Imperial Propaganda: Our Highest Achievement
Joe Giambrone
Jessica Chastain: The all-American babe who gets the bad guy. Hooray! As simple as that.
Hollywood likes to pretend that things aren’t political when they are. It’s that bi-partisan nationalist myth that if both corporate parties agree to cheer for the empire, then everyone cheers for the empire. It’s gotten so bad now that races like the Oscars and the Writer’s Guild screenwriting award are tight contests between one CIA propaganda film and another CIA propaganda film. The first one helps to demonize Iranians and set up the next World War scenario, while the second film fraudulently promotes the effectiveness of state-sanctioned torture crimes.
If there ever was a time for loud disgust and rejection of the Hollywood / Military-Industrial-Complex, this would seem to be it (contact@oscars.org). Naomi Wolf made a comparison of Zero Dark Thirty’s creators Bigelow and Boal to Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl (Triumph of the Will). That, to me, seems inappropriately offensive to Leni Riefenstahl. The good German filmmaker never promoted torture through deception. Nor was Triumph a call to war. The film was simply an expression of German patriotism and strength, rebirth from the ashes of World War I. The current insidious crop of propaganda, as in the CIA’s leaking of fictional scenes about locating Osama Bin Laden through torture extraction, are arguably more damaging and less defensible than Riefenstahl’s upfront and blatant homage to Hitler’s leadership.
The Zero Dark Thirty scandal should be common knowledge by now, but here is what the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence wrote to Sony Pictures about it:
“We believe the film is grossly inaccurate and misleading in its suggestion that torture resulted in information that led to the location of Usama bin Laden… Instead, the CIA learned of the existence of the courier, his true name and location through means unrelated to the CIA detention and interrogation program.”
The filmmakers had every opportunity to explore the issue more fully, instead of relying on the “firsthand accounts” of the torturers themselves, and/or their allies within the Central Intelligence Agency. Notably, torturers are felons and war criminals. Those who know about their crimes and help cover them up are guilty of conspiracy to torture. Thus, these self-serving fairy tales that illegal torture led to the desired results (bin Laden) are tangled up with the motivation to protect war criminals from prosecution. Not only does this claim of successful torture help insulate the guilty from legal prosecution, it also helps to promote further criminal acts of torture in the future.
Once this red flag issue was raised by the Senate, the filmmakers could have taken a second look at what they had put up on screens and reassessed the veracity of their material and the way it was being sold to the world. Instead they doubled down. Bigelow and Boal want it both ways, extraordinary access to CIA storytellers for a documentary-like “factual” telling of the bin Laden execution, but they also want license to claim that it’s just a movie and can therefore take all the liberties they please.
Jessica Chastain, who plays a state-employed torturer/murderer, who also allegedly located Osama bin Laden, said:
In a nutshell, that’s the Zero Dark Thirty defense. It’s a highly sourced “very accurate film,” but we can take all the liberties we like because it’s not a documentary, and so if we made up a case for torture based on the lies of professional liars in the CIA, then oops.
Mark Boal went so far as to mock the Senate Intelligence Committee, at the NY Film Critic’s Circle:
Any controversy over the picture seems to help its box office, as more uninformed people hear about it. The filmmakers themselves suffer no penalty as a result of misleading a large number of people on torture, to accept torture, to accept a secretive criminal state that tortures with impunity.
Kathryn Bigelow’s wrapped-in-the-flag defense of the film:
“Bin Laden… was defeated by ordinary Americans who fought bravely even as they sometimes crossed moral lines, who labored greatly and intently, who gave all of themselves in both victory and defeat, in life and in death, for the defense of this nation.” (emphasis in original)
Nice propaganda trick at the end equating those who “gave all of themselves” and “death” with the individuals who “sometimes crossed moral lines.” Everyone’s dirty; you see. All heroes are torturers; so it’s okay.
Bigelow’s half-assed response to getting called out by the Senate for putting false torture results into her film, is to say:
“Torture was, however, as we all know, employed in the early years of the hunt. That doesn’t mean it was the key to finding Bin Laden. It means it is a part of the story we couldn’t ignore. War, obviously, isn’t pretty, and we were not interested in portraying this military action as free of moral consequences.” (emphasis added)
Ignore? By her reasoning, because the Central Intelligence Agency tortured people, she was required to fit it into the plot somehow, whether it was relevant to the investigation or not. That’s her excuse. No matter that the scenes are fabrications, and the actual clues about bin Laden’s courier came from elsewhere (electronic surveillance, human intelligence, foreign services).
Bigelow told Charlie Rose, when asked the same question about the torture: “Well I think it’s important to tell a true story.” Unfortunately, when confronted with the Senate investigation, truth quickly takes a back seat.
The truth Bigelow now clings to is that, “Experts disagree sharply on the facts and particulars of the intelligence hunt, and doubtlessly that debate will continue.” To Kathryn Bigelow, the fact that the so-called “experts” she has sided with are torturer criminals with a vested interest in her portrayal of their crimes never occurs to her. She can dismiss the entire matter as a “debate.” Perhaps she no longer finds it “important to tell a true story?”
