No Country For Old Men, Alvin and The Decline Of American Power -- The Movie Board

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Subject: No Country For Old Men, Alvin and The Decline Of American Power

Author:
Jimmy

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Date Posted: 06:04:53 12/18/07 Tue
Author Host/IP: c-71-197-21-7.hsd1.mi.comcast.net/71.197.21.7

"No Country For Old Men" is a huge disappointment. Typical Cohen Brothers--well-made, graphic, deliberate pace--but it wasn't funny. It was boring and went nowhere. Surprisingly, Josh Brolin is good as some Red-Neck, Mexican-hating, Trailer dweller and the scenes of him tracking are well-shot and intense.

But am I supposed to be impressed by some cold-blooded Indian and his antics? Oooh, he's cut-throat. He sucked ass. He didn't scare me one bit and I didn't give a shit about his character or his philosophy. I've seen it all before.

To the Cohen's credit, a conversation Tommy Lee Jones has with his father towards the end sums up the movie's purpose but that scene was boring.

Alvin and the Chipmunks was total garbage and I didn't wanna see it. I don't see how even kids will enjoy it but then America isn't the same country it used to be.

Which brings me to this book I've been reading called "The Decline Of American Power" by Immanuel Wallerstein. I'd never heard of him either and I only grabbed his book because it was next to the one I was looking for.

This book has many faults--it reads like a cross between an ambitious professor whose forcing his class to read his book and "the book" O'Brien gave to Winston in "1984." I swear to God!!!

Despite its faults, Wallerstein takes a steely-eyed approach to where the world is headed and as a Social Scientist is able to draw upon not just history and sociology but also economics and politics.

His big picture approach, espcially to economics, gives the reader clarity in these uncertain times and he makes the best case for environmentalism I've ever heard. Not relying on the Al Gore, Wiccan approach to Mother Earth, Wallerstein breaks it down socio-economically. Just as there are only so many trees they can cut down there are only so many rural third world types they can pick for labor. Eventually, those nieve browns will begin demanding more and then there will be no more rural people to exploit.

This is where he argues against the albatross of racism but I'm not so sure because once they exhaust the rest of them they'll be forced to come back to us. Ho-ho.

Also, he does a nice job of delineating how Nazi Germany was not some freak occurence but merely a product of a capitalist world-system built on racism. Only Hitler went too far because the point of racism is not to exterminate but to keep them inferior within the contraints of a state economy.

Thanks Hitler.

In all seriousness, the book is quite good for the first half before he simply reprints a speech he already made to the Chincs. I lost interest. Also, he cries too much for the Islamic World though he is more than fair towards the hypocrisies of Israel.

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