A FILM REVIEW
DOGTOOTH
by Malik Isasis



Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, writer/director of Dogtooth has brought back the Greek Tragedy. Lanthimos’ film takes a disturbing look at a family’s narrative of isolation, and the troubling redrawing of family boundaries. The father whose Rube Goldberg approach to parenting has taught his three adult children that the word “pussy” in fact means, “lamp”. Can you imagine hearing Can you turn on the pussy?

Many everyday words have been switched around to mean something completely different. The matriarch of this upside down world, reinforces lessons of obedience and one-upmanship through childish games where the winner, gets a prize and some affection. The only way to receive affection from both parents is obedience and winning whatever game the parents has constructed.

The children (one boy, two girls) who chronologically are very young adults, have been emotionally stunted into perpetual prepubescent adolescents, and taught to fear the outside world. The cognitive dissonance between the undeniable adult-ness of the children and their emotional maturity is sometimes moving, but always unsettling.

The only outsider to penetrate the family’s world, is a female security guard who is blind folded on the ride to the patriarch’s home, and then shown a room where the son awaits. One suspects that this is a frequent routine as there is no dialogue between the two, they both respond to one another like a lab rat pulling levers; they strip naked and have sex without intimacy, just clinical precision . This arrangement is terminated when the father finds out that the woman has given one of his daughters illegal contraband, a Hollywood film in which, she recites lines. The father incidentally looks over the developing sexuality between his two daughters, spurred on by the security guard coxing the eldest daughter to perform oral sex.

After a violent confrontation with the security guard, the father and mother arrange for one of the daughters to fulfill the role of a sexual partner for the son. He chooses the eldest daughter via closed eyes. The sex is clinical, and into all enjoyable for the eldest daughter, who is not pleased with the new arrangement.

The title Dogtooth comes from the father saying that the children will be ready to leave the home when they develop their dogtooth. The eldest daughter who wants to help the process of her dogtooth come along takes matters into her own hands.

Dogtooth is a difficult film, it is a beautiful film, it is an allegory of familial dysfunctions. We are all subject to our family’s dysfunctions, and we all go out into the world spreading that dysfunction, especially when we begin to create our own families.

Grade: A

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THE REAL POLITIK ISSUE: VOLUME 124, ISSUE 153
SUCKER PUNCH
THE DISSAPPEARANCE OF GEORGE W. BUSH
by Malik Isasis




The great Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges discussed the notion of the “Inversion of Time” in his short story (An Examination of The Work of Herbert Quain). The Inversion Time as defined by Borges is, a state in which we remember the future, and know nothing, or barely feel a presentiment, of the past. The Inversion of Time is a fictional concept, but it feels incredibly real in the parallel universe the corporate media has constructed, whereby the legacy of President George W. Bush and his Republican Congress has been disappeared, and all the chaos they left behind—such as the economic collapse, two failed occupations, unemployment rates, and immigration only began on November 2, 2008, with the election of President Barack Obama.

When the corporate media is not carrying the water for the rightwing echo chamber, they relay the narrative that the midterm election will be a massacre for the Democrats by the Republicans, which is typical.

The deregulation of the media has resulted in the same results as the deregulation of energy (think Enron), deregulation of big pharma (think healthcare), the deregulation of banking (think Goldman Sachs), and the deregulation of big oil (think British Petroleum) which is to say, corporate media has become an industry that has laid down every yellow brick along this path of mass delusion and perpetual war that began in earnest with the Reagan Administration, but the collapse of the fourth estate is a symptom of a much greater sickness in American democracy.

The corporate media didn’t challenge President Bush when he was in office, instead they spoke around him as if he had nothing to do with sleeping at the switch when September 11th happened, and sending troops to Iraq without proper intelligence, training, protective equipment, most importantly, a plan for the occupation of two sovereign countries, yet it was the Democratic Party who received the brunt of the criticism for the war President Bush had begotten. Although the corporate media failed— or were they successful? They tried linking the Democrats to the failures in Iraq, whenever they spoke out about the war. If America failed in Iraq, constructed the Republicans and their political operatives in the corporate media posing as anchors, it would be the fault of the Democrats who were unsupportive, therefore un-American, as seen in this clip from “The Most Trusted Name in News” CNN, even with the loss of Republican Congressional power, the media continued to treat the Democratic Party as a nuisance for challenging Bush's destructive foreign policy.