Kathryn Bigelow, America’s Leni Riefenstahl, claims that Zero Dark Thirty tells “a true story,” even when confronted by evidence that it is a lie. She is unapologetic and completely divorced from the real world damage her propaganda encourages. If this film takes home the Best Picture Oscar, it should serve as the cherry on top of a brutal, deceptive, decrepit and immoral empire, and signal this reality to the rest of the world. If this is allegedly the “best” of America, then we are truly finished.
As for Ben Affleck’s Argo, its sins aren’t so readily apparent. Both films show wonderful Central Intelligence “heroes” acting to further US interests and take care of imperial problems. The Argo scenario is a rescue, however, instead of a hit. The problem is that Iran, a country thrown into a bloodthirsty dictatorship after its nascent democracy was murdered by the very same CIA in 1953, is now the bad guy. There are clearly two sides, and the film takes sides with the people who destroyed democracy in Iran and propped up an illegitimate monarch in order to control its oil and its refineries. When this despotic monarch whose secret police disappeared, tortured and murdered the political opposition – with the help and training of the CIA – is overthrown, we are supposed to overlook all that, because America is always good. We rescue our people. We risk our lives, and we come up with elaborate creative plans to help our people. We are heroic and triumphant vs. the inferior wild-eyed Persians and Arabs of the world.
Now I do believe there’s a real story there, and the situation is ripe for telling, but an extreme sensitivity to the political context would be required.
“…[T]he Iran we see in the [Argo] news clips and the Iran we see dramatized are all on the same superficial level: incomprehensible, out-of-control hordes with nary an individual or rational thought expressed.
… But we never go behind-the-scenes at this revolution. (Instead, Affleck and screenwriter Chris Terrio’s tempering historical introduction is soon outweighed by the visceral power of mobs storming walls, chador-clad women toting rifles, and banshees screaming into news cameras.)
…The problem is that viewers who don’t already know their Chomsky or William Blum aren’t going to walk out of [Argo] muttering “gee, it’s more complicated than I thought.” Instead, they’ll leave with their fears and prejudices reaffirmed: that Middle Easterners create terror, that Americans must be the world’s policemen, and that Iranians cannot be trusted because they hate America.
Enough said?
So why are Argo and Zero Dark Thirty receiving all these awards? Are the awarding bodies so full of hyper-patriots who believe pro-American films can deceive and demonize with impunity, that they want to send an unequivocal message of support for these practices?
Is hyper-nationalist propaganda in vogue now?
With the ascendancy of Barack Obama, there is no longer a moral anti-war voice of any significant size in America. Obama, the smooth talker, has soothed away morality, ethics, law and rights. The empire is beyond reproach because Obama runs it. So the liberal center/left says nothing. Nothing but empty blather and ignorant praise of the Democrats. Murder is being codified in secret as we speak. Bush’s wars are being publicly scaled down, only to ramp up new covert wars of conquest across Africa. Nothing substantial has changed since George W., only the style.
There was a time when no one trusted the CIA. Far from heroes, they were the prime suspects in the assassination of president John F. Kennedy, and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy. CIA support of terrorists was well known, if not loudly opposed. This agency has sponsored Cuban exiles to commit acts of terrorism inside Cuba. Its Phoenix Program kidnapped and murdered Vietnamese villagers by the thousands, torturing and killing them for alleged communist sympathies. The CIA overthrew democracies from Iran to Gutemala to Chile, and was instrumental in waging a terror war against Nicaragua by employing drug-running mercenary terrorists called “Contras.” When the Church Committee investigated the agency in the mid-70s, lots of dirty laundry was aired. The agency was reined in for a time. Assassination was made technically illegal.
In the 1980s, the CIA fought a proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by funneling money and arms to radical Islamic Jihadists – like Osama bin Laden – and creating an intelligence/military monster in Pakistan, known as the ISI. With untold billions of dollars of US tax money, plus Saudi oil money, the Pakistanis were propped up as a central hub for militant groups to operate throughout the region. Pakistan is where Osama bin Laden allegedly ended up living for the last decade of his life, half a mile from the Pakistani military academy.
The CIA today is instrumental in the blitzkrieg of terror across Syria. It funnels arms and money to radical Islamic Jihadists, exactly as it did in Afghanistan in the 1980s. In 2011 it participated in the Libyan Crime Against the Peace doing much the same type of activity on behalf of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a group that helped take over that nation despite being included on the US State Department’s Terrorist List! The LIFG has sent its fighters over to Syria, after the fall of Qadaffi, to assist in the genocidal guerrilla war against the Syrian state, as well as civilians. The CIA assists in these activities.
But of course those victims aren’t Americans. So none of that counts.
