While this is mildly funny, can some explain to me why this is in the feature column? Has DC indymedia sunk this low?

If you think that's in bad taste, read on...

U N U S E D
A U D I O C O M M E N T A R Y
B Y H O W A R D Z I N N
A N D N O A M C H O M S K Y ,
R E C O R D E D
S U M M E R 2 0 0 2 ,
F O R T H E F E L L O W S H I P
O F T H E R I N G
( P L A T I N U M S E R I E S
E X T E N D E D E D I T I O N ) D V D ,
P A R T O N E .

BY JEFF ALEXANDER AND TOM BISSELL

Chomsky: The film opens with Galadriel speaking. "The world has changed," she tells us, "I can feel it in the water." She's actually stealing a line from the non-human Treebeard. He says this to Merry and Pippin in The Two Towers, the novel. Already we can see who is going to be privileged by this narrative and who is not.

Zinn: Of course. "The world has changed." I would argue that the main thing one learns when one watches this film is that the world hasn't changed. Not at all.

Chomsky: We should examine carefully what's being established here in the prologue. For one, the point is clearly made that the "master ring," the so-called "one ring to rule them all," is actually a rather elaborate justification for preemptive war on Mordor.

Zinn: I think that's correct. Tolkien makes no attempt to hide the fact that rings are wielded by every other ethnic enclave in Middle Earth. The Dwarves have seven rings, the Elves have three. The race of Man has nine rings, for God's sake. There are at least 19 rings floating around out there in Middle Earth, and yet Sauron's ring is supposedly so terrible that no one can be allowed to wield it. Why?

Chomsky: Notice too that the "war" being waged here is, evidently, in the land of Mordor itself — at the very base of Mount Doom. These terrible armies of Sauron, these dreadful demonized Orcs, have not proved very successful at conquering the neighboring realms — if that is even what Sauron was seeking to do. It seems fairly far-fetched.

Zinn: And observe the map device here — how the map is itself completely Gondor-centric. Rohan and Gondor are treated as though they are the literal center of Middle Earth. Obviously this is because they have men living there. What of places such as Anfalas and Forlindon or Near Harad? One never really hears anything about places like that. And this so-called map casually reveals other places — the Lost Realm, the Northern Waste (lost to whom? wasted how? I ask) — but tells us nothing about them. It is as though the people who live in these places are despicable, and unworthy of mention. Who is producing this tale? What is their agenda? What are their interests and how are those interests being served by this portrayal? Questions we need to ask repeatedly.

Chomsky: And here comes Bilbo Baggins. Now, this is, to my mind, where the story begins to reveal its deeper truths. In the books we learn that Saruman was spying on Gandalf for years. And he wondered why Gandalf was traveling so incessantly to the Shire. As Tolkien later establishes, the Shire's surfeit of pipe-weed is one of the major reasons for Gandalf's continued visits.

Zinn: You view the conflict as being primarily about pipe-weed, do you not?

Chomsky: Well, what we see here, in Hobbiton, farmers tilling crops. The thing to remember is that the crop they are tilling is, in fact, pipe-weed, an addictive drug transported and sold throughout Middle Earth for great profit.

Zinn: This is absolutely established in the books. Pipe-weed is something all the Hobbits abuse. Gandalf is smoking it constantly. You are correct when you point out that Middle Earth depends on pipe-weed in some crucial sense, but I think you may be overstating its importance. Clearly the war is not based only on the Shire's pipe-weed. Rohan and Gondor's unceasing hunger for war is a larger culprit, I would say.

Chomsky: But without the pipe-weed, Middle Earth would fall apart. Saruman is trying to break up Gandalf's pipe-weed ring. He's trying to divert it.

Zinn: Well, you know, it would be manifestly difficult to believe in magic rings unless everyone was high on pipe-weed. So it is in Gandalf's interest to keep Middle Earth hooked.

Chomsky: How do you think these wizards build gigantic towers and mighty fortresses? Where do they get the money? Keep in mind that I do not especially regard anyone, Saruman included, as an agent for progressivism. But obviously the pipe-weed operation that exists is the dominant influence in Middle Earth. It's not some ludicrous magical ring.

Zinn: You've mentioned in the past the various flavors of pipe-weed that Hobbits have cultivated: Gold Leaf, Old Toby, etc.

