The only thing you can’t make a dime off of is the TRUTH

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/49/privilege.htm



After retailing Scotland’s Jacobite rebellion of 1746 to almost universal acclaim in Culloden (1964) and, in less than a year, establishing an undeserved reputation in the press as an irresponsible left-bent crackpot with 47 still-horrifying minutes of The War Game, Peter Watkins could look back in anger at the fastest, sharpest rise and fall the British film industry — or any film industry — had ever witnessed.

For a film director, the fallout was poisonous. The War Game (right) might have received an Academy Award here in the U.S. (a species of institutional insult all its own), but in Great Britain, Watkins’ meticulously detailed, despairing vision of a fictional nuclear war and its hopeless aftermath was officially banned by the BBC (a ban that took a quarter century to be lifted) after the Home Office reportedly advised against its transmission in what must have been a blood-freezing series of veiled threats. Not only did the Board of Governors at the BBC then refuse to permit the film’s broadcast in other countries — restricting it to clandestine, 16mm reduction-print screenings on the Nuclear Disarmament circuit — but Watkins himself was brutishly pilloried by newspapers on both the Left and the Right for his supposed recklessness in making a film that representatives of the BBC kept telling everyone off-the-record would result in headline-grabbing horrors such as chronic depression and even mass-suicide. Watkins resigned in protest from the BBC’s Documentary Programming division, loudly and forcefully accusing those spineless Orangutans at Shepherd’s Bush of caving in to government pressure. But the intensity of his protest did nothing to aid his cause. The way the press covered it it just made him look like a crank.

Worst of all, not a single film director in England rose to speak out publicly in his defense. All the Tony Richardsons and Lindsay Andersons, all those Free Cinema mavericks and Angry Young Men who’d made an aesthetic killing off of Britain’s decline after the War were nowhere to be found, it seemed, when one of their confreres (albeit one who worked in Television) faced an onslaught of public disapprobation and censorship the like of which they only faced in their grimmest nightmares. Some of his fellow filmmakers privately chastised Watkins for laying waste to his early success so soon; others later expressed regret at their own moral cowardice in staying silent. And Peter Watkins? All he could do was bear up under the pressure, tell his side of the story to anyone who would listen, and wait.

Is it any wonder, then, that the thousand turmoils of that awful season permeated his next film? The England of Privilege (1967) is a nation whose institutions are ruthlessly pursuing blanket conformity among its people. The Conservative and Labour parties, no longer having any discernible differences between them, have formed a coalition government: a benign two-party dictatorship that believes it can hold power indefinitely so long as rebellious impulses within the sensate brains of Britain’s youth can be distracted, rechanneled, and tranquilized. Toward that end, the state has taken an all-consuming interest in the career of Steven Shorter (Paul Jones), a Pop singer whose fame appears to know no boundaries. When we first see him riding through the mob-filled streets in his hometown of Birmingham, he waves and nods solemnly to his throng of worshipers in the midst of a ticker-tape outpouring of love sufficient to make Caesar bow with all the appropriate humility of triumph.

For that is who Steven Shorter is, you see: A Pop Prince, a Caesar for the “Tiger Beat” set with stature commensurate to that of presidents, kings, even astronauts. He is, in the words of Watkins’ off-screen narrator/interviewer, “the most desperately loved entertainer in the world,” and both the State, its financial institutions, as well as the Church of England have seen to his emergence as a presence in the national consciousness of Britain almost as great as the Queen herself. His name and face are on everything: discotheques, household appliances, any species of promotional tie-in that can turn a buck and inspire unending consumption on the part of the public. Without the government’s patronage, he’d be just another face on “Top of the Pops,” humping his latest 45 to bored teenagers; with it, he’s practically Jesus.