“…Is it healthy for us to hold up images of Cold War CIA agents as selfless do-gooders?” –Jennifer Epps
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joe Giambrone is a filmmaker and author of Hell of a Deal: A Supernatural Satire. He edits The Political Film Blog, which welcomes submissions. polfilmblog at gmail.
Joe Giambrone
The Political Film Blog
http://politicalfilm.wordpress.com/
polfilmblog@gmail.com
Framing History: Zero Dark Thirty, Lincoln and the Myth of Hollywood
by JON BAILES, State of Nature
A lot has been said about Zero Dark Thirty in recent weeks. Three US Senators, including Republican ex-Presidential candidate John McCain, pointed to its apparent factual inaccuracies in suggesting that intelligence gathered from torture helped track down Osama Bin Laden. Academics and journalists have expressed similar reservations, highlighted the film’s ‘amoral’ depiction of CIA torture, and even made comparisons between director Kathryn Bigelow and Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. It performed below expectations in the Oscar nominations, and Academy member David Clennon, backed by Ed Asner and Martin Sheen, even proposed a full snub.
At the root of the controversy are valid criticisms. While I would argue against the notion that a work of fiction (no matter how it presents itself) should document events as they actually happened, narrative choices do make political statements, and in Zero Dark Thirty those choices provide a very one-sided view of the ‘War on Terror’. The film uses the victims of 9/11, Madrid, 7/7 and other Al-Qaeda attacks as a constant reminder of western suffering, but never mentions a single civilian death at US hands. It suggests the infamous CIA ‘Detainee Program’ and its torture only targeted the guilty, and shows its agents struggling to find similarly effective means after its subsequent termination. And, yes, it shows torture to result, indirectly, in a major lead to Bin Laden.
Truth aside, through its inclusions and omissions Zero Dark Thirty constructs a narrow frame of realpolitik propaganda. (Interestingly, the alternative reading is no less reductive and nauseating – the heroic Obama overthrows the evil Bush, ends torture, and uses righteous extra-judicial killing!) The war becomes a necessary heroic endeavour that requires US brutality, even if it sometimes compromises ‘American values’ and psychologically scars its brave volunteers. According to Bigelow the torture scenes are depiction not endorsement, and we should not shoot the messenger, but depiction is representation, and one chooses how something is represented. In this case, it is a very partial and inward-looking view whose only note of discomfort is whether our violence harms us.
Yet the combined magnitude of criticism against Zero Dark Thirty, and especially the idea of an Oscar snub, risk loss of perspective. Critical evaluation is admirable, but when it becomes shock, even a sense of betrayal, expressing amazement that a major film could be so pro-establishment, it is less so. Surely nobody can really believe such affirmative political ideas are new to US cinema, or that Zero Dark Thirty is some
aberration of Hollywood standards. It is as though the industry never used real wars, or history in general, as cover for blinkered ideology, and its usual modus operandi was deep historical understanding and anti-establishment defiance. The isolation of Bigelow’s film begins to resemble scapegoating, especially since her last production, The Hurt Locker, had pretty much the same take on the same war and was almost universally applauded.Indeed, this year’s other Oscar nominees, the ones nobody wants to snub, have similar issues. While Argo, for example, begins with some historical perspective to 1979’s Iranian Revolution, explicitly stating the US role in the Shah’s brutal dictatorship, this only serves as a platform from which to redeem the reputation of the CIA. Again, dramatic licence is to be expected, but the decisions made in bringing Operation Argo to the screen specifically increase the role of the CIA at the expense of other major players, turn its agents into maverick heroes, and artificially ramp up fear of Iran.
Then there is Lincoln – more liberal, but no less an establishment friendly political statement. Of course, Spielberg’s biopic was never likely to invoke the controversy of a modern historical piece, as passions around the account of the passing of the 13th Amendment are hardly fervent nowadays, but its narrow political stance is no less present for that. It perfectly illustrates cultural theorist Fredric Jameson’s idea that today’s commodity culture cannot represent history as anything other than its surface image. So, the inclusion of stovepipe hats and impressive facial hair, along with various other meticulously researched superficial details, disguises that underneath is nothing but modern political doctrine.
Spielberg’s Abraham Lincoln is not an actual character but an iconic image given life, embodying at all times the appearance, speech, and motivations (conviction, wisdom, kindness) that the image is meant to represent. Even in private this Lincoln never breaks the facade, and in fact his family only serves to demonstrate the depth of his principles, as a kind of sacrifice to politics and ‘the people’. Every other character in the film, meanwhile, is simply a foil for Lincoln’s retrospectively applied postmodern identity politics – memorising his speeches, hanging on his words, laughing politely at his proverbial anecdotes, and granting him the final say in disagreements. The political jousting is merely for show, as Lincoln’s towering rationality always wins, and opposing views are presented only to be quickly refuted with ‘self-evident’ certainty. So, a potentially interesting discussion between Lincoln and radical Republican leader Thaddeus Stevens, ends abruptly as Lincoln explains a Utopian ideal is like a compass – it always points you true north but cannot inform you of obstacles along the way, so following it blindly will land you in a swamp. Stevens might have countered, say, that concentrating too much on what’s directly in front of you can take you off course altogether, but ambiguity is not welcome here.
