Given what's going on across the U.S. right now, this seems like a movie for the times. I hope one of the main streaming services picks it up at some point as I have a serious phobia with crowds, thanks to my military service. You'll never catch me in a movie theatre unless I'm there nearly by myself.
I'm not a crowd fancier either, a touch of claustrophobia and the smell of pop corn makes me nauseous. I went to a 2.15pm screening, and there was room for all. You could breathe.
For me, it's not just the possible crowds, but the idea of largely no exits, even in a sparsely crowded theatre. I tried years ago to overcome my anxieties, but when a VA therapist asked me why did I put myself through that just to try and fit in, I stopped. Netflix is now my movie and TV viewing of choice.
We went to see it yesterday during the day because Thom recommended it and only three people were in the theatre. It is an excellent film and I hope it stays in the theaters for a while. I haven't laughed until I had tears for a very long time, but I did during "One Battle After Another." Sean Penn and DiCaprio should get awarded for their acting. The music fit the scenes and was absolutely perfect for the film. It has a few lessons everyone should see and think about. My favorite phrase, "a latino Harriet Tubman moment."
Sounds like my kind of movie. I lived, in every aspect of the word, all three decades involved. Weirdly, I went from war-protestor in the early days to soldier in the eighties. That was a lesson in never say never.
Our morality conflict today is being fought against people with no conscience. At least back then when you shouted shame at them, they understood the meaning of that word. Hell, the Republicans made Nixon quit. That little burglary situation and some dirty tricks all sound quaint compared to the Insurrection, voter purges, ICE, rendition, concentration camps and declaring war on our cities.
No rest till we put these psychos in jail, get them out of office, or ruin them financially in court. It is obvious who is irresponsible and who protects pedophiles---Bondi proved it yesterday. See you at the movies and in the streets.
I think being a war protester does not keep one from being a soldier. Maybe I am missing something, we need soldiers but we don’t need unnecessary illegal corrupt wars. Our nation needs the presence of soldiers to put up a defense against a takeover and illegitimate rule.
"One Battle After Another will be called divisive by those who profit from division. They’re wrong. **The real division in this country is between those who believe art should serve power and those who believe art should challenge it.**"
And speaking of "those who believe art should **serve** power", here's a little attempt at strong-arming from some stump named Greg from some North Koreanesque TV thingy called "Newsmax" while speaking live with the star of the Epstein files:
“the NFL just chose the Bad Bunny Rabbit or whatever his name, this guy who hates ICE, he doesn’t like you. he accuses everything he doesn’t like of racism, do you think maybe we should just kind of entertain blowing off the NFL, like a boycott, something along those lines? **this guy does not seem like a **unifying** entertainer**, and a lot of folk don’t even know who he is.”
Few things under this sadministration are more concerning than their idea of what a "unifying entertainer" might be..
I spent the weekend with my class of 1965 Chicago Catholic prep school pals at our 60th reunion. A common concern I heard in discussions was that the US military might cave to the Trump Clowncar Secty of War, and become Trump's Gestapo to constrain opposition from large urban (liberal) populations.
That question assumes that Trump is faithfully following the scheme Hitler used to rise to power. It acknowledges that SCOTUS, Congress, and the Atty General are now just rightwing toadies. Lower court judges are at least trying to slow the pace of Republican fascism, but it is clear that if the military suppresses protest, there is no means but public rejection to reverse the damage already done.
I was encouraged at the scowls I saw on most flag officers' faces in the Quantico audience as they were being insulted by a TV celeb and failed National Guard reservist Major who asserted superiority over the audience because he thought he probably could do more pushups than they could. However, Hegseth is cleverly relying on military reservists, like he was, not regular forces. Reservists not being led by regular officers are more likely to obey illegal orders.
2026 could end it all with a tidal wave of MAGAs turning blue at the polls. It will take a tidal wave, given that Trump has done his best to corrupt the 2026 vote. Should he fail and lose control of Congress, he and his sycophants will surely face impeachment for the hundreds of laws they have broken. And, they know it.
What brought Hitler down was America on the Western Front and the USSR on the Eastern Front. Granted hubris led to that situation, but America had sent a signal that they were not up to a war with him, especially when, GM, Ford, Brown Harriman were financing him.and about 40% of America was on his side, just like today.
What did him in, was his sense of honor, that after America was attacked by Japan and America declared war on Japan, Hitler felt honor bound to honor the Axis mutual defense treaty and declared war on Japan
.
Don't get bent out of shape because I used honor and Hitler in the same sentence.
Hitler declared war on America, after America declared war on Japan, only because the Axis powers had signed a mutual defense treaty.
Hubris allowed for his belief that Germany could succeed where Napoleon failed, that it made perfect sense to invade the USSR before his western borders were secured.
Jt was Stalin who actually started the Second World War. Stalin was building up to invade Germany, and German Intelligence knew it, so Hitler struck first.
Hans Ridel, in Stukka Pilot noted that when on the opening of Operation Barabarossa he bombed Russian Airfields line with row upon row of Medium Bombers.
Tom did you watch the Youtube of Trumps address to the sailors. the reaction of the sailors was the same as the reaction of the 82nd Airborne, laughter, smiles and applause, only this time seated behind him in the front row to his left were four junior officers. Not close enough to see their ranks, but I could see their shoulder boards.
That’s okay. Driving along a street here in San Diego lined with different ethnic restaurants I came upon one named Polish. I thought wow I will try it. Much to my embarrassment it was a business for manicurist specializing in nail Polish.🥹
I knew a few of the same people Thom did when I was also protesting the Vietnam war in East Lansing. I was in grad school in social work and was the leader of our protests when we shut down the entire department after Kent State. Eventually most of the school's departments went on strike.