THE DYSFUNCTIONAL MEDIA

In the world of politics, perception is everything and the corporate media is in the business of perception, to move products, and minds. It is why they poll-test everything, all the time—everyday, President Obama’s and his counterparts’ sliding approval ratings are paraded about like fresh kill—not to provide insight mind you, but to build the perception of incompetence.

The Republicans have spent 19 months with their arms crossed, and refusing to participate in the two-party governance. Complete obstruction by the Republican Party has ensured that the stimulus bill, healthcare bill, Wall Street regulation reform wouldn’t be as effective, then during campaigning they point back to say how broken the government is, and how ineffective the Democratic Party was.

In 2005, when Democrats were in the minority, the corporate media went out of its way to portray Democrats as obstructionists. Here is a partial transcript from a Katie Couric interview with Bill Clinton:

COURIC: Let me ask you one political question, if I could, President Clinton. As you know, Howard Dean is now head of the DNC [Democratic National Committee]. Right now it seems the most effective thing that Democrats are doing on Capitol Hill is blocking various nominations, at least from their perspective. Like, you know, John Bolton, or -- U.S. ambassador to the U.N. -- or head of the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency], or the head of the FDA [Food and Drug Administration]. How can the Democratic Party retool itself so they're not simply seen as obstructionist in terms of the president's agenda?

CLINTON: Well, first of all, I don't think that's fair. I don't think Mr. [John] Negroponte [nominee for national intelligence director] will be blocked. I'm not sure Mr. Bolton will be blocked. There are policy reasons on the environment and food safety for debates on the others. And on judges, that's just a hoax. I mean, the Democrats blocked 10 out of over 200 judges. The Republicans wouldn't even give a vote to 40 of my Court of Appeals judges -- four times as many, just on the Court of Appeals, never mind all the others that they wouldn't have voted. So, this image that, I'm sad to say, you know, you just perpetrated it, it's ridiculous. The Democratic Senate has been nowhere near as obstructionist to President Bush on judges as the Republican Senate was to me. Not even close.

Here is the truth on obstruction:



The Bush Administration had based its whole administration on deceiving the public by pretending to be doing something, like fighting the so-called War on Terror, but in reality the wars were diversions, a Ponzi-scheme to money-launder government funds into private accounts with no-bid contracts with companies the Vice President had stocks in, such as Halliburton and all of its subsidiaries. Even the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina was used as an opportunity to privatize and line the pockets of the administrations’ friends.

Now that Bush has faded into the background, it’s like his presidency never existed. “Death precedes birth, the scar the wound, and the wound the blow,” Borges wrote in his short story. Bush left the country in a financial mess, only 19 months ago, and yet, amazingly, the corporate media has pinned the tail on the wrong donkey. The media talks about the unemployment rates, Iraq, and the economy without mentioning a word about the Bush legacy.

This constructed disconnect from reality is why President Obama and the Democrats can be blamed for an unemployment rate, fiscal disaster, and an oil pipe leak in the Gulf due to unregulated drilling.

Since President Bush’s legacy has been disappeared by the media, the Democratic Party shoulders all the economic fallout, and corporate malfeasance from Bush’s laissez-faire governance. The corporate media provides political cover for the Republican Party as they discuss politics like a sports event. The Republicans will win because they didn’t participate in governance for 19 months, crippling it, and they increased the atmosphere of hate and intolerance, and we’ve been sucker punched by a corporate media who is out to turn this country into an Oligarchy.

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THE MEDIA ISSUE: VOLUME 123, ISSUE 152
WELCOME TO THE TERRORDOME
Stoking White Fear as a Policy Strategy
by Malik Isasis





With the advent of technology such as the internet, Youtube, search engines, social media networking, cell phones, video/audio, etc., facts are handedly available, yet, the Republican Party--and rightwing hitmen like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and organizations such as Fox News are still able to get away with spreading lies and fear. It seems the more accessible information is, the more uninformed the American populace has become.