Instead, the film’s aim is to give modern liberal reason a sense of historical permanence, and affirm the US political system. It tells us that, for all its flaws, the system works, given well chosen pragmatism and compromise, and that limited representative democracy (electing a leader who knows best) is the route to progress. Thus, history is made by the great liberal individual and universally loved embodiment of the American dream. It is a familiar treatise about American values, the political game, and the power of rational persuasion. As such, its implications toward the partisan stalemates of current US politics lack depth, ignore systemic deficiencies, and tiresomely parrot the rhetoric of President Obama. Of course it does not go as far as to advocate torture (although its pro-war stance is barely concealed), but still represents the uncritical voice of the US film industry to no smaller degree than Zero Dark Thirty.
In short, Hollywood does not need interfering government agents to ensure uncritical adoption of official ideologies hidden behind slavishly recreated period details. The idea, for example, that Zero Dark Thirty is compromised because of its collaboration with the CIA – granting access to inside information and authentic technology – is only partially relevant. Regardless of who is involved, authenticity often comes at the expense of the truth that historical fiction should reveal – that history is never done justice from a single, dominant perspective. The isolation of Zero Dark Thirty is an attack on the tip of the iceberg refusing to acknowledge what lies beneath. Despite pretensions to the contrary, Hollywood is in many ways part of the establishment.
Jon Bailes is co-author of Weapon of the Strong: Conversations on US State Terrorism (Pluto Press, 2012) and editor of www.stateofnature.org.
In Defense Of Lance Armstrong
By Mark Sashine
No need to be mad at Lance.
In the book Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut (if I am not mistaken) there is a scene when a 65-years’ old man gets a note from the central computer. In that note it tells him that his records indicate that he cheated on his Phys. Ed test when he was 15. Thus from that point he is stripped from all his titles and credentials until he retakes the test which he is welcome to schedule in his old High School.
I remembered this during the interrogative session with Lance Armstrong by Oprah, all those ‘Yes or No’- questions, as if she would come at him as some cop with the lamp shining at his face. Come to think of it – it was rather laughable when a billionaire was grilling a multimillionaire on the matter of honesty. I especially loved the scene where Oprah expressed a contempt regarding Lance previously suing people for them saying he was taking drugs. Boy, she of course never sued people or did anything bad to defend herself. She is as white as a snow, pardon my simile. I am not here to investigate her though. I just feel a little bit uneasy. Don’t we all? Like I would feel much better if she would say something like, ‘You seem to destroy lives on your scale similar to G.W. Bush did on his.’ But no, she did not say that. We here are considered honest until proven otherwise.
Let’s return to sports though. Hemingway in his Movable Feast wrote about cycling competitions with a motorcycle at the start and even he mentioned that those folks sipped spirits from hidden bottles. Hemingway did not write it with contempt or disgust. He knew that world well and he knew such things to be inevitable; even then too much money was involved. But now the amount of money in sports is unbelievable, it is an industry like a financial one;, so if there are firms or banks too big to fail (and corporations are like people, right?) why cannot a person be similar or at least be treated with the same benevolence? If Alan Greenspan could say those words about ‘his model of world to come out wrong’ and get away with it, why a person who actually earned his millions in the grueling world of sports is to be dragged through all that mud? Yes, he sinned but his sin was at least as big as his goal. I would advise some people who lament now to try to relieve at least a part of his life.
Folks, you know one of the Founding Fathers, Ben Franklin was not a saint at all. He not only had a child out of wedlock but also took advantage of that poor woman. He was a promoter of slave trade once, he cheated on his duties repeatedly and some people said he also stole his lightning rod idea from someone else. He got a letter once from one good American who compared him and his (that man’s) father stating that although Ben Franklin was a great man for many, his father was a great man for his family. Franklin politely replied that everyone chooses his destiny.
I am far from professional cycling but I was a professional chess player. Chess only looks like some kind of a relaxing game; it is one of the most exhausting both physically and mentally. We were teenagers and many of us had nervous breakdowns and physical problems. Doping was not an option; we had no drugs available and also due to simple fact of one- to-one interaction doping would not save us. But we had all kinds of psychological tricks at our disposal and many of use used those, some with more and some with less success. I am not ashamed to mention that- we never got any money for this and none of us ever harmed anyone else.
It had become obvious to us though through that experience that unnatural was very rare and if it happens too openly it means there’s something fishy. Those unbelievable speeds, those super-maraphons, those bulging muscles and huge limbs- they are all not real, they all should be looked at with a grain of salt. But we also know that nobody wants to look at it that way ( like rather recently there was a series of revelations about fixed Sumo wrestling matches and no one gave a damn); we EQUALLY love the victory and defeat; we love to feel GOOD ABOUT OURSELVES. So if the poor bastard wins- we tell our kids that they could be like him and if he falls from the pedestal- we tell them that they better be like their fathers and mothers. It is a win- win situation for us because kids have a very short memory and do not challenge us.
