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Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with an old pal

So, the big news of the day was the capture of Saddam Hussein. Tremendous news. A victory for the American troops and a bigger triumph for the Iraqi people.

However, it also gives Dumbass a huge boost in his poll numbers. The administration is going to milk it through December. They've got their little election year package all planned.

In April, people will start getting their little tax refund checks. For most folks, it'll be from a few hundred dollars to a couple of thousand. For Bush's cronies, hundreds of thousands and perhaps, millions.

The voters will get a little glow and feel good about their newfound pocketmoney. they'll forget about the shitty, shitty economy and buy their consumer electronics.

"Hey, Bush ain't so bad."

Then starting in June, the evening news will trumpet the homecoming of some of our troops. Every night we'll see tearful reunions and hear tales of Iraqi people kissing the American G.I.s in an orchestrated love fest. It is, after all, an election year.

Then November will roll around. And people will go the polls. My big fear is that they will check the wrong box. The box that will bring us four more years of staggering deficits and cronyism. Haliburton hand-offs. Secret handshakes and profits for powerful pals.

Remember, this the guy who says he loves the environment, while easing environmental laws.

This is the man who signed the partial birth abortion ban, on the road to a full repeal of Roe V. Wade. Remember the picture of Bush, signing that document, surrounded by smirking old white guys.

He must be stopped.

It's better to give than to receive, right? You should be greatful to receive a gift, correct? Not always apparently.

Remember Toys for Tots? Those firemen, and in those days, that's what they were fireMEN, collecting toys for underprivledged children. Well, now we have the Holiday Giving Tree.

There's a Christmas tree in my office's lobby. Hanging from the branches are ribbons from underprivledged children. Each ribbon has a child's dream toy.

Dream toy? What the fuck?

When I was a kid, poor children just were happy to get new, unopened toys. Now they have wish lists? It was bad enough when people would post wish lists on their blogs, now we have poor kids doing the same?

Shouldn't they be happy with whatever the kind folks can muster up? Now they have to get specific with their demands?

In the words of Judge Schmaels, "You'll get nothing and like it!!!"

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by guest blogger, Passenger 58

After tiresome months of ingratiating Tom Cruise interviews and articles in which he insists that his new Ed Zwick-directed/John Logan("Gladiator")-penned epic, "The Last Samurai", is a "gift" to the Japanese people, the actual product is hitting theatersand getting rave reviews from the American movie press.

In all fairness, much of it may be deserved, because thefilm, based on historical events, actually has a message that at least attemptscomes from the right perspective. The San Francisco Chronicle's Mick LaSalle writes that the film is about "the encroachments of technology and thedangers of American hegemony"; that it is a 19th century epic that gains its power by tapping into a host of contemporary terrors: the fear of modernweaponry, of cold commerce destroying nature and ancient culture, and of vanishing American integrity"; and finally, "Made at a time of global anxiety, 'The Last Samurai' is all about America's fear of its own power".

All important themes, not only missing throughout popular entertainment today, but rare to find in Western entertainment history in any form.

But LaSalle, like the film itself, gets only part of it right.  Every Asian nation and culture has been violated by hegemony and imperialism, by industrialized powers andnations (primarily the West, and not just America). The rule of force, is not a "contemporary" fear, but a disgusting fact of history and human existence,a way of life. And those who have wielded force (and continue to wield it today) have never felt remorse or guilt, nor have they fretted over such concepts as "integrity". And never will.

Getting back to "Samurai", the actual historical backdrop was neatly contained in a recent issue of National Geographic on "The Samurai Way":

" The Tokugawa regime fell abruptly, a collapse assudden and surprising as the fall of the Soviet Union in our time. The trigger was the arrival in 1853, and again seven months later, of the black ships, afleet of United States warships led by Commodore Matthew Perry....Confronted by the military strength of the arriving ships, the shogun dissolved Japan's exclusion policy and began making trade pacts with other nations. This perceived act of weakness sparked revolts by several powerful clans of anti-foreigner---and anti-Tokugawa---samurai.