Chomsky: Nothing better illustrates the sophistication of the smuggling ring than the fact that there are different brand names associated with the pipe-weed. Ah, here we have Gandalf smoking a pipe in his wagon — the first of many clues that link us to the hidden undercurrents of power.

Zinn: Gandalf is deeply implicated. That's true. And of course the ring lore begins with him. He's the one who leaks this news of the supposed evil ring.

Chomsky: Now here, just before Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday party, we can see some of the symptoms of addiction. We are supposed to attribute Bilbo's tiredness, his sensation of feeling like too little butter spread out on a piece of bread, to this magical ring he supposedly has. It's clear something else may be at work, here.

Zinn: And soon Gandalf is delighting the Hobbits with his magic. Sauron's magic is somehow terrible but Gandalf's, you'll notice, is wonderful.

Chomsky: And note how Gandalf's magic is based on gunpowder, on explosions.

Zinn: Right.

Chomsky: And it is interesting, too, that Gandalf's so-called magic is technological, and yet somehow technology seems to be what condemns Saruman's enterprises, as well as those of the Orcs.

Zinn: Exactly.

Chomsky: But we will address that later. Here we have Pippin and Merry stealing a bunch of fireworks and setting them off. This might be closer to the true heart of the Hobbits.

Zinn: You mean the Hobbits' natural inclination?

Chomsky: I think the Hobbits are criminals, essentially.

Zinn: It also seems incredibly irresponsible for Gandalf to have a firework that powerful just sitting in the back of his wagon.

Chomsky: More of his smoke and mirrors, yes? Gandalf conjures the dragon Smaug to scare the people.

Zinn: One can always delight the little people with explosions.

Chomsky: As long as they're blowing up somewhere else. Now we come to Bilbo's disappearance. Again, we have to question the validity of the ring, and the magic powers attributed to it. Did Bilbo Baggins really disappear at his party, or is this some kind of mass hallucination attributable to a group of intoxicated Hobbits? When forced to consider so-called magic compared to the hallucinatory properties of a known narcotic, Occam's Razor would indicate the latter as a far more plausible explanation.

Zinn: I also think it is a spectacular display of bad manners to disappear at your own birthday party. And here, for the first time, Gandalf speaks to Bilbo about magic rings. Still, it is never clearly established why this one ring is so powerful. Everything used to justify that belief is legendary.

Chomsky: Gandalf is clearly wondering if it's time to invoke his plan for the supposed revelation concerning the secret magic ring. Why now? Well, I think it's because the people in Mordor — the Orcs, I'm speaking of — are starting to obtain some power, are starting to ask a little bit more from Middle Earth than Middle Earth has ever seen fit to give to them. And I don't think it's unreasonable for them to expect something back from Middle Earth. Of course, if that happened, the entire economy would be disrupted.

Zinn: The pipe-weed-based economy.

Chomsky: And, as you pointed out earlier, the military-industrial-complex that exists in Gondor. This constant state of alertness. This constant state of fear. And here Gandalf reveals his true nature.

Zinn: Indeed. Gandalf darkens the room and yells at poor Bilbo for rightfully accusing him of trying to steal his ring. It is abundantly obvious that Gandalf wants to steal the ring. But if he is caught with the ring himself, his pretext will dissolve. He needs to throw as much plausible deniability into his scheme as possible, which is why, later, he has Frodo carry the ring for him.

Chomsky: Gandalf knows the ring is powerless. It's interesting that he attaches so much importance to it and yet will not pick it up himself. This is because he knows that merely possessing the worthless ring will not help his cause. It's important to keep others thinking that it can. If Gandalf held the ring, he might be asked to do something with it. But its magic is nonexistent.

Zinn: Well, power needs to have its proxies. That way the damage is always deniable. As long as the Hobbits have the ring, no one will ever question the plot Gandalf has hatched. So here is the big scary ring, and all that happens when Gandalf moves to touch it is that he sees a big flaming eye. And notice it is a… different kind of eye — not like our eye.

Chomsky: Almost a cat-like eye.

Zinn: It's on fire. Somehow being an on-fire eye is this terrible thing in the minds of those in Middle Earth. I think this is a way of telling others in Middle Earth to be ashamed of their eyes. And of course you see the Orcs' eyes are all messed up, too. They're this terrible color. And what does Gandalf tell Frodo about the ring? "Keep it secret. Keep it safe."

