be held Wednesday 5th July will be dedicated to discussing the introduction of these bin charges. Indeed, we can all see it coming. The thoroughly unsexy Battle of the Bin Charges will be fought in the exact same manner as the water charges were. Social media will be utilised to galvanise large swathes of the urban population against this measure. Protests may gather momentum, from the hundreds to the thousands. Protest placards will become window dressing throughout Dublin as the public join forces with the far-left’s call for civil disobedience in refusing to pay the charges of the day. The reaction of Varadker’s government to this impending storm will determine how successful such a campaign will be.

Certainly, Enda Kenny’s cabinet fumbled the water charges issue from drawing board to execution. Rolled out at the tail end of Ireland’s age of austerity, the charges inadvertently adopted the political optics of another measure of said austerity; another tightening of the collective belt. When the ‘why?’ was asked, it was because the EU told us to. Before we could blink, water meters were being installed throughout the land and charges were set to be racked up. A more savvy political class would perhaps have foreshadowed the public’s disdain for such a narrative and framed the introduction of water charges for what it was: an imperative environmental issue. Regardless of one’s political persuasion, clean water is something that cannot be taken for granted and we were wasting it. Anecdotally, we all know people who leave the tap running while brushing their teeth, who run the cold tap before taking a glass of water so it’ll be colder?!

Yet the narrative was never about environmentalism. A few murmurs here and there. A few conscientious, but all too often quiet voices crackled over the radio waves but were drowned out by the charisma and attraction of the AAA’s and the People Before Profit’s narrative: that the government is shafting you once more with yet another austerity measure and you don’t have to pay it.

A word to the wise at this point: there are very few people, some might say none, that actually want to pay more charges, more tax. Nobody wakes up in the morning, looks in the bathroom mirror and wishes, in their heart of hearts, to pay more tax. However, there are some things that we just have to pony up for, and I think most of us can agree at this point that the environment and our preservation of it is one of them.

When the dust settled, the people had firmly shoved water charges up the government’s arse. Once more, the Irish people had been embroiled in a battle of narratives and the far left had won. Water charges were the scourge of a greedy government attempting to bleed the common man dry and we had stuck it to them. And so it went that just like the bin charges being frozen last July, we have forgotten about them. The EU, however, has not. There will be consequences for not meeting our conservation goals with regard to water just as there are current consequences for not meeting our waste disposal responsibilities.

In the aforementioned Irish Time article, Pollak notes that, “Earlier this year 160 containers en route from Ireland to China for recycling were stopped in Rotterdam because of contamination. The rejected waste was sent back to Ireland at a cost to Irish recycling industry of some €500,000.” These fines come at a cost to the businesses that currently dispose of our unwanted garbage, yet they come as a result of our inability to dispose of our waste accurately and conscientiously, even when presented with a range of disposal options at our front door. If we continue to refuse to correctly distinguish between landfill and recycling waste in our homes, the fines will continue to mount. At some point, the recycling industry will refuse to bear the burden of these fines and will pass them on to the waste disposal companies who will tolerate them even less and will seek to pass them on, at least in part, to those that are directly responsible for the waste contamination: we the consumers.

For that is what we are: consumers. We consume, we dispose. It is our right to consume therefore it is our responsibility to dispose of our waste as conscientiously as possible. This cannot be news to us either. From a young age we are taught about recycling. Personally, I am not old, but I am a far cry from young, and I have it drilled into me more than the ‘Our Father’: ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.’ Our housing is decked out with coloured bins, our fast food outlets with segregated disposal bins for our convenience. Yet we can be lazy. Everyone has been guilty of not washing out tin cans before throwing them in the green bin. We all know the quiet shame that should come from throwing black bin waste into the green bin and being too lethargic to go back and put it in the right container. Even as I write and re-read this, I am struck with the notion that these are atrocious first world problems, just like our misuse of clean water. These problems are Michael McIntyre jokes that have yet to make it to stage.

By and large, we are a people that would pride ourselves on our environment in one way or another. We love our landscape, our forests, our rivers and lakes. We dislike litter with a passion, and the majority of us understand and would argue that climate change is real and the environment is in dire need of protection. However, when it comes to paying for it we become irate, and perhaps that is because of the conflicting narratives we receive when it comes time to pay the piper. As with the water charges, the waste disposal issue is suffering from a disturbingly weak effort from the environmental front. It took far too long for people to realise the genuine bone of contention in the water charges issue: the possible future privatisation of Irish Water. This is where the real danger lay. One need only look to past instances around the world, like Bolivia in an extreme case, to see the damage having a natural resource given over to a private company can do to a country.

Before Solidarity et al. can ramp up a blanket civil disobedience campaign against a very real and pressing issue such as waste disposal, the public need to get on board with the harsh realities of the situation. We produce waste irresponsibly. There are fines for this and someone must pay them. The problem with the bin charges issue thus far is that there is no minimum charge per kilogram of waste. This leaves the public at the mercy of competing waste disposal companies. Pessimistically, this may lead to behaviour not unlike that of the motor insurance industry in Ireland. Last year, they were accused of price fixing in a cartel like manner by quietly agreeing that everyone would work off an industry agreed minimum which would rise uniformly across an allegedly competitive business. Thus, the consumer would never truly be able to find the cheapest option as it would be the same across the industry and would rise year on year as one major company announces a fresh rise due to varying statistics, with the others following in unity.

Therefore, as the people of Ireland, we really need to take a long hard look at the idea of Rights and Responsibilities. It is our responsibility to pay for the services that we require. Moreover, it is our responsibility to look after and protect the environment by conserving our water and waste, among other things. We must accept that as long as we continue to overflow landfills, we must pay for our waste and we must incentivise people to reduce their waste and recycle and compost as much as possible. That being said, it is our right to be provided such services at a fair price that is not at the mercy of potential price fixing.

It will not be productive to plant ourselves outside Leinster House demanding that the government scrap bin charges altogether so that we can go back to not engaging with the issue at all. The bin charges issue is one that certainly needs further fine tuning and is not as cut and dry as Varadkar’s cabinet would have you believe, but it is also not the civil rights catastrophe that Solidarity will have you believe. There are nuances to this issue that all sides are willing to discuss immediately, but we have to show them that we want them discussed now. Not after they sloganise the issue for our sitting room windows and risk losing focus on the larger, environmental picture.

If we truly are a people that believes in protecting and conserving our environment then let us not get caught in that awfully modernised trap of NIMBY-ism. Find your local recycling centre. Compost your food and use the brown bin if provided. Reuse your plastic bottles or buy a reusable bottle for water. It’s not that hard.

Just don’t tell the government to shove your waste up their arse.

 

-Jake O’Brien (03/02/2017)

“Dude, Where’s My Ladder” Salad

In the spirit of continuing a bit of cooking, and moving towards the hilarious idea of a politically motivated cookery book, here’s last night’s dinner.

Inspired by the proposed construction of a wall on the American/Mexican border, I give you the “Dude, Where’s My Ladder” Salad. A Mexican inspired salad, with enough Californian influences that America can claim it as their own, then promptly deny that there was ever any involvement from their southern neighbours.

The “Dude, Where’s My Ladder?” Salad

(Mexican Chicken Salad)

Ingredients: 

Chicken and Marinade:

2 x Chicken fillets (sliced into thick strips)

1tsp Garlic powder

1tsp Smoked paprika

1.5tsp Coriander seeds

1tsp Ground cumin

1tsp Black peppercorns

1tsp Salt

2tbsp Olive oil

 

Dressing and Fajita Vegetable Fry:

1tsp Garlic powder

1tsp Smoked paprika

1.5tsp Coriander seeds

1tsp Ground cumin

1tsp Black peppercorns

1tsp Salt

3 x Garlic cloves (finely diced)

1 x Red chili (sliced)

1 x Bell Pepper (Yellow preferred. Sliced into strips)

1 x Red Sweet Pepper (Sliced into strips).

1 x Large Onion (Sliced thick)

3 – 4 tbsp Olive oil

Juice of one Lime

1tbsp Tomato Puree

Bunch Coriander (roughly chopped)

 

Salad:

2 x Baby Gem lettuce (roughly chopped)

2 x Handfuls Rocket Leaves

Handful of Cherry Tomatoes

Bunch Coriander (roughly chopped)

1 x Ripe Avocado (cubed)

 

Tortilla Chips:

4 x Large tortilla wraps (cut into 8 pizza slices each)

2 tbsp Olive oil

Salt & pepper

 

Garnish (optional):

Sliced Applewood smoked cheddar

Coriander

Toasted sesame seeds.

 

 

Method:

 

For the Chicken and Marinade:

 

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C (390 F) (Gas Mark 6).
2. Wash and pat dry the chicken fillets.
3. Add ALL of the spices for the marinade, dressing and vegetable fry into a pestle and mortar. Crush roughly into a fine powder.
4. NOTE: blending all of the spices for 3 steps of the recipe together allows you to add as much or as little to each stage as you like. This also allows you to control the heat.
5. Place the chicken fillets in a bowl and cover in 2tbsp olive oil and roughly one third of the spice mix.
6. Mix the chicken and spices together thoroughly.
7. NOTE: for more flavour in the cooked chicken, cut the fillets into 3 or 4 pieces each and then marinade.
8. Place the chicken fillets on an oven tray and cook for 25 – 30 minutes, turning halfway through.
9. When the chicken is cooked, place in a bowl with a handful of chopped coriander and shred with two forks.

 

 

 

 

 

For the Dressing:

1. Use a jar to mix the dressing in.
2. NOTE: make sure the jar is deep as the dressing will have to mixed well.
3. Of the spice mix that is left in the pestle and mortar, take one third and place in the jar with 4 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil, sliced garlic, chopped coriander stalks and the juice of one lime.
4. Mix thoroughly and set aside.

 

Preparing the Tortilla Chips:

1. On a bread board, stack 4 wraps and cut them as if you were segmenting them into 8 even pizza slices.
2. Take a large bowl, intended for the finished salad and combine the tortilla slices with some salt and pepper and 2 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
3. NOTE: The seasoning and oil from this mix will mix well when you toss the finished salad.
4. On an oven tray, place the tortilla chips in a pattern that does not have them overlap.
5. Cook them in the oven for 5mins a side, or until toasted.