1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBqgHE1F3Dw

2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkWJDNLqoPc&mode=related&search=

3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iebF7Vk7q00&mode=related&search=

4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAvbFKyYucU&mode=related&search=

5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88_Y9aeDy9E&mode=related&search=

6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6ySTJyNEn4&mode=related&search=

7 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-ds_z9oWzs&mode=related&search=

8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlUKKGMJ214&mode=related&search=

9 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtL4ukCdwS4&mode=related&search=

10 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iF3jdFr9hM&mode=related&search=

11 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sM-dtDmTSA&mode=related&search=

12 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvqntEI03GU&mode=related&search=

13 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOZCALMXabc&mode=related&search=

14 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daG1p2KOw1A&mode=related&search=




http://www.mnsi.net/~pwatkins/



This section contains the text of the critical media analysis which I completed in August 2003. This analysis has suggestions on how to use the site, a newly revised Introduction, seven chapters, and a series of appendices, which give additional information and examples. In addition, there is a 5-page analysis by Canadian filmmaker Geoff Bowie of the newsbroadcasting on CNN


Suggestions for usage
This statement is intended primarily as a resource, being a combination of critical ideas as well as practical concepts for challenging the existing rigid and hierarchical processes of the mass audiovisual media (MAVM).

There are over 100 pages to this statement. As minimum reading, I would recommend the revised Introduction to the media crisis.

The chapter The American MAVM, Hollywood and the Monoform is very important because it contains key descriptions of the Monoform, the Universal Clock, and other standard media practices, which are subsequently referred to throughout the other chapters.

I would also recommend The public - alternative processes and practices, for at that point this statement turns from a critical perspective towards a series of alternative proposals. I hope that the Conclusion is also helpful, in drawing certain threads together.

The other chapters are: The European, Scandinavian, Canadian MAVM; Media education, popular culture, and violence; Filmmakers, festivals, and the repression, and The role of the Global Justice Movement

There are thirteen Appendices, which are also indicated where appropriate throughout the main body of the statement.

You have the option to continue reading through as much of the statement as you wish, or to select chapters or Appendices.

Finally, there is CNN - America's Pravda - an important 5-page analysis by Geoff Bowie of three CNN newsbroadcasts on Monday, October 7th, 2002.

Geoff Bowie is a Canadian filmmaker, and the director of THE UNIVERSAL CLOCK, a documentary film about the making of La Commune .

On several occasions in this statement, I briefly mention an element of the media crisis, saying that I have written about it elsewhere. This refers either to text which appears in PART 2 of this site or to another recent (as yet unpublished) article. If you are interested in any of the topics which are not developed at length here, please let me know.

[seemslikeadream]

1. THE WAR GAME PETER WATKINS

1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxKkLsYICYY&mode=related&search=

2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WyJ6PPeYqU

3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK_dN8__kD8&mode=related&search=

4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoZict8CThg&mode=related&search=

5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Trc1lJAH0lA&mode=related&search=


The War Game is a 1965 television film on nuclear war. Written, directed, and produced by Peter Watkins for the BBC's The Wednesday Play strand, its depiction of the impact of Soviet nuclear attack on Britain caused dismay within the BBC and in government. It was scheduled for transmission on August 6, 1966 (the anniversary of the Hiroshima attack) but was not transmitted until 1985, the corporation publicly stating that "the effect of the film has been judged by the BBC to be too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting". It was widely viewed before its BBC debut on video and in art-house cinemas, often using prints provided by Watkins. The film won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature in 1966.

[Psyop Samurai]

2. I'll give you a k&r & myself a "media" bookmark...

This takes some getting into.

When I saw your post, I couldn't make heads or tails of it, so I went to the site & read the Privilege review, then on to Watkins' site, and have thus far read his "Revised Introduction".

Um..., this is some serious stuff, some of which we know "intuitively", but I believe need to develop a common, technical language about, before we can even discuss it effectively. Audio visual media are the source of programming, and their methods (and hence message) are hierarchical and non-democratic, (and an insidious tool of co-optation to boot). That's what I take from it, and I believe we need to become more aware of and conversant in these things in a big way, and really soon - like yesterday.

That's all I can say for now, but I do hope to get back to it, and study more.

[seemslikeadream]

3. Thank you Psyop Samurai

This takes some getting into.


Yes it does :hi:

[malaise]

4. Bookmarking

Thanks for these.

[tom_paine]

5. K & R

[Octafish]

6. Truth tellers are the least paid, as well.

Honest journalists make a lot less than the hired liars.
Teachers make a lot less than administrators.
Documentarians that play the game make a lot more than hacks.
Intellectuals who shut up on taboo subjects get grants.