Chomsky: "Let's leave the most powerful object in all of Middle Earth with a weak little Hobbit, a race known for its chattering and intoxication, and tell him to keep it a secret."

Zinn: Right. And here we receive our first glimpse of the supposedly dreadful Mordor, which actually looks like a fairly functioning place.

Chomsky: This type of city is most likely the best the Orcs can do if all they have are cliffs to grow on. It's very impressive, in that sense.

Zinn: Especially considering the economic sanctions no doubt faced by Mordor. They must be dreadful. We see now that the Black Riders have been released, and they're going after Frodo. The Black Riders. Of course they're black. Everything evil is always black. And later Gandalf the Grey becomes Gandalf the White. Have you noticed that?

Chomsky: The most simplistic color symbolism.

Zinn: And the writing on the ring, we learn here, is Orcish — the so-called "black speech." Orcish is evidently some spoliation of the language spoken in Rohan. This is what Tolkien says.

Chomsky: From what I understand, Orcish is a patois that the Orcs developed during their enslavement by Rohan, before they rebelled and left.

Zinn: Well, supposedly the Orcs were first bred by "the dark power of the north in the elder days." Tolkien says that "Orc" comes from the Mannish word tark, which means "man of Gondor."

Chomsky: Shameless really.

Zinn: Gandalf mentions the evil stirring in Mordor. That's all he has to say. "It's evil." He doesn't elaborate on what's going on in Mordor, what the people are going through. They're evil because they're there.

Chomsky: I think the fact that we never actually see the enemy is quite damning. Then again, Gandalf is the greatest storyteller of all. He weaves the tales that strand Middle Earth in this state of perpetual conflict.

Zinn: He is celebrated on one hand as a great statesman, a wise man, and viewed by the people who understand the role that he actually plays as a dangerous lunatic and a war criminal. And you will notice that Gandalf's war pitch hits its highest note when the Black Riders arrive in Hobbiton. I don't think that's a coincidence.

Chomsky: This is the Triumph of the Will.

Zinn: And now Frodo and Sam are joined by Merry and Pippin, as they finally escape the Shire. They're being chased by the Black Riders. Again, if these Black Riders are so fearsome, and they can smell the ring so lividly, why don't they ever seem able to find the Hobbits when they're standing right next to them?

Chomsky: Well, they're on horseback.

Zinn: Right.

Chomsky: This episode in Bree should cause us to ask, too, how much Frodo knows about the conspiracy. He seems to be piecing it together a little bit. I think at first he's an unwitting participant, fooled by Gandalf's propaganda.

Zinn: I'm much more suspicious of Frodo than you are. I've always viewed him as one of the most malevolent actors in this drama, precisely because of how he abets people like Gandalf. He uses a fake name, Mr. Underhill, just as Gandalf goes by several names: Mithrandir, the Grey Pilgrim, the White Rider. Strider is also Aragorn, is also Estel, is also Elessar, is also Dunadan. He has all these identities.

Chomsky: We call those aliases today.

Zinn: But is Sauron ever anything but Sauron? Is Saruman ever anything but Saruman?

Chomsky: And now, with Frodo in the midst of a hallucinogenic, paranoid state, we meet Strider.

Zinn: Note that the first thing he starts talking about is the ring. "That is no trinket you carry." A very telling irony, that. It is the kind of irony that Shakespeare would use. It is something Iago might say. And did you hear that? "Sauron the Deceiver." That is what Strider, the ranger with multiple names, calls Sauron. A ranger. I believe today we call them serial killers.

Chomsky: Or drug smugglers.

Zinn: And notice how Strider characterizes the Black Riders. "Neither living nor dead." Why, that's a really useful enemy to have.

Chomsky: Yes. In this way you can never verify their existence, and yet they're horribly terrifying. We should not overlook the fact that Middle Earth is in a cold war at this moment, locked in perpetual conflict. Strider's rhetoric serves to keep fear alive.

Zinn: You've spoken to me before about Mordor's lack of access to the mineral wealth that the Dwarves control.

Chomsky: If we're going to get into the socio-economic reasons why certain structures develop in certain cultures… it's mainly geographical. We have Orcs in Mordor — trapped, with no mineral resources — hemmed in by the Ash Mountains, where the "free peoples" of Middle Earth can put a city, like Osgiliath, and effectively keep the border closed.