 

For the Fajita Vegetables:

1. Slice the onion, chili, peppers and garlic.
2. Roughly chop a handful of coriander.
3. Add 2 tbsp olive oil to a pan over a medium/high heat.
4. Add the garlic. When it begins to sizzle, add the onion, peppers and chili.
5. After about 5 mins, the veg will have softened. Add the tomato puree and spice mix. Stir this through until everything is coated.
6. When done, set aside.

 

For the Salad:

1. Roughly chop the baby gem lettuce and add it to the bowl that the tortilla chips were coated in. Add the handfuls of rocket leaves.
2. Quarter you cherry tomatoes and add them to the salad bowl.
3. Cube one ripe avocado and add it to the salad bowl.
4. Add any leftover coriander or garlic.
5. Add the fajita vegetables.
6. Add the shredded chicken.
7. Squeeze the juice of one life over the whole salad.
8. Mix thoroughly.

 

To Serve:

1. Garnish the salad with some toasted sesame seeds and/or thin slices of applewood smoked cheddar.
2. Serve salad in the middle of table and let people take what they want.
3. Serve oven baked tortilla chips on the side.

 

-J. O’Brien

21/03/2017

 

Shredded Crispy Chicken and Spicy Roasted Sesame and Honey Sauce

“Finished Dish”

To my great and ever-swelling ego’s surprise, several people have asked my for the recipe to this thing I made last night. Therefore, with great smugness and no charm whatsoever, I’ve decided to throw it up as a blog post and let everyone have at it.

DISCLAIMER: This did come mainly from my head and was made up over the course of yesterday evening, so there may be bits missing or left out or done wrong etc. etc.

 

Ingredients:

For the Sauce:

4 x garlic cloves (finely sliced)

Small thumb of ginger (finely grated)

1 x red chili (sliced)

1 x stalk lemongrass (peeled and finely diced)

4 tbsp blended sesame oil

60 ml Kikkoman soy sauce

2 tbsp Teriyaki sauce

1 tbsp rice wine vinegar

150gr honey

500ml good quality chicken stock (Knorr Stock Pots work best)

Pan roasted sesame seeds

Salt & Pepper

 

For the Chicken:

3 x large chicken fillets (better quality meat = less excess water)

Kitchen towel paper

400g cornflour

1 tbsp chili powder

1tbsp Chinese 5 spice

1/2 tbsp ground cumin

Salt & pepper

750ml vegetable or sunflower or peanut oil (peanut oil is very expensive though!)

 

For the Stir Fry:

2 x garlic cloves (finely sliced)

2 x bell peppers (red and green preferred, roughly cut into triangular shapes, to hold sauce)

1 x lrg white onion (cut into long segments)

1 x red chili (sliced)

3 tbsp blended sesame oil

Small bunch coriander (roughly cut)

Salt & pepper

For the Rice:

2 x boil in the bad rice (for ease)

4 x medium eggs (prepped for egg fried rice)

2 tbsp blended sesame oil

1 x garlic clove (grated)

 

Equipment:

Frying pan

Saucepan (for rice)

Saucepan (for deep frying)

Large, flat bottomed wok

Stock/Measuring jug

Thermometer (optional)

Very sharp santoku blade

Straining implement.

Paring knife

Wooden spoon

Misc. cutlery

 

 

 Method:

 

Early Preparation:

1. In a dry frying pan, toast 1/3 cup sesame seeds until golden brown. Set aside for later.
2. In same pan, add 1tbsp sesame oil. Beat 4 egg together in jug and add to pan over a low/medium heat.
3. Leave egg to curl yellow around the edges. As the mix solidifies towards the centre of the pan, use a wooden spoon to break it up into pieces for the egg fried rice later.
4. Once egg is browned slightly, set aside for later.

 

 

Preparing Chicken:

1. Use the santoku (or similarly sharp blade) to slice chicken fillets into fine width slices.
2. NOTE: Blades should be sharpened immediately before use.
3. Lay a paper towel on a plate and place the sliced chicken in portions onto the paper. Pat dry with a top sheet of paper towel. Set aside.
4. NOTE: The drier the chicken is patted, the crispier the chicken will be.
5. In a large mixing bowl, mix cornflour, Chinese 5 spice, cumin, chili powder and salt and pepper.
6. Add dried, sliced chicken to mixing bowl and thoroughly coat in mix.
7. Dust off excess flour mix as you move the coated chicken to a plate. Set aside.

 

Spicy Roasted Sesame and Honey Sauce:

1. Prepare 500ml chicken stock in stock jug.
2. Finely slice the garlic and lemongrass, grate the ginger and slice chili.
3. In a large, flat bottomed wok, add sesame oil and heat on medium/high.
4. Add half the garlic and half the ginger and the lemongrass. Move continuously with wooden spoon until fragrant.
5. Add soy sauce, teriyaki, and vinegar. Stir vigorously until mixed and simmering.
6. Add generous sprinkling of roasted sesame seeds.
7. Add half of the honey and stir until mixed.
8. Add 1/3 stock and stir in.
9. NOTE: From here, the honey and stock are to be added intermittently to allow the stock to simmer down gradually.
10. When stock simmers down slightly, add honey, then stock, then mix. Reduce again.
11. Continue until all of the stock and honey are in the sauce.
12. Reduce sauce.
13. NOTE: Once the sauce is finished it should be reduced enough to be able to fit into the 500ml jug used for the stock.
14. Pour sauce into stock/measuring jug and set aside.
15. NOTE: Set wok aside but do NOT wipe clean – greased flavour of sauce will be used for stir fry to give “take-away” effect.

“Once the sauce is finished it should be reduced enough to fit into the 500ml just used for the stock.”

 

Frying the Chicken:

1. NOTE: Set everything else aside for this step. The oil is to be heated to 375 degrees and on a gas cooker this is incredibly dangerous. Have a helping hand and nothing else going on in the kitchen. If a fire catches – remember, it is an oil fire. DO NOT try to put it out with water. Use a large damp towel or cloth.
2. Pour 750ml vegetable/sunflower/peanut oil into heavy bottomed sauce pan and put on high heat. Bring to roughly 375 degrees using a thermometer. If you do not have a thermometer, heat oil for 10mins on high.
3. NOTE: Test oil heat by taking a dry wooden spoon or chopstick and dipping it carefully in the oil. If a steady sizzling or simmer of oil surrounds the implement, the oil is ready to go. Please be careful though.
4. Set up a conveyor belt system with the floured chicken on one side of the cooker, the oil on the cooker, and a large bowl lined with kitchen towel on the other side.
5. Place the chicken carefully and slowly into the oil in small batches of 6 – 8 pieces at a time.
6. Fry the chicken for 2 – 3 mins per portion.
7. NOTE: You will know the chicken is cooked because the sizzling oil will greatly calm down. Leave it calmly simmering for 30 seconds to 1 minute.
8. Carefully strain the now crispy chicken out of the pot and place in lined bowl to dry.
9. Repeat the above until all of the chicken in cooked.
10. NOTE: Allow oil to cool down slowly somewhere, possibly outside, away from the rest of cooking. Dispose of oil responsibly – do not pour it down the drain as you will need to call a plumber shortly afterwards.

“Fry the chicken in portion of about 6 to 8 pieces for about 3 minutes per portion.”

 

Cooking the Rice:

1. Bring salted water to the boil in saucepan.
2. Add 2 bags of rice and bring to the boil again.
3. Reduce rice to a simmer and cook as per instructions, Usually 15 – 25 mins depending on whether using long grain or wholegrain.
4. Once rice is cooked, strain excess water and remove rice.
5. In dry saucepan, add 1tbsp sesame oil and pre cooked egg. Bring to a low heat.
6. Add rice into saucepan and stir together.
7. Place on back ring on very low heat to keep until ready. No longer than 5mins.

 

The Stir Fry:

“Prepare ALL vegetable, spices and herbs early to make things a lot easier.”

1. In the wok used for the sauce, pour 3 tbsp sesame oil.
2. Slice garlic, chili and cut bell peppers and onion.
3. Heat the wok to medium-high and add garlic.
4. Once fragrant, add onions. Stir fry for 1 or 2 minutes. Onions should keep shape though.
5. Add peppers and chili and stir fry for 1 or 2 mins. All veg should keep shape and bite.
6. Season to taste.
7. Add fried chicken and toss vigorously.
8. Add a handful of coarsly chopped coriander and pre-roasted sesame seeds and stir through.

 

“It’s up to you whether or not you want to serve the stir fry dry or with the sauce reheated over it.”

 

To Serve:

1. NOTE: the sauce can be reheated separately and served on the side or poured back over the stir fry to bring to heat. It’s up to you.
2. In a serving bowl, scoop egg fried rice and a large ladle of the stir fried chicken and sauce.

 

-J. O’Brien 20/03/2017

 

Auto-Triggography: Milo Yiannopoulos’ Weekend and Self-Triggering

 

Over the weekend, Mr. Milo Yiannopoulos drew some negative attention. Not much new there. This time, however, Milo finally found that line he’d been searching for. The one that creeps up on perpetual fiends and natural born liars.

After appearing on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday night, footage of Milo warbling on Joe Rogan’s podcast surfaced late on Sunday. While in conversation with Rogan, Milo seemed to let slip that around the age of 14 he’d engaged in sexual activity with an educators of his: a parish priest called Father Michael, and an English teacher.

However, let’s back up from all the palaver around this for just a moment. I would first like to address what happened on Real Time before Milo put his controversy in all the wrong places.

Milo is not new to me and is certainly not fresh to anyone around the web. He has made his name from the UK to the US by being an overly glorified attention fiend. From GamerGate to Leslie Jones to Lena Dunham to Donald J. Trump, Yianopoulos has not stalked the parapets of their spotlight, he has thrown himself in front of it. From rags to blogs to Brietbart, Milo has scrawled infantile prose across pixels in an effort to PLEASE GOD BE RELEVANT! From homosexuality to transgender pronouns to Islam, this Based Faggot (as he would like to be dubbed), has taken whatever stance will garner him the most attention. Side note, it is kind of tragic but not at all surprising, that someone who has such a lust for the limelight would coin their own nickname and then launch a national college tour around it…

The long and the short of Milo’s story is that he is rarely right and rarely quiet. He literally makes an effort to not be politically correct, and in this effort he just ends up not being correct.

