Archives For Hollywood & Hitler

Trump’s Resignation from the Screen Actors’ Guild Is Anti-Fascism Proper

February 8, 2021 — Leave a comment

The planned Hollywood Union show trial of Donald Trump was extinguished after the former President, woke to the fake woke people’s court nonsense, headed them off at the pass.

Trump’s response? Resign.

By doing so he effectively nullified Hollywood’s self-serving attempt at using its Union arm to charge, and convict him (as far as it’s within their power to do so) with crimes he never committed.

USA Today reported that President Trump ‘resigned from SAG-AFTRA after facing expulsion from the actors’ guild’ for his alleged “incitement” of riots on January 6th.

As noted, ‘on January 19th, the Screen Actors Guild board voted “overwhelmingly” that there is probable cause’ in regards to ‘Trump violating its guidelines for membership.’

USA Today added that ‘the charges are for Trump’s [alleged] role in the Capitol riot, and [again, allegedly] sustaining a reckless campaign of misinformation aimed at discrediting and ultimately threatening the safety of “journalists”, many of whom are SAG-AFTRA members.’ (parentheses mine).

The NY Times called the move a ‘disciplinary hearing’ then repeatedly referred to the former President as ‘Mr. Trump, a businessman.’

According to the NYT, SAG-AFTRA has confirmed the move, with the Union President stating,

“Donald Trump attacked the values that this union holds most sacred — democracy, truth, respect for our fellow Americans of all races and faiths, and the sanctity of the free press […] there’s a straight line from his wanton disregard for the truth to the attacks on journalists perpetrated by his followers.”

Rolling Stone rightly called the hearing an attempt to ‘banish Trump,’ and included Hollywood’s simple ‘thank you’ reply to his resignation.

In the official resignation letter Trump labelled the Union’s move a ‘blatant attempt at free media attention to distract’ [people] from lawsuits against the Union such as the group lead by Ed Asner. Who, according to Hollywood Reporter, are suing the ‘SAG-AFTRA Health Fund and its board of trustees for allegedly breaching their fiduciary duties…Actors say they’ve been abandoned by their guild, and are losing their health coverage.’

The resignation letter is classic Trump; a reminder of why we “the-deplorable-little-people”, which includes 75 million+ Americans, and many more worldwide, still respect the imperfect man’s steadfast grit and love for his country, despite the being the primary target of irrational hate from an all-too-powerful, and smug elitist caste.

Trump’s move also disarms far-Left Democrats from using any Hollywood verdict of ‘guilty as charged’, ‘off with his head’ exile, as a precedent, or proof of his guilt, in its own potential State sponsored criminal [show] trial.

Despite Biden’s mandated ‘healing and unity’, many Democrats have made it clear that they’re not through with trying to punish the man who dethroned the Clintons, and helped awaken the world to the free-pass handed to powerful allies in Hollywood. (E.g.: Weinstien; Epstein et.al)

It’s the kind of trial that’d make Nazi, people’s court judge Roland Freisler jump with whatever is the fascist equivalent of joy.

Alongside an over-excited Goebbels ready, with pen and paper, to spin the “historic” and “unprecedented” act of “social justice” quelling “dangerous” hate-speech from individuals deemed enemies of the Reich.

Of course, Hollywood’s relationship with Nazism borderlines morbid obsession. There’s a reason why we see few movies portraying the war crimes, and human rights abuses from other countries under Socialist rule.

It’s worth noting that Hollywood’s Anti-Nazi league (later run by Communists, once they booted Christians) [i] practised a policy of neutrality, courting the Third Reich and its cinema market.

Let’s not forget that the league went silent in their opposition to Nazism, when Soviets signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop non-aggression pact with the Nazis, which saw the Nazis and Communists tear apart Poland, and enslave the Polish people.

Hand-in-hand, both Nazi and Communist, socialists one and the same, mined Poland to satiate the wolf (Nazi) and the bears’ (Bolshevik) socialist empire building, blood lust. [ii]

After four years of anti-Trump hysteria, Hollywood’s obsession with Nazism begins to look a lot more like admiration.

If the attempt to try Donald Trump reveals anything, it’s not Hollywood’s anti-Nazism, it’s Hollywood’s fascination with fascism.

As Thomas Doherty observed,

‘In the digital age, the collection and repackaging of images of the Nazis remains a growth industry, sustaining documentary features, action films, and cable channels.’ (Hollywood & Hitler, p.371)

It’s fair then to ask:

Do the dollars attached to Hollywood’s obsession with the Nazi worldview mean that Hollywood is essentially marketing Nazism?

