Horrifying...but, I'm sorry to say, not very surprising.

Can't remember if I've linked this here before, but my post Journalism's Nuremberg is about what happens when people like Riefenstahl allow "art" (or "journalism," or "science") to become idols which replace their responsibility as human beings.

Great, great stuff. What a tremendous sense of humor Gila has while she still makes the most serious of points!

Here is what is wrong with this movie and the entire portrayal of terrorism in general in most of the news and entertainment media: it refuses to realize that we are all not equal.

We may have all been created equal in Heaven, but after a few years on Earth, differences arise, (duh!).

It's very un-p.c. to say this, but it must be said over and over: Israelis and Americans live in the 21st century, Arab terrorists live in the 7th century. There is very little we have in common nor should we. We are civilized, they are barbarians.

Treating them like equals would be like me letting my toddler daughter make our family's key decisions because, after all, she's a person too.

After several decades of "We are the World" social studies classes that pound our kids with "respecting all cultures... no matter what" nonsense this should not be surprising. As the great Mark Helprin once said to a shocked audience at Harvard: "Should we respect all cultures?... even ones that practice child sacrifice?"

There, now I said it too.

Speaking of the movies. Last night's worst-rated Oscars exemplified something of a business nature that has struck me about the movie industry for awhile. These "indy" movies, (usually a misnomer, the "indy" studios are almost all owned by the big boys), all think small. A lot of them actually have great scripts, so Hollywood takes its best scripts and puts them on shoestring budgets. I'm all for saving money when it's warranted, but Hollywood is supposed to be about BIG DREAMS and BIGGER THAN LIFE. Going the so-called "indy" or art house route with your best scripts is like putting the smart kids in the dumb class.

LACMA exploited the same story last year in their exhibit, Consider This. Some female artist of Israeli birth, (thought she grew up in Canada, what a surprise), used the photographs of the two girls for the same purpose. Moral relativism and other such garbage.
I am a docent at LAMCA and we were asked to tour school children through this garbage. I made a stink, as did one other gentleman. We weren't trying to ban the exhibit. We simply felt it was inappropriate to expose this kind of propaganda to unsuspecting school children.

I'm a persona non grata among the Education Dept at LACMA these days.
Of course the docents did tour this exhibit. One of them told me, the best reaction she got was from High School Students from Newport Beach. They said: I thought people made art to see, who would buy this s**t.

David:

You are quite right, horrifying but not surprising. The inability of certain people to make moral distinctions has enabled tyrants and thugs from time immemorial.

We should never forget that it was intellectuals in the German universities who leaped aboard the genocidal Nazi program, putting up practically no resistance. So, we should not expect any help from our educated classes against the jihadist threat.

Thanks so much for the fine link.

Jake:

Great comment. Nothing to add but, really, what do we have in common with cultures that practice, ahem, honor killings, that have institutionalized Jew- hatred, America-hatred, Christian-hatred, and hey, hatred, hatred, hatred.

Leah:

Thanks so much for giving us an insight into some of the "art" presented by LACMA.

Revolting.

I have a question: would LACMA present art that showed lynchers of blacks as equivalent to their victims?

Just asking.

" ... And of course, because moral equivalence is all the rage among liberals, and hatred of Israel—a fig-leaf for Jew-hatred—is rampant among the chattering classes, we are witness to a deluge of films that enable Islamic jihadists and make light of Jewish victims. ... "

the liberal left is much more demented than that

where is Richard Gere when it comes to Buddhist victims of Jihad,
or George Clooney about Sudanese victims of Jihad?

what is it about Islam that causes liberals to
betray every cause supposedly 'dear' to them,
when in conflict with Islam ?!

even gasp Global Warming!

no one hears even one word about the global warming effect of Arab oil drilling and refining in the already hottest regions of the world

in years to come,
maybe the cause for the liberal derangement syndrome will hopefully be found,
(and,G-D willing, be treatable)

until then,
maybe All Jews can approach the propaganda issue with a paradoxical relief,
that this is what a certain proportion of the world CHOOSES to believe, independent of the facts,
and to start doing what is necessary for survival,
unhampered by the concern of public liberal media opinion,
knowing with some certainty,
that no matter what Jews do, and Jihadists do,
what the liberal media opinion will be

I remember when they pre-screened this film at my University. Afterward we had a discussion. Pretty much said what you said -- it is disgusting to equate a murderer with her victim. However, professors and other students in the audience disagreed. It was so weird.
To top it off...there was some Israeli professor who lauded the movie!!! What the heck? I mean I understand how Americans can be duped, but Israelis? Hello?
After the discussion I told her that I am making Aliyah in the future. She seemed really shocked!

This subject is the source of my mea culpa - having tried to "understand," i.e., sympathize (as opposed to analyze), this issue.

It's important, I think, to remember that leftists don't lack morals or passion or compassion - they just have their own versions of them, and these are in conflict with traditional morality. And they are passionate.

I was flipping through the recently published diaries of Rachel Corrie. Typical late adolescent stuff, you might say. Except the passion exceeds the analysis. There's such an intense need, inspired, compulsive to be a part of something that is bigger and different.

Diyah:

I'm not surprised that the film gets a respectful screening and discussion at a university. After all, it takes an advanced degree to come up with the moral perversion that this film advances.

