Showing posts with label Religion and Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Religion and Politics. Show all posts

Saturday, March 06, 2010

Michael Moriarty's Close Reading of Communism/Progressivism in "On The Water Front"



Michael Moriarty is great actor and a serious scholar. I learned that Mr. Moriarty had Chicago roots ( Grandfather was baseball great George Moriarty - born in 'Back O' The Yards and buried at St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery in Evergreen Park). Mr. Moriarty played Henry Wiggen in the great American film Bang the Drum Slowly.

Mr. Moriarty writes for Big Hollywood. The other day Moriarty presented a close reading of Elia Kazan's classic film On The Waterfront and presented some sobering thoughts on American Political culture, Marlon’s Mao: Part Three.

Michael Moriarty is a good read. Click my post title for the full article.

Here is a sample:


Close Reading/Reading to Write
Definition of genre

Close reading—usually of a written text, but quite possibly of a film, a painting, or another work of art—is the first stage in writing an essay that responds to or builds upon the ideas in the original text. That is why a close reading is sometimes called “reading to write” or “reader response.” Rather than merely extracting facts from the text, a close reading prepares you to analyze it critically through your own writing.


http://uwp.duke.edu/wstudio/resources/genres/close_reading.pdf
This, the Great American Tragedy of Communism’s homicidal insistence upon invading America as a “Progressive Movement” – the assassination of the very Catholic President John F. Kenney being one of its most disgracefully high points – will, I have massive faith, eventually turn out to be just another triumph of America over the mortal enemies of her infinitely and universally resonant Declaration of Independence.
Here, while basking in the relevance of On The Waterfront, I suddenly see the cosa nostra metaphor, the Brechtian fascination with Chicago mobs, the Obama administration’s Red-packed Czardom and Mao Zedong himself as the Godfather of all Godfathers … this mounting tower of Progressive Babel, making absolutely no sense whatsoever unless you have a ruthless mob willing to enforce it.
Our Second Amendment?!
If we don’t have weapons in our hands, the enlightened despots still know that we’re packing heat.
Most important is our American knowledge of the truth and the power of love.
With our government now run by no more than an Ivy-league educated, gangster’s mob, I recall Terry Malloy’s reluctant acceptance of a pistol from his doomed lawyer brother who insists – following one of screen history’s greatest moments of acting, Rod Steiger’s resigned and tragic sigh, the beginning of his surrender to the inevitability of his own death – “You’re gonna need it!”
Here is where, even before Karl Malden’s firey priest makes his re-entrance, God begins to arrive.
Then, of course, the hair-raising race down the darkened alley when Terry Malloy and Edie Doyle first barely escape being run down by Johnny Friendly’s hit team truck, then see the hanging, dead body of Rod Steiger.
Brando’s childlike plea to Eva Marie Saint to take care of his brother’s now fallen body, that gun in his possession, ready to do business.
Terry goes to Friendly’s bar to reek revenge upon his brother’s killers. With his hand still bleeding from the near-death escape with Edie, Terry hunches on the bar, gun in hand, to await the arrival of Johnny Friendly.
Who shows up?
A priest … a Catholic priest.
God again!!

Friday, August 15, 2008

Hickey on Religion and Politics - Mutatis Mutandis


Arguments concerning Religion and Politics often lead to hurtful ( that is a neologism employed by dedicated Victimization disciples that I never can get too much of) disagreements, increased by the level of volume between antagonists and in some lustier quarters to violent dental rearrangements.

There are some saloons that enforce 'No Politics, Religion, or Baseball' prohibitions and with very good reason.

In the late 19th Century, immigrant saloons were places where coreligionists who usually shared a common language and national identity and fellow Labor activists could vent, free of prying ears of the bosses, the strikebreakers, company goons and the cops. The neighborhood ethnic saloon went the way of growler, the pail purchased for carryout beer, and every social gathering, bar, or kitchen table became a Free Speech Bug House Square. Not only that, with the inculturation of television, radio and the Internet, the airwaves and the cyberspace became an atmosphere thick with opinion: Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow & etc.!

In happier times, a butt-in-ski from Hyde Park, or Mount Greenwood, wedging his way into a conversation ( having his ear on a stick) about the efficacy of training and funding a Ukrainian Air Corps for service against Czarist and later Soviet Russia would find himself on the curb at Chicago Ave. & Bell minus dentation. Thus, the price of Freedom of Speech - or the Freedom of Interruption was exercised with strong imperative.

I am voting for John McCain. To some folks that means that I must be a racist, right-wing, war mongering lout. For sure! I'm loutish at times - picked my teeth with a plastic dental instrument publicly in the Pump Room in the company of a beautiful woman after a fine meal. Lout! You bet. Racist? Arguable, I have the pedigree as a white, Irish Catholic. Right Wing? I voted Democratic in every election from 1972 until the Illinois Primary last February. War-monger? I am as yellow as a Duck's foot, but am more than willing to support the police and the military to keep America's enemies and from all Americans. I think PC in might and main is silly and snotty enforced and dictated by the really silly and snotty; I tend to be a devout sexist who worships the superior gender; I believe, based on empirical observation that most public servants work very, very hard and for the best of reasons- they help other people and we never read about them or hear about them in the media. I hate abortion and all of its dodges. Choice means school vouchers. The true test of all government is in the application of protecting the innocent(children especially) and tested - our elderly - everything else is up for a screaming argument.

I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth . . . but, what someone else chooses to believe does not keep me awake at night and I tend to be more than willing to accept my place in God's ordered universe. Cosmologically - I believe that someone greater put things in motion; Teleologically - I witnessed the passing of generational faith from one set in the family to another and have met living saints who fulfilled the Christian imperatives, while raising the ethical bar higher than my own dwarfish grasp; Morally - I have faith that most people lead good lives that help people who have less in life, need more attention, and require greater efforts from others to help make them safe and secure. While I like to think that I am the center of the universe, experience teaches otherwise- dammit!

Happiness? That's up to the individual. If I am unhappy - not even close - that is my T.S.! The first words of counsel that I recall came from my Parents, Grandparents, Uncles, Aunts,Cousins, and close Friends - the only people who really matter in this life - the next one is to be determined without my say-so, but what I have done, do and will do ( scary thought that) - were 'Too bad about you!'

So much for the warm embrace of Entitlements.

We are on our own as the atheists would tell us - but we are obligated to those who have cared, nurtured, taught, protected and loved us. Which kind of negates the first argument altogether.

Politics teaches us - or should teach us - how to act in a way to make things better for others. Religion teaches us how to do that.

I expect this violation of the rule in the better saloons will no doubt lead to a few of my metaphorical buckers getting a loosening.