Uniformed, well-trained troops loyal to the emperor, armed with rifles from England and France [repelled]  an almost comical attack on Kyoto by the Tokugawa samurai, many ofthem waving swords and muskets."

Even more specifically, there is the story of Saigo Takamori, the leaderof a small samurai clan who led a rebellion protesting Japan's modernization and Westernization in 1877. The character of Katsumoto (played by Ken Watanabe in the film) is based on Takamori, and the spiritual heart of "The Last Samurai" film---but not the star. He is "supporting cast". 

And this brings me to my eternal beef, which is no doubt shared by people of Asian (actually all non-Western) descent all over the world, every single time a big Western film about Asia comes around.

It is that the creators and producers of  Western entertainment (in the rare instances that they are motivated to delve into non-Western cultures at all), have insisted on channeling outright racist (stereotype-laden) propaganda, as well as well-meaning but patronizing political correctness (Tom Cruise's "gifts to other peoples"), through dominant white male characters, white male Hollywood stars, and white perspectives.
All the genuflecting bows of respect to Kurosawa and bushido do not make up for the fact that, ultimately, "The Last Samurai" is still about Tom Cruise, and Tom Cruise's character and how he "goes Japanese", gets jiggy with beautiful Japanese women, learns some sword, and, finally earns honorary guest status. (And if the title of the film itself is singular and about Tom Cruise, and not plural referring to the samurai clan, it is even more offensive.) This is racist James Clavell's "Shogun", and Richard Chamberlain’s “Anjin San” all over again, even if far more politically correct and gorgeously done (for what it is).

Couldn't this chapter of almost sacred Japanese history have been told without a white hero, when the historical fact is, there were none? If Zwick and the gang really wanted to pay tribute, why didn't they devote their huge dollars to a Japanese production, starring an almost completely Japanese cast---with white characters correctly relegated to the mercenary villain status?

Of course, every story does need the right narrator to guide its intended audience through. Tom Cruise does that here, for the benefit of non-Asian viewers who are undoubtedly the audience this production is after. Still, as a matter of integrity, why shouldn't Joe and Josephine Sixpack at the Mall of the Americas get anything but the unvarnished truth about that time in Japan? Why not? American filmmakers never hestitate to dump American culture and American political product overseas without the slightest regard. It is a one-way street,  and a clear double standard.

When, if ever, has a production starred a non-Western character/hero who "toured" through some important chapter of Western history, limiting the facts of that history, while marauding all along the way? Let's flip the "Last Samurai" story around. Imagine the howls of rage if, for instance, if there were a film about a disillusioned Japanese samurai showing up in the American Civil War, fighting for the South, learning about Southern life, getting major back slaps forputting on breeches and bedding American women, and earning the honor of being “The Last Confederate”. Think about it. 

There is no doubt that many will still come away from "The Last Samurai" without the politically correct message, and think only about the fact that Tom Cruise had a wild old time "over there with the crazy Japs and the Jap girls"----just like an Amrican businessman taking one of those wildly popular sex tours of Thailand.

The encroachment of the West in history, modern industrialization versus ancient ways, are a themes that have been dealt with throughout Asian literature and cinema, most of it unseen by Western eyes. From the Opium Wars and BoxerUprising in China, to the end of the samurai era, Asians have burned with these memories for generations.

We do not need any more James Clavell racism. We do not need portrayals of happy but tragic Asian prostitutes, girlfriends and geishas, crazed mindless Asian gangsters, white heroes killing Asian characters, Asian males always dying. We do not need quaint, happy Asian cookbooks and pseudo-mythical fiction devoted to food and "Flower Drum Song" assimilation themes.  We do not need Harrison Ford shooting sword fighters, Mel Gibson pumping Jet Li full of bullets after sticking a pole into his gut.

We do not need Western "tour guides" like Ed Zwick and Tom Cruise to remind us of what we live with every day, thank you.

What we do need are heroes. Our heroes. Unfiltered, powerful, in all their glory.

You might remember Passenger 58 from his days on my webzine, The Laughing Drunk. I'll have a post of my own sometime this weekend. See ya.