The American Spectator : The Triumph of Fantasy

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The Triumph of Fantasy

By James Bowman from the July 2009 - August 2009 issue

Yet fantasy is not always harmless, as the summer blockbuster schedule confirms. From our July-August issue.

As I was sitting in my local cineplex and waiting, not very hopefully, for the new Star Trek movie to begin, I watched in the space of about 10 minutes seven separate previews of coming attractions, all of which are on the summer blockbuster sched ule and most of which will have opened by the time you read these words. Here, in order, is what they advertised:

• An animated feature produced by Tim Burton called 9 featuring cute, goggle-eyed, animated humanoids battling giant machines which is set in a post-apocalyptic world and opens, barring an intervening apocalypse, on September 9th: 9-9-09.

• Land of the Lost, a comic-adventure with Will Ferrell, based on a ’70s TV series and involving time travel to a world filled with dinosaurs.

• Another comedy adventure by Harold Ramis called Year One in which Michael Cera, Jack Black, and others show us the allegedly comic truth behind a number of biblical and other ancient legends.

• Terminator Salvation, another post-apocalyptic romp with Christian Bale, who is supposed to be what Edward Furlong in the last Terminator turned into; its tag could serve for any of these movies: “Forget the Past.”

• The sequel to Night at the Museum (2006), subtitled Battle of the Smithsonian, which copies its predecessor in making a museum’s exhibitions come to raucous life once it is closed.

• G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, in which the patriotic doll also comes to life as a whole co-ed “elite force” fighting for an international organization against an arms dealer; the striking line from the trailer is: “When all else fails, we don’t.”

• And, finally, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, also based on a child’s toy and involving space travel and warring robots.

Now what do these seven movies have in common, both with each other and with Star Trek, which followed them? All were the most childish sorts of fantasy attended by audiences that were mostly, at least chronologically, adult. Yet anyone venturing to suggest that our children’s exposure to this Niagara of nonsense throughout their formative years might be detrimental to them is likely to be seen as a religious nut.

You don’t have to be religious, however, to question the general assumption that fantasy is harmless or even healthy, and indistinguishable from such self-evidently salutary fictions as Greek myth or biblical legend. The new Star Trek, says Manohla Dargis in the New York Times, is, among other things, “a testament to television’s power as mythmaker, as a source for some of the fundamental stories we tell about ourselves, who we are and where we came from.” The original TV series, she adds, was also “a utopian fantasy of the first order”—as if this were entirely consistent with the alleged “myth” she had just described. And, in a way, I suppose it is, for utopianism is by its very nature a form of fantasy and one which, as I pointed out in this space last month, is enjoying a certain intellectual vogue of its own. For the many who now suppose that “the American dream” is a form of utopianism, I guess it is “where we came from.”

But if Star Trek the movie is to be counted among those “fundamental stories,” it’s hard to see how it suggests anything real about who we are or where we came from—unless who we are turns out to be intergalactic half-breeds, while where we came from is alternate universes where the familiar orderings of this one are at best haphazard. Myth is generally supposed to embody some kind of truth about the world, but I have not yet seen explained, by Ms. Dargis or any of the other critics who gave Star Trek a rave, what truth the movie contains, beyond the most banal, nor any acknowledgment that the absence of such truth counts as a detraction from this or any of the other new legends’ mythic power.

A day or two earlier, I had spent an unhappy evening at the theatre watching the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s painfully unfunny revival of Noël Coward’s 1931 comedy, Design for Living. This, too, was a utopian fantasy, reeking of the now-dated revolutionary sensibility of the 1930s. How could anyone take seriously, even as comedy, a giddy representation of the Bright Young Things of the period reinventing marriage and morality as if this were a thing unheard of? And yet the noticeably elderly audience laughed and clapped heartily all the way through the sorry spectacle. Perhaps these people were old enough to remember when the jokes still sounded fresh and, well, daring. As it seemed improbable to me that they could have been laughing at them qua jokes, I guessed that there was an element of nostalgia, too, of reliving their youth in the ’40s and ’50s when the remembered naughtiness of the ’20s and ’30s seemed, as Star Trek does today, like good harmless fun.