Zinn: Don't forget the Black Gate. The Black Gate, which, as Tolkien points out, was built by Gondor. And now we jump to the Orcs chopping down the trees in Isengard.

Chomsky: A terrible thing the Orcs do here, isn't it? They destroy nature. But again, what have we seen, time and time again?

Zinn: The Orcs have no resources. They're desperate.

Chomsky: Desperate people driven to do desperate things.

Zinn: Desperate to compete with the economic powerhouses of Rohan and Gondor.

Chomsky: Who really knows their motive? Maybe this is a means to an end. And while that might not be the best philosophy in the world, it makes the race of Man in no way superior. They're going to great lengths to hold onto their power. Two cultures locked in conflict over power, with one culture clearly suffering a great deal. I think sharing power and resources would have been the wisest approach, but Rohan and Gondor have shown no interest in doing so. Sometimes, revolution must be —

Zinn: Mistakes are often —

Chomsky: Blood must be shed. I forget what Thomas Jefferson —

Zinn: He said that blood was the —

Chomsky: The blood of tyrants —

Zinn: The blood of tyrants —

Chomsky: — waters the tree of —

Zinn: — revolution.

Chomsky: — freedom. Or revolution. Something like that.

Zinn: I think that's actually very, very close.

www.mcsweeneys.net/2003/04/22fellowship.html

I love McSweeny's, thanks for that.

No hay problema.

Who the heck IS this guy???

To which "masked man" do you refer?

Oh, well. In for a penny, in for a pound of flesh...

U N U S E D
A U D I O C O M M E N T A R Y
B Y D I N E S H D ' S O U Z A
A N D A N N C O U L T E R ,
R E C O R D E D
S P R I N G 2 0 0 3 ,
F O R A L I E N S
S P E C I A L
R E D - S T A T E
E D I T I O N D V D ,
P A R T O N E .

BY JEFF ALEXANDER AND TOM BISSELL

- - - -

[This summer, we will release a short book of various unused audio commentaries "discovered" by Jeff Alexander and Tom Bissell. Pre-order it here.]

[Read parts one and two of the Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky commentary.]

- - - -

DINESH D'SOUZA: I want to thank the people at Fox and Newscorp for inviting us to contribute a commentary to this excellent film. Far too often DVD commentaries exhibit a distinctly liberal bias.

ANN COULTER: I agree. I think it's basically endemic of the hegemonic leftist control of all forms of media expression — burying conservative subtexts beneath a lot of lefty cuddling. Now, as the titles come up, perhaps we should talk a little bit about the first Alien movie. I see that film as evidencing the insidious effects of a creeping, dangerous worldview slowly infecting a small group of people, and then one by one destroying them. Not unlike, say, liberalism.

D'SOUZA: I see your point there, and I don't disagree. I think there's an interesting thing going on in Alien. I like to think of these movies as reflections of the presidents who were in office when they came out. As I'm sure you remember, Alien provides an impotent response to an unknown threat — that threat being, of course, the alien. A single alien, with the help of a quisling android, murders an entire crew.

COULTER: With the exception of Ripley, let's remember. She's independent, strong, and tall.

D'SOUZA: Extremely tall.

COULTER: A very Phyllis Schlafly-like figure.

D'SOUZA: To get back to my earlier point, we shouldn't forget that Carter was president at that time. One word: malaise. We all know what Carter did to this country.

COULTER: Screwed it seven ways to Sunday. The liberal contribution to America is essentially worthless. During the Carter years it was actually worse than worthless.

D'SOUZA: Now, we open with Ripley asleep in some sort of cryo-stasis from having escaped the Nostromo's last terrible voyage in Alien.

COULTER: I think it's interesting to point out some of the literary undercurrents in the Alien films. Nostromo was, of course, the captain of the ship in Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and, like Ripley, destroyed strange animals. Here we follow along with a remote-controlled camera peeking into Ripley's escape pod, which has been adrift for many years. So, obviously, this is the future.

D'SOUZA: Look at the impressive technology. We can see already the great leap from the world of the preceding film to this one. This is the Reagan world. This is a world of incredible technology and administrative competence with deep faith in its military prowess. A utopia.

COULTER: How well do we suppose Ripley will adapt from her sad, paranoid Carter world to this efficient, powerful Reagan world?

D'SOUZA: I don't think I could put myself in the mind of a woman!