While being interviewed alone by Maher on Friday, Milo came across gregarious, provocative and vapid. His insights were vacuous as he mumbled his way through stale talking points. That being said, I have not seen such a soft ball interview by Maher since he got near Obama last year. They came together on their stance of free speech and humour, while Maher seemed off his game when attempting to cross examine any of Milo’s loosely held opinions. And this is where it begins. Being aware of Milo over the last while has basically consisted of seeing articles he shares online with a witless quip attached as a Facebook post. Something to poach likes, reactions and clicks. After watching several interviews and talks with him, it transpires that this is all there is. Quips and jibes. He’s the Floyd Mayweather Jnr. of opinions: a dreadful misogynist, dancing around his topic only to duck in with a quick jab to score points from his bought-and-paid-for judges.

Yet Milo is not that fast, as was discovered on the Overtime panel at the end of Real Time. Uncharacteristically, Maher lost almost complete control of the panel as Larry Wilmore took over (somewhat attention starved possibly, after losing his excellent show). If you watch the 13 minute video, you will discover that Milo was engaged quite quickly on the topic of his war on gender pronouns. Wilmore actually makes a polite effort to debate him as well, something I am sure will be vehemently denied by Milo’s Yiannopoulites. Around 4 minutes into the segment, however, Milo looks to Bill and tells him he needs to bring on more intelligent people, guests with a higher IQ, while gesturing towards Wilmore and the other panelists. Wilmore then proceeds to interrupt, “Wait, hold on Bill. [to Milo] You can go fuck yourself.”

Well done sir. You did it the right way Larry. You tried, you got no substance of debate. You got insulted. You responded calmly and briefly….then proceeded to eviscerate Milo on various other things he has said that he can go fuck himself for. Not least of all the fact that mere minutes earlier, while Wilmore was trying to calmly engage debate (something oft preached about but rather superfluously held by Milo), Milo staunchly claimed that transgender people are disproportionately embroiled in sexual crimes. Implying of course, for the sake of his argument, that they are the perpetrators of such crimes. However, the statistic as he stated, is true, just without his implication. They are disproportionately the victims of sexual violence. Milo  is a purveyor of the fakest of news, twisted little balls of statistics thrown around with heavy implication and no elaboration. Wilmore had merely had enough of trying to be reasonable.

The proof of Milo’s character, however, is in his digestion and reaction to how things had taken a turn. Rather than debate, confront, contradict or defend himself, he resorts to dismantling any semblance of participation and demanding that the third guest, Former Republican Congressman Jack Kingston (Georgia) tell Milo to go fuck himself. This was of course after intelligence specialist Malcolm Nance had had enough of being insulted and told the ill prepared Milo to go fuck himself.

Milo had no rebuttal. He had no leg to stand on. He went for a cheap gag – acting like he was some kind of Sith Lord; that their hate feeds him, when really, he just could not compete at this level. At any level really, considering he does most of his lambasting from a solo pulpit. He’s that bully from school that loses power in sixth year when everyone else realises that saying random shit for attention is just kind of weak and pointless.

However, the nail in his coffin was just about to be shown to him.

Maher tries to cease Milo’s yammering, telling him to “Shut up for one fucking second,” so he can deliver some sage advice to the comparatively young contrarian. “This is the beginning of your career, people are only starting to hate you…”

To which Milo interjects gleefully, “I’ve got so many more years of this!”

You might not though Milo. As Trump supporting user fultzsie11 commented on Reddit last night, “Live by the sword, die by the sword. If you make a career out of pushing the line, don’t be surprised when you cross it.” Original? No. Clichéd? Yes. But clichés are so for a reason. Milo has made a career of vapidity from stoking the fires of controversy wherever he can find them. He has never once had substance and has only ever sought attention. He didn’t care whether what he got was fame or infamy. It was all attention to him.

Reaping what he sows on the Joe Rogan podcast, Milo ended up getting caught in an expertly woven web of his own inconsistencies when host Rogan confronted him regarding lazy accusations made by Milo regarding a sexual relationship he may have had with a one Father Michael, and perhaps an English teacher as well. Rogan lets it slide, preferring instead to let the banter roll, only to return to the point later, using Milo’s own arguments against him – illustrating how he was withholding information regarding a child molester, how Milo had forgotten what age he was when this happened within the space of two minutes (allegedly 14), and how Milo continued to hide names of potential child abusers as he haphazardly waffled about Brian Singer-esque parties he had attended on boats and in houses around Hollywood where he witnessed boys of a very young age engaged in sexual acts with older men.

Milo has defended himself over a number of Facebook posts, detailing how he is not protecting child abusers because he has ousted others in the past. However, the problem I have is twofold:

1. If Yiannopoulos was involved in a sexual relationship with an older parish priest when he was 14, whether it was consensual or not, the fact remains that such a priest would be likely to have done this to other boys who may not have consented. Such a priest would have to be investigated as a predator. You were probably not the first Milo. And,
2. What if Milo is exaggerating for effect? Something he has definitely being guilty of before. What if Milo has brought a huge amount of attention to a conversational topic that he thought he could get away with flippantly?

 

Indeed, if you watch the footage of Milo on Rogan, you will notice that when directly confronted, Milo shies away very quickly from the topic. He tries to deflect like a child that has been called out on a lie by a parent. He forgets the name of the priest and then won’t say it again. He forgets at what age he was allegedly abused, then alters it when Rogan confronts him with what he had said not two minutes earlier. He knows he has done something wrong because he distances himself from it with speed and awkward mumbling – ironically, launching into the story of in-the-know bravado around knowing some Hollywood A-listers engaged in these practices that he won’t name. The whole segment wreaks of Milo knowing that he has gone too far.

I am genuinely not saying that Milo made this shit up. I am honestly positing the two possible scenarios that surround Milo’s comments on Rogan’s podcast. Either way, he is in a whole world of professional and personal trouble. Simon and Schuster, the publishing house that were set to release Milo’s book Dangerous this June (nastily to coincide with another Roxane Gay’s book release who dropped S&S over their signing of Milo), dropped the book amid the PR disaster that has attached itself to their would-be author. This is even after they have already paid him a $250,000 advance. A quick aside here, this will be the third book that Milo has toured for that has never appeared. Additionally, Republicans around the US are demanding that Milo be dropped from his significant speaking slot at CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference) which starts tomorrow in the Gaylord Convention Centre (I’ll just leave that there).

EDIT: At time of editing, it has been confirmed that CPAC has, in fact, dropped Milo Yiannopolous.

Can Milo survive this? Maybe. He is after all a hollow weasel that lusts from celebrity. People like him have been around for a long time. Granted they have been far more talented than him, especially at this level. Joan Rivers and Gore Vidal made whole careers out of being nasty little ironies – perpetually bitching about everyone around them while gleefully basking in the glow of their gossip. It doesn’t matter whether you’re politics or comedy or Hollywood, if you attempt to make your path by being a poster child for controversy while simultaneously courting celebrity and attention like a dog in heat, no one is ever really going to take you that seriously. Yet, Milo is a poor man’s Vidal, who had the prose and wit to weather his own personality. Milo is a lame duck Rivers, who had the tenacity and surgery to hide her withering sadness from us all. Milo has neither their wit nor capability and I don’t think he’s up to the task of saving himself from himself.

In Milo’s case, he has gotten his start by being a sinister conservative for attention. He was the epitome of the attitude that states, “Because I am/like/fuck/know [insert minority/disenfranchised group here] I can therefore say derogatory  things about them.” Just because he is gay does not mean it’s fabulous to ridicule the LGBTQ community, just because he’s Jewish does not mean it’s kosher to court Neo Nazis and the Alt Right, and just because you fucked a Muslim guy and then a black guy does not make it alright for you to insight virulent Islamophobia or dismiss the Black Lives Matter movement as not caring for black lives.

Milo  is juvenile. He can’t express or defend his opinions under fire. He uses his identity as a bargaining chip with tastelessness and bigotry. Sure he can say whatever he likes, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences. He has made a career out of “triggering” people by saying offensive or inflammatory things. If his reaction to his withered publishing deal and talk cancellations is anything to go by, it looks like his inane rambling may have finally triggered himself.

 

-J. O’Brien

21/02/2017

The State of Play

As the dust rages into a storm around Hillary Clinton’s campaign, The Donald is surging forward in the polls.

Huma Abedin (Weiner’s estranged wife) snapped in distress on Clinton’s campaign plane.

Last Friday (28-10-16), e-mails removed from disgraced Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner’s laptop were announced by FBI director, James Comey, in a letter to Congress, to have some relevance to the ongoing and re-surging scandal around Clinton’s efforts to become the first female President of the United States of America. With the dust long settled on her inappropriate merging of personal and professional e-mail accounts while serving as Secretary of State, and the banal disintegration of the Podesta e-mails, Hillary was primed for a Nixon-esque sweep of the electoral map in the flailing wake of Trump’s never-ending series of scandals. James Comey’s questionable release of a statement that the Clinton investigation was to be re-opened has cast a long and potentially final shadow on Hillary’s campaign.

FBI Director James Comey

Briefly, there are two sides to the FBI director’s quandary. On one hand, had Comey announced nothing and allowed America to go to the polls next Tuesday, and had subsequently found something damning on Weiner’s laptop – something absolutely pertinent to Hillary’s viability for Presidential office – then the US would be in very murky constitutional waters. The Right and Undecided would demand a re-election, and they would have very appealing and understandable grounds to do so. On the other hand, however, Director Comey may have broken the law by announcing the reopening of the investigation so close to an election.  The Hatch Act of 1939 “limits the political activity of federal employees, for instance barring them from seeking public office or using their authority ‘or influence to interfere with or affect the result of an election’.” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has leveled this accusation at Comey in recent days along with several other prominent Democrats and Republicans. Either way you break this down, both Clinton and Comey are headed for very unstable ground.

***

Fridays have become our prime time slot for Presidential catastrophe. Scandal after scandal leaked forth in an almost scheduled fashion. It is as if this whole game is being scripted, framed and distributed like closely guarded plot points on an episodic show. For sure, no one honestly believed that there could be a way back for the Republican contender’s campaign amidst the horror of his comments regarding dating a ten year old in ten years. This was only to compound the sleaze leaked from the Access Hollywood tape, as Trump regaled host Billy Bush with tales of how he moved on a married woman “very heavily”, before detailing how he can grab a woman by the genitals because he’s rich and famous and they let him do it.

From left: Billy Bush, Donald Trump and  actor Arianne Zucker shortly before Trump was to make a guest appearance on ‘Days of Our Lives’.

