TheMillerCircle.org

10/3/08

While we are still in the middle of a suspenseful financial meltdown, who doesn’t need a little escapism from the daily barrage of threats to our economic security? So, against more sensible advice from many quarters, here are three movies that may not qualify as escapist opportunities, but certainly qualify as educational documentaries of some interest, though none are comedies.

The first is “The Rape of Europa” a documentary recommended to me by Derek, directed by Richard Berge and narrated by Joan Allen. This documentary traces the Nazi theft of European art during their years of military occupation of much of Europe and Russia. I have watched many films related to the Nazis and WW II before, but most of the footage for this documentary was new to me. Hitler was of course an artist, but he was denied entrance into an Austrian art school (which he later pillaged when he marched “invited” into Austria); instead of becoming an artist, he became a maniacal, out of millenia, pagan war lord. But his fascination with art permeated the entire officer corps of the Third Reich, particularly Herman Goering. So the Nazi war machine would pillage art in every country that they invaded and issues related to the proper return of this stolen art are still playing out today. In this documentary, you get to see “art soldiers” who were organized by the United States and became embedded with frontline U.S. troops, with the approval of Eisenhower, to look out for the protection of art treasures as the Allies advanced towards Germany. This documentary will give you tears, because it reflects a time when we all thought that we were the good guys: in this documentary, in this period of our history, we were!

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The Democrats lost an important vote yesterday, when Paul Newman died of cancer at age 83. Newman once said that his activist activities in the 1970s, which landed him on Nixon’s enemies list, was his most important accomplishment. Not only was he a memorable actor, but his food company did good works by donating millions of dollars to good causes. A memorable portrait and tribute to Newman was posted today in Salon, by Stephanie Zacharek.

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Over the weekend of June 6-8, 2008 the National Conference for Media Reform (NCMR) was held at the Minneapolis Convention center in downtown Minneapolis. This is a group that is committed to media reform and has an organizational scheme to recover our once "free press" as an institution of objective journalism. This was the fourth annual meeting organized by FreePress.net and was attended by about 3500 people from many walks of life, but mostly by those associated with some aspect of journalism or activism. FreePress itself is a relatively new organization, but has had impressive leadership during its short existence. The emphasis for this movement has come about during the GW Bush presidency and is directed towards reshaping American political journalism and especially broadcast journalism which has gotten off the beaten path as almost everyone can attest. In general, this is a very progressive liberal movement. But, as Arianna Huffington emphasized, "we are not the left, we are mainstream. Every major issue we are emphasizing about the war, our health care system and the direction our country is going is supported by 60-80% of Americans."

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