"The Village" & Our Government

I recently rented the film "The Village", a decent and fairly entertaining movie, in which Ron Howard's real-life daughter gives a stunning performance. Since it has been out for quite a while I do not have a problem with giving you a little information on it, but if you have not seen it and want to be surprised, or, you want to try to be surprised because the twist is not that big of a deal, then stop reading. Otherwise I will be giving away a little bit of the story. I will reduce the font size in case you want to jump over it and read the rest of this post.

The movie is about a guy who creates an insulated community, using fear and money to maintain order.

That's it, all that I am going to say about the movie, so any of you jumped over the last sentence can now safely return to my harangue.

It occurred to me that the movie was an excellent metaphor for how the Bush administration operates. (It is an equally-excellent metaphor for organized religion) They have stricken fear in the general populace by continuing to beat the 9/11 tragedy into our brains along with the "threat" of terrorism, rather than doing something that would give us the confidence that this was an isolated incident. They have CREATED a war and are funding it with billions of dollars to keep the "threat" of terrorism, something that really is not present in IRAQ, at least with respect to the US, constantly on our minds.

They continue to fund this out-of-control propaganda machine with handouts to the rich in the form of tax breaks, giant give aways to the pharmaceutical companies disguised as a prescription drug plan for seniors, and are now trying to give our social security taxes to Wall Street.

The guy in the movie was successful because the majority of the folks in his community had no idea what was going on. I concluded a long time ago that the majority of folks in this country are equally clueless, or worse, they just don't care.

So all of you who worship Bush, enjoy your $40 million day to celebrate a man who is ruining our country, and just doesn't seem to care.