Now we lament that Lance deceived us all. We of course don’t mind being deceived by the govt and corporate shills, by the media and our bosses, by our own family members, by our children and even our dogs. We don’t mind being deceived by our pastors, our financial gurus, by all those who deceive us every day, every minute, every second and laugh hysterically at our idiocy and our complacency. No, we don’t mind them although they are much smaller personalities. We are mad at Lance, a man who beat cancer and happened to stay alive, who immersed himself into the brutal world of his occupation and fell. Really, like Kennedy said, victory has many fathers and defeat is an orphan. But defeat also is a prey. We are preying on it.
I would advise to say to your kids the following:
It is not up to us, those who consumed the image of Lance to pass a judgment. Now you know how complex and cruel his world is; let him be because your world is much more easy and protected. If you go into that world be prepared to equally approach the success and failure and ‘ risk everything on pitch and toss’. Look at this man as a real man on the peak of success and in the depth of failure and learn how to be a man in this world.
Ben Franklin was a man. Ecce vir, that ‘s how he was called. His victories were as big as his failures. We better understand that if we want to live a meaningful life. Turn off that Oprah stuff and get back to work, folks. We have no stake in this.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A writer is a rogue goose. All other geese fly in a flock formation; every goose knows his place and time for honking. The rogue goose is undisciplined. He leaves the formation indiscriminately to have a look at it from aside. He roams back and forth, takes a peep at the leader, honks a little bit from behind, distracts everyone and writes on what he sees. Time passes and as he wants to return back to his place he discovers someone else there. Thus he either has to wait until they land for rest or join another flock in emigration. Those other birds could be cranes, storks or even crows. If he makes it he will become a rogue again. Whenever he goes and whatever he writes he never reaches a destination or enjoys a landing. There’s only Kipling’s God of Fair Beginnings and skies above and beyond. And the only way for a writer to make peace with the Deity is through the language of Poetry. http://www.imeem.com/maikamaika/music/B3VUKhD4/1912/
OpEds: Shame on Lea Black of RHOM (Miami “housewives”) / {Annotated by P. Greanville]
Editor’s Note:
Inadvertently perhaps, as illustrated by the “Real Housewives” franchise pioneered by Bravo (NBC), the ultra decadent and narcissitic world of what passes for America’s pathetic (bottom-tier) aristocracy is now being revealed for all to see, emulate, criticize, mock, puke, and reflect. The Bravo reality series documenting the lives of well-off matrons and bombshell-looking younger women in various cities across the US (some of whom are not married in the first place), has quickly become an entertainment drug for millions, and the tv suits area clearly taking note.
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by Ilana Angel, JewishJournal.com
First posted on September 30, 2012
Lea and Roy Black—one of Miami’s power couples.
On a recent episode of the Real Housewives of Miami, Lea Black was watching her ancient lawyer husband on television as he was doing closing arguments for a case he was working on. She says her husband is on a case that involves a terrible accident where someone was killed.
Lea explains to her young son, who is watching with her, that the man accused of drinking and driving was in fact not drunk, he simply had a head injury and was in a lot of pain. She refers to the man being charged as “a wonderful and well known guy who is being hanged by the media.”
She tells her son he is presumed innocent and seems truly upset the man is being dragged through the mud by the media. I am one of the media that hung him out to dry. John Goodman is a cold hearted and reckless killer and Roy Black should be ashamed of himself, as should his wife.
I understand that everyone needs to make a living and that Mr. Black is paid to represent someone and may accept a case event if he thinks the person is not innocent, but Lea speaking about such a public case, in such a hurtful way [for] the victim’s family is crazy to me. How do these people sleep?
Lea met her husband when she acquitted a Kennedy on charges of rape. He is, in my opinion, a rapist, and that she found him not guilty tells me she had her eyes set on the old man, not justice. She is cut of the same cloth as her husband. [Below] the the true story of John Goodman.
Originally Posted February 10, 2012
John Goodman is very wealthy. He was a child of privilege, but as wealthy as he was growing up, he’s richer now. He founded the International Polo Club and is a billionaire. That’s with a B. He is not only a billionaire, but also a pig, cowardly, and disgusting.
Two years ago, while drunk, Goodman ran a stop sign and killed 23 year old Scott Wilson. While the Wilson family mourned the loss of their beloved son, Goodman posted a $100K bond and checked into the Miami Four Seasons, while he waited to be arrested.
The Wilson family is suing Goodman for the wrongful death of their son. Goodman is a billionaire on paper, but one can assume when you have that much money, there is even more hidden offshore, in protected trusts, and in other people’s names. Punitive damages are involved so this matters.
In order to protect his money, Goodman did something so unbelievable I can’t wrap my head around it. Goodman’s girlfriend, Heather Hutchins, is now his daughter. That is correct folks. 48 year old Goodman adopted his 42 year old girlfriend so he could transfer his wealth to her.
