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And a great response by drvictordavishj.
My concern would be the implied comparison of the nihilistic Joker to a rational movement called Al-Queda.
The danger of this comparison is that it underestimates the threat Al-Queda presents.
The former chief of the CIA's Bin Ladin Unit, Michael Scheuer, has written extensively of the sound tactical logic behind Al-Queda. These are patient men with a rational mission. Not the Joker running around blowing up things for kicks.
Instead of recognizing it as a philosophical movement of liberation capable of inspiring millions of young Arab men...We're assuming that only the poor, dumb, and child-abused would be attracted to such a force.
Michael Scheuer proposes the "heavy handed" approach though.
He would see quick and heavy strike as more merciful and effective than the slow and ineffective posturing of the Bush administration.
The real joke here is believing that our foreign enemies fear Cheney.
I'd suggest folks read the works of Michael Scheuer at the JamesTown foundation:
http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/analysts.php...
But more to the point a very central theme of the movie is actions and consequences, Batman breaks the hold of the mobsters on Gotham with his theatrical brand of vigilante justice. The reaction is the emergence of the Joker, an equally theatrical, equally intelligent enemy who sees batman's 'I want to give people a symbol to give them hope against ceaseless corruption and violence' and responds with 'I want to give people a symbol that kills the goodness in them and shows they don't deserve anything or any protection'. More to the point THE JOKER WINS. Harvey Dent is destroyed and Batman resorts to unreasonable means in his attempt to defeat the Joker. The people on the boats are the only ones who at all 'win' against the Joker, who doesn't really care if he is captured or killed, the people on the boats choose to die rather than murder each other to survive.
If one of the boats had destroyed the other, it would have been understandable, but it wouldn't have been the 'right' decision. Sometimes there is no right decision that allows you to survive. We live in a complex world, diverse enough for us to wonder if Gandhi was more 'good' than George Washington, wonder if that question is stupid or wonder what meaning morality really has when you detach it from reality. Harvey Dent did what was understandable and went out for revenge, we can all understand that, but it didn't exactly seem like the best decision ever, did it?
You can take the Dark Knight as an endorsement of Cheney, though I feel that's kind of a stretch, given the prevalence of moral ambiguity in the film, compared to the Bush Administration's black and white view of the world. However, you can also take it as a suggestion as to why we can't turn to the simple and violent solutions, because we might create a bigger dragon. When you punish people for pickpocketing with the death penalty, you don't eliminate pickpocketing, you make the stakes so high the criminals become murderers, rather than petty thieves. Likewise when you stop using law and instead turn to brutal, unreasoning force, you will find in response, brutal unreasoning force.
I'm interested in seeing where the third film goes, but I think this article is oversimplifying things rather profoundly.
While many criticize Batman for abuses of power, they almost never offer alternatives. What alternatives are there when faced with such madness? To do nothing leaves leaders culpable since they had the power to intervene, but did not.
This may be why both Scheuer and Walzer advocated for action followed by accountability. While abuses of power almost always lead to collateral damage, some refuse to accept the reality that the alternative is greater carnage, but on the enemy's terms.
Suppose Batman had refused to utilize his surveilance system on moral grounds. Would he have been a hero? The Joker would surely have progressed unhindered to greater atrocities. Society, if knowledgable of Batman's capablity, would rightly accuse him of holding his own morality in higher regard than the lives of others - clearly not the choice expected of a hero.
In the film, Batman has the strength of character to accept societal rejection in order to accomplish the greater good. This quality is almost totally absent in today's leaders who look continually to popularity polls for guidance.
Nowadays, rare is the leader who will sacrifice personal reputation for the good of the nation. Like Gotham, we need such heros, but instead we elect "weathervane politicians" who give us short-term fixes in exchange for long-term consequences. Leaders who cannot withstand popular opinion will never be able to defeat the challenges that threaten our country.
And make no mistake, oogiedoogie, Batman doesn't win at the end of this movie. It's at best a draw.
"The former chief of the CIA
Yes, it is about the choices we make and the deceptions and fantasies we succumb to.
Morgan Freeman helps Batman as he says "only once and followed by my resignation."
He's told to type his name in at the end and that act evaporates Batman's FISA network.
The principled act by a sub=ordinate leads to rectitude. Similarly, the boat scene was profound.
When the huge, black criminal stood up and demanded the detonator, as representative of a
man of action, who in the audience did not believe he would blow up the other boat, whether
based on our own prejudice or personal identification. But he didn't; he led the way to a higher moral principal: "Give me liberty or give me death!" The Joker has no answer to that truth; and neither does Osama nor his enablers, Dick and Bush. Even the criminals on that boat understood the choice and made the noble one; the mainstream folks on the second boat backed into that
same decision, perhaps as you say out of cowardice but I believe out of a sense of guilt if not conscience, as in "What profit a man to gain the world [his life] and lose his very soul?"