COULTER: Notice when Burke comes to the hospital to see Ripley he's wearing a very snappy — and very appealing — outfit. Very hip. Very Chess King.

D'SOUZA: I like this guy, too. It's a welcome relief to have a character in the Alien movies who is clean-shaven and looking sharp. He's wearing a suit, he's washed his hair. He seems like someone you can trust.

COULTER: Notice, though, that Ripley's cat doesn't especially like Burke. The cat could be a liberal. It wouldn't surprise me. What Burke understands is something some stupid cat never will: people are essentially horrible. Enlightened people are and must be out for themselves. Sorry, liberals! But it's true.

D'SOUZA: Now we're having an apparent dream sequence. Ripley's giving birth to an alien here. This is some kind of nightmare flashback — we've all had them — to 1979.

COULTER: I think of this as the film's abortion subtext, something that, unbelievably, no one has yet thought to address. What I think this movie is doing is showing Ripley — who, in her nightmares, imagines she has been impregnated by an alien — slowly coming to terms with the fact that, during an abortion, someone dies. In this case, when the alien bursts out of her stomach, that someone is Ripley.

D'SOUZA: Or perhaps the alien represents Ripley's unconscious recognition of the life within her hostile womb? Perhaps this shows her reeducation from the pathological hostility she has, up until now, shown for the Corporation's capitalism and traditional morality.

COULTER: Yes. There's this typically liberal refusal to think of abortion as a real action involving the annihilation of a living thing. Ripley is coming into her own as a conservative hero. And it's breathtaking. I don't know if I can wait to see her start wasting aliens. What do you think of the future as it's so far been shown? Personally, I like it a lot.

D'SOUZA: Well, it certainly looks like business and technology have really done an excellent job providing for the needs and cares of the citizenry.

COULTER: Absolutely. I detect the hand of distinctly private enterprise in that medical frigate. If it were a government medical frigate I can only imagine all the freeloading, obese people loitering around in the hallways.

D'SOUZA: And look at the splendid, bucolic backdrop Ripley's looking at here. How beautiful the earth looks in the future. I think there's a lesson here for those alarmist, organic-farming, fruit-juice-drinking, garbage-sorting enviro-nuts who —

COULTER: That's actually a TV screen Ripley is looking at. Those trees aren't real.

D'SOUZA: Well, it's a great simulation, an ingenious solution.

COULTER: Again, here: Burke in a very natty red tie. And he really fills out a pair of chinos.

D'SOUZA: We're watching how he tries to help Ripley help herself, by convincing her to get back on the bike and revisit an alien-infested planet. Just in case anybody thought that conservatism and compassion couldn't go hand in hand …

COULTER: Burke?

D'SOUZA: Yeah, look at him. He's clearly got Ripley's best interest in mind.

COULTER: I think so.

D'SOUZA: Or, if not, then he's got the best interest of the Corporation in mind.

COULTER: Of course he does.

D'SOUZA: Would Ripley have gotten that great medical care without the Corporation?

COULTER: Absolutely not.

D'SOUZA: I don't think so.

COULTER: No.

D'SOUZA: Would she have a job without the Corporation?

COULTER: She wouldn't.

D'SOUZA: Would she have any purpose in this movie without the Corporation?

COULTER: Lieutenant Ripley?

D'SOUZA: Yes.

COULTER: No, not without Burke.

D'SOUZA: Not without Burke.

COULTER: You'll notice, too, that Ripley doesn't need any 23rd century Gloria Steinem to tell her that she has worth, or is a meaningful person. She just does it on her own. She doesn't need any external, cultural validation.

D'SOUZA: She could clean herself up a little bit better. Don't you think?

COULTER: Perhaps.

D'SOUZA: Ripley's got a little bit of … you know, she looks like the head of a woman's studies department.

COULTER: I violently disagree. Ripley is slightly mannish. But that's her right as a woman. Look at Barbara Bush. Mannish women are often better soldiers. Let's talk about this scene, though, this fantastic boardroom scene, in which the board members discuss with Ripley the Corporation's alien policy. Two things. We see that Ripley is 1) a take-charge woman but certainly not a whining feminist, and 2) completely unrepentant about the destruction of the alien in the first film. If certain cultures — for example, the alien's — are going to be hostile to your own, then they have to be either Christianized or destroyed.