Again, let's keep in mind that intellectuals are usually among the first to join the vanguard of totalitarian movements.

The Nazis had no problem signing on University intellectuals to give their stamp of approval for the Nuremburg laws. Physicians, lawyers and clerks then stepped in to create the programs that made genocide work so efficiently.

Mao's China, which murdered more than 50 million people, operated under the same principle.

Now, in Europe, America and Israel, the overeducated left has no problem in enabling jihadists who would wipe Israel off the face of the earth and murder every Jew given the first opportunity.

As Koheles says: There is nothing new under the sun.

"it takes an advanced degree to come up with the moral perversion that this film advances"...In C S Lewis' novel "That Hideous Strength," the principal character is captured by a sinister cabal. He is put through a process of training which is aimed at killing "all specifically human reactions" in a person.

I increasingly wonder if this killing of the "specifically human reactions" in a person is the effect of higher education--especially graduate education and specifically in the "humanities"--as often carried out today.

(BTW, Robert, I think "That Hideous Strength" could make an excellent movie and would be very marketable, given the reception of the "Narnia" film.)

Jeremiah:

Yes, well, the left is quite selective about whom they choose to identify, and with whom they shower with compassion.

I don't recall any leftists being particularly sympathetic to someone who murders a gay man. Or a racist who kills a black man. There is no attempt to identify with the KKK, is there?

Oddly enough, the left seems to reserve their scorn for Israel, Jews and America.

But the left simply adores Islamic jihadists who have sworn to annihilate Israel, kill all Jews, oppress women, homosexuals, and all religious and political minorities that do not recognize sharia.

A few years ago, in honor of Women's history month, they had a display of famous women in the lobby. I was horrified to see that one of the women featured was Leni Riefenstahl! I called the EEO office and left a message registering my disgust. Shortly they took her down and replaced her with (I think) Margaret Bourke White and a note that they hadn't intended to offend anyone.

I think there's some joke about being careful when you have an open mind, not to let your brains fall out. Something that happens all to often in this PC world of ours.

Soccer Dad:

What lobby, can you divulge?

David:

Thanks so much for the tip. I've ordered the book and I'll give it a serious read.

Robert,

Great!

I am not convinced that anti-semitism is the real cause of the moral equivalence. You'll see it in the praise for GITMO prisoners like KSM by "Crash" screenwriter Paul Haggis. He and his wife wear ribbons in solidarity with KSM. If we had Osama bin Laden there they'd wear ribbons in solidarity with HIM no doubt.

I think what is going on is deeper. People from very safe, comfortable lives who's only real need is the need for status and more controlling social power over others (such as Hollywood, the University, Media, etc) FEAR ONE THING.

That is that in a struggle with dangerous enemies, they won't be needed. No one needed a feminist, social activist, and PC enforcer in WWII after all.

Their entire PC religion revolves around (sorry) the point that there is no real conflict, killing and dying, over real estate, existence, and freedom. If it does, indeed "move" that is religiously motivated killers do indeed wish us to submit to Islam, then PC goes away. Status seeking through PC goes away. The entire mental construct of "the sun revolving around the earth" goes away the way a flat-earth concept goes away (except for Sherri Shepherd).

ALL of it goes away. And power, respect, authority and status goes to Soldiers, spies, policemen, and tough statesman who defeat the enemy not promise talk and easy solutions of "West Wing" magic.

Steven Spielberg is not anti-Semitic, yet he made the mother of all moral-equivalent films in "Munich." Why? Because Spielberg's happy fantasy life of status seeking and moral superiority and control and most of all, Steven Spielberg MATTERING one bit is destroyed by the actual reality -- Islamists want to destroy ALL who do not bend to their will. [Including fellow Muslims, as Iraqis found out.] And the only way to STOP them is not through speeches, a "deal" or anything else but KILLING THEM. A lot of them.

Israelis understood for a long time (well most of them) that there is no "deal" to be made, otherwise it would have been made long ago. If not 1948, then 1956. Or 1965. Or 1973. Or 1977. Or 1993 at Oslo. Or 2000 at Wye River. The fight is not over real estate, or money, or any kind of negotiable "deal" the way Basque or Irish or Corsican or other European separatists pose (who also use terror). It is about SUBMISSION or DEATH. By people who are unstable, riven by factionalism, polygamy (a horde of un-marriageable young men to kill and die) and so on.

THAT was abundantly clear on 9/11. And that clarity is what the Left driven by PC fears the most. That they don't matter.

Jim:

Thanks so much for the articulate comment.

I did not intend to give the impression that Jew-hatred is the root cause of moral equivalence. If I did, my mistake.

Actually, I believe that multiculturalism is the driving force of this moral virus.

Oh my---that is "my" bombing, isn't it?

A few months after the bombing, I saw some photos of the scene--maybe in Time Magazine? Anyway, I found my shoes.

Was in Sderot today. Interesting....

Gila:

I wasn't a hundred percent sure, but yes, I do think so.

Have a Good Shabbos.

It was the lobby of where I work. (Sorry for the delay in getting back to you.) I can't be more specific.

Soccer Dad:

I thought you worked in Baltimore, not Berkeley:) Thanks so much for getting back.