I look back at those days with memories of how we just didn't know whether our protests would do any good. Now we know that added to other factors (like our actually losing the war and the message from Walter Cronkite), we did make a significant contribution to the war ending. Currently Thom and I actually live in the same city and my partner and I have had the privilege of meeting him.
Today I wrote my Substack about something the Oregon GOP posted, and later deleted, on the X page. I wrote: "The lying flaming faked Oregon GOP post on X led me to take a stroll down their page. I'm posting some of what I found here." This is the link: https://halbrown.substack.com/p/the-lying-flaming-faked-oregon-gop
I was also in that march in May of 1970. The driver, who had been drinking, received one year of probation and a $120 fine. I was in grad school in social work and helped organize an all night teach-in which about 1000 people attended. Here' an article with a photo of the march. https://www.lansingcitypulse.com/stories/fifty-years-ago,13432
Nixon had already drawn down the Troops in 1972, and the Vietnamization was in progress. Vietnam had taken over responsibility for their own safety. So what were you p[protesting against, and for whom Ho Chi Minh.
Hal, the reason that Nixon brought them home in '72 was because middle America, had enough with military funerals of burying their brothers,fathers, husbands, uncles, cousins, for what?
It wasn't the protests. In fact speaking as one who was a conservative at the time, as well as having done my tour and lost team mates,. The protests actually caused a reaction, and prolonged the war.
Abie Hoffman, the Chicago 7, the 67 riot at the Democratic National convention, was a gift to the war mongering establishment. We called hem dirty, filthy, long haired,.cowardly hippies, and they helped Nixon get elected, and some 30,000 young men die, not to mention the Vietnamese that died in untold numbers.
So, William, you need to attack me, a nursing student at the time, who was trying to do what I could to stop that horrendous war, but as you point out, it was over before I graduated. I later served for two years in the National Health Service Corps in Appalachia, working among the poorest of our nation's poor. Alongside my 50 year nursing career, I also became a lobbyist and was able to secure healthcare services and financial supports for families in need. When I taught nursing, my boss was a veteran nurse who had served in Vietnam. I can't begin to imagine what you endured. Peace.
The truth is right in front of all of us. I say, keep speaking, listening and watching. We have the ability to record all that is happening. I will go see this film ASAP! Thank you Hartmann Report, Thom, Louise and the rest of the crew. Power is turning guns on the powerless...
Your statement “If this film makes people uncomfortable, that’s its purpose. Democracy doesn’t survive by comforting the powerful. It survives when ordinary people demand justice and truth, even when it stings.” Says it all. And artists are often the spokespersons for a society’s consciousness and moral compass. As a performing and recording artist for 60 years I have experienced how we can support the truth and inspire our audiences.
Thanks Thom for supporting the fearless creators.
My new album on Spotify reflects the struggle for positive change not corrupt conservative entropy.
I am absolutely fascinated by the two different takes on this film, One battle After Another, in the comments. That is what great discussions are all about.
Thom, I love your show, and usually I am in total agreement with you. But on this movie, I have to completely disagree.
My wife and I were lured in to watch the film because it features those two traditionally progressive actors: Sean Penn and Leonardo DiCaprio. We were shocked to find a movie that was extremely racist, sexist, violent and poorly acted.
But worst of all...at a time when we desperately need some good media and messaging to counter the emerging fascist takeover of our nation...this movie could quite seriously serve as a propaganda film for Trump and Steven Miller. It repeatedly showed the so-called 'liberal revolutionaries' doing horrendously violent things, blowing up buildings and the electric grid, shooting people with automatic weapons, screaming obscenities, etc. They could play these scenes on an endless loop on Fox News to justify Trump's rhetoric about the ‘leftist radicals’... and support his sending in the troops to American cities.
Admittedly, we walked out of the theatre after the first 45 minutes, so perhaps some counter messaging happened later. (Although I have corresponded with friends who saw the whole movie and had the same reaction we did.) The film begins immediately portraying the so-called leftists as incredibly violent (not to mention, in some cases sexually depraved). There was no initial set-up for what right-wing oppression might have produced such violent radicalism... no justification whatsoever for their horrendous behavior.
BTW, I was in East Lansing from 1970 on (and had the pleasure of being tear-gassed in anti-war protests). There was absolutely no actual behavior going on with SDS or anyone else that had any of the murderous behavior shown in this movie. The portrayal in this film is a ridiculous, way over the top, caricature.
And that is where the damage and risk exists. Since Trump apparently saw old footage from 2020 of riots in Portland that inspired him to say this week that the city is “war ravaged”, and that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities were “under siege from attack by Antifa”. Lord help us if he sees this movie. One can already imagine Fox News taking clips from this film to justify Trump’s forthcoming fascist actions. One cannot imagine a more vivid portrayal of what Trump imagines as ‘the enemy within’.
We desperately need a movie about the increasingly ominous excesses of the Fascists currently governing our nation, not a film about imaginary violence by some hypothetical leftist radicals.
Martin do you realize that your protesting actually prolonged the war, as it stirred up the reactionary forces in middle America.
Of course you don't. You made your "sacrifice" and consider yourself a brave warrior. I haven't met a protester who can come to grips with the fact that their actions actually were counter productive, because they like to think that they stopped the war, but in truth no such thing
What would you have a person radically opposed to such a war do? Sit and remain quiet? I have no illusions about having helped end the war, or that the combined weight of all the protests that war created having even the slightest effect. At least for some, we stood in opposition, completely aware of the total lack of impact our actions would have because inaction would have implied countenancing such a loathsome act. That whole war was a travesty from 1954 on.
What would I do Robert? How about you coming to terms with the fact that your protests encourage a reaction that prolonged the war, and accounted for tens of thousands of American deaths.
Remember the Russians left Afghanistan with olnly 14,53 killed. Afghanistan is not the Ukraine, and was not part of the Russian Empire, and Putin's ego was not on the line.