D'SOUZA: You listen to liberals today and they talk about this kind of species equivalency. You know, "All species are equally good." Anybody who believes that should try going to live with those species. When I first came to the United States I met this crazy, smelly guy on campus who told me how wonderful it must have been to grow up in India. I said, "You think India's so great, why don't you try living there?"

COULTER: Still, I think Ripley is within her rights to be angry here.

D'SOUZA: Angry with the Corporation?

COULTER: Angry is maybe not the best word. Frustrated, rather, that the Corporation does not yet realize how important alien annihilation really is. Ripley's larger point is that the Corporation does not yet appreciate the danger. Naturally, the Corporation has everyone's best interest in mind — given the information that it has now.

D'SOUZA: It will devise a method of dealing with these problems. Initially it might not always be the best method …

COULTER: But it will get there. That's how capitalism works. Self-interest, rationality …

D'SOUZA: If this Corporation's board makes some ghastly mistake that brings back a rabid alien that's going to destroy the world, well, then a new board will be appointed that won't make the same mistake. And in this film we'll see the integration of two skill sets: the Corporation's resources, power, and technology used in concert with the righteous anger and imperialist might of Ripley's related project to eradicate another species.

COULTER: Uniquely conservative impulses — intelligent financial self-preservation, moral righteousness, and the understanding that threatening alien ideologies need to be ruthlessly crushed — do come together beautifully in the movie. And look at this. Here we have one of the additional scenes cut from the film's theatrical release. What are we seeing? We're seeing the brave, hard-working people in the colony that the aliens ultimately destroy.

D'SOUZA: They're a colony, right? They're terra-forming this lifeless planet?

COULTER: Absolutely.

D'SOUZA: They're trying to make this planet habitable for humans.

COULTER: Perhaps trying to Christianize the aliens as well.

D'SOUZA: I think they probably thought the aliens were beyond Christianizing.

COULTER: "The Wayland Atomic Corp: Building Better Worlds." That's the admirable motto of this company. And here's little Newt, the young girl Ripley eventually rescues, who's shown in these regretfully deleted scenes to be a real go-getter. She's the recipient of the colony's Second Grade Citizenship Award, for instance. Imagine the great work this colony could have done had the aliens not destroyed them!

D'SOUZA: Well, there is a cautionary element to this tale, which is to always be better prepared than your enemy is for battle. If only liberals understood the importance of military preparation.

COULTER: Finally! The Marines! Coming out of their cryo-stasis. And Burke is with them, thank goodness. He knows what's at stake here.

D'SOUZA: Let's talk about Burke for a moment, because he's a complicated figure in this movie. Does wanting to get rich by betraying your friends, or opportunistically using the Marines, necessarily make you a bad guy? Of course not. Indeed, I would go further. The rich are in the best position to be the good guys because only the rich have the resources necessary to be of actual help to those in need.

COULTER: Technological capitalism, not government, is the true catalyst for equality.

D'SOUZA: That's right.

COULTER: And technological capitalism is exactly what this movie is about. There's no government even mentioned in this movie. These Marines are corporate Marines — though Frost, encouragingly, does have an American flag stitched on his shoulder. So does the Marine's leader, Gorman. So we see that this future military is, also promisingly, subject to a rational, profit-driven Corporation, not some meddling, do-gooder government. Do you think that a liberal government would even respond to the alien-human genocide on this planet? No. They'd want some multistellar force to "investigate." Like aliens, liberals hate human beings. But imagine if the aliens were attacking each other and destroying precious alien culture. Then, naturally, the liberals would be hysterical. Then they would send in the Marines.

D'SOUZA: Sacrificing good human lives.

COULTER: And good bullets, too, frankly. We're going to squander some good M-80 rounds to preserve an alien culture? Conservatives take care of their own. Like Newt. This is a tough little girl. She knows what life is about.

D'SOUZA: In trying circumstances, she shows resilience and a can-do spirit. She doesn't wait for someone else to take care of her.

COULTER: People are victimized by aliens because they allow themselves to be victimized by aliens. But I have to ask: Which of the Marines is your favorite?

D'SOUZA: I think I'd have to go with Corporal Hicks. He's an all-American guy.

COULTER: As much as I admire the Marines, I have to say that this Captain Gorman is a disaster. A liberal disaster. He has no idea what he's doing. Right now he's mistakenly telling Ripley that a recently infested area has been made secure. But Ripley knows the truth. She knows how insidious these aliens are. Once you let them through your borders, they'll do everything that they can to destroy your society because they hate liberty.