Does this explain why they a) don’t speak about the just-as-equal evils of socialism, and b) are quick to spread alarmism about a so-called “far-right extremist” crisis?

Nazism and Communism are two wings on the same vicious bird.

It’s a shame that the subjective bias of Hollywood has held them back from speaking this truth to power.

References:

[i] The Communist beachhead in Hollywood caused a split, which created the far-left’s Popular Front, and the Catholic, National League of Decency (formed in 1934).

Doherty, T. 2013 Hollywood & Hitler: 1933-1939 Columbia University Press

First published on Caldron Pool,  6th February, 2021.

©Rod Lampard, 2021.

In Political Theology, Politics , , , ,
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Why The Song, “God Bless America” Is Both Prayer & Protest

July 31, 2017 — 3 Comments

On page 291, of his 2013 book, Hollywood and Hitler, Thomas Doherty makes a small, but note worthy statement about the song “God Bless America.”  Written by Irving Berlin from an earlier tune called “Yip!, Yak!, Yaphank!” , “God Bless America”  was to become an unofficial second national anthem.

 ‘as the wave of antisemetic violence [during what was penned by journalists as Krystallnacht], in [Nazi Germany], was subsiding, the singer Kate Smith had long planned to dedicate her variety show program to the 20th anniversary of Armistice Day, a solemn look back at the last war as the world stood on the brink of another. Smith asked Irving for a patriotic theme suitable for the occasion’[i]

Whilst it is right to describe “God Bless America” as a patriotic song, it’s not a stretch to say that it also fits well within the rubric of patriotic protest songs.

Cast in the light of his original intent, Berlin’s song is an anthem for peace. It rallies people of all races, around the banner of peace.

“God Bless America” is perhaps also the most significant musical push-back against the onslaught of mid-20th century Nazism, to come out of America during that pre-WW2 era.

Post-1939, into, America’s 1942 involvement in the war; first in the Pacific, then in the North African, and European theatres, this prayer for peace, while still holding its integrity, extended its meaning towards a prayer for freedom.To call on God’s blessing is to call on His grace and victory.

And if prayer is, as Karl Barth asserted:

 ‘…the beginning of an uprising, [a revolt] against the disorder of the world’[ii]

Then “God Bless America” is a protest. It is an effective protest that draws people’s attention towards the great Other. Towards the God, who, in His Covenant with Israel, and it’s fulfilment in Jesus Christ, sets out to present Himself as the revolution against the disorder, that is set in play by false lords, false claims to authority, and all human versions of “ordering” the world, which takes place under those false claims, in total allegiance to those false lords*.

Irving’s lyrics join up with the voice of the Confessing Churches, who, in the 1934, Barmen declaration, led by Karl Barth, declared that any proposition that suggests, or asserts that salvation could come through Hitler, or any human, outside of or abstracted from God’s revelation in Jesus Christ, is false, and is therefore is to be utterly rejected. This is because:

‘Jesus is the one Word of God and the proper hearing of this Word takes place in trusting and obeying […] The one Word is the way upon which, and the door through which, God comes to us in his truth and in his life, comes as the light that overcomes the lie and as the resurrection that disempowers death’[iii]

There are no ways to God, there is only one way from God to us. Founded and expressed entirely through, and in Jesus the Christ. No man, woman, leader, idea or natural organism can lay claim to this revelation that lays claim to all of humanity, without usurping God. It’s not something that can be moulded, crafted and raised in the name of human triumphalism.

Irving Berlin’s song declares that before nations and governments, there is no other Lord, but God.

As problematic as ambiguity and nationalism[iv] that is attached to the song, can be; at its inception, “God Bless America” was conceived as an anthem for peace. It was written at a time when the majority of Americans understood God as the one who makes Himself known in history, as testified to in the Judeo-Christian Bible.

What “God Bless America” became was both a prayer and protest. It focuses, unites, humbles, and in combined song, rouses a challenge against all those who actively seek to do the opposite.

“God Bless America” is a song of defiance in the face of an adverse and overwhelming enemy. As a prayer, it becomes the anthem for revolt. Not just against an oppressor from without, but also from within; against the sinful nature of the flesh that exists within each of us, to which God has answered, not by the way of man’s religion, and feeble attempts to save himself, by way of the Cross of Jesus Christ.

