Standard Operating Procedure, Path to War, The War Game, Culloden, & Fast Food Nation

Standard Operating Procedure is the newest Errol Morris film, and as such is a brilliant documentary. It's about the Abu Ghraib scandal, and as such, brought out some very interesting points that I had never known before. Did you know in the famous photo of Lynndie England pointing at a prisoner's junk, he was masturbating? See, I saw the pictures when they were first released, and I never noticed that. Something about my sickening feeling when I first saw them led to me not actually going over them in detail. But man, this film does, made me extremely uncomfortable to see what was done in my name, and then I just got extremely pissed. Seriously, this was just a completely messed up way to treat a human being. I'm so anti-torture now that just the idea that this was condoned by anyone in the military makes me want to call for their imprisonment. Just a sickening display of supposed moral righteousness. This is why they hate us. And it's not really all that clear as to why they'd be wrong.

Path to War is about LBJ's presidency as it relates to Vietnam. I saw people portraying people I know in it. That was fun. It has an amazing cast, universally excellent, and is really an interesting look at just how it seemed completely impossible that we could be drawn into a war there, even as we had no idea how to win it. Statistics are useful, but they can't beat actual experience. And it's frustrating to know that a great man was taken down by stupid rabid anti-communism, when there was so much evidence that Vietnam was fighting for its independence as nationalists not as communists. Seriously, why the hell does the US do so many stupid stupid things. I blame the Republicans. Democrats just couldn't be "soft" on communism, even when it would have been so much better for everyone involved.

The War Game is a documentary about what would happen if England would be the target of a nuclear attack. As such, it's horrifying. I've been reading metafilter and ask.metafilter for years now, and they've mentioned it a few times, and I started to read about it, and apparently it terrified many English children back when it was shown on TV. I can certainly understand that, as nuclear war is a motherfucker. Seriously, the idea of just what would happen and how much of England's population would be wiped out in a first strike, but how bad it would be for those who would survive. Even though it's based on evidence, it's basically a fictional film, and yet it still won the Oscar for best documentary. It's that good.

Culloden is another film made for British TV by Peter Watkins, but this is about the battle of Culloden, the final battle in the Jacobite Rebellion in Scotland. Not the best thing the English ever did, as after they crushed the Jacobite forces, they gave the fleeing rebels no quarter and it led to horrible atrocities committed by the English forces. It's not nearly as good as The War Game, but it was interesting, as you really don't hear much about the Jacobites in any American school class on European history. It came on the same DVD as The War Game, so think of it as an added bonus for that film.

Fast Food Nation is the book by Eric Schlosser that was made into a movie that I saw back in March. I borrowed Tweaks's copy, and enjoyed the little notes she wrote in it (she read it for school). Somehow it actually made me more upset about suburban sprawl and the mistreatment of workers rather than the danger of eating tainted meat. It's a very easy read for a book about maimings and horrible diseases, exploitation of illegal immigrants and young workers not washing their hands, crazy Christians and heartless executives. I need to read Reefer Madness now. Sections on pot, illegal immigration, and porn? My three favorite things all in one place!