During the Bush years we saw eight years of mass delusion, an irrational fear of terrorism that lead us into two illegal occupations and the lizard brain hatred we now see toward Islam, Muslims and Arabs. When the rightwing, and the Republican Party stoke fear, especially white fear, they know exactly what they are doing. They prey on economic vulnerable white people whose egos have been broken down by their situation. Rightwing jesters such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck then rebuild white folks' egos and esteem by blaming equally economic vulnerable groups such as African-Americans, Muslims, Arabs, Mexicans, and Mexican-Americans. This is why for the past 18 months Republicans haven't offered any new policies, just fear, because they have only a singular goal in governance, the maintenance of wealth for the investor class. Republicans have nothing new to offer, they've only offered wars and tax cuts for a generation.


Fox News, the Republican Party, rightwing hitmen, and corporate media malfeasance have cultured ignorance even in the Age of Information, but The Age of Information means nothing when opinion has become a religion and the corporate media weighs facts and opinions equally, giving us a cottage industry of rightwing attack media, thriving like algae.

Here is Jon Stewart making sense of an upside down America.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Parent Company Trap
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

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THE MEDIA ISSUE: VOLUME 123, ISSUE 152
MUSLIMS, BLACKS AND MEXICANS, OH MY
by Malik Isasis




Muslim, blacks, and Mexicans, oh my--Muslim, Blacks and Mexicans, oh my. The corporate media are following the right wing, white supremacists down the yellow brick road, Fox News, especially are counting down to the midterm elections like a child waiting on Christmas, for the expected Republicans gains.

Republicans can never win on merit or ideas, they have to start wars, lie and raise the xenophobia level to get any kind of political attention. Groups like Blacks, Muslims and Mexicans have been the go to political strategy over the last 18 months-- not policy that addresses the shit they've left on the front lawn, but pure unadulterated hate. A post on one of my favorite blogs Altnet got it right about the Republican Party, referring to them as a sociopathic ex-boyfriend. Everytime the Republican Party has lost in the modern era, they have had If we can't have the country, no one can attitude.

18 months ago when Obama was elected his approval ratings where in the 60s, and the Republicans' ratings where in the low-to-mid 20s. Today, Obama's approval ratings are in the low-to mid 40s, while the Republicans' approval ratings are still in the low-to mid 20s. For Republicans to have any chance of gaining seats in the Congress they had to do something to bring down the president's ratings. How does a party with no ideas, awareness, or political interests in the working class, get itself back into power?

With two steps: bring down the confidence in government by complete obstruction, and leaving one party, the Democratic Party to governed the country on its own, and when Democrats attempted to address the economy, jobs, and health care, the Republicans were able to water down the most effective parts of Democratic Party's proposals and blame them for its lack of effectiveness e.g. the stimulus bill, which in the end was too small, and at the time of passage Republican opposed it for being too large. The Republicans understanding the psychology of the Democrats, knew that if they'd obstructed enough, the Democrats would absorb the Republicans framing of every issue and began obstructing themselves. It worked. Obama and the Democrats (especially in the Senate, gave away the store on every big political policy debate).

While paralyzing and bogging down the government in political minutia, the second step back into power was to tear down President Obama and his credibility by tapping into the darkest corners of America's consciousness, its xenophobia--using people of color to frighten poor and working class white people.

The Republicans have said as much about their strategy and the corporate media has allowed the Republicans to get away with both strategies, this is why in the upside down world known as American politics, a large portion of Americans surveyed still believe that Obama is a Muslim, as if being a Muslim is a bad thing. The level of obtuseness in the American populace is astounding, and nothing short of remarkable. It is remarkable that white supremacists, and corporatists have been thoroughly effective at turning every political thought into almost a religious belief, so that when confronted with facts, it doesn't matter e.g. Obama's citizenship. The corporate media's talking heads treat such uninformed people like they would when discussing religious beliefs--making facts and belief weigh the same. There are truths, and then there are beliefs, they are no equivalent.

Corporate media knowing we have a significant uninformed, or what pundits called low-information citizenry, use the skewed information in daily/weekly polls to drive opinion--or rather, reinforce opinions of Muslims, Blacks, Mexicans, taxes, women, gays, the poor, the rich, and on and on. Corporate media gets the results it wants because they are the ones feeding the misinformation. To complete its campaign, the media polls the same misinformed people for their opinion.