By transferring the money to his “daughter” before the trial, it is safe and cannot be touched. He is allowed to give her 1/3 of his wealth, which when you are talking about billions of dollars, is not a small amount of money. That money cannot be touched by any judgment against him.
The legal papers read: “The adoption declares Ms. Hutchins to be Mr. Goodman’s child and legal heir, entitled to all of the rights and privileges of Mr. Goodman’s natural born children. While there is nothing unusual about an adult adoption, the critical fact here is that Ms. Hutchins is Mr. Goodman’s 42-year-old girlfriend.”
Goodman’s criminal trial starts March 6 when he will be charged with DUI, vehicular manslaughter and leaving the scene of a crash. He could face up to 30 years in prison. He was drunk, ran a red light, killed a boy, and then he left. 30 years doesn’t seem like enough time to me.
Goodman claims the adoption was a way to protect his children, but what about the Wilson’s child? Was he concerned with his well being when he killed him and left him alone to die? While I appreciate that what Goodman is doing is legal, it is not decent. Shame on him.
Goodman hit Wilson so hard that his crumpled car went airborne and landed in a canal, on its roof, and immediately began sinking. Scott Wilson was a recent graduate of the University of Central Florida with a degree in mechanical engineering. Let’s not forget about this boy.
As a mother, I cannot imagine ever losing a child, and for this boy to have his life taken, after he was just starting to live it, is unforgivable to me. I hope Mr. Goodman remembers that his killed someone’s child each time he has sex with his daughter. I also hope he rots in hell.
Too harsh? Maybe. By maybe of course I mean no. Goodman left a young man to die because he was selfish and stupid. He then scrambled to hide money so he does not have to give it to that child’s family. They don’t care about the money you douchebag. They want their son back.
I find this story upsetting for a lot of reasons. There is clearly a creepy factor, but it’s more than that. He killed a man and then showed no decency by leaving him alone to die. He is now disrespecting his memory because of money. It’s all rather horrific and heartbreaking.
I am sending my condolences to the Wilson family. I am sorry for your loss and I hope Scott gets peace at trial with a conviction of the man who killed him. As for Mr. Goodman, he is a despicable human being and when it comes to his getting the maximum sentence, I am keeping the faith
******* UPDATE *******
The biological children of Goodman went to court asking the judge to throw out the adoption of Hutchins, saying it was all part of an elaborate scheme of their father to protect his money from the pending $100 million dollar law suit he is facing.
With the adoption is place, Hutchins is set to get $250K a year for the rest of her life, plus millions more from Goodman’s trust. It breaks down to her getting about $200 million dollars over the next forty years, and his biological kids are pissed off.
There is a lot of money involved her and I get that money makes people crazy, but what about Scott Wilson, the boy who was killed? All this talk of money and nobody in the Goodman family is talking about the fact that someone died at the hand of Goodman.
This Sunday will mark the 2 year anniversary of Scott Wilson being killed. Scott was only 23 years old and home from college for the weekend to celebrate his sister’s birthday, when Goodman, who was twice the legal limit of blood alcohol level, ran a stop sign.
He plowed in Scott’s car, which landed in canal, and took off by foot. While Scott was drowning in the canal, Goodman called 911 from down the road and said he saw the accident. He was so drunk and/or stupid, he thought they would not know it was his Bentley?
This is a nightmare for the Wilson family and that Goodman keeps disrespecting them over and over again is horrific. He killed a boy and he should be giving money to Scott’s family, not to his whore/daughter/girlfriend, who should be ashamed of herself.
I get that the biological kids are angry they are losing out on all this money, but they should be talking about the death of Scott Wilson and trying to help that family, not scrambling to get the money themselves. Problems of the rich I guess.
In court documents it says Goodman never told his kids about the adoption because they did not like Hutchins, and Hutchins complains that the kids kept erasing her information from their dads phone until he had to memorize her phone number on his own.
Really? Is this chick serious? She is just as disgusting as her drunk boyfriend and I want to know if the state of Florida is going to charge Goodman with incest and sleeping with a prostitute since she is now both his child and a whore.
The civil trial is set for March 27th, with the criminal trial on the docket for March 6th. He faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted and I hope he is. I’m sure there are lots of people in prison who will be interested in getting adopted and calling him Daddy.
The lack of decency in John Goodman is upsetting to me, and this story annoys me to no end. I will be following the trials, sending my prayers to the Wilson family. As for justice being served and the memory Scott respected, I am keeping the faith.
**John Goodman was sentenced to 16 years in prison and is currently out on a 7 million dollar bail and under monitored house arrest while he appeals. I’m sure he is enjoying watching RHOM. Asshole.