We will never know but more than likely Americans would have come home sooner, especially after Khe Sanh. I wasn't there but a team mate and friend was.
auppose to be our Dien Bieh Phu, it wasn't, but the mood was to back out and extricate anyway, but the protests were just ginning up and then along came
Chicago, Abie Hoffman, the Democratic National Convention and the forces of reaction sat in, and voila, instead of pulling back and pulling out, the forces of reaction resulted in damn the torpedoes' full speed ahead.
I realize it is as futile a task to convince the committed left that they fucked up, as it is convincing the right they they are fucking up, and fucked up in the past.
No one wants to admit error, their ego is a stake. That much the left and right have in common.
Without a nonexistent device that could take the real world back to, say 1950, and allowing several different conditions to be run up to 1980, your hypothesis cannot be falsified. This scenario is, of course, an impossibility, but I am not aware of any rigorous icomputer simulations that have explored your position either.
However, I cannot rule out the possibility that what you say is correct. At the same time, you can't rule out the possibility that the demonstrations did indeed bring about the end of the war sooner. Personally, as I already stated upthread, I don't believe (again, unfalsifiable) that it didn't impact the outcome either way. Regardless, we had no business being there in the first pace.
It isn't that I am committed leftist that is the base of my position, it is that I was a conscientious objector (1-O) prior to any serious involvement in Southeast Asia (before the Gulf of Tonkin). I was anti-war by the time I was 14. FWIW, I stepped away from direct involvement when it was turned into a media circus by Hoffmann and the likes.
Regardless, my initial statement upthread remains unanswered: "What would you have a person radically opposed to such a war do?"
Here is the deal Robert. Unlike you who were nurtured in the left, I was nurtured in the right. I was single issue right winger, anti communist, none of that culture war shit, in fact i have always been opposed and aghast racism, which I saw the effects of up front when I moved to Louisiana when I was 17.
I spent 26 years in the service as enlist and officer, most of it in special ops.
I lived with the Vietnamese could read and speak Vietnames, and they saved my ass the night that Tet broke out, they meaning the hamlet chief and the Sgt in whose house I had a room, both played both sides of the fence.
Oncoming home, I was keenly aware of the sentiments of middle America, who at first staunchly supported the war, and reviled you protesters, as dirty filthy, commie, hippies - true and demanded of the government to keep beating those filthy Vietnamese Commies
But I also remember middle America and even G.I.S getting tired of burying familie and friends and wanting us out, mainly they wanted Victory, but came to grips that victory was not possible.
As I said, I fully understand the need of people who want to feel important as if something they did in their life had an affect, that they were part of something good. I also know what it is like to feel betrayed, sold out by your government because of those filthy dirty, commie hippies
Both points of view are wrong Robert. You didn't stop the war, and the government didn't sell out because of the hippies.
As to why we were involved, That is a different subject, and again the popular idea is simultaneously partly true and partly false
I am sorry Robert, you didn't stop the war. It became politically costly, and apparently unwinnable.
At the time I felt like Sisyphus, the rock always rolling down, me always pushing it back up the mountain. I still do. I don't expect that I am going to change the world, I never have. In the same way, I have been bringing up climate change for over 40 years now. That's somewhat different in that it is hard to ignore it (though denial is always possible) when you're flooded out, or your whole neighborhood goes up in flames, or the Colorado stops flowing and the vegetables stop arriving eat your market. Climate change will eventually be accepted — the consequences of inaction are becoming harder and harder to deny. War? I doubt we won't give it up until there's only one of us left. I'm not fooling you, William, but at the same time I'm not fooling myself.
I don't feel self-important. What I do feel is tired, heartbroken and afraid for the generations following me. I'd do it all again, not expecting a different outcome. Perhaps you feel the same way about your service, perhaps you don't.
Just to be clear, I respect your service. Who I don't respect are the people who sent you to fight wars I believe we had no business fighting in the first place. Perhaps some day people and nations will come to their senses, put down their weapons, and live in peace (something I have little doubt will ever occur). Until that time, we will need a military. But we sure as Hell don't need them marching
through the streets of Portland and Chicago.
I was, am, and will be until death, countercultural — call me a hippie if you want, it's as good a label as anything else. I used to smoke marijuana, haven't in 40 years. I used to drive a VW van with curtains (though no decals); now I drive a Prius. I taught art and art history in college for 6 years, and was disgusted by the experience; the vast majority of my students were waiting for galleries to beg them to show, even though they couldn't draw stick figures. (Although few in the outside world would accept the idea, being an art student is very hard work. I spent the rest of my professional life, 30 years, teaching severely emotionally disturbed youth at a residential treatment center, one step down from a locked ward. I can't say I enjoyed the work — those kids came from Hell and probably 95% ended back in it — but they were eager to learn . Being regarded as human beings was a surprise for them — they'd never experioenced it before and some of them never would again. Oddly enough, I had very few behavioral problems. None of this is virtue signaling. Something tells me that it wouldn't work on you in the first place. Oh, and I garden organically (the peaches were incredible this year, sweet as can be, the juice running down in rivulets — you remember peaches, most have never tasted one that couldn't serve as a baseball. I've done that since 1969.
Okay, so call me a hippie, just not a dirty one. I actually never met a dirty hippie— we like swimming in lakes and streams, and will luxuriate in a hot tub for hours on end given the chance.
William, I am a bit perplexed by your comment, because it has nothing to do with the point of my original post... i.e., that the new Penn/DiCaprio movie is not only poorly done entertainment, but also likely to be dangerously misused.
But since you raise the subject of anti Vietnam war protests... as someone who lived through that entire period (and became fairly involved in political processes from that point forward), I completely disagree with your assertion that the protests extended...rather than ultimately ending...that war. Most historians would certainly agree with me on that.