MASS DELUSION

The corporate media is tracking the upcoming midterm elections like sports, and it's useful for the media to tap into sport-like commentary of our political infrastructure, it turns politics into over simplification of complex issues, rather than a thoughtful and articulate discussion, issues of the day become about political seats won or lost. Americans can relate to watching sports, so the simple sports-like way the corporate media frames politics plays to the narrative of emotions, pure emotions, so the American people aren't asking Republicans about their solutions, they are exercised by manufactured outrage around the building of an Islamic Community Center two blocks from Ground Zero, pushed into the public square by corporate media.

You keep us distracted, you keep us asleep. The Republicans and their corporate handlers are very effective anesthesiologists.

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THE REAL POLITIK ISSUE: VOLUME 122, ISSUE 151
America's Propensity for Paranoia

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THE RACE ISSUE: VOLUME 121, ISSUE 150
NIGGER, WHY SO SERIOUS?
by Malik Isasis




Yet another rightwinger stoked the hate, vomiting racial bile into the toxic political discourse over public airwaves. Dr. Laura Schlessinger, a homophobic, self-righteous pop-radio-psychologist, who has no mental health background (she got her PH.D in physiology), began berating a caller after the caller stated she believed she was a victim of racism by her husband's family and friends. The caller is a black female, her husband is white.



Dr. Laura, knowing that she exercised poor judgment, later editing out the segment you just heard.



There you have it...a white supremacist blaming a black woman for being hypersensitive about being called a nigger--oh, and it's fine because rappers do it---oh, and black comedians on HBO do it, too. Rightwingers shit and throw bombs and blame others for the damage, and have absolutely no shame in promoting themselves as the antidote to the petulance they leave behind.

One last thing: using the word Nigger outside of educational purposes is never okay, even for the colonized mind of the African American rapper or comedian.

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THE RACE ISSUE: VOLUME 121, ISSUE 150
COLOR CORRECTION
by Malik Isasis




To go along with its theme of colored people ruining the lives of white people, the corporate media has targeted black Democratic Congressman Charlie Rangel, representing Harlem, and Congresswoman Maxine Waters, representing Watts. With power comes corruption, and no ethnic group is beyond corruption, but what makes this a targeting is the veracity, and certainty of guilt in the media's conjecture. Writer Earl Ofrai Hutchinson explains it this way:

The names of Harlem Congressman Charles Rangel and California Congresswoman Maxine Waters are now firmly imprinted in the media and public mind as the poster duo for congressional corruption. They're black, high profile, are ranking Democrats, and they're outspoken. That instantly made them inviting and even dispensable targets. The media crucifixion of Waters and Rangel absolves Congress of taking any real action against its worst offenders. Since the Rangel and Waters imbroglio broke, there's been much wild and loose talk, speculation, rumor and innuendo that Waters and Rangel will take your pick: resign, cut a deal, receive a reprimand, or a censure, or the most absurd of all, be expelled.


A media which has disappeared the failings of George Bush and the Republicans' torture policy, illegal wiretap, embezzlement of federal funds, Hurricane Katrina, Iraq, and many other inhumane offenses, have chosen to make Maxine Waters, and Charles Rangle the face of corruption of 2010, inspite of there being several Republicans like David Vitter who sought out prostitutions, and is still in the senate, advocating rightwing policies. How about Republican Senator John Ensign, who had an affair with his staffer's wife, and then bribed the staffer with his parents' money; of course he is still in the seante carrying on with rightwing advocacy.

MAN BITES DOG

Waters and Rangel fit into the narrative the media creates to deflect, more accurately to sustain the political amnesia, which is apt to put Republicans back in power. Misinformation plays to the ongoing white paranoia brought on by economic distress, where white folks are having to reconstruct their egos, and what better way of reconstructing your ego than to blame others for the lack of employment and opportunities? Last I checked, corporations aren't owned by Black folks. Hitler proved to be a genius in this regard, blaming German's loss of World War I and its economic depression on German and Austria's Jewry. Blaming so that he can consolidate power.

White supremacists in America are doing this tried and true formula, using the economic downturn to racialize every aspect of American life, pitting poor whites against poor blacks, immigrants, and other people of color. It's what white supremacists do, they need the constant distraction of race wars to steal, and consolidate power and influence.