D'SOUZA: I think that the Corporation is quite prudently investigating the source of these problems: aliens.

COULTER: They're not putting aliens in zoos. They're not trying to understand them.

D'SOUZA: They're not talking to them. They're putting them in petri dishes and cutting them up and putting them under microscopes. This is where Newt pops up and is almost shot. Again, I can only imagine what a liberal would do with Newt in this situation. Probably discard her as cavalierly as an unborn child. For a liberal, Newt's barely old enough to be a real person.

COULTER: But Ripley chases Newt into a garbage chute, finding, among other things, Newt's Second-Grade Citizenship Award. What are we seeing here? I think we're seeing compassion — conservative compassion. Liberal compassion is primarily a matter of telling poor people they're not to blame for their poverty, telling women they're not to blame when they kill their unborn children. But Ripley is reaching into herself and finding the warmth that women naturally have for children.

D'SOUZA: Let's just hope she finds a father to help raise Newt by the end of this movie.

COULTER: Well, of course. Hicks, perhaps?

D'SOUZA: Maybe. But we certainly can't have her raising a child alone.

COULTER: Look at the expression on Ripley's face when she finds Newt's Citizenship Award. Pride. This is an enterprising, academically successful young woman.

D'SOUZA: Citizenship. It's a wonderful virtue to be extolling. And it looks like she's been ravaged. The liberal alien infestation has almost completely damaged her.

COULTER: Did you hear that? "Come on, we're wasting our time." That's what Gorman says when he's faced with this little girl, the last survivor of the aliens' rampage. Poor Newt. Newt is heartbreaking, I have to say. Newts will always break your heart.

D'SOUZA: And she plays with a doll. Casey. It's nice to know that playing with dolls isn't stigmatized in this future for a young lady. Newt has just learned a hard lesson about the reality of life.

COULTER: That aliens will kill your family?

D'SOUZA: Yes. As Hobbes says, "Life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." And constantly terrorized by aliens.

COULTER: Frankly, I don't like Bishop, the android — or as he puts it, in a nauseating example of 23rd century political correctness, the "artificial person" — who is seen here dissecting one of the hateful face-hugging alien egg-implanters. "Magnificent creatures." That's what he calls them. Whose side is he on?

D'SOUZA: I'd say it's an example of the widely known liberal tendency to aestheticize evil — if liberals had a concept of evil at all.

COULTER: Now the Marines discover that there are a lot of good, upright colonists still alive in the cooling towers. And they have to go rescue them.

D'SOUZA: They're the right people for the job. Who else would you send — the United Planets?

COULTER: What do you think of the shoulder-mounted security cameras that each of the soldiers has?

D'SOUZA: The only problem is that there aren't enough of them.

COULTER: We need to talk about something, though. What do we think could have been done differently in this cooling-tower rescue mission, which ends so tragically, as a kind of interstellar Mogadishu, with the loss of so many brave Corporation Marines?

D'SOUZA: Well, unlike a lot of armchair generals we saw during a recent war, I'm not going to pretend I have any kind of military expertise — particularly 23rd-century military expertise — but I think that a long sustained air campaign followed by modest use of ground force would have been enough.

COULTER: That's the nice thing about wiping everything out with air strikes first. You don't have to spend a lot of money rebuilding afterwards.

D'SOUZA: If nothing is left alive then you don't have to build it a school.

COULTER: Did I call what's coming up an interstellar Mogadishu?

D'SOUZA: Yes, you did.

www.mcsweeneys.net/2003/05/27aliens.html

Sorry. The link for Part Two is:
www.mcsweeneys.net/2003/05/28aliens.html

wtf does ann coulter have to do with a zapatista doll?
Or oliver north for that matter.
Only relation I can think of is they both shill for a nazi news org like fox now and again.
but that's a huge stretch. And why do you keep spamming it? Once would suffice. It was probably more than enough.

marco

Oy vey, marco. Did you really say that? I think you confuse "spamming" with "spoofing".

Stay tuned. The Blair Witch Project is on its way.

Oops. Sorry. It's not the Blair Witch Project. It's an audio commentary of The Goonies by Jason Blair and Steven Glass, by Jeff Alexander and Tom Bissel, and it may be found at the link below:

www.mcsweeneys.net/2003/09/15goonies.html