“Triangle of Sadness” and the Awful Truth
In Thursday's New York Times, a writer was bemoaning the death of the independent film because smart moviegoers (like you and me ) have stopped going to theaters and "buzzing" about our favorite new films. Well, I plead guilty, sort of -- I rarely go to theaters these days. BUT I still buzz about the few films that wake me up or make me laugh out loud. Ruben Ostlund's Triangle of Sadness did both to me.
The film -- a rollicking, scathing morality tale about the absurd excesses of modern capitalism -- also contains a stunning commentary about the murderousness of the American Empire. Midway through the film, the drunken captain of a super yacht for billionaire clients (Woody Harrelson) gets on the ship's loudspeaker and tells the awful truth to his pampered patrons --about their rampant greed and tax evasion and the suffering of the world's poor.
The captain also tells his stunned passengers that the U.S. government killed JFK, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy -- and violently overthrew democratic leaders in other countries. This is a stunning moment. Yes, Swedish director Ostlund plays it for comedy, like much of the movie. But it's the truth -- and the filmmaker and his audience know it.
A few years ago, a distinguished list of Americans -- including two of the Parkland Hospital surgeons who worked on the mortally wounded President Kennedy and the chief counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations -- signed a statement that said the same thing. That JFK -- as well as his brother Bobby, Malcolm X and MLK -- were killed by the national security state for political reasons. The open letter (which I helped organize) was barely covered by the press, but it was still a landmark event.
In 2020, Bob Dylan, our nation's bard, sang the same thing in his chilling "Murder Most Foul."
Our most astute artists know the truth. As poll after poll shows, the American people suspect the truth. And yet the political and media establishments (hello, New York Times) remain adamantly committed to the coverup.
This establishment duplicity is behind the dangerous erosion of belief in expertise and the rise of the loony right. The corporate media is quick to point fingers at this social madness, but it NEVER admits its own responsibility, NEVER examines why the wild charges of "fake news" often stick to them.
The mainstream media in the U.S. -- I'm talking about the Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News etc -- is essentially a propaganda arm for the national security state. When the U.S. is looking for a war to fight or weapons to pour in, you can count on an army of CIA, NSC, Pentagon veterans to flood the airwaves and the Internet, rattling the sabers and frothing for someone else's blood.
As the wise captain tells his wealthy passengers in Triangle of Sadness, America is first and foremost a war state, not a democracy.