The powers-that-be must hate the First Amendment.

Thank you, seemslikeadream for telling us about "The War Game" and Peter Watkins. Going from his work, it is clear he is a true Democrat, a person who believes all people are created equal, deserve equal treatment under the law, and have the right pursue life, liberty and happiness.

The Queen of England and her advisors -- blue bloods represented in America by the Bushes and their old- and new-monied allies-- would lose their positions of privilege if the People knew what was going on. War is a racket. They are mere cannon fodder. And keeping that truth hidden is top priority.

[RufusTFirefly]

7. Peter Watkins changed my life

I saw Privilege on late-night commercial TV when I was pretty young (pre-teen) and although I can't remember a lot of details from the film, I'll never forget the overall feeling it gave me. It was profound.

Years later, I had the opportunity to see The War Game and a few years after that, I actually got to meet Watkins at a screening of Edvard Munch.

He seemed like a haunted, high-strung, driven man even then. And who can blame him? Our society instinctively seeks to destroy people who try to tell inconvenient truths. Many don't survive. And those who do survive are often still badly damaged by the attacks.

[Octafish]

8. War Party has run the West since 22 November 1963.

You Tube has a long "lost" video taken at Love Field.
Henry J. Rybka, a member of President Kennedy's Secret Service detail,
can be seen ordered off the Presiden't limousine:



Secret Service Ordered to Stand Down

THE "BREAKDOWN" OF THE
INFRASTRUCTURE OF THE SECRET
SERVICE ON NOVEMBER 22, 1963

by Vince Palamara

EXCERPT...


ATSAIC EMORY P. ROBERTS was in command
of the other 7 agents in the Secret Service follow-up car for all three major
trips in November, 1963: Chicago (11/2-cancelled), Florida (11/18) and
Texas(1 1/21-I 1/22). While the other two ATSAlC's, Stewart G. Stout and
Arthur L. Godfrey, were elsewhere (Stout at the Trade Mart, Godfrey in Austin
at the Commodore-Perry Hotel 1996]), Roberts was in a position to exhibit a lot of power, made
manifest first by his critical positioning of the other seven agents in
the car, especially agents HENRY J. RYBKA (a member of the car on
11/21-11/22 before Dallas {Shift Reports of 11/21-11/22/63 via ARRB;
Sturges film, Carswell AFB; 25H787}) and PRS agent GLENN A. BENNETT, who
was making his very first trip ever (HSCA interview of Bennett, 1976;
author interview of Kinney), riding in this most important of protective
vehicles (Bennett was an administrator--if there were ostensibly, NO
threats found by PRS of Dallas, WHY was Bennett placed here (he needed
reminding by Lawson-17H631)? Could it be that he was (covertly)
actively searching for KNOWN threats and this was covered-up afterwards author's article in the April 1997 "JFK/ Deep Politics Quarterly"]? As for
Rybka, as discovered by this author, he was recalled by Roberts at Love Field
(see WFAA/ABC video and author's COPA 1995-1996 presentation videos),
although Roberts would later cover this up by "mistakenly" placing Rybka
IN the car via TWO written reports after-the-fact ( 18H739; Shift Report
of 11/22/63 via ARRB); even Lawson made this same "mistake" in his Final
Survey Report (LBJ Library copy).

CONTINUED...

http://spot.acorn.net/jfkplace/03/VP/10-VP.html

The treason didn't start with Selection 2000. It goes back a warmongering ways.

[leftchick]

9. I don't know Octafish

Smedley Butler seemed to see the war as a racket a few decades before JFK was killed by our government. I think the War Party has been in power pretty much the entire 20th century.



Smedley Darlington Butler



WAR IS A RACKET

by Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient:

Major General Smedley D. Butler, USMC


Read it here....http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

Chapter One

WAR IS A RACKET

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

And what is this bill?

This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.

:hi:

[Octafish]

11. Excellent point, leftchick. Butler kept War Party from overthrowing FDR.

JFK didn't have a Smedley Butler, unfortunately.