In “God Bless America” both the Sh’ma Yisrael and The Lord’s Prayer are heard. If we lean in close enough, we’ll hear Irving, Kate, Barth, Roosevelt and the many others, who, in fox holes, camps and gas chambers, ‘prayed both'[v], we may hear them “whisper their legacy”[vi] to American and non-American alike. I should point out that I’m not an American, but that doesn’t mean I’m exempt from joining in and singing the same kind of prayer and following the same kind of protest. For:

‘Even the “devils believe and tremble,” and I really believe they are more afraid of the Americans’ prayers than of their swords’
(Abigail Adams, 1775, Letters #55)

References:

[i]  Doherty, T. 2013 Hollywood & Hitler: 1933-1939, Columbia University Press, p.291

[ii]  Barth, K. CD Fragments IV:4

[iii]  Busch, E. 2010 The Barmen theses then and now: the 2004 Warfield lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary, Wm.B Eerdmans Publishing Company Grand Rapids Michigan, U.S.A. pp.23 & 37

[iv] For more on this see Sheryl Kaskowitz’s article ‘How “God Bless America” became a conservative anthem’

[v] Victor Frankl: we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions. Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.’ Man’s Search for Meaning, Beacon Press. p. 134.

[vi] Robin Williams, 1989. The Dead Poets Society.

*According to an unverified source, the Klu Klux Klan, only with Pro-American Nazi’s are said to have boycotted the song. The only source I could find, so far, which mentions this, is parade.com:  6 Things You Didn’t Know About the Song ‘God Bless America’ 

Original image credit: Photo by Jake Ingle on Unsplash

In Art and Theology, Karl Barth, Music, Political Theology, Theological Reflection , , , , ,
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The Usurping of Things To Come?

August 24, 2016 — 3 Comments

RadarIf the facts cannot be squeezed into a meme the level of attention those facts receive is reduced. Attention to detail is overlooked for what will best attract a view, a like, a follow or a share. Information is seen purely as a commodity.

The problem is that when information is seen purely as a commodity, truth is easily compromised.

We don’t need to look any further than the internet. It’s now common place to log on and find someone accusing someone else of being a Nazi or a racist. This may have reached the status of cliché, and as such is easily dismissed, nevertheless real concern should be given to it. Especially, when we’re bombarded with accusations from celebrities, and articles written by professionals, equating their opponents with the National Socialists of the 1930’s, without qualification.

For example: in August 2016, a lecturer from Sydney University,  compared fair-minded conservative opposition to same-sex marriage, with the Nazi treatment of homosexuals. In addition, a student was reported to have been disallowed from presenting a case,  linking examples of how anti-Israel sentiment, is linked to antisemitism. [source]

Historical comparisons made between present and past, should be measured for accuracy. Responsible self-criticism leads us to ask ourselves whether or not our opponent has a point. However, measuring the accuracy of our opponents claim shouldn’t stop with us. For it to be completely fair, the enquiry must also include the consideration of whether or not our opponents, are themselves guilty of doing the very things they’re accusing others of doing.

One good practice, when being likened to the Nazis, is reading material from those who’ve studied the historical context; the history of and the history associated with Nazism. Those who’ve engaged with the primary sources, and who understand not just what the Nazis did, but how, and why, they did it.

It’s here that books like Thomas Doherty’s insightful and well researched 2013 book, ‘Hollywood & Hitler‘ shines:

Page 9, citing a PCA[i] report on the prohibition of the movie ‘All Quiet on The Western Front‘, Dec, 18, 1930:
“There is no doubt that this wave of intense national prejudice, which is for now going on, will continue and that any pictures, particularly foreign pictures, which offend the sensibilities of the National Socialists will be a signal for riots and demonstrations.’ [i]
Page 21: ‘Even before Goebbels laid down the law, the Nazi rhetoric on race was being implemented by pumped-up S.A. thugs and zealous party bureaucrats. From Berlin radiating outward, the iron grip tightened over all aspects of film-related culture – artists and technicians, film content and style, trade periodicals and reviewer bylines, theatre ownership and ticket buyers.’ [ii]
Page 97: ‘The Nazis, said Prince Hubertus Lowenstein [an early critic of Nazism], had annihilated all that was good in German culture.”Everything that had made for the glory of Germany has been destroyed in the past three years. The best actors and artists have been expelled. Approximately 1100 scholars and scientists have had to leave, only because they believed in freedom of art, of thought, and of religion.” Jews were forbidden to buy milk for their children, and Catholics were jailed for keeping the faith. The jackboot crushing Jews and Catholics, he predicted, was but a preview of oppressions to come. All those speaking that night urged a united front against Hitler. “We must organise to fight the Nazi invasion before Americans lose their constitutional liberties”‘[iii]

Doherty’s descriptions of Nazis behaviour and policy helps to shine a light on where Nazism or fascists are active today. When matched against current events descriptions such as, “intense prejudice, the iron grip, that which offends the sensibilities is a signal for riots and demonstrations; rhetoric on race by pumped-up thugs and zealous party bureaucrats”, all show that those pointing their finger and crying wolf about Nazism and fascism, reflect it the most.