Finally, I'm not sure where your snide remark about me thinking I made a "sacrifice" and "consider [myself] a brave warrior" came from. I merely made the reference to 1970 to make the point that the movie portrays 'liberal activists' that are far, far more violent than anything that was going on amongst anti-Vietnam war protesters in that area.
Whose truth? Was Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will" a lie or did it tell the truth about the NSDAP and prewar Germany? Was its truth not so blatantly self-evident that the rest of the world should have been better prepared, that it should have been impossible for Chamberlain to have declared "Peace in Our Time". Was it not art, and great art at that? In defending her art, I'm not defending the Nazis.
There is no guarantee that "power" is going to be awake in the first place, or that art is not going to derive exclusively from that power. Think of the history of European art between 800 and about 1600: Almost all of it derived either from the Church or from monarchies and the aristocracy. Art didn't make the powerful tremble, it was entirely financed by the powerful in order to glorify and legitimatize the powerful. Then was almost all the art of that time a lie or is art something else that can't be reduced to some formulaic definition? Over time, art becomes decontextualized from its historical base; it is judged (a crappy word) by other sets of criteria, ones more closely arising from the work itself (though with an admitted bias based on when it is assessed (another crappy word) and who assesses it.
Admittedly conditions are different today, but an ongoing topic of discussion on the left is that the far-right is actively working to censor broadcasting so that only archconservative pabulum is allowed. We have been relatively lucky in America but much of the rest of the world has experienced censorship applied to all creative art — cinema, television, literature, the Internet, and so on.
Art doesn't need to be nice. It doesn't have to be, it isn't, a Valiant Beacon of Truth, brightly shining its light to expose all the evils of the enemy, etc, etc. If power always howls, sometimes those howls are howls of delight.
And yes, I think One Battle After Another is brilliant, a movie that I will eagerly see again and again. But will it make Trump and Sons howl? Oh, they'll fulminate for a while and then they'll go back to forming the means to make art either conform to their demands or they'll criminalize it.
Wonderful comment Robert. I would like to say you took the words out of my mouth. But I could not have done such a great job. On behalf of those who understand the history of art: thank you.
Robert. I had the seeds of a discussion of my favorite works of art: music, novels, short stories, architecture, movies, etc.; all revolving around in my head after reading your excellent comment. But hell with it. I would only be didactic and boring.
Mr. Hartmann. I enjoyed your essay. But, if I may dissent, I think you are wrong about what constitutes art. Art is not composed of political messages. Art is a celebration of life. The human experience. Whatever it may be. Whatever a creative person wants it to be. Art is not the extremely limited phenomenon you describe.
This is a point academic artists and critics have been making for years. Nothing new here.
Personally, I'm already so traumatized by the actual news I couldn't bear to watch anything like that. If we as a nation come out on the other side of this, no guarantee that we will, today's children will see it in school as a history lesson.
Stalinism and Stephen Miller is the topic of Synder’s video today and it is chillingly accurate. From day one I saw Miller’s role in this diabolical administration.
Snyder parses the differences between the background of Russia’s situation and the US to reveal a duplicate pattern of behavior in the role of Stephen Miller and Russia’s correspondent.
Most art over the last 30,000 or so years has had nothing to do with giving one new perspectives. Likewise, very little has been meant to challenge the status quo. Quite the opposite.
You offer no alternative perspective. Art is play the means one has to look into the future without having to build it first to know what the outcome might be. Your no gives nothing but a black hole.
Given what's going on across the U.S. right now, this seems like a movie for the times. I hope one of the main streaming services picks it up at some point as I have a serious phobia with crowds, thanks to my military service. You'll never catch me in a movie theatre unless I'm there nearly by myself.
I'm not a crowd fancier either, a touch of claustrophobia and the smell of pop corn makes me nauseous. I went to a 2.15pm screening, and there was room for all. You could breathe.
I liked that the young woman ended up with her true dad and the hell with DNA. That said a lot about the true nature of true families.
For me, it's not just the possible crowds, but the idea of largely no exits, even in a sparsely crowded theatre. I tried years ago to overcome my anxieties, but when a VA therapist asked me why did I put myself through that just to try and fit in, I stopped. Netflix is now my movie and TV viewing of choice.
We went to see it yesterday during the day because Thom recommended it and only three people were in the theatre. It is an excellent film and I hope it stays in the theaters for a while. I haven't laughed until I had tears for a very long time, but I did during "One Battle After Another." Sean Penn and DiCaprio should get awarded for their acting. The music fit the scenes and was absolutely perfect for the film. It has a few lessons everyone should see and think about. My favorite phrase, "a latino Harriet Tubman moment."
95% on the Tomatometer 85% Popcornmeter
Sounds like my kind of movie. I lived, in every aspect of the word, all three decades involved. Weirdly, I went from war-protestor in the early days to soldier in the eighties. That was a lesson in never say never.
Our morality conflict today is being fought against people with no conscience. At least back then when you shouted shame at them, they understood the meaning of that word. Hell, the Republicans made Nixon quit. That little burglary situation and some dirty tricks all sound quaint compared to the Insurrection, voter purges, ICE, rendition, concentration camps and declaring war on our cities.
No rest till we put these psychos in jail, get them out of office, or ruin them financially in court. It is obvious who is irresponsible and who protects pedophiles---Bondi proved it yesterday. See you at the movies and in the streets.
I think being a war protester does not keep one from being a soldier. Maybe I am missing something, we need soldiers but we don’t need unnecessary illegal corrupt wars. Our nation needs the presence of soldiers to put up a defense against a takeover and illegitimate rule.
