Law, Power, and Justice

Saturday 25 November 2023

MSNBC 9 PM

• Reporting that Biden was crucial in pressuring Netanyahu for a cease fire and to agree to the hostage deal.
• The longer they hold the American hostages, he more control Hamas has.
• The Americans were not happy about Israel conducting a siege on Gaza.  Netanyahu is a political actor.
• There have been disputes behind the scenes between Israel and the US.
•  
• Chauvin has been stabbed in prison.
• Russia launched a major drone attack of Kyiv. 

Sunday 26 November 2023

News Notes

Israel: Biden’s Relationship with Netanyahu

Donna Edwards is on MSNBC arguing that Biden needs to “put distance” between himself and Netanyahu.  The loss of civilian life is causing division not only in this country but internationally.  Edwards is a former House member from Maryland.

Israel: Settlers

Northern Israeli kibbutz residents prevent Palestinians from harvesting olives.

For years, Palestinians have been allowed to cross the border to harvest their olives.  This year, however, residents of a nearby kibbutz staged a protest to prevent this harvesting.  The Israeli army granted the Palestinians’ right to harvest but refused to remove the protesters.

Not all residents of Meirav (north of the West Bank) agreed with the protest.  “This is privately owned Palestinian land, one said to Haaretz (an Israeli newspaper), “and they only enter it twice a year…It’s their livelihood.”

The Christian Nationalist Right: AMVO and the Military

Over on AMVO (Steve Bannon’s channel) a young women is arguing that the military is having trouble recruiting new members because Milley (former head of the Joint Chiefs) is such a “woke” person.  The only definition of “woke” that was given was that Milley testified he wanted to understand “white rage.”  So, I guess the right wants a military that doesn’t understand “white rage” or anything else for that matter.

The military has worked for decades to produce a sane, reasonably literate, reasonably educated, well-behaved force.  The right wants to destroy that and go back to the era when we had military members mutilating the bodies of captives and posing for photographs with the parts.  Trump pardoned just such a military member when he left office.

If you want to understand just how crazy these people are, watch AMVO for a few minutes a day.  Bannon usually is filmed in front of paintings of Jesus.

From what I have read, the military has trouble recruiting because most of the young people who come to them are drug addicts, obese, stupid or have Nazi tattoos.

Life

What I do to maintain my sanity.

I do a Novel to Classic Movie series for the Public Library every few months.  In this series we look at classic movies on a particular theme chosen by the participants, read the novel on which the movie was based and then talk about the two.  It must be the nicest collection of people I have ever dealt with.  We live in an island community where the average age is about 70. 

The residents are largely retired, smart, and curious about everything.  We have even had participants who were experts in classic films.  They all have so much to offer in the discussions and I enjoy it immensely.

The research on the novels and the movies is fascinating.  We talk about the actors (and all the gossip associated with them), the technical aspects of the film, the differences and similarities between the novel and the movie, the social issues raised by the story, casting choices, other versions of the novel adapted. 

The Fall series was “Crime and the Movies of Gene Tierney.”  We watched “Laura,” “Leave Her to Heaven,” “The Razor’s Edge,” and “Dragonwyck.”  As it turned out one of our participants grew up in the upstate New York area where Dragonwyck was set.  She had even visited an inn that is mentioned in the 1940s novel.  The inn is still operating. 

In the film, Vincent Price plays the main male character, Nicholas.  A large part of the plot involves a class dispute between the feudal owner of the land, the Patroon, and the people with no right to the land who work for the Patroon and give him tribute.  There is even a celebration, or ritual every year where the Patroon sits in a chair imported from the Netherlands generations before and receives the tribute of the landless workers. 

Our participant’s high school yearbook was called “The Patroon,” but she never knew what a Patroon was. 

The Dutch West India Company granted the lands in the New Netherlands to wealthy men who would in return for the land agree to settle 40 men or families on the land.  This feudal system was right in the middle of a country that had fought for and won independence for itself.  The  political battles described in the book were actual events, conflicts between this feudal system and the capitalism that characterized the rest of the country.

There are several free books on Kindle Unlimited about the Dutch West India Company, the first multi-national corporation.

Finally, the Patroon system was not generally successful.  Resistance of the settlers, opposition of the Native American population, and problems within the Dutch West India Company contributed to this failure.

We are not sure about the subject of the next series.  My partner has recommended “Revolutionary Ireland” with movies like “Parnell” with Clark Gable, and a movie about the IRA starring James Mason. 

One of the stories I love about James Mason is about his ex-wife, Pamela.  When I was growing up there was a popular talk show “The Merv Griffin Show.”  When Pamela Mason divorced James, she did the rounds of this and similar talk shows talking freely, and expansively about what a SOB James Mason was.  At the time, it was not the thing that people did.  It was hilarious and I suspect most of what she said was true.

Another of the participants has suggested “Bogart and Bacall.”  Bogart was married several times before Bacall.  In one of these marriages, he fought loudly and publicly with his wife for years.  They fought so much he was able to just walk across the street and sleep on the couch any time he wanted to.

OK.  If you would like to talk old movies or be on the mailing list for the Novel to Classic Movie series, email me at christinajjohns@icloud.com