No! I totally disagree with your take that this movie supports the views of Addington and Cheney; on the contrary I was deeply moved to tears, first for the loss of such an incandescent talent as Heath Ledger, and second, for the denigration of the Constitution of the United States of America by this administartion and its minions. While in the throes of the movie, I thought of all those complicit Democrats and Republicans, who along with GWB and DC abrogated their oath of office and, for that alone, have committed acts of treason, far beyond those of Ethel and Julius, or of Sacco and Vinzetti.
oogiedoogie, nice response.
And the extent to which al-Qaeda is a threat, it is a manufactured threat: both physically and psychologically. The CIA and its allies created al-Qaeda is an instrument of Cold War policy to force the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Later, when the Islamic extremists focused their attention on American hegemony as the source of their brand of Islam's declining support in the Arab world, the Neocons decided to make them into the new Soviets (the buzzword switched from "communism" to "terrorism") as an excuse for launching yet another crusade, with the United States playing the role of the good Christians. The Neocons eventually won the support of U.S. regimes, secured jobs in their respective cabinets, and came to dominate the current Bush administration's foreign policy strategy.
This is a long explanation, but the point is that Bush/Cheney Inc. has never been interested in maintaining order. They are interested in the total opposite. They want the chaos that the Joker spoke so fawningly of. They don't like laws or regulations. They hate the Constitution. They hate human freedom and would replace it in a second with total corporate elite rule if they could just get Congress, the Supreme Court, and a few other key establishments on board - or eliminate them altogether, as they have plans to do with something on the books called "Continuity of Government." Just look at their response to Hurricane Katrina. Look at deregulation of industry. Look at the chaos in Iraq. Is Blackwater there to establish law and order? Maybe, if that includes killing Iraqi civilians for leisure and getting away with it because of the total LACK of law and order in Iraq as IMPOSED by Paul Bremer and other administration lackeys. These men RELY ON chaos to extract profits from unsuspecting people. Read Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine." They only care about law and order so long as it keeps the masses away from asserting their right to true political and economic freedom.
To even insinuate that Cheney ever had the American people's interests in mind is to be naive. He has no idea what the typical American experience is and doesn't care.
Therefore, the Dark Knight is certainly NOT Cheney because he has the people's interests in mind (despite being super-rich). He reminds me of some of the Left in this country. Some of us are so misguided we choose to participate in the devil's game rather than accepting that the whole game is fixed and we need to quit and draw up a completely new game. The Joker was going to do whatever he wanted regardless of the response. This is the key. Torturing or killing him doesn't solve the problem because he is only the symptom and not the disease, and we can't defeat him by becoming him. If Cheney/Bush Inc. were assassinated tomorrow, it would not eliminate the graft and greed that plagues this country. The same goes for the Joker. The goal should be to fix the systems that give rise to this graft. Capitalism, namely, which encourages self-interest above everything else, and representative government that only represents the people who can afford to fund the election campaigns of its representatives.
My view of the film was that Batman was able to keep most of his principles. He refused to let the Joker die, stopped himself from "playing the hero," and allowed the controversial surveillance system to phase itself out when it was no longer needed. In the end, he selflessly walked into persecution in favor of restoring order, even though it could be argued that this was unprincipled because it served to hide the truth from the people, which to me was that there was no way for the system as it was to stop crime, under Harvey Dent or anyone else. It was also fallacious in suggesting that one knight in shining armor, whether suited in a tie or a cape, could somehow protect the people of a sprawling metropolis. Whatever happened to all of those principled people on the ships who refused to kill in order to survive? They were the heroes Gotham needed. Why weren't they glorified in the press? Why do we in the West rely on one man to save us, whether it be George Bush, Barack Obama, or Jesus Christ? Can't we empower ourselves?
No, we'd rather leave all the grunt work to a handful of activists and two or three super-activists, like the caped crusader himself, to save the day. When you put all that pressure on a few people, is it any wonder that they might abuse their power, as Batman did? Power is abusive when it is concentrated. This is fundamental.
So in following my existing framework, the plot is much different. We see Joker trying to root out the last real revolutionary leader, the Dark Knight, and his few good men. He fails to kill Batman, but he largely succeeds in killing the spirit of Gotham. He has made people to be something worse than militant - indifferent, cynical, powerless. This is where the American people are now. This is the ultimate weapon of the elite, and they have used it well.
But if I learned anything from the one hopeful scene of the movie, the dilemma of the passengers on board those two ships in the harbor, it's that maybe the same will happen here, given another catastrophe. Maybe people will wake up the day after a second 9/11 and realize what this system really is and how it is more dangerous than 100 al-Qaedas, how it gives rise to men like Cheney (the Joker), who can easily subvert the modest regulations it possesses, and how it also gives rise to men like Batman who take it upon themselves to defend the millions of faceless people they claim to represent from overwhelming odds while attempting to keep their principles. A better society would give rise to neither.
So the choice belongs to the people. We can continue playing this old, tired game of good vs. evil where lower-class people from around the world are pitted against each other while the indifferent corporations make their profits. We can go on thinking that some "people out there" are just downright evil and want to kill us without any rationale, or we can accept that imposed poverty, itself a form of violence, illegal occupation, and injustice fuel terror. That terror fuels more terror in response, and the resultant chaos and cynicism creates a situation where bystanders decide to kick back and watch the profits roll in while the world burns (which Cheney, like Joker, would love to see). After all, war is so much more profitable than peace.