Thom is so spot on here -
"One Battle After Another will be called divisive by those who profit from division. They’re wrong. **The real division in this country is between those who believe art should serve power and those who believe art should challenge it.**"
And speaking of "those who believe art should **serve** power", here's a little attempt at strong-arming from some stump named Greg from some North Koreanesque TV thingy called "Newsmax" while speaking live with the star of the Epstein files:
“the NFL just chose the Bad Bunny Rabbit or whatever his name, this guy who hates ICE, he doesn’t like you. he accuses everything he doesn’t like of racism, do you think maybe we should just kind of entertain blowing off the NFL, like a boycott, something along those lines? **this guy does not seem like a **unifying** entertainer**, and a lot of folk don’t even know who he is.”
Few things under this sadministration are more concerning than their idea of what a "unifying entertainer" might be..
Spot on. Art serves power is a sickness.
What if that power is the people?
If it’s intention is for the people it most likely positive
So then it is only sick or positive based on one's frame of reference?
Wow! Good point Robert. Please see my response to Mr. Hartmann's essay about art.
I was on the verge of saying that Howdy Doody would be a unifying entertainer. Then I remembered how much mike johnson reminds me of Howdy.
Howdy Doody, Buffalo Bob and Clarabell the Clown. Do you remember their message,. it wasn't Sesame Street.
LOL.
I spent the weekend with my class of 1965 Chicago Catholic prep school pals at our 60th reunion. A common concern I heard in discussions was that the US military might cave to the Trump Clowncar Secty of War, and become Trump's Gestapo to constrain opposition from large urban (liberal) populations.
That question assumes that Trump is faithfully following the scheme Hitler used to rise to power. It acknowledges that SCOTUS, Congress, and the Atty General are now just rightwing toadies. Lower court judges are at least trying to slow the pace of Republican fascism, but it is clear that if the military suppresses protest, there is no means but public rejection to reverse the damage already done.
I was encouraged at the scowls I saw on most flag officers' faces in the Quantico audience as they were being insulted by a TV celeb and failed National Guard reservist Major who asserted superiority over the audience because he thought he probably could do more pushups than they could. However, Hegseth is cleverly relying on military reservists, like he was, not regular forces. Reservists not being led by regular officers are more likely to obey illegal orders.
2026 could end it all with a tidal wave of MAGAs turning blue at the polls. It will take a tidal wave, given that Trump has done his best to corrupt the 2026 vote. Should he fail and lose control of Congress, he and his sycophants will surely face impeachment for the hundreds of laws they have broken. And, they know it.
The thing is , every one of dts sycophants, will ,in the end be brought to justice, one way or another. Just like the Nazi trials after Hitler.
I can't understand how these sycophants don't see that in the end......and it will definitely END, that their atrocities will bring them down.
Its just mind blowing they are still on their knees to him.
What brought Hitler down wasn't the atrocities, it was hubris.
Yes Robert. Hubris in the face of millions of dead Russians , English ,French and American boys.
What brought Hitler down was America on the Western Front and the USSR on the Eastern Front. Granted hubris led to that situation, but America had sent a signal that they were not up to a war with him, especially when, GM, Ford, Brown Harriman were financing him.and about 40% of America was on his side, just like today.
What did him in, was his sense of honor, that after America was attacked by Japan and America declared war on Japan, Hitler felt honor bound to honor the Axis mutual defense treaty and declared war on Japan
.
Don't get bent out of shape because I used honor and Hitler in the same sentence.
Hitler declared war on America, after America declared war on Japan, only because the Axis powers had signed a mutual defense treaty.
Hubris allowed for his belief that Germany could succeed where Napoleon failed, that it made perfect sense to invade the USSR before his western borders were secured.
According to Suvrov in Icebreaker https://www.amazon.com/Icebreaker-Who-Started-Second-World-ebook/dp/B07NRV2XRZ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2N4RCD49N5HZJ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.cnxNdQYn4rw2UZENN8Eyzz6smQNXANXJ3ji05dldvWY.P9JRnguAh6GeFNr2jfV_bbYFCFB5w9y0rhJFtRx9pA8&dib_tag=se&keywords=suvorov+ice+breaker&qid=1760019791&sprefix=suvorov+ice+breaker%2Caps%2C263&sr=8-1
Jt was Stalin who actually started the Second World War. Stalin was building up to invade Germany, and German Intelligence knew it, so Hitler struck first.
Hans Ridel, in Stukka Pilot noted that when on the opening of Operation Barabarossa he bombed Russian Airfields line with row upon row of Medium Bombers.
https://www.amazon.com/Stuka-Pilot-Hans-Ulrich-Rudel/dp/1908476877/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1U13VG25JZ3IQ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.HMu8HB2df8oE1aVYON4amg4CAkrwCbc4Phk6Utm22AE9KZCPbwPkprEROE-8G3NqHmSrExpqfUvH5yO41Aa6l0TkzmHfVmm3qXc9M8q1ws0q5vysT6VOoUaVxmr0e6JKBJsHnIWWopNDe3u1_IaGNDazdzbVvEHetNrkBhjGQYs.BXkgR2mqtlm01ydhTrlJE9KZ6PYaFcnFVRi7cRDx4dA&dib_tag=se&keywords=stuka+pilot&qid=1760019977&sprefix=stuka+pilot%2Caps%2C553&sr=8-1
So not hubris at all.
Not making excuses for Hitler, just trying to keep our feet on the ground, but not imputing shit that ain't.
I'm talking about the doctors and all the other people that carried out Hitlers ordres.
The Norimburg trials.
So dts orders to send troupes to democrats city, and Noem , will get what's coming to her, when she and this authoritarian regime ends.
Tom did you watch the Youtube of Trumps address to the sailors. the reaction of the sailors was the same as the reaction of the 82nd Airborne, laughter, smiles and applause, only this time seated behind him in the front row to his left were four junior officers. Not close enough to see their ranks, but I could see their shoulder boards.