Trump’s methodology of apologising was, of course, characteristically obtuse. While slithering through a limp admittance of guilt, he managed to pivot the statement into an attack on veteran hound Bill. A fair shot if he was running against the former two-term POTUS, but he’s not, so it wasn’t. It was an ‘apology’ that evidently only spoke to his base; solidifying support for him on the Alt-Right as he cast his character in slippery zeal and cloaked misogyny. This was evidenced by the fact that his polling number bottomed out on October 15 and 16 at 41.4, while Hillary sat at 48 on those same days.

Furthermore, it was Trump’s objectively pathetic display of ad-libbed nonsense in the debates that helped these numbers in the long run. A whole planet watched in awe as the 70 year old businessman stuttered and stammered and wailed his way through three ninety minute debates. He illustrated, proudly at times, that he was entirely unprepared to debate any of the issues with his opponent. By any standards, political debates are a litmus test for how one would handle the Presidency of a country. While often bland and full of stumping platitudes, these particular debates were an anomaly in American politics. Briefly looking to just the first one, it becomes surprisingly obvious that we were watching something strange: Hillary only needed to let Donald talk in order to win. At one point even allowing her opponent to speak over her and take two minutes. While he garbled and mumbled his way through some of the most confusing and hilarious responses on real issues, Hillary remained poised and ready. Upon finishing his noise, Hillary Clinton became one of the first Presidential candidates in a long time to actually answer questions on policy. It was unique.

One of Trump’s most brilliantly off-the-cuff responses was to moderator Lester Holt’s question, “Our institutions are under cyber attack, and our secrets are being stolen. So my question is, who’s behind it? And how do we fight it?”

Trump’s response?

As far as the cyber, I agree to parts of what Secretary Clinton said. We should be better than anybody else, and perhaps we’re not. I don’t think anybody knows that it was Russia that broke into the DNC. She’s saying Russia, Russia, Russia—I don’t, maybe it was. I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay?

…

We came in with the Internet. We came up with the Internet. And I think Secretary Clinton and myself would agree very much, when you look at what ISIS is doing with the Internet, they’re beating us at our own game. ISIS.

So we had to get very, very tough on cyber and cyber warfare. It is a huge problem. I have a son—he’s 10 years old. He has computers. He is so good with these computers. It’s unbelievable. The security aspect of cyber is very, very tough. And maybe, it’s hardly doable. But I will say, we are not doing the job we should be doing. But that’s true throughout our whole governmental society. We have so many things that we have to do better, Lester. And certainly cyber is one of them.

Clinton stumbled briefly in the Town Hall format, as Trump reveled in what came off as a cheap run for Student Body President in a suburban High School. It was like watching the Quarterback in some John Hughes movie beat the genuinely concerned and experienced Model UN debater in the first act.

“Wrong.”

“Wrong.”

“Wrong.”

Yet his supporters greeted this Town Hall as a landslide victory. It whooped them into a frenzy as we lurched towards the third and final debate. And while this conclusion was a tad more bland than it’s prequels, it was obvious to any conscious onlooker that Clinton had sealed the deal. Trump delivered another mumblefest, and all his opponent had to do was wait her turn.

Hillary Clinton shakes moderator Chris Matthew’s hand at the third and final debate.

Throughout all three debates, Hillary racked up points through facts, hitting an all time high average of 49 points on October 18. But as the saying goes, one should never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Trump swung wildly with insane claims about Clinton being behind the creation of ISIS,  and that Obama was a co-conspirator in this catastrophic narrative. More recently, Trump claimed that within one week, his opponent would flood America with 650 million immigrants from Mexico and the Middle East. Considering that the US has a current resident population of a little under 325 million, it would be somewhat impressive to see anyone try and triple the country’s population in a week. Yet, The D’s spin team of Nimble Navigators and Centipedes were out in full force; patrolling the slimy corridors of message boards and threads alike. He didn’t mean that. He meant to say 650,000. Or 65,000. Whichever is more plausible but still ridiculous.

But no, he said 650 million. Facts are not the enemy of this man’s campaign. They are the civilian population. Trampled on with careless zeal by a ferociously dangerous serial liar. They just don’t faze his base at all, because reality has a well known liberal bias.

***

As we lurch into the final six days of this fifteen month carnival, Hillary’s campaign is indeed in crisis mode. While no actual content has been derived from the e-mails found on Huma Abedin’s husband’s laptop, it has not gotten in the way of the polls. At one time not so long ago, even the astonishingly deluded tracking poll at the LA Times/USC had Trump losing by only one, the same poll now has him at +6. Meanwhile yesterday (01-11-2016), the fairly even-handed ABC/Washington Post Tracking poll called it for Trump by +1. Even as I type this, the RCP averaging website has refreshed itself, taking Clinton’s average lead from +2.2, to +1.7, while the IBD/TIPP Tracker is now calling the race a tie (Source for all). To further add fear to panic, Nate Silver’s model at the FiveThirtyEight has moved Trump’s likelihood of victory from 13% to 28.8% in the last five days. Considering that most pollsters call anything within 5 points the margin of error, we are in very dangerous waters.

I wonder what Friday afternoon’s episode will  have in store for us?

 

 

– J. O’Brien

02-11-2016

Poe – Review

Preview – Friday 28 October 2016

The Complex, Little Green Street, Dublin.

 

A cheesy line recently dropped out of my mouth in company. ‘The best relationships are a work in progress from the minute you meet til the minute you die.’ The communal cringe that should inevitably followed such a remark was thankfully dampened by the context of the conversation. Thank God.

Nevertheless, as I reflected on a way to begin to capture Dublin Circus Project’s (DCP) recent dance macabre, Poe, this line floated around again.

Once more some context, so the cheese smells a bit less. I’ve been going to DCP shows since they came  about in 2009. I was lucky enough to be invited backstage to see the inner cogs and reels and jigs that became one of their first shows, Ticket To Your Dreams. Since then I have attended their work, be it in town or at their base of operations on Bannow Road, Cabra, with supportive enthusiasm for my friends that built something different from the ground up.

Every honest creator has birth pangs though. For the DCP it seemed that their holistic and honest devotion to the craft of circus sometimes eclipsed the narrative drive of their live performances. And when it comes to building an audience out of the public, you must shape the narrative to sell your craft. It has to be a carefully balanced relationship between story and content, carved in just the right way to intrigue and impress as one solid form, as opposed to a myriad of disparate pieces brought together under a headline. Pace, rhythm, tone and characterisation must all swell in one push towards an audience to extract from them a mood that breathes wonder in all, not just in fragmented awe.

With Poe, the DCP have found form. They consumed, adapted, framed and reframed some of the most beloved tales of the master of macabre, Edgar Allen Poe, to deliver a collection of performances that are as esoteric as they are accessible. From one beginning to the next and the next, Poe revels in the difference in style and performance that their players bring. Beginning with an object manipulation rendition of The Masque of the Red Death and physically moving the audience around their space in The Complex off Capel Street, Artistic Director Laura Ivers and her team sullenly waltzed their audience through several of Poe’s most sinister pieces.

The Death of Virginia brought acrobatics to Swan Lake and presented a love story drenched in sadness, death and a funeral procession that was as creative as it was powerful. The Pit and the Pendulum saw 3 performers take to aerial ropes to offer a tortured, yet celebratory symmetry. Indeed, a highlight of the whole show was Aubrey Marshall’s command of the  Diablo in his rendition of El Dorado. From pace to pace, this exquisitely impressive piece rose us through Tool’s 10,000 Days which allowed Marshall to strike a narrative chord and control his skill’s delivery. From here, four DCP artists quietly marched the audience around a Chinese Pole at the centre of the space. As they began to chant and purposefully fall upon, aside and up the pole, it became obvious that there was no accident in the Direction and Design of this DCP piece. Merlin Stone has taken Ms Ivers vision and lent it the silhouettes, shadows, musk and dirt that it would need to be fully realised. As the performers climbed the pole and folded in unison around the length, it dawned on me that we were looking at almost a glass-sided pit lit from above. As this crept into our minds, it became evident that this whole moving performance, from one space to the next, was like taking a guided tour of one man’s hell; witnessing cross sections of torture and pain and wonder.

Meanwhile, our performers who had impaled themselves on the Chinese Pole dropped one to the other to the other to the ground with astounding precision. And while Untitled had another few minutes in its bag for us, you could only focus upon and remember that drop as the pinnacle of that performance. Hopfrog was next from clown Richard Kane. A true mark of DCP’s maturity is the confidence they have given to narrative as opposed to solely acts of circus. Kane comes to us through the crowd, as a crippled jester of a king’s court to disseminate his drunken antics that led to the death of the royal family. Told with poise, pace and intensity, Kane had engaged us in the oldest and proudest tradition in the Irish culture – storytelling. With powerful certitude and horror in his cackling we were moved to The Raven. In traditional style, Illias Athanasiadis performed the story to an ethereal narration while Hazel Connolly emerged from the Aerial Silks as the Raven. While my eye was drawn to the initial activity of Athanasiadis’ character, it waned in the peak movements of Connolly’s evocative control of the silk. Nonetheless, a characteristically innovative adaptation of a classic tale.

Laid to rest in the darkness of the space, our suitably morose host guided us down the stairs to our starting post. We were seated and thanked in Victorian cadence, whereupon our host left us and the night ended in silence. A silence often underappreciated at the conclusion of Poe’s narratives.

And thus was Poe. Looking back it was ultimately evident that not only has DCP grown, but it has hit upon a growth spurt. From steps to stride, the creative team behind their most recent work has unified narrative and performance with pace, style and aplomb to bring audiences something objectively spectacular. What they have strived for is realised: The audience are comfortably engaged in a multi-sensory collaborative piece, while the performers have thinned out but kept their fourth wall intact; an often troubled performative skill in higher end circus pieces. Indeed, this is both circus and theatre. It is both narrative and performance. It is both professional and inviting. It is something that should be sought after as well as enthusiastically supported.

From 2009 to present day, the DCP have strived to build something that can entertain as well as educate; and they have sometimes struggled in bringing genuine theatric narrative to traditionally isolated performances. However, with Poe, the DCP have found their pace in development and it is highly unlikely that they will stop here to rest on their laurels. As cheesy as it may be, the best relationships are consistently a work in progress, and the DCP are showing no signs of slowing down as they continue to construct new bridges between narrative and performance.