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SAMPLER of ORIGINAL COMMENTS
(Some are pretty obtuse, arguing namby-pamby stuff like “everyone is entitled to a defense in this great country of ours, bla bla, but they’re mercifully in the minority)
Awesome post, as always. I don’t think it is rich people’s problems. Money only brings to light the heart of a man or woman. Lea seems to have been more into catching a rich husband than serving on a respectable jury. And now her husband has garnered more money and connections from this case. Every person should have proper representation, etc, even if guilty. But for her to put this on BRAVO is so beyond disgusting, and I bet she and her husband will benefit from this bit of PR hype from this pond scum client. It seems like they both will sell their souls to the devil for money and social status. How pathetic. Thanks for all your wonderful posts and for being a woman of character.
Comment by Ann_R on 9/30/12 at 9:10 pm
I am so sorry for this family and there tragic circumstances but I must admit this is an ongoing problem in our country we see everyday people getting away with more and more too many judges ,lawyers and police who don’t abide by the law we have people commit very evil crimes and not pay ..children and young teens are easy pray and many of the evil doers are never found out ever
Comment by Kathy from N.J. on 9/30/12 at 9:33 pm
Thank you for writing about this legal case and bringing to light the facts about sleazy Goodman, and for keeping our attention on the victim, Scott Wilson.
I watched the William Kennedy Smith trial as it was televised. Roy Black and his client were so smug and arrogant. Justice?
Comment by Marilee on 10/01/12 at 12:31 pm
Let’s just hope any of you ever need Mr. Black as your defense! He is afterall in the top 5 defense attorney’s in the nation! Plus he and his wife are very large fundraisers for the state of Florida! Check your facts before you react! Negativity never wins! Support those who give back! God bless to all!
Comment by Miamian on 10/01/12 at 8:56 pm
As in any case there are pros and cons… however living in Florida over the past 21 years the Black’s have raised so much money for the Miami community and the state of Florida as well. Keep it all positive folks, these people are truly helping out and could be helping out someone you just might know! P.S. my wife love the Real Housewife’s of Miami
Comment by FlNative on 10/01/12 at 9:00 pm
Everyone is entitled to a defense. Roy Black is a very respected attorney. That is Lea’s husband and her son’s father. It is very unfortunate that someone had to die. Still Lea was pointing out to her son that his Dad was in court, and that is what he does. Not sure about the man on trial being guilty or innocent, but our justice system entitles each person to a fair trial and defense, and he was defending according to the law. There are many in prison that are innocent as I write this. I think you were overlooking what was really behind her remarks. I really feel for the family and am sure the nasty remarks only brought up the sadness that they are dealing with.
Comment by Brazos Belle on 10/01/12 at 9:38 pm
Yup. Everyone is entitled to a defense. My thoughts are that any time certain big ass expensive criminal defense lawyers are engaged, the defendants are usually guilty ass rich folks who are used to having their actions disposed of with money. I want this asshole to rot in prison. Lawyers like Black should be pissed on.
Comment by Marilee on 10/03/12 at 9:09 pm
And by the way, Brazos Belle….no one HAD to die. Re-read your post. A rich asshole killed someone with his car and abandoned the scene.
Comment by Marilee on 10/03/12 at 9:12 pm
I live in the uk and so watch RHOM on youtube and have no idea who most of these people are. However I was intrigued by the section of the programme you mention in your blog. I did a little googling and have to entirely agree with you. The man is an absolute disgrace. The women apologists are even worse…but then vapid whores have few career choices so maybe we should cut Lea and her ilk some slack- no?
Ben Affleck’s Argo: An embrace of US foreign policy
Fact is, the more articles on the topic we originate the more search calls may pop up with a negative critique as opposed to the usual mainstream adoring “drool”. Also, a fresh review may help to bring the issue to yet more people in our side who may have missed the earlier articles. As it is, Dan Brennan’s coverage is excellent, and we thank him and wsws.org for providing more ammunition. Incidentally, I (along with Senior Editor Gaither Stewart) published scathing “community reviews” on Rolling Stone’s Movie Reviews page (see it under “Addison dePittt” and Gaither’s name), to offset the superficial article filed by Peter Travers, staff critic. RS is one of the few major publications that allows almost unrestricted commentary on the reviews themselves, and they display the community ratings right next to their resident critic’s rating. Those of you who feel inclined may want to file your own community reviews of ARGO while the opinion window is open. Rolling Stone’s circulation assures a good return for the effort. Don’t let this idiotic, conceited blockbuster being hailed by the usual mavens as good entertainment cloud the situation about Iran or the CIA. As an opinion filed on RS aptly puts it, “Hollywood is to a very high degree the propaganda central for the shadow government.”—PG
SEE ALSO:
http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/q-a-ben-affleck-on-directing-argo-and-surviving-hollywood-20121012
http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/videos/travers-argo-is-terrific-despite-hollywood-exaggerations-20121011#ixzz2AhWZljZ7
_______________________
An embrace of US foreign policy
By Dan Brennan, wsws.org
Directed by Ben Affleck, screenplay by Chris Terrio
Argo, a new political thriller starring and directed by Ben Affleck, has earned critical praise and a number two spot on the box office charts for the second straight week. The film is based on declassified information about a little-known episode during the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-1980.