We can play this game and watch characters mimic it on the big screen at over-priced movie theaters, or we can reject it for something better. That something better is based on love, environmental stewardship, and the understanding that all people are worthy of dignity and respect - and that any system that strays from these principles is not worth keeping. It is also based on the understanding that if we continue to let chaos rule, it will consume the entire human race, rich and poor alike. This planet will not be able to sustain us if we continue to rape it in mad pursuit of profit and expansion. The time to change course isn't now. It was yesterday.
I'm not familiar with the Washington Independent, so I can't really qualify my opinion with any information about its editorial bias, if it has one.
In any event, I find that their language trivializes, over and over again, the issues they are discussing. Batman having a strict inhibition against taking life is merely "moral hand-wringing." While they are happy to dissect the Batman's motives, they take the Joker at face value. The entire point of the Joker, whatever his metaphorical relationship with any real-world figure, is that he is the opposite of one's conscience: insane, nihilistic, exploiting any and every vulnerability and turning decency into a weakness. Bob Kane did perhaps his only piece of compelling writing the first time he described the rictus forming on the dead face of one of the Joker's victims in 1939 or so. Making the victims of murder smile was the Joker's joke.
The Joker says that the key to beating him is to become as nihilistic as he is? So what? When does he say anything but to manipulate others?
Moreover, the writer seems to be trying to make a point that his own evidence doesn't back up: Batman's would-be love is disenchanted and chooses the symbol of upstanding law and order. Alfred nearly loses patience with his obsessive and relentless methods. Commissioner Gordon only reluctantly accepts his help. And furthermore, except for the cell-phone spying helping to catch the Joker (and neutralise the bumbling cops), it never does any good when Batman crosses a moral line. Doing so is just playing the Joker's game.
The writer really betrays his bias with this:
"That, in the final analysis, is what the Joker is really interested in: to deprive Gotham of its hero, its hope, and its soul. Batman, in other words, must "work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will. We've got to spend time in the shadows.""
Applying Dick Cheney's words to the Batman is a cheap trick, commonly known as putting words in someone's mouth. Those words are revelatory about Cheney and no one else.
The cell-phone spying thing as a metaphor for war-on-terror policies is obviously true. It's equally a metaphor for Lincoln suspending the writ of habeas corpus or Roosevelt interning suspected enemy sympathizers (thousands of whom were actually of European descent). The fact that the power was laid down afterwards - something the Bush Administration has no intention of doing - is also telling, and is a metaphor for Roman dictators through Sulla among other historical antecedents. I seem to recall that the film actually referred to Cincinattus.
Also, the writer makes the mistake of assuming that because any one questionable Bush war-on-terror policy is evil, they all must be. Why? Because they're associated with Bush and Cheney. Further, the writer just doesn't understand that the screenwriters knew they were writing fiction. Torture is, by any sane moral calculus, excusable in a ticking-bomb scenario when one has the actual perpetrator in custody. However, that scenario has never happened and probably never will. Finally, the writer absolutely misses or misinterprets the abundance of material in the film that counters his position.
Anyhow, my take on the film is that it encourages the audience to think about those issues and draw its own conclusions. If Spencer Ackerman thinks that the film sided with Bush, it's because he admits the superiority of that side's argument (one I would not concede). I note he doesn't spend any time proposing an alternative take on the story, one which would support the other side.
Of that total 4,134 were Americans.
They are also responsible for the wounding of 30,464 people.
As of 8 - 07 - 2008.
Is John McCain in the pocket of insurance companies?
Is john McCain in the pocket of pharmaceutical companies?
Is John McCain in the pocket of other nations?
Here is a list of lobbyists and employees of major companies working in major positions in the McCain campaign. It will answer any questions you might have about the people who are advising and influencing him.
http://mccainsource.com/corruption?id=0006
Our founding fathers first goal was to prevent tyranny. With reference to the executive branch, they wanted to ensure transparency, accountability, and prevent a president from being above the rule of law. In this regard, the Bush/Cheney administration has had the worst record.
Aside from the will of the people as expressed through elections, there is separation of powers. Within congress there is the house and the senate as a check and balance, and combined, congress is supposed to provide oversight for the executive and judicial branches. Congress has failed to oversee the executive branch, initially due to being a
that which would destroy us.
Why did the victims on the boats have the luxury of deciding by taking no action? Because they lived in a society where others made those decisions for them, and this instance was no different. Had they all been killed, they would not have been celebrated as noble martyrs for 'good', they would have been seen as victims of the failures of those they had become reliant upon for protection. It was Batman's fault, or Bush's.
You seem to miss your part in the play as you assign identities to the characters. You are the judgmental, ungrateful, accusatory, clueless public who use the freedoms secured for you by leaders whom you bitterly denounce. Until you feel safe again, at which time you will build monuments to the memory of their service and say you were for them all along, but wish they hadn't done some of those awful things along the way.