Nope - just got home last night.
My concern is "What Poles?"
Ha-Ha "Polls" - my bad.
LOL
That’s okay. Driving along a street here in San Diego lined with different ethnic restaurants I came upon one named Polish. I thought wow I will try it. Much to my embarrassment it was a business for manicurist specializing in nail Polish.🥹
😅🤣😂
I knew a few of the same people Thom did when I was also protesting the Vietnam war in East Lansing. I was in grad school in social work and was the leader of our protests when we shut down the entire department after Kent State. Eventually most of the school's departments went on strike.
I look back at those days with memories of how we just didn't know whether our protests would do any good. Now we know that added to other factors (like our actually losing the war and the message from Walter Cronkite), we did make a significant contribution to the war ending. Currently Thom and I actually live in the same city and my partner and I have had the privilege of meeting him.
I have been writing about what is happening in Portland since Trump has decided we have a insurrection here. Kristi Noem was at ICE HQ on our very familar Macadam Ave. yesterday no doubt hoping for some violent protests she could have photos of and speak honestly about. Thankfully all she got was a man dressed in a chicken suit. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/bizarre-moment-kristi-noem-is-triggered-by-man-in-chicken-suit-during-ice-trip-to-portland/ar-AA1O3qbF
Today I wrote my Substack about something the Oregon GOP posted, and later deleted, on the X page. I wrote: "The lying flaming faked Oregon GOP post on X led me to take a stroll down their page. I'm posting some of what I found here." This is the link: https://halbrown.substack.com/p/the-lying-flaming-faked-oregon-gop
MSU Class of '74. Marched to the Capitol to protest Vietnam War.
I was also in that march in May of 1970. The driver, who had been drinking, received one year of probation and a $120 fine. I was in grad school in social work and helped organize an all night teach-in which about 1000 people attended. Here' an article with a photo of the march. https://www.lansingcitypulse.com/stories/fifty-years-ago,13432
Nixon had already drawn down the Troops in 1972, and the Vietnamization was in progress. Vietnam had taken over responsibility for their own safety. So what were you p[protesting against, and for whom Ho Chi Minh.
Protested in 1971.
Or 1970. Or both?
Hal, the reason that Nixon brought them home in '72 was because middle America, had enough with military funerals of burying their brothers,fathers, husbands, uncles, cousins, for what?
It wasn't the protests. In fact speaking as one who was a conservative at the time, as well as having done my tour and lost team mates,. The protests actually caused a reaction, and prolonged the war.
Abie Hoffman, the Chicago 7, the 67 riot at the Democratic National convention, was a gift to the war mongering establishment. We called hem dirty, filthy, long haired,.cowardly hippies, and they helped Nixon get elected, and some 30,000 young men die, not to mention the Vietnamese that died in untold numbers.
So, William, you need to attack me, a nursing student at the time, who was trying to do what I could to stop that horrendous war, but as you point out, it was over before I graduated. I later served for two years in the National Health Service Corps in Appalachia, working among the poorest of our nation's poor. Alongside my 50 year nursing career, I also became a lobbyist and was able to secure healthcare services and financial supports for families in need. When I taught nursing, my boss was a veteran nurse who had served in Vietnam. I can't begin to imagine what you endured. Peace.
I am not attacking you Marypat, Don't personalize the impersonal, There was absolutely nothing in my response with the word you.
It is simply my analysis and opinion of the effect of events of the time.
Why did you personalize my comment?
Yes this time I am personalizing my comment, because you personalized yours
The truth is right in front of all of us. I say, keep speaking, listening and watching. We have the ability to record all that is happening. I will go see this film ASAP! Thank you Hartmann Report, Thom, Louise and the rest of the crew. Power is turning guns on the powerless...
Your statement “If this film makes people uncomfortable, that’s its purpose. Democracy doesn’t survive by comforting the powerful. It survives when ordinary people demand justice and truth, even when it stings.” Says it all. And artists are often the spokespersons for a society’s consciousness and moral compass. As a performing and recording artist for 60 years I have experienced how we can support the truth and inspire our audiences.
Thanks Thom for supporting the fearless creators.
My new album on Spotify reflects the struggle for positive change not corrupt conservative entropy.
https://open.spotify.com/album/4FvmxIOQGOp8rbf7EBCrRQ?si=-jESzc7vRaCCNWEYBNTK7w
Listening to your songs is making me weep. Smiling, tears of joy.
I am absolutely fascinated by the two different takes on this film, One battle After Another, in the comments. That is what great discussions are all about.
Thom, I love your show, and usually I am in total agreement with you. But on this movie, I have to completely disagree.
My wife and I were lured in to watch the film because it features those two traditionally progressive actors: Sean Penn and Leonardo DiCaprio. We were shocked to find a movie that was extremely racist, sexist, violent and poorly acted.
But worst of all...at a time when we desperately need some good media and messaging to counter the emerging fascist takeover of our nation...this movie could quite seriously serve as a propaganda film for Trump and Steven Miller. It repeatedly showed the so-called 'liberal revolutionaries' doing horrendously violent things, blowing up buildings and the electric grid, shooting people with automatic weapons, screaming obscenities, etc. They could play these scenes on an endless loop on Fox News to justify Trump's rhetoric about the ‘leftist radicals’... and support his sending in the troops to American cities.
Admittedly, we walked out of the theatre after the first 45 minutes, so perhaps some counter messaging happened later. (Although I have corresponded with friends who saw the whole movie and had the same reaction we did.) The film begins immediately portraying the so-called leftists as incredibly violent (not to mention, in some cases sexually depraved). There was no initial set-up for what right-wing oppression might have produced such violent radicalism... no justification whatsoever for their horrendous behavior.