Yet fantasy is not always harmless. Here, for example, is Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times, apologizing for President Obama’s apologies on behalf of America and noting that “Mr. Obama’s willingness to acknowledge past American errors is a sign of strength, not of weakness.” He offers no evidence for this remarkable assertion. The word “sign” suggests that he is writing about a form of communication, as does his recognition that “when Mr. Obama suggests that the U.S. has made mistakes in its dealings with Europe or the Muslim world, he is quite deliberately sending a signal.” But there is nothing to support the implication that the signal, as received, is one of strength rather than weakness. Instead, he merely notes that “a willingness to discuss your country’s history self-critically is a mark of an open society.”

Well, so it is. But what has that got to do with signaling either strength or weakness? What he means, presumably, is that in his own mind and the minds of other liberal-minded people an open society is better than a closed one (like Russia or China, which are the two examples he gives) and, therefore, somehow, it must also be stronger. This is sloppy thinking, but sloppy thinking of a particular kind: namely, fantasy. As far as Mr. Rachman is concerned, the fact that neither Russia nor China nor any other country he can name will read the signal as he reads it is not a relevant consideration. He wants to believe that openness equals strength, and therefore, to him, it does.

His exercise in solipsism reminded me of what I still think of as the most revealing of President Bill Clinton’s remarks. When he was told that not retaliating for some terrorist outrage or other would make us look weak, Bill replied, according to Bill himself in self-congratulatory vein: “Can we kill ’em tomorrow? Because if we can kill ’em tomorrow, we’re not weak.” He, too, in other words, had mixed up a private mental state—that is, his personal consciousness of the potential of American power (very strong)—with the way someone else was likely to perceive his failure to exercise that power, that is, as an indication of weakness. He, too, preferred to live in his fantasy world.

Doubtless it is very unfortunate that we live in such a wicked world that people, particularly when they regard one another with the kind of suspicion that attends the relationship of rival powers, so often tend to regard kindness, gentleness, forbearance, and self-criticism as indicative of weakness while violence, force, vengefulness, and invincible self-confidence indicate strength, but what are you going to do? Well, what both Presidents Barack and Bill as well as Gideon Rachman are going to do—and are proud to tell us they are going to do—is to pretend that it isn’t so. That, too, is a sign of strength in their book. Nowadays, not only those who can afford to live inside their own heads, but even political and military leaders, people who have to deal with matters of life and death in the real world, feel entitled to be the kind of fantasists to whom Star Trek and half the movies made today are designed to appeal.

Can it be, then, only coincidental that their flights of fancy take place in the popular cultural context of a steady diet of fantasy, fantasy, and more fantasy? Could the president’s assurances that pouring trillions of dollars into federalized health care will actually save us money, or that raising taxes on domestic oil and gas production will help us toward “energy independence,” or that, for that matter, “torture doesn’t work” and therefore can never force us to a choice between our ideals and our safety—could these and other fantasies have passed unnoticed and uncriticized, as they mostly have in the media and other public forums for political debate, if we lived in a culture inclined to be at all critical of fantasy? I’m only asking.

About the Author

James Bowman, our movie and culture critic, is a resident scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is the author of Honor: A History and Media Madness: The Corruption of Our Political Culture, both published by Encounter Books.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (23) | Leave a comment

Wayne Duncan| 7.24.09 @ 6:49AM

Well written piece with a good point. Thanks.

Stuart Koehl| 7.24.09 @ 7:13AM

So, again I have to ask: Why does the American Spectator retain a "film critic" who so obviously hates both the medium he covers and his job?

Steve| 7.24.09 @ 7:17AM

The extent to which Americans, especially female Americans, live in a psychological nether-world of vampires, cartoons, Oprah, conspiracy paranoia, celebity sex, and more Oprah, to a large extent explains the current political situation. Terrifying. Fantasy IS reality for shocking numbers of people -- most of whom vote left.

Appleby| 7.24.09 @ 7:34