* * * *

 

-J. O’Brien

Presidential Candidates Say the Darndest Things…

 

…and of course by ‘candidates’, I mean the Donald. Yes, step right up and witness the birth pangs of Trump’s four month main drag to November 8th. D-Day. Electo-Fest 2016. The How-Did-They-Let-It-Get-This-Far finale for the rest of the world.

As I summed up in the most recent post, the last year has been a rollercoaster ride for those with even a passing interest in American presidential politics. Albeit, it’s the kind of rollercoaster ride that starts as many thrill rides do: that wonderful stomach-churning drop at the top of a long climb; that adrenalin surge as you free fall, attached to a trustworthy track with steel and rope. At this stage though, deep in the lower colon of 2016, we’re beginning to wonder if this free fall is going to stop. The same analogy could be clumsily thrown at the situation if Trump wins in November.

Fear not. This ride seems to be levelling out. Since the conventions, the Donald has been on a free fall of his own. Although, it would be arrogant to assume whether he knows it. His people certainly do, as they scurry to the Twittosphere and in front of prime time cameras to ‘correct the narrative’ whenever their hapless lord unwittingly spews forth his latest ‘thought’ into a microphone. “That microphone was planted their by the liberal media! Audio technology has a well known liberal bias!” “You’ve misunderstood the context of his point!” Just over two weeks after the RNC and the DNC have wrapped on their quadrennial Mega Church affair, and the D is beginning to resemble that reveller at a party that’s had far too much to drink, a little bit to smoke and is now trying to pass themselves off as composed, in quiet conversation with a picture of your Dad on the mantel piece. The grim but genius finality to this image is when he laughs at a framed picture’s joke, thinking that they too agree that the immigrants took those jobs, and a good metric cup of vomit bursts forth. He never knew he had it in him, but he will be damned if he doesn’t spend the next 20 minutes trying to mop it off the picture’s glass. He’s not sorry though. He’s not politically correct.

***

Indeed, all seemed well in the wake of the RNC. The Republicans had swallowed their medicine and locked step behind their new God Emperor. Big players on the DC scene tipped the hat and kissed the ring, albeit with some gritted teeth. Now GOP Chairman Reince Priebus had to open the war chest and guide the highly volatile ship that was the Trump Campaign to somewhere stable. There was hope for the GOP establishment given that in mid-June 2016, just before the RNC went to post in Cleveland, Trump fired his highly volatile and highly suspect Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski. After all,  Lewandowski proved even too much for the MAGA trail. On two separate occasions he had been accused of physically assaulting people at Trump rallies. A reporter for Breitbart News (itself a bastion of anti-PC policy), Michelle Fields even had a battery charge brought against him for which he had to turn himself in to the authorities.

The sacking of this loose cannon may have been an attempt to distance Trump from an even looser primary pastiche. Lewandowski had a concrete history working for ‘Americans for Prosperity’ from 2008 until January 2015. If you remember, this group was the flagship enterprise through which the Koch Brothers plied their Astroturfing game across the disenfranchised voters that looked to the Tea Party. Corey was instrumental in North Eastern support for Tea Party candidates, and so, who better to ramp up Trump’s campaign? Who better to pick the bones of the disenfranchised?

But he was gone. The establishment of the GOP saw a new light as they rallied around their king. Time to get serious. Time to get Real on a soft America.

It didn’t last long.

Lewandowski’s replacement, Jason Miller, a former Communications Advisor for Sen. Ted Cruz’s bid for the nomination, was caught slamming Trump across a series of Tweets from as early as April. While bashing one’s opponent is completely natural in the shit storm of American politics, hiring said basher is just a rookie move for a freshly minted national campaign.

Evidently, Mr Miller is not the best when it comes to advising his candidate of how best to conduct himself when faced with a tackle covered in fresh delicious bait. As we all know by now, the DNC wheeled out the Ghazala and Khizir Khan, the Gold Star parents of a slain Muslim American soldier. They called into question Trumps capability on a number of fronts. It was the perfect bait. They raised issues around Trumps Islamophobic rhetoric, around his position on those all important Troops, and by proxy, it hit his foreign policy record, or lack thereof. It was a cynical move by the Democrats, no doubt, but let’s not be too naive about the wheelhouse we’re playing in. The Democrats had already near Watergated their own convention with the financing leaks and the resignation of Chairperson Wasserman-Schultz.

Nevertheless, God Emperor and Trump couldn’t resist lashing back with some loaded and backward comments. To the New York Times he opined, “I’d like to hear his (Khan’s) wife say something.” Implying of course that Khan had lashed Ghazala with Sharia law tropes, handicapping her from speech. Wait. Did I say implying? “If you look at his wife, she was standing there… She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me.”

Yes, with the rhetorical cadence of a typewriter getting tuned up by a cinder block, Trump went full gormless. He took the Democrats bait, swallowed it and didn’t even realise he’s given himself political food poisoning. Sen. John McCain, among others, even expressed disgust at Trumps remarks. Subsequently, McCain’s office experienced a storm of concerned veterans demanding that the Senator remove his endorsement of Trump.

The weeks got worse. At a rally in Virginia on August 2, Trump used his podium to address the issue of a crying baby in the audience. “I love babies. I hear that baby cry, I like it,” he said. “What a baby. What a beautiful baby. Don’t worry, don’t worry. The mom’s running around, like, don’t worry about it, you know. It’s young and beautiful and healthy, and that’s what we want.” After a few more minutes of crying, Trump un-PC’d all over that shit. “Actually I was only kidding, you can get the baby out of here. I think she really believed me that I love having a baby crying while I’m speaking. That’s okay. People don’t understand. That’s okay.”

The staggering ineptitude of this candidate is fascinating. His army of Centipedes across the internet had to race to his defense, once again claiming that the Media has distorted what he was actually saying. No, you’ve misinterpreted his ass-banditry! Such a world it is when Politifact.com runs an article illustrating that Trump “accurately says media wrong that he kicked baby out of rally”, he just said some ignorant shit that would get your uncle kicked out of the house at Sunday lunch.

Not long after this, the George W. Bush administration officially announced its support of Hillary Clinton for President. This was preceded by the Harvard Republican Club, the oldest in America, refusing to endorse their Party’s candidate for the first time in 128 years. And yet the campaign’s worst nightmare has only arrived.

On the week of July 25, RealClearPolitics.com, a polling aggregator, had Trump nationally ahead, 45.7 points to Hillary’s 44.6. Then Khan spoke, but more importantly, Trump reacted. By July 31, Trump had dropped to 43.4. Astonishingly though, Hillary had actually lost 0.1 points at this stage, according to RCP. The day after the Virginia baby fiasco, Hillary cruised up to 47.3, while the Donald sank lower to 41.6. The ‘High Energy’ traction that Trump’s online Nimble Navigators prided themselves and their Emperor on was certainly waning. This slide continued as Trump unveiled an immensely contradictory economic plan on August 7.  Sunday’s hour-plus address at the Detroit Economic Club is seen as a rite of passage for candidates, but in it Trump laid out a plan that not only completely flip-flopped on his working-class-first campaign origins, but raised taxes on most American brackets, while giving an $800,000 break to the top half of the top one percent.

While this slip continued, even leveling at one point, August 9 2016 may go down as the day Trump put the nail in his campaign’s coffin. At a campaign rally in Wilmington, North Carolina on Tuesday, Trump seems to have insinuated that gun owners could attempt an assassination on either Hillary or her Supreme Court nominations:

“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment. By the way, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks. Though the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know…”

The wire is officially on fire and the House of Trump is beginning to smoulder. His Nimble Navigators are rushing to claim that it was merely a call to metaphorical arms; for second amendment gun owners to rally together and get out the vote to stop ‘Crooked Hillary’. This being a spin that even Trump’s own campaign missed as they decided to spin it as a joke that the PC brigade didn’t or couldn’t get. It wasn’t until 3.21am this morning that Communication Advisor Miller got the spin out there as Trump tweeted about harnessing the influence of gun-rights activists.

Media desperate to distract from Clinton's anti-2A stance. I said pro-2A citizens must organize and get out vote to save our Constitution!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 10, 2016

If this was the case, and he was appealing to the 2A and NRA base, then it is just another rookie move etched into his already riddled political career. Why would the chosen Republican nominee waste time so badly with a far-right demographic that is already in the pocket of the GOP’s polling numbers? Why not court the female vote, a vote where the candidate is catastrophically dragging. What about 18-25? A demographic where numbers have slipped so poorly in recent weeks that he would do well to throw them a few rhetorical bones. After all, it is the most recently tapped demographic, with the Obama campaign unlocking this notoriously apathetic political market back in 2007/08.

In the case that this was a joke, then it’s a pretty dangerous one to play with. For a lot of voters, this is where they draw the line. They may have given a pass to all the Donald’s previous gaffes, but his off the cuff, un-PC nature is beginning to reveal itself to be the thoughtlessly thoughtless rambling of a withered, oral klutz. At what point will his defenders realise that they are no longer campaigning; they are explaining, spinning, defending. Factors of a campaign, no doubt, but when there is nothing left to praise, you’re essentially doing the political equivalent of going door to door in a new neighbourhood, letting the public know that you’re a registered sex offender.

Joke or not, former head of the CIA, retired Gen. Michael Hayden best summed up this oddity when he told CNN that, “If someone else had said that said outside the hall, he’d be in the back of a police wagon now with the Secret Service questioning him.” Moreover, Hayden poetically shut down any debate on the syntactic ambiguity of Trump’s statements when he commented, “You’re not just responsible for what you say. You are responsible for what people hear.” And as everyone but America knows, when it comes to gun-rights activists, such a statement could not be more painfully true.

***

While initially Donald Trump went up and down the polls like a High School dropout that’s just waiting for their big break, it looks like Trump’s days of dancing are coming to a grim and predictable end. And no, there was never going to be a modelling contract. After these latest missteps (to put it mildly), Hillary has soared to a +7.9 lead, sitting pretty, with her excitable soon-to-be First Husband, at 47.8. Meanwhile, Trump has slumped to 39.9.

It’s always easy to pass judgement on the young and naive stripper that’s just doing this to pay the bills until something else comes along. It’s a stereotype well versed in modern media. Yet just like the pimps and jackals that frequent the skin bars jammed with these crushed dreams, we love it really – hypocrisy and all. Poised in front of our news streams and polling data; wrapped up in the warm glow of imagery – feeding the Beast. Trump was always going to be a Hindenburg; a tragicomedy on an epic scale – a King Lear without redemption or death, just wandering in that forest, dangerously mumbling to himself.