In the midst of the Iranian Revolution against the Shah, Washington’s brutal puppet, a group of demonstrators stormed the US embassy in November 1979, capturing and holding 52 Americans for 444 days. Six American diplomats present in the embassy that day escaped and secretly found shelter in the home of the Canadian ambassador. The film recounts the story of the CIA’s rescue of these six.
Two months after the chaotic scenes at the embassy in Tehran, the group’s safety is increasingly in doubt. Back in the US, CIA ‘exfiltration’ expert Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) concocts a plan to pose as a member of a Canadian film unit scouting locations for a Planet of the Apes-inspired science fiction movie. The success of the scheme, the best of the bad ideas proposed, requires selecting an actual script (hence “Argo”), assembling a Hollywood production team and promoting the planned film to the press. Mendez enters Iran, posing as the film’s producer, and must lead the group in their exodus.
A couple of contrived close calls aside, the film manages to hold the viewer’s interest not so much through the non-stop action so often resorted to in films of this genre. Instead, Affleck attempts to convey tension through blending archival and newsreel footage from the time. The filmmakers are relatively restrained in their use of suspense sequences, inserted in a storyline with occasionally comic dialogue.
Holding one’s interest, however, is one thing, but to leave an impression, to say something meaningful about the conditions of life—and history—is quite another. The power of the media and information, in contrast to the power of the gun, emerges as a theme: hence, a mock execution staged in front of a camera, musings about whether the revolutionary fervor in Iran is all for media consumption, the fake movie project itself … In the end, there’s not much that’s fresh on offer in Argo. The subplot of the absentee father, struggling to maintain a relationship with his son, comes off as especially trite and predictable.
Far more problematic are the implications of the film’s portrayal of the hostage crisis and the rescue operation. The events of 1979-1980 did not emerge fresh from the ether. The US government and the CIA in particular played a direct role in the 1953 coup that reinstalled the Shah of Iran in power. A quarter century of absolute rule and brutal suppression of all resistance in Iran depended first and foremost on support from Washington. Wide layers of the country’s population were outraged by America’s role by 1979.
While this history of neocolonial intervention is acknowledged in a minute or two of narration at the film’s outset, what dominates throughout the remaining two hours is something quite different. We’re meant to embrace the CIA hero, chuckle at Hollywood’s collaboration with the intelligence apparatus and view the Iranian masses as the enemy.
The brief reference to past (and ongoing) crimes is included to provide a semblance of balance, but then this history is essentially pushed aside and forgotten. It plays no active role in Argo’s events and serves, in the end, to provide a certain veneer of objectivity to a work that promotes the operations of US imperialism. Decades of repression, torture and murder are one thing, but, after all, six American lives are at stake!
For the filmmakers, who included co-producer George Clooney, “It was always important to us that the movie not be politicized,” Affleck told interviewer Romain Raynaldy. “We went to great pains to try to make it very factual and fact-based, knowing that it was going to be coming out before an election in the United States when a lot of things get politicized. We obviously couldn’t forecast how terrible things would become now, but even when we made the movie, we saw some resonance to countries that were in tumult … Just because a part of the world is undergoing strife and tumult, it doesn’t mean you stop examining it, looking at it or talking about it. I think that would be a bad thing.”
One always reads such comments with amazement.
Indeed the present “strife” in the region cries out for more, not less, coverage in film and art more generally. However, genuine art uncovers deeper truths, it doesn’t evade them in a cowardly fashion by contenting oneself with superficial “facts” and trivial episodes.
Affleck’s love affair with the CIA, known around the world (and in Iran in particular) as Murder Inc., is disgusting. Former agent Mendez was heavily involved in the making of Argo, Affleck noted. The actor-director explained to Raynaldy, “It was really inspiring to meet Tony. He was steeped in this movie. It was Tony’s story, Tony’s point of view.”
Hollywood’s empty-headedness makes a host of directors, writers and performers vulnerable to pressures and moods, and social forces, that they may only be partially aware of. Affleck seems oblivious to the fact that his film, whether he likes it or not, has become part of the effort by the American ruling elite to drag the US into a war with Iran.
But does thoughtlessness make his activities any more excusable? Can the filmmakers be entirely blind to the context in which their film was shot and released: a decade of US military occupations on either side of Iran, ongoing covert operations and economic warfare, and relentless and growing threats of military intervention by the US and Israel?
No doubt, shameful as it is to point out, the presence of Democrat Barack Obama in the White House makes the war drive more acceptable to film industry liberals. The film that first brought Affleck fame, Good Will Hunting (1997), which he co-wrote with Matt Damon, referred approvingly to left academics Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, who, whatever else one wants to say about them, were public opponents of the US invasions of the Middle East.
Fifteen years later, Affleck, apparently in quest of renewed box office success and a return to superstardom, finds himself in the middle of the drive to demonize Iran and the Iranians. There’s not much more to be said.
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