TOO BIG TO FAIL, TOO BLACK TO PROGRESS

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THE MEDIA ISSUE: VOLUME 120, ISSUE 149
KEEPING IT REAL WITH RACHEL MADDOW
How FOX NEWS SCARES WHITE PEOPLE

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THE MEDIA ISSUE: VOLUME 120, ISSUE 149
UNDER SIEGE
FOX NEWS RACE BAITS, CORPORATE MEDIA SPECTATES
by Malik Isasis



Like a bored monkey in a zoo, the Republicans and their right wing cabal Fox News can’t help flinging their poo at people of color through the bars of their paranoid white supremacist ideological cage. As the mid term-elections near, Fox News has ramped up its race baiting on all fronts: African-Americans, Mexicans, and Mexican Americans, Arabs and Muslim Americans in its mission to create a race war, scaring uninformed white voters who are susceptible to such lizard-brain emotions. Meanwhile, mainstream media stands by and reports on the fallout as if Fox News racial carpet-bombing is legitimate, holding the victims more accountable than the miscreants at Fox who plant and hype stories of killing white babies.

For its malfeasants in journalism and basic indecency, Fox News was gifted a front row seat in the White House Briefing Room by The White House Correspondents Association, further legitimizing Fox’s style of propaganda and infotainment. On its choice, The White House Briefing Room, stated, "It was a very difficult decision" In the contention for the seat was NPR and Bloomberg News. This is nothing new, earlier this year, ABC News’ meat puppet, er, reporter, Jack Tapper, defended Fox News’ when the Obama Administration declared Fox News a non-journalist organization. Here is a transcript of that exchange between White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, and meat puppet, er, reporter, Jack Tapper:


Tapper: It's escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations "not a news organization" and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it's appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one –
Crosstalk)

Gibbs: Jake, we render, we render an opinion based on some of their coverage and the fairness that, the fairness of that coverage.

Tapper: But that's a pretty sweeping declaration that they are "not a news organization." How are they any different from, say -

Gibbs: ABC -

Tapper: ABC. MSNBC. Univision. I mean how are they any different?

Gibbs: You and I should watch sometime around 9 o'clock tonight. Or 5 o'clock this afternoon.

Tapper: I'm not talking about their opinion programming or issues you have with certain reports. I'm talking about saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a "news organization" -- why is that appropriate for the White House to say?

Gibbs: That's our opinion.

"Hundreds of journalists come to work each day at FOX News all deeply committed to their craft," Fox News' Senior Vice President of News, Michael Clemente, said in response to Gibbs' comments. "It's disappointing that the White House would be so dismissive of their fine work and continue their vengeful war against a news organization."

In the small world of Washington, D.C. reporting, journalists, and political hitmen and women fraternize and become enmeshed in the small, but powerful sphere of influence and what becomes clear is that they prefer to defend political connects above anything, including real advocacy for a functioning government. Jack Tapper is a perfect example of the corruption of American journalism.

THE NARRATIVE

Colored folks are on the attack, according to Fox News. Here is a sample of the right wing paranoia to scare white people:

AFRICAN AMERICANS:



MEXICANS AND MEXICAN AMERICANS:



ARAB AND MUSLIM AMERICANS



Fox News is contemptuous toward Arabs, and Muslims, Mexican, and African American people and propagates it hate for these groups daily. In addition, when they throw shit against the wall to see what sticks, mainstream media covers it with a sense of disconnectedness, an intellectual dissonance, which undermines our democracy. I don’t know, maybe it’s part of the plan, to incite such cynicism, and hate that nobody votes, and when nobody votes we get the democracy we deserve.

Eight years of Republican governance has caused the economic meltdown under George W. Bush, but the Republicans have blamed their malfeasance on Obama, and the Democratic Party, and the corporate media has colluded in scripting a Lazarus rise of the Republicans to save the country from their 12 years of governance that collapsed the economy in the first place.

Republicans really don’t have to do much governing. In fact, corporate media rarely engages them on substance--like, what will they do differntly than Bush? No, Republicans have to do is to keep throwing shit at passerbyers, and the corporate media will put them back in power, and presto, the wealthy will get more tax cuts, more policies that maintain their wealth, power and privilege.

The rest of us will get an Oligarchy.

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