And yet, some people and the Fools followed.

 

• J. O’Brien

Be Careful What You Protest For: Recapping Trump

 

Once upon a time in a country not so far away, a much lampooned political system began a draft season to select its 45th President. Indeed, back in July 2015, the grand ol’ U.S. of A. ramped into the primary season with a bombshell that would only really befit a reality television show…

Donald Trump announced his candidacy (with more than a dozen non-sequitur candidates) to run for President. With effortless classlessness and a cornucopia of super-id, the real estate mogul threw his dreadful red hat in the Republican ring. He was going to have to take on pint sized bigots such as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), and the orphan of charm himself, Gov. John Kaisch (R-OH). First, of course, he would have to beat back pitiful onslaughts from former neurosurgeon Ben Carson of Michigan; a man so hopelessly lost at a podium that he might have begun a commencement address at any moment.

As sure as Trump is slightly radioactive, his announcement became a talking point of celebration across the world. Comedians, pundits and high-horse Europeans glanced at America with bit-lip amusement and anticipation. As Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert lamented in 2008 that George W. Bush, their golden goose of comedy and satire had left the Oval, so now did they rejoice: the Primary season is nearly a year long! Trump’s arrogance would totally carry him through ’til at least Super Tuesday! He’s going to make a global fool of himself, the process, the Grand Old Party etc. etc.

Yet something odd started happening around mid-July 2015. Strange movements in the bowels of the GOP’s SuperPAC establishment led to Trump’s first successful shot across the bow. The infamous Koch Brothers, billionaire energy tycoons Charles and David, allowed cameras into their fundraising event for the Republican Primary candiates for the first time ever. Of course, the footage and its editing was strictly controlled by their people, but nonetheless, the public got a firsthand curtain twitch into the weekend long blowjob that this event is. As Jeb, Cruz and Rubio took to the stage, mediated by one Koch or another, the event began to resemble a mismanaged festival of reacharounds. Thirty minutes or more on-stage to solicit big bucks from the Kochs’ 400+ assembled multi-millionaire friends. Give your stump speech. Know your audience. Hint at cabinet and committee positions. Stump once more. Drop the mike. Wipe your lower lip. Kiss the ring.

Yes, this was a bleak look inside the factory of half of the two party system. The killing floor was ripe with big money, side-stepping donors that want influence through the Kochs’ cabal. A Czech harem to blow billionaires for power. A sweet but salty irony.

And yet, where was our class-clown contestant at this historic event? Where was the horse you support just to keep him in the race to watch him perpetually fall? He wasn’t there. He refused to entertain an emblem of a broken system. He was saying all of this from a small podium a few state lines to the west.

He was going to lower taxes on the poor. Raise taxes on the top. Defend the small business owner. He wasn’t going to be ‘politically correct’. He was going to kick the immigrants out. He was going to build a wall. He sure as shit wasn’t going to use big words. And he wasn’t going to show up to the Kochs’ opaque brothel.

Not many people noticed it, but this is where Trump became dangerous. This is where the ringmaster of an empty tent became Real. While everyone else was laughing at him from the present, there were many who were left in the past that heard him loud and clear. Not so long ago, the Tea Party promised a grassroots campaign to bring America back to south of the Mason-Dixon and the mid-west. With their flags and their slogan (‘Don’t Tread On Me!’), they drove big busses and campaigned wildly across the country. Between 2008 and 2012, the Tea Party picked up huge support utilising the celebrity status of professional question mark Sarah Palin and simple, incalculable promises. They were going to get white, lower-income, blue-collar families their manufacturing/mining/drilling jobs back. They were going to stand up for the little (white) guy. They were going to fix that broken Washington System and take back Congress. Most importantly for them though, they were going to dismantle Obamacare and stop all this nonsense about Global Warming.

The Tea Party were very successful. At one point they backed and received the support of Sen. Mitch McConnell and then-Speaker of the House Rep. John Boehner. Across the 2010 and 2012 Congressional elections the Party racked up victories in both Houses by backing candidates that took their money or subscribed to their beliefs. Denial-ist extraordinaire, Michele Bachman even went as far as to establish a Tea Party Caucus in the House. However, while the Tea Party still exists, it has lost significant support. This is due, in part, to the idea of Astroturfing.

Astroturfing is the polar opposite of a grassroots movement. It is set up to create the illusion of an organisation that has come from the people and therefore will best serve the peoples’ needs. There was one big campaign promise that just did not work for the ‘little guy’ or ‘Joe the Plumber’. They wanted rid of universal healthcare. From here, some very astute journalists and researchers discovered that a large amount of the Tea Party’s affiliates, such as ‘Americans for Prosperity’, were created and paid for by hugely wealthy special interest groups that had a rather large vested interest in calling global warming a hoax and shutting down Obamacare. Of course then it would come as no surprise to anyone that these groups were in the business of fracking, oil-drilling, coal mining, car manufacturing and insurance finance. Chief among these groups was Koch Industries. Remember those guys?

Slowly and quietly, as the Tea Party-backed candidates made obstructionist fools of themselves in the Senate and Congress, various reports and documentaries surfaced illustrating just how much of a illusion the Tea Party actually was. It had very little interest in protecting the rights and well-being of American workers, but had huge interest in shutting down any part of responsible governance that may stand in its industries way. Fronted by the Kochs, these special interest groups created a fake grassroots (astroturf) movement to double penetrate the American political system: hit them from K Street with lobbyists and influence directly, and hit them from the polling stations with a fever pitch demographic of pissed off voters. It was beyond a John Le Carre plot in scope, and just brazen enough to fail.

***

Nearly 3 years later and Donald Trump aims a sleazy smile across a podium in July 2015. He makes damn sure that everyone hears him when he says that he will only take small donations to his Primary campaign. He makes sure everyone is paying attention when he illustrates his vast personal wealth, with which he will make a donation too his own campaign, but fuck it. It’s his money right? And he makes sure everyone is on Twitter to watch his wild political zigzagging from left to right…

Dip left. Lower taxes on the poor.

Bank right. Make the Mexicans pay for the US’s border wall.

Dive left. Raise taxes on the rich.

Swing right. No more Islamic immigrants.

Glance left. No special interest group’s money here.

Settle way right. No more political correctness.

If this drunken dance across the debate stage didn’t make you dizzy with apathy, then you either sat in shock or gradually pledged allegiance to the God Emperor. Trump harnessed something that the Tea Party left behind mixed in with the sand on their astroturf. His haphazard campaign picked up that dissenting voice across the mid-west and the south. His was to be a campaign of one man against the system that lied to the people with the Tea Party. These people got tread on by the very people that said they wouldn’t.

Of course, mixed in with this frayed sack of bruised egos was the burgeoning anti-PC culture; themselves a blind and pitiless reaction to the rise of social justice and political correctness. We all know the type: as one group strives for equality, the other sees it as an affront on their agency, whatever they think it is. Just as the KKK reinvented themselves as ‘protectors of white culture’, not racists, so too do blatant misogynists relabel themselves as purveyors off Men’s Rights.

Across this Primary campaign and through the conventions one year on from Trump’s announcement in 2015, these Nimble Navigators (as they refer to themselves on the headline making subreddit, r/the_donald) have brigaded around their God Emperor, latched on to the loose idea that he will Make America Great Again. They have chosen the self-titled ‘Based Faggot’ and British ‘journalist’ Milo Yiannopoulos as the God Emperor’s heir apparent; a man who prides himself on ‘triggering’ SJWs (Social Justice Warriors) by saying intentionally horrendous and offensive statements. By way of example one need only look to his recent fracas on Twitter with actor and Ghostbusters (2016) star Leslie Jones. Milo managed to get himself banned from the social networking platform for launching racist slurs from behind his phone’s screen. A brave knight in the political spectrum? A man worth existing at all? Or just an asshat with a data plan?

***

Much like the Rio Olympics, we know most of the bullet points around Trump’s live controversy. He bragged about his penis size during a presidential primary debate to defend the size of his hands. Naturally. He claimed that Parisians in the Bataclan massacre would have been better off had they been armed. Of course. More recently, at the convention his wife Melania vocally plagiarized Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democrat Convention Address while not being able to produce her college transcripts in Design and Architecture from the University of Ljubljana. Of course, the Trumps cannot produce them as they do not exist. She left after less than one year to pursue modelling. Nothing to be ashamed of, but why claim otherwise? And should we play Donald’s game from 2008 and kick up a childlike tantrum looking for the documents (re. Obama’s birth cert)?

We know that the Drumpf tried to kick a crying baby and mother out of one of his rallies in Virginia recently for making too much noise. Bold move considering how important mothers and little babies are to American Presidential politics. We know that there was an alleged meeting between members of Trump’s campaign and members of Kaisch’s former campaign to see if he would like to be the most powerful vice president ever, taking on domestic and foreign policy to leave the God Emperor to just Make America Great Again from the Oval. And we know that our gloriously hilarious failure of a human being took the bait from the DNC as he retorted to the Khan family’s blistering attack on his sacrificial and constitutional credibility.

We know all this. Everyone can know all of this. And yet he remains as nominee.

After his Gold Star fuck up, former Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain vocalised his distaste for Trump (although he still has yet to retract his endorsement). Moreover, as of 8 August 2016, the George W. Bush Administration has officially announced that it will be supporting Hillary Clinton for President. Much like his initial political zigzag, Trump’s polling numbers are beginning to follow a similarly wild pattern. But that’s a story for another day…

***

We guffawed and chortled and cried with laughter last year when Trump claimed he would be President, but the grim reality of the ill-informed protest vote was seen in the cold, dead and virulently ignorant eyes of the Brexit result. Brian Cox recently wrote about the devastating effect that this anti-expert protest vote could have on a society, but you have to wonder whether Britain voting to leave the safety net of the EU is comparable to electing an openly ignorant Oompa Loompa that’s past its sell-by date into an office that holds probably the most powerful position in the world? If America wants to allow itself to elect this fool, does it deserve him? And if they have gone to war in the past to oust leaders that they view as unfit, should they not expect similar treatment, even from their own, gun-raging population? America has long bemoaned its dysfunctional two party system that’s lathered in corporate money, gerrymandering and special interests. It has demanded change and the Democrats almost chose Bernie, their protest vote. But the other side chose the Donald.