BTW, I was in East Lansing from 1970 on (and had the pleasure of being tear-gassed in anti-war protests). There was absolutely no actual behavior going on with SDS or anyone else that had any of the murderous behavior shown in this movie. The portrayal in this film is a ridiculous, way over the top, caricature.
And that is where the damage and risk exists. Since Trump apparently saw old footage from 2020 of riots in Portland that inspired him to say this week that the city is “war ravaged”, and that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities were “under siege from attack by Antifa”. Lord help us if he sees this movie. One can already imagine Fox News taking clips from this film to justify Trump’s forthcoming fascist actions. One cannot imagine a more vivid portrayal of what Trump imagines as ‘the enemy within’.
We desperately need a movie about the increasingly ominous excesses of the Fascists currently governing our nation, not a film about imaginary violence by some hypothetical leftist radicals.
Martin do you realize that your protesting actually prolonged the war, as it stirred up the reactionary forces in middle America.
Of course you don't. You made your "sacrifice" and consider yourself a brave warrior. I haven't met a protester who can come to grips with the fact that their actions actually were counter productive, because they like to think that they stopped the war, but in truth no such thing
What would you have a person radically opposed to such a war do? Sit and remain quiet? I have no illusions about having helped end the war, or that the combined weight of all the protests that war created having even the slightest effect. At least for some, we stood in opposition, completely aware of the total lack of impact our actions would have because inaction would have implied countenancing such a loathsome act. That whole war was a travesty from 1954 on.
What would I do Robert? How about you coming to terms with the fact that your protests encourage a reaction that prolonged the war, and accounted for tens of thousands of American deaths.
Remember the Russians left Afghanistan with olnly 14,53 killed. Afghanistan is not the Ukraine, and was not part of the Russian Empire, and Putin's ego was not on the line.
We will never know but more than likely Americans would have come home sooner, especially after Khe Sanh. I wasn't there but a team mate and friend was.
auppose to be our Dien Bieh Phu, it wasn't, but the mood was to back out and extricate anyway, but the protests were just ginning up and then along came
Chicago, Abie Hoffman, the Democratic National Convention and the forces of reaction sat in, and voila, instead of pulling back and pulling out, the forces of reaction resulted in damn the torpedoes' full speed ahead.
I realize it is as futile a task to convince the committed left that they fucked up, as it is convincing the right they they are fucking up, and fucked up in the past.
No one wants to admit error, their ego is a stake. That much the left and right have in common.
U
Without a nonexistent device that could take the real world back to, say 1950, and allowing several different conditions to be run up to 1980, your hypothesis cannot be falsified. This scenario is, of course, an impossibility, but I am not aware of any rigorous icomputer simulations that have explored your position either.
However, I cannot rule out the possibility that what you say is correct. At the same time, you can't rule out the possibility that the demonstrations did indeed bring about the end of the war sooner. Personally, as I already stated upthread, I don't believe (again, unfalsifiable) that it didn't impact the outcome either way. Regardless, we had no business being there in the first pace.
It isn't that I am committed leftist that is the base of my position, it is that I was a conscientious objector (1-O) prior to any serious involvement in Southeast Asia (before the Gulf of Tonkin). I was anti-war by the time I was 14. FWIW, I stepped away from direct involvement when it was turned into a media circus by Hoffmann and the likes.
Regardless, my initial statement upthread remains unanswered: "What would you have a person radically opposed to such a war do?"
Here is the deal Robert. Unlike you who were nurtured in the left, I was nurtured in the right. I was single issue right winger, anti communist, none of that culture war shit, in fact i have always been opposed and aghast racism, which I saw the effects of up front when I moved to Louisiana when I was 17.
I spent 26 years in the service as enlist and officer, most of it in special ops.
I lived with the Vietnamese could read and speak Vietnames, and they saved my ass the night that Tet broke out, they meaning the hamlet chief and the Sgt in whose house I had a room, both played both sides of the fence.
Oncoming home, I was keenly aware of the sentiments of middle America, who at first staunchly supported the war, and reviled you protesters, as dirty filthy, commie, hippies - true and demanded of the government to keep beating those filthy Vietnamese Commies
But I also remember middle America and even G.I.S getting tired of burying familie and friends and wanting us out, mainly they wanted Victory, but came to grips that victory was not possible.
As I said, I fully understand the need of people who want to feel important as if something they did in their life had an affect, that they were part of something good. I also know what it is like to feel betrayed, sold out by your government because of those filthy dirty, commie hippies
Both points of view are wrong Robert. You didn't stop the war, and the government didn't sell out because of the hippies.
As to why we were involved, That is a different subject, and again the popular idea is simultaneously partly true and partly false
I am sorry Robert, you didn't stop the war. It became politically costly, and apparently unwinnable.
At the time I felt like Sisyphus, the rock always rolling down, me always pushing it back up the mountain. I still do. I don't expect that I am going to change the world, I never have. In the same way, I have been bringing up climate change for over 40 years now. That's somewhat different in that it is hard to ignore it (though denial is always possible) when you're flooded out, or your whole neighborhood goes up in flames, or the Colorado stops flowing and the vegetables stop arriving eat your market. Climate change will eventually be accepted — the consequences of inaction are becoming harder and harder to deny. War? I doubt we won't give it up until there's only one of us left. I'm not fooling you, William, but at the same time I'm not fooling myself.
I don't feel self-important. What I do feel is tired, heartbroken and afraid for the generations following me. I'd do it all again, not expecting a different outcome. Perhaps you feel the same way about your service, perhaps you don't.
Just to be clear, I respect your service. Who I don't respect are the people who sent you to fight wars I believe we had no business fighting in the first place. Perhaps some day people and nations will come to their senses, put down their weapons, and live in peace (something I have little doubt will ever occur). Until that time, we will need a military. But we sure as Hell don't need them marching
through the streets of Portland and Chicago.