We have to ask: is there any real difference between what we know as the radical Left and what we know as the extreme Right?

The radical Left is already suspect, when the adherents use its political platforms to denounce all opposition as Nazism, without any real qualification. It’s already suspect when those same adherents ignore questions, make false claims and turn all fair criticism into “hate speech”. It’s already suspect when this very same ideology backs policies that undermine the humanity of the unborn, democratic debate, diversity of thought, reasoned opinion, expression and faith.

It’s already suspect when some of its most fervent adherents remain silent about the current events in Turkey, or Islamism in general, and yet continue to promote the BDS academic boycott movement against Israel. [source] The radical Left is more than worthy of our suspicions when we only hear the sound of crickets chirping to the tune of double standards, hypocrisy, selective outrage, suppression of faith and reason, political evasion, and propaganda.

As Theodore Kupfer asked, ‘Where are the Academic Boycotts of Turkey?”. It’s tragically ironic that anti-Israel protesters are loud and proud, yet they remain silent about Turkey:

“The response of Western academia has thus far been limited to expressions of grave concern for the fate of individual academics who have been subject to the purge [in Turkey].
No organized boycott effort has surfaced on any level. Mere proclamations of solidarity are supposed to suffice in the case of Turkey, while the same organizations agitate for nothing short of a blanket institutional boycott in the case of Israel.
Mind you, academic conditions in Israel are far superior to those in Turkey. Even attempts to portray Israel as hostile to academic freedom are evidence for this.” [iv]

The irony feeds suspicion of the radical Left. All that’s missing from the trajectory of this ideological radicalism is a figure-head with the power to influence enough people to fanatically fall in line behind them. With the upcoming election in the United States, such considerations should be weighed carefully.

Whether we like it or not, we’re being forced into categories by those who want to define us, determine what we think, and turn our freedoms into a carrot on a stick. The agenda isn’t about equality, it’s about dominance. The agenda isn’t about rights, it’s about power. The agenda isn’t about progress, it’s about pride.

It’s ironic that a people’s court stands ready to condemn those who don’t align, agree or pledge allegiance to the Left. Victims who are, as a result branded as Nazis, without trial or just cause.

I’m not big on the Right/Left political metaphors in politics because throughout history, they’ve shifted. The metaphor is inadequate. We cannot rely on it entirely. I’m even more suspicious of this metaphor when its applied to theology.

Theology, if it is to remain authentic theology, as Timothy Gorringe states, ‘stands as a critique of ideology.’ [v] To confess that Jesus Christ is Lord necessarily means to admit that Jesus Christ is no human pawn. Christian theology is and always will stand as a critique of all human centred strongholds that claim godlikeness; a challenge to all towers of Babylon. Whether they be, modern, futuristic, ancient, primitive, progressive, conservative, material or spiritual.

‘Christianity is the protest against all the high places which human beings build for themselves’ (Karl Barth C.D IV/II p.524).

Just as bandwagon support for hashtag movements or one’s Facebook activity isn’t the ultimate determiner of the legitimacy of one’s Christianity. Allegiance to an ideology cannot justify or earn a place before the throne of God’s grace.

While it may be too early to say for certain that history is being repeated. Given the growing list of facts, it’s not an overstatement to suggest that history is being repeated, but not according to the story we’re being sold. In this case, those in the West who claim to be victims of fascism, who are chasing “Nazis”, and pushing for safe spaces, have more in common with the Nazis, than they do the victims of Nazism.

May we be free, and well informed enough to differentiate between the real and the wrongly labelled.

References:

[i]  Doherty,T. 2013 Hollywood & Hitler: 1933-1939 Columbia University Press

[ii] ibid, 2013

[iii] ibid, 2013

[iv] Kupfer, T. 2016 Where Are the Academic Boycotts of Turkey? sourced 24th August 2016 from nationalreview.com

[v] Gorringe, T.J 1999 Karl Barth: Against Hegemony Christian theology in context Oxford University Press New York

Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com, Creative Commons

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