Now let’s see how he’ll fair in the big leagues of a national presidential election.

 

-J. O’Brien

The Dark Knight of Conservative Values.

Rise…against the risen…

 

We all know, in this privileged world, the story of Bruce Wayne’s ascension to Batman. With his parents dead from a young age, gunned down in front of him by some lowly crook, he developed a sense of amoral justice (re. vengeance). From here, he shrouded himself in a cape, skulked beneath his mansion in a cave, and created his alter ego: The Batman.

          The saga has been told and retold; has died and been exhumed countless times. With Christopher Nolan’s “serious” and “gritty” reimagining now in the rear view mirror, it is probably time to revisit it and carry out a post-mortem with the benefit of hindsight. Indeed, with quiet hullabaloo, other critics have gleaned at the idea that there were some hidden values riding close to the surface of Nolan’s noir adaptation. Murmurings of conservative platitudes and anti-OWS sentiments whistled through the internet’s lonely corridors of lost information, cherry picked by those who would rather see Frank Millar’s ramblings for what they are: paranoid, fear-mongering screeds from that hateful loner in the corner.

 

 

          It is nothing surprising really. The man who brought us such tales of lone vengeance (Sin City) and hyper-masculinity battling alone against a feminized enemy (300), stumbles around his blog, spouting vile nonsense about a bunch of vaguely disorganised well-wishers down in Zucotti Park. Perhaps Batman could take care of those “louts, thieves, and rapists,” (Miller, 2011). Perhaps he could swoop down in an incomprehensibly expensive military plane and lead the uniformed officers against the unruly mob of the left? Now, if only someone had the guts to film this for the masses, so that they too could realise this vision of a magnificent plutocracy.

          Never fear, Nolan and Goyer are here. Yes, this crack team of Hollywood visionaries have given us the motion picture adaptation of Miller’s insane vision. Spread across a trilogy of Neo-Conservative armchair philosophizing and amoralist judgement, our liberal-fighting duo have wowed and excited, intrigued and carried along entire theatres of generally left-leaning Yuppies into the reheated fear of Cold War conservatism.

          After the 140 minute exposition that was Batman Begins, Goyer et al. settled down to craft an adaptation of Miller’s ‘Dark Knight’ series. The resulting box-office wet dream became one of the most successful and culturally prevalent franchises to date. Grossing in excess of US$1.1 billion, Nolan’s saga of upper-class vengeance has titillated, wowed and aroused the world’s attention to the plight of the Financial Elite, at a time when they really needed some back-door publicity. Indeed, the latter two films entered IMDB at the top of their charts, usually a few days before even the critics had seen it. So furtive was the public’s expectation of these films, that they would be pre-destined to be brilliant, only slipping down the rankings when people calmed their senses. Either that or threatening film critics with death lost its charm…

          Writing for Salon.com about The Dark Knight Rises, Andrew O’Hehir posited that “it’s a trap to read too much into this movie by way of political commentary”. Simultaneously acknowledging the presence of Straussian Neo-Conservatism throughout the plot, he suggested that “the Gotham status quo is a cynical regime based on ‘useful lies,’ false heroes and systemic inequality — straight out of the playbook of Neo-Con founding father Leo Strauss — that corrupts even decent men like Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon.” However, after wandering through the film’s predecessor, I would argue that the Gotham city itself is not the representation of cynical Neo-Conservatism, rather it is Nolan and Goyer’s Batman Universe that actively propagates the Neo-Con myth. Offsetting artistic accountability by placing the dark, Straussian mythos as part of the city’s characterisation is fundamentally disingenuous considering how active a part the characters have within the plot construct and wider narrative vision.

***

It is somewhat useful then to begin with 2008’s The Dark Knight. At this stage, we have all seen the film several dozen times. While filmed with a grace in style that has rarely, if ever, graced the blockbuster form, the narrative is a dark and murky celebration of all that is right and true about controlling society and governing crime. It is true to say that the two are inextricably linked. A character within the film cannot separate society and crime and sees them merely as cause and effect factors. The central premise of this narrow dialectic revolves around The Joker and Batman. The former, a criminal so fiendishly malevolent, hateful and psychotic that his very presence elicits simultaneous pangs of fear and admiration. The latter, our Dark Knight of justice (re. vengeance), suavely cloaked in mystery and self-aggrandising moralisms; not the hero we need right now, but the one we deserve (such a line is lost in its own self-importance, much like the character of Bruce Wayne in Nolan’s universe). What ensues, is a stratigraphy of hyperbolic comic book prose spread over a worthy run time. The climactic scenes detail our final descent into the crafted lies and conceits of Neo-Con platitudes. Dent (the White Knight of Gotham) starts us off by falsely outing himself as the Batman. This lie is carried by Bruce/Batman and Gordon, with a view to trapping the Joker. The lie, however, is also what gets Joker into the police station as it is “all part of the plan.” Indeed. It seems somewhat tenuous to assert, but there is no way an audience reads that the lie was a cause for this effect. The IMAX film and cataclysmically stylish mise-en-scene of the trapping of Joker diminishes any interpretive skill, even by viewing number ten!

 

 

          We continue our festival of public lies as the whopper is crafted and detailed to the public. Harvey Dent did not kill those police officers. It was Batman. What a pointless lie. What a disgustingly patronizing thing to disseminate to the public who are paying for your film. However, this is a popular thing to do when you accept the presence of Leo Strauss and his cabal between the frames of the film. The Neo-Con platform asserts that the lie is what is needed to keep society together; united against an enemy through fear, in search of progress and communal greatness. Plato’s “Noble Lie” dragged from antiquity for your viewing pleasure. Without the constructed myth, society is doomed to the rot and decay that, they believe, will inevitably come with liberal decadence. Indeed, it has been seen before as Rumsfeld et al. detailed the terrifying magnitudes of the U.S.S.R.’s armoury and capability, right at the point that they were about to economically implode because they were barely able to feed themselves. It was seen again in 2003 as codename ‘Curveball’ and aluminium tubes were wheeled out to justify The Gulf War’s sequel. The sheer cynicism involved with this type of right-wing philosophy equates to effectively believing that the people are too stupid, too gullible and too naive to ever take the truth about a situation, therefore they must be fed a horrible fallacy; a lie that evokes enough fear to bring society together under a common goal. Indeed, the Neo-Con myth was to create a simulation of the effect that World War 2 had on societies throughout the globe; galvanizing communities against one common enemy through fear or fascism and death. To this end, Bob Kane’s Batman works as a contemporary embodiment of all that is present in the Neo-Con character – a fear mongering fallacy; a fictitious creation used to strike fear into the hearts of petty purse thieves and galvanize the people in step.

          Returning to Gotham, we see that this is how the city has chosen to operate. I choose my words carefully here. While O’Hehir claims that this is the Gotham that we are given in The Dark Knight Rises, I argue it is one that this is the Gotham borne from the White Knight, the Dark Knight and Gordon in the film’s predecessor. In particular, we must remember that it was Dent’s benevolent character that began the lie; Dent being a man of allegedly unshakable ethics. While Nolan told IGN in 2007 that he wanted “to tell a very large, city story or the story of a city,” regarding Gotham, he also pointed out to MTV in the same year that Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent are the “backbone” of the film. Therefore, it is not too much to assert that what we see is not the darkness of a city in the always -already throes Neo-Con ethos, but rather a dark city being “fixed” by one. Furthermore, to argue that it is then a “trap” to question this ethos seems to be grasping for entertainment when political discourse is invited. To push Nolan’s own quote illustrates the bleak reality of The Dark Knight‘s vision. That is to say that the perceived dialectic between Dent and Wayne has already failed in that the film itself realises a joint finality. Bruce and Harvey want the same thing for Gotham and before one’s mutation they both seek this achievement by the same means. Wayne and Dent’s thesis is the same, it is only Two-Face who differs in sentiment, but  his is not part of this method.

          2012’s ­Dark Knight Rises saw audiences wander deeper into the Straussian rabbit hole. Conveniently set against a cultural context of the Occupy Wall Street movement, Nolan’s filmic capstone details the ransoming of a city by a heinous villain: Bane. Bane is of vague South American heritage and seeks to capture the attention of Gotham’s disenfranchised, homeless, poor and destitute. He points the finger back at Batman, Gordon and their White Knight. He details the financial corruption that had ravaged the people (something that was on the mind of nearly every audience member at one point or another). He rails against the inequality, the elitism and the plutocratic endeavours of the upper class. Moreover, he uses the truth to complete his mission. The truth that Dent was not Gotham’s saviour. Just as the Joker had the element of dark validity to his ramblings in the previous film, and just as Neeson’s Ra’s al Ghul had merit in his understanding of Gotham’s corruption, so too does Bane have the key to Batman’s Achilles heel: the Truth.

          With the secret out, Gotham does exactly as Strauss would have predicted. They descend into unruly chaos. As usual though, Nolan and Goyer’s twist with the villain is that they must be incredibly masochistic so as to offset the audience actually rooting for them as the hero. Ra’s al Ghul is somewhat fascist in his execution, the Joker is admittedly a psychopath, and Bane is a powerhouse of base characteristics – violence and fundamentalism. Just as in The Dark Knight, the duality that TDKR hinges upon is between Batman’s team and Bane’s team. While there is a systemic lie and subsequent manipulation of the masses at the root of both sides, the question for the audience is: which one is better? What is really being fought out on screen in the penultimate scenes of Nolan’s finale, is the battle between Neo-Conservative authority and imagined radical fundamentalism. This is best crystallised as we see an army of proud and uniformed police officers charge against the ragged rabble that is Bane’s army of the people. Batman leads his Boys in Blue against the manipulated liberal mob in a battle that quite literally revels in police brutality, akin to some of the scenes in Sacramento and Zucotti Park.

 

 

          The perceived sincerity of this penultimate scene contrasts beautifully against the farcical sarcasm of any of the Trial sequences, wherein the Scarecrow presides over a Kangaroo Court that resembles a Dickensian caricature more so than it does any other set piece in any of the trilogy’s components. The court is portrayed as frantic and furtive; awash with biased judgements and cruel punishments. Aesthetically speaking, it is completely out of place in the franchises mise-en-scéne. Once more set against the backdrop of OWS and worldwide public uprising, we find a certain cynicism in the treatment of those that would seek to question the established order. As these scenes compliment the climactic battle of TDKR, so too does the film’s dynamic compliment the aesthetic. The undercurrent of farcical Neo-Conservative values and one-sided arguments against popular movements are reined in by a filmic style that, as I have already mentioned, is undoubtedly brilliant. Nolan is a far cry from auteur, as some critics have hyperbolically dubbed him, but there is no doubt that he has simulated the trappings of a classic Hollywood blockbuster while adding a sincerity to the frame that has caused some to revaluate how lazy they can be about crafting one. Ahem, Michael Bay, ahem. The problem is that the message riding quite close to the surface of Nolan and Goyer’s trilogy is not just Conservative, but that it resembles all the tenets of propaganda.

 

 

          Consider for a moment the plotline of a video game that was released around the same time as TDKR. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. In which a South-American narco-terrorist manipulates the 99% movement in order to attack America. It is left to the Navy SEALS to come and save the day, rescuing the gullible public from themselves. Now, this plot may closely resemble that of Bane’s escapades throughout Gotham, and that is because David S. Goyer penned this interactive Neo-Con extravaganza as well. Therefore, in both of Goyer’s releases for 2012, the public were given a good look at why authority knows what’s best and you should just trust in their potential for benevolence. In Call of Duty it is the military and JSOC that will protect you from the validity of questioning corruption, while in TDKR, Batman goes toe-to-toe in a fist fight with Bane to save you from the literal Truth. Like all good propaganda, it is all encompassing, covering all learning styles – visual, auditory and kinaesthetic.

          Returning to TDKR, it is always important to analyse how the argument is completed. As with all Nolan films, the ending does not satisfy the narrow dialectic set up within. While Inception rested on its lazy ambiguity, TDKR tries to offer an half-thought-out synthesis as Robin (good God, really?!) toys with the idea of taking up the cowl. Robin was the only person questioning Gordon’s motives regarding the lie throughout the back half of the film’s excessive runtime, yet he was still stuck in a bro-mance with Bruce/Batman. Thus, Nolan’s inherent ambiguity forces the audience to side with the only options left on the table: Batman or…well, Batman.

         

***

 

In November 2001 representatives of the White House met with senior Hollywood executives to see how mainstream cinema could help out with the “War on Terror”. It was evidently important to the Bush administration that America and the Western World see things ‘the right way’. As Zizek notes, these meetings act as “the ultimate empirical proof that Hollywood does in fact function as an ideological state apparatus” (Zizek, 2012). Certainly then, to ignore a political reading of Nolan and Goyer’s Batman series as a trap, is to ignore the idea that films can still function as a tool of propaganda. While I am not saying for a minute that Rove and Cheney were on set and in talks with Nolan, I am saying that Hollywood’s power in terms of influencing ideology is not a school of academia left to critics and theorists. It is thus acknowledged, and has been for a long time, by politicians and propagandists as a useful tool in disseminating certain ideologies and arguments to the public.

          Nolan et al. have produced three visually  pleasing pieces of work. With Zimmer’s score in tow, the films deliver a high calibre of production value with a surface tension of intelligence out-weighed and out-gunned by overtly expensive entertainment. A year and a bit on from the grand finale of Batman’s momentary exeunt, we are being treated to Marvel’s latest stock of trailers for upcoming box-office extravaganzas. Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier has had its trailer on nearly every ad block in every multiplex around North America and Europe for a few months now. Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. would seem to be doing some morally ambiguous things with a view to punishing criminals in advance of the crime. To this, Captain America responds, “This isn’t freedom. This is fear.” Indeed, audiences would do well to remember this sentiment the next time they watch Nolan and Goyer’s Batman franchise. 

85th Academy Awards: Best Picture – Star Spangled Nominations

Weird looking bastards…

 

 

The hype of the Golden Globes has passed and the excitement from the Oscar nominations has lulled. We can now get down to brass tax: severe criticisms of the direction being taken for the 2013 Academy Awards; who should win and who will win the illustrious Best Picture prize.

A quick glance at the surface tension around the Best Picture category lends the illusion of a tight race. In no particular order, the contenders line up as such:

• Silver Linings Playbook
• Les Misérables
• Lincoln
• Argo
• Django Unchained
• Beasts of the Southern Wild
• Zero Dark Thirty
• Life of Pi
• Amour

 

Regardless of how one feels about various different films for personal reasons, it can be admitted that there are some seriously brilliant films in there. Haneke’s Amour  teams up with Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild to take the category by surprise; adding a dash of patronising zeal to the proceedings this year. Off the back of picking ONE foreign language film and ONE independent film, the Academy have selected the ‘predictable surprises’ in Tarantino’s Django Unchained and Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook. These last two facilitate he portrayal of the Oscar’s sense of humour and humanism. The quaint sincerity of David O. Russell’s offering balances Tarantino’s usual, albeit brilliant, bombastic filmic nature, resulting in a real life narrative that gives the Oscar’s a fake glaze of perspective. Now, while I would revel in one of the above films winning Best Picture (excepting maybe Silver Linings!), it is safe to say that this probably will not happen. The Academy has condescended in all the places it feels it has to, resulting in the fallacy of balance in the category.

 

Requisite Foreign Nod:

 

“Hey, we’ve got a humanist sense of humour…”

 

Now on to the ‘serious’ players…

 

We are left with five key films from which to choose our winner. These films are blatant in their purpose of creation: they were made to win Academy Awards. However, there are some issues with a couple of them that might beat them out. For example, while Hooper’s Les Misérables is an utterly brilliant film, with a stellar performance from Jackman (our last Song and Dance man in the vein of Fred Astaire and a serious contender for Best Actor), it does not look likely to take home that golden shaft of pure ego. This is the case for two reasons: primarily, Hooper cleaned up with The King’s Speech at the 2011 Oscars, taking hope Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Director. This is not to mention the total of 12 nominations! Suffice to say, when this is coupled with the fact that in the last 45 years only 2 musicals have taken the Best Picture prize (Oliver! in 1968 and Chicago in 2002), it begins to paint a reasonably grim picture for Les Miz. If there was a Best Picture – Comedy or Musical, as there is in the Golden Globes, then perhaps Hooper’s camp feature would take home an Oscar and a Globe, but alas, there exists no such Oscar with no such prestige.

 

Hooper, you’ve got enough on your mantle already:

 

Dismissing Ang Lee’s arbitrarily esoteric Life of Pi is a little bit harder. While it shamelessly rides the aging success of Danny Boyle’s 2009 Slumdog Millionaire, it also teases the Academy with performative art-house isolation: one inexperienced adolescent trapped on a lifeboat with a vicious tiger, what universal truths will be discovered? Watch on… That being said, while the Academy itself seems to be made up of geriatric romantics with a flair for overt nepotism, we might be able to presume that they can see through this frightfully transparent Oscar stab from the man who glimpsed glory with Brokeback Mountain.

 

Slumdog Zookeeper…on a boat:

 

What’s left…

 

There are three films left on the stage at this point: Spielberg’s Lincoln; Affleck’s Argo; and Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty. In our heart of hearts we always knew it was going to be one of these three. In their own ways, they are each of them tailor made and succinctly crafted for Oscar glory. Let the egos swell and the speeches drone on: one of these films will take home Best Picture.

 

While both Bigelow and Affleck were snubbed for a Best Director nod, Spielberg retains almost mutual assurance across most categories that he will be taking home a faceless and sexless golden man. However, what seems of far more intrigue in this year’s filmmaker showdown, is the thematic subtext of the remaining three definitive contenders. Across the three pictures as listed above, audiences have been treated to a selective historical memory of America’s triumphs. Slap the blinders on and wrap yourselves in those stars and stripes, we’re going to tell you how to remember history!

 

 

Beginning in the 1860s in the midst of the American Civil War and at the beginning of Lincoln’s second term, audiences traverse the next 150 years bathed in the grandeur of triumphant Yankee achievements. What starts with a bunch of white guys facilitating the emancipation of an entire race (with very few mentions of the amount of former slaves who died for the cause), finds a midpoint with the emancipation of several hostages from a revolutionary Iran in the 1970s: a crackpot scheme that if botched, would have resulted in an entirely different contender for Best Picture! To round off this trinity of self-appreciation, Bigelow brings us Zero Dark Thirty; a film as ambiguous and unsure with its thematic narrative as most of Europe is about the film’s Stateside hype. Bigelow beings with audio snippets of 9/11 and concludes with the emotional release of the picture’s protagonist after a job well done. Very rarely, if ever, does Zero Dark allude to the 20 year history of complex relations between the U.S. and the Middle East prior to the events of September 11th, 2001. Perspective and character depth are pushed to the side as inadvertent hubristic patriotism takes over. Implied moral grey areas with regard to torture is never interrogated, which is ironic considering the weight of narrative drive given over to “Advanced Interrogation Technique”! The result being a relatively tawdry picture lost in its own ambivalence about its subject matter.

 

 

Nonetheless, it is a very real possibility, and a safe bet, that one of the Patriotic Triumvirate will take home the Best Picture statue. While Lincoln contains performances that carry an otherwise dry film, and Argo contains all the hallmarks of a cracking thriller and an honest Oscar winner, Zero Dark Thirty falls short of all the marks, alluding to an Academy nod purely on the basis of its relevant content (re. bin Laden). Personally, I am of the opinion that Argo should take home the prize if it has to be between these three. Lincoln is assured a few trophies across the rest of the board and the Academy can surely not be so blind as to favour Zero Dark Thirty over some of the other, far superior contenders.  

 

 

In an idealistic ceremony, Behn Zeitlin and Co. would sweep the board clean in an unforeseen coup d’état; illustrating to the world that the Oscar’s retain perspective enough to recognise true brilliance when it is at hand. Alas, Beasts of the Southern Wild and Django Unchained are destined for the annals of nomination, for the probable and simple reason that in the year of Star Spangled nominations at the 85th Academy Awards, these two films criticise while the realistic contenders saturate the board with blindsided hubris. Tarantino delights in twisting the knife that was the heinous slave trade that Spielberg refuses to visually recollect, while Beasts of the Southern Wild weaves the noble savagery of those all but forgotten  beyond the Louisiana levees. These caricatured yet honest criticisms of America’s history, both past and present, will not stand up against the cult of personality that drives the one-sided patriotic hubris of the Big Three.

 

The Best:

 

Close Second:

 

Jake O’Brien