I was, am, and will be until death, countercultural — call me a hippie if you want, it's as good a label as anything else. I used to smoke marijuana, haven't in 40 years. I used to drive a VW van with curtains (though no decals); now I drive a Prius. I taught art and art history in college for 6 years, and was disgusted by the experience; the vast majority of my students were waiting for galleries to beg them to show, even though they couldn't draw stick figures. (Although few in the outside world would accept the idea, being an art student is very hard work. I spent the rest of my professional life, 30 years, teaching severely emotionally disturbed youth at a residential treatment center, one step down from a locked ward. I can't say I enjoyed the work — those kids came from Hell and probably 95% ended back in it — but they were eager to learn . Being regarded as human beings was a surprise for them — they'd never experioenced it before and some of them never would again. Oddly enough, I had very few behavioral problems. None of this is virtue signaling. Something tells me that it wouldn't work on you in the first place. Oh, and I garden organically (the peaches were incredible this year, sweet as can be, the juice running down in rivulets — you remember peaches, most have never tasted one that couldn't serve as a baseball. I've done that since 1969.
Okay, so call me a hippie, just not a dirty one. I actually never met a dirty hippie— we like swimming in lakes and streams, and will luxuriate in a hot tub for hours on end given the chance.
William, I am a bit perplexed by your comment, because it has nothing to do with the point of my original post... i.e., that the new Penn/DiCaprio movie is not only poorly done entertainment, but also likely to be dangerously misused.
But since you raise the subject of anti Vietnam war protests... as someone who lived through that entire period (and became fairly involved in political processes from that point forward), I completely disagree with your assertion that the protests extended...rather than ultimately ending...that war. Most historians would certainly agree with me on that.
Finally, I'm not sure where your snide remark about me thinking I made a "sacrifice" and "consider [myself] a brave warrior" came from. I merely made the reference to 1970 to make the point that the movie portrays 'liberal activists' that are far, far more violent than anything that was going on amongst anti-Vietnam war protesters in that area.
Mr. Farrar. Mr. Kuschler does not seem to have traveled half way around the world to kill strangers on the orders of national leaders.
Sorry Mr Dobbertin, but your comment has no bearing or relationship to my comment.
"When art tells the truth, power always howls."
Whose truth? Was Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will" a lie or did it tell the truth about the NSDAP and prewar Germany? Was its truth not so blatantly self-evident that the rest of the world should have been better prepared, that it should have been impossible for Chamberlain to have declared "Peace in Our Time". Was it not art, and great art at that? In defending her art, I'm not defending the Nazis.
There is no guarantee that "power" is going to be awake in the first place, or that art is not going to derive exclusively from that power. Think of the history of European art between 800 and about 1600: Almost all of it derived either from the Church or from monarchies and the aristocracy. Art didn't make the powerful tremble, it was entirely financed by the powerful in order to glorify and legitimatize the powerful. Then was almost all the art of that time a lie or is art something else that can't be reduced to some formulaic definition? Over time, art becomes decontextualized from its historical base; it is judged (a crappy word) by other sets of criteria, ones more closely arising from the work itself (though with an admitted bias based on when it is assessed (another crappy word) and who assesses it.
Admittedly conditions are different today, but an ongoing topic of discussion on the left is that the far-right is actively working to censor broadcasting so that only archconservative pabulum is allowed. We have been relatively lucky in America but much of the rest of the world has experienced censorship applied to all creative art — cinema, television, literature, the Internet, and so on.
Art doesn't need to be nice. It doesn't have to be, it isn't, a Valiant Beacon of Truth, brightly shining its light to expose all the evils of the enemy, etc, etc. If power always howls, sometimes those howls are howls of delight.
And yes, I think One Battle After Another is brilliant, a movie that I will eagerly see again and again. But will it make Trump and Sons howl? Oh, they'll fulminate for a while and then they'll go back to forming the means to make art either conform to their demands or they'll criminalize it.
Wonderful comment Robert. I would like to say you took the words out of my mouth. But I could not have done such a great job. On behalf of those who understand the history of art: thank you.
I'm partial to the PreRaphaelites and their progeny myself.
Robert. I had the seeds of a discussion of my favorite works of art: music, novels, short stories, architecture, movies, etc.; all revolving around in my head after reading your excellent comment. But hell with it. I would only be didactic and boring.
Don't keep those things revolving in your head for too long, gerald, or it will likely explode.
Mr. Hartmann. I enjoyed your essay. But, if I may dissent, I think you are wrong about what constitutes art. Art is not composed of political messages. Art is a celebration of life. The human experience. Whatever it may be. Whatever a creative person wants it to be. Art is not the extremely limited phenomenon you describe.
This is a point academic artists and critics have been making for years. Nothing new here.
Personally, I'm already so traumatized by the actual news I couldn't bear to watch anything like that. If we as a nation come out on the other side of this, no guarantee that we will, today's children will see it in school as a history lesson.
Stalinism and Stephen Miller is the topic of Synder’s video today and it is chillingly accurate. From day one I saw Miller’s role in this diabolical administration.
Snyder parses the differences between the background of Russia’s situation and the US to reveal a duplicate pattern of behavior in the role of Stephen Miller and Russia’s correspondent.
The purpose of art is to give you new perspectives that challenge the status quo especially when the consensus is obviously wrong.
Most art over the last 30,000 or so years has had nothing to do with giving one new perspectives. Likewise, very little has been meant to challenge the status quo. Quite the opposite.
Yes Robert. Man is a symbol-using creature. So it is inevitable he would engage in art. Inevitable, unavoidable.
Yes, Robert, Yes.
No Mr. Conway. It is not.
You offer no alternative perspective. Art is play the means one has to look into the future without having to build it first to know what the outcome might be. Your no gives nothing but a black hole.