"...The acceptable, political definition of torture." (Dick Cheney, in preparing to defend his position on aggressive interogation techniques that had come under fire) 

One can't help but notice the foul odor, like three day old non-refridgerated fish, as the few scales that are left clinging above your lip start to slide downward, the sting on your rosy cheek where the aforementioned fish connected, still hot. Political rhetoric has not gone away. You've simply grown numb to it: where it used to take you one or two blatantly oversold assaults to the common sense of the common man, it now takes double the dose; like the Atavan you take to pull you back down somewhere beneath the din. 

One can imagine, as the politicians are having this discourse on what's considered a reasonable amount of applied coercion, that they've asked the proverbial Torture specialist to come up to the lunch room at the White House. Once there, he dumps the contents of his little green khaki bag of implements, and the team sets about trying to make three piles: a "Not at This Time" pile; a "Does Not Leave a Mark" pile and then a "Use only if you Have To - But Try Not To Use it Too Often Because That Could Leave a Mark" pile. And then, after some more banter and playing tradsies from one pile to the next, our resident Pain and Discomfort Therapist scoops it all back into his back and goes off to do whatever it is he does in his spare time. 

To be clear, we are talking about what TORTURES are ok to use against people we have retained in some of our military prisons who are potential TERROR suspects in this WAR ON TERROR. 

This is clearly a question of semantics. And I think we need to be clear about just what it is we are fighting for and what the rules are. First of all the Spin Doctors are to be commended on thier word choice in naming the War On Terror. Because it (the war) is in fact ON terror, not against it, that is, it is not THE WAR AGAINST TERROR. So it seems no one can really be faulted for the small matter of having to inflict pain and suffering (TERROR) on people we think may or may not know something. Once having decided this, it's really only a matter of a little extra twist, or a few more ounces pressure per square inch; another incredibly banal movie that just seems to play the same scenes over and over again; the butter's got no popcorn... and on and on. In the end, if it turns out they did not in fact know anything, we pull thier pants up, give them a sucker and a sticker and send them on their way. Call it perdition. 

We, on the other hand, have left no stone unturned. 
  

        

 



A Celebration of Human Spectacle

by William Somer

Since the first of the intial spate of eco-documentaries hit the video store shelf back in 2004, the movie industry has maintained a regular staple of productions featuring human stupidity and excess at the expense of the environment. For those of us that can remember, the message hearkens back to the early 1980’s when David Suzuki began his lifelong campaign for responsible stewardship of the planet. His argument still carries weight, dangling there before us like a displeased father thrusting Grandma’s Stieff Teddy Bear in our faces, its arm in one hand, its limp body in the other, while uttering that dire phrase: just what have you done?

The Day After Tomorrow, Roland Emmerich (2004), Al Gore’s, An Inconvenient Truth (2006), The Planet Earth series (2006), Leonardo DiCaprio’s 11^th Hour (2007), doubtless they all pose important questions, and are reasonably entertaining. But are we getting the message? Are we acting on the information? Or are we simply allowing ourselves to be entertained?

Human folly and general apocalyptic conjecture is not new in the movie realm either. Low-budget, B-movies featuring the demise of the planet first started flickering on the silver screen as early as 1933, with Deluge and When Worlds Collide. The early forebears of the genre reached a plateau in the late 1970’s and into the eighties with China Syndrome and Silkwood, and culminated in the nineties with Erin Brockovich. From there the camera angle slowly shifted away from movies featuring plot lines with a hint of social conscious, to the other end of the continuum: fear-mongering and self-deprecating big budget epics like Earthquake, and the undersold Children of Men, to Lisa Simpson's Lake Springfield pollution lecture: "An Irritating Truth”, a laconic treatment of an environmental catastrophe created by Homer Simpson.

Recall for a moment, the first horror flick you saw as a kid and how for months after, alone in your room, you were terrified at the possibilities that lay hidden under the bed. Five, perhaps six movies and several years later the edge had worn off; the genre no longer carried the same wholesale investment in fear. Could not this sobering procession of human spectacle movies desensitize us to the reality of the impact we have on the planet and dull our inclination? I’ve already seen Gore and DiCaprio’s films, do I need to see another DiCaprioesque oratory – a shuffled deck of facts and a somber-faced narrator, barely breathing, uttering his funeral dirge.

Many producers would argue that all they can do is deliver the goods. They can do nothing to ensure that the lines between entertainment and a force for real quantifiable change are not blurred. In perhaps a weak-kneed effort to establish credibility, many apocalyptic feature movies incorporate a statement by some well-thought scientist or environmental group figure-head as to the efficacy of the movies premise.

In an interview for Timesonline, Tony Mitchell, director of the London disaster movie Flood, spoke about the timeliness of the movie and its potential effect on viewers. He explained that he didn’t want his audience leaving the cinema in a somber depression and seemed to make the distinction that his movie was purely for entertainment value: “Let’s not get carried away with ourselves, global warming can be a mood killer. I don’t think that people who see the film will be quaking in their boots and worrying about their homes.” Yet the threat is very real for many people.

Conversely, Some may argue that war is very real in many places in the world yet we continue to make movies about it purely for entertainment value. Most of us believe wars are something we are powerless to affect so don’t entertain the notion of trying to change policies or potential outcomes. War is something that happens outside our realm of influence, fomented and carried out by “they” and “them”.

Trouble is, where foreign policy is concerned we have our finger on the collective trigger. If something isn’t working we simply change our policy, our approach, and change the outcome. The environment is a different sort of creature. We have no control over forces we’ve set into motion decades if not centuries ago. And many people in positions of power seem oblivious to these consequences, even when they are beat over the head with the Kyoto Accord and receive paternalistic admonishments from Mr. Suzuki. Rest assured, the environment and global warming will continue to be a campaign platform, and fodder for the Hollywood grist mill… as long as it is in vogue.

A list of the various travesties brought about by human ignorance here would be redundant. We have established a dependable track record clearly showing our ineptitude at responding appropriately to curb our behavior to avert environmental disaster. The consequences of global Warming are just another inevitable result in our portfolio of human ignorance. Though admittedly, Al Gore did do a service to humankind, as mentioned, Mr. Suzuki has been packaging and repackaging the same message for decades. And the ground has come slowly indeed.

Human folly has become a spectator sport, kindred to the Roman coliseum: look what it’s like to be eaten by a lion; kindred to public executions: look what will happen if you steal bread or miss church?

We need to resist the urge to sit on our respective couches with mouthfuls of popcorn muttering indignantly at “they” and “them”, “the faceless corporation” that plows ahead oblivious to consequence, the nameless mass of people streaming down metropolitan streets in their SUV’s, bumper to bumper on clogged superhighways.

Will big budget movies make a difference? Probably not. Will Al Gore and DiCaprio make a difference? Only to the degree that people realize this is not entertainment but a call to action. Will Hollywood continue to make eco-documentaries? Patricia A. Michaels, environmentalist and nature photographer so aptly points out, “the degree to which the environment stays front and center ultimately depends on how well it sells. As the well worn saying goes; the color of Hollywood is green".

September 19^th, 1945, Esquimalt Harbour, Vancouver Island

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