Here's what LeMay and the other big wigs had to say, in regards to his President:

Once Kennedy and his other advisors left the policy leaders meeting on October 19, 1962, General LeMay and the other military leaders stayed behind. Not realizing they were being secretly recorded, they told what they truly thought about President Kennedy. (pp. 639-640)

Book Excerpt
Audio Clip 9, pp. 639-640

"I think that a blockade, and political talk, would be considered by a lot of our friends and neutrals as being a pretty weak response to this," LeMay said a few minutes later. "And I'm sure a lot of our own citizens would feel that way too." One of the great tenets of American democracy is that the military stays out of politics, but LeMay was lecturing the president about the supposed feelings of the American people.

"In other words, you're in a pretty bad fix at the present time," LeMay concluded.

"What did you say?" Kennedy asked, perhaps not quite believing what he was hearing.

"You're in a pretty bad fix."

"You're in with me," the president said, his words punctuated by an ironic laughter. There was no one in the room who understood as deeply as Kennedy did that he was indeed in a "pretty bad fix," part of which was military leaders like LeMay with their restless fingers on the nuclear button. When the meeting ended, several of the Joint Chiefs stayed behind to talk among themselves.

"You pulled the rug right out from under him," said General David Shoup, the Marine Corps commandant. "Goddamn."

"Jesus Christ!" LeMay laughed. "What the hell do you mean?"

"I agree with that answer, agree a hundred percent, a hundred percent," Shoup exclaimed. There was anger in his voice that suggested the wrathful vitriol that might greet the president if he did not proceed militarily. "Somebody's got to keep them from doing the goddamn thing piecemeal!"

"That's right," LeMay exclaimed. As he and his colleagues saw it, their planes, missiles, and ships were being held back, hostage to what they considered the compromising palaver of a mere politician.

"You're screwed, screwed, screwed," Shoup said. "Some goddamn thing, some way, that they either do the son of a bitch and do it right and quite friggin' around… You got to go in and take out the goddamn thing that's going to stop you from doing your job."

SOURCE: http://www.kennedymen.com/tapes/audio_09.asp

You are correct, though, my Friend. The warmongers have been making a killing for most of the nation's history. In the 1880s, the blankets contained smallpox. In 2005, the trailers contained formaldehyde. The good become victims of war.

[shance]

10. Perhaps thats the core problem with capitalism. The moment you slap everything

with a price tag, it inevitably seems that the lies and the 'selling' of something soon follow.

Remember the money changers.... a powerful message.

One I believe our society has long forgotten.

I mean, when (and more importantly *if*) we think about it, how can someone really put a price on a puppy, or a tree, or a flower or a person's sexual 'services' for that matter?

Of course we all know that we CAN.

However, what is ultimately lost in the mix when we do that?

At that moment that we 'buy' something, I wonder if that is when we lose sight of the soul of that which we "purchased".

When it then becomes our "object"?

The fact that when we purchase something, and it ultimately and seemingly becomes our "property", in reality do do we really "own" anything?

If so, why can't we take it with us when we die, and why can't we make it live until we leave this planet?

In a sense, ownership is a pretty painful, illusion we've been conditioned to accept as the norm, which the more I look at it, seems to create more heartache and/or worse, avoidance of true authentic connection to what is the real marrow of life.

Perhaps this is a primary reason why we have so many individuals walking around hurting themselves, hurting others and ironically enough avoiding pain and reality at all costs.

Even though we logically say to ourselves that we can't buy love, some how through all of our culture's brainwashing, we've bought, and been fed since the crib that very much can buy love.

We can buy ANYTHING, if we have enough money.

But we cannot buy those things we all live our lives trying to obtain, because they are the real gold at the end of the rainbow.

Love, acceptance, true respect, true admiration.

It seems in our culture, perhaps in most these days, we are almost pressured to believe that love equals monetary worth.

You ever notice how some individuals with the most money seem the most empty, the most vacant?

In truth those things that make life truly worth living are only "owned" when we realize we cannot and do not own a thing.

True enjoyment seems to me to happen when we have the courage to allow ourselves to let something or someone in, to have our heart touched and be willing to not run from it but be there for the moment.

That takes courage like nothing else.

Creating wars is easy.

Its allowing ourselves to love and risk that loss that is hard.

You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.

You can lead a person to war, but you cannot make them respect, admire or love you.

[mogster]

12. Kick!

The War Game on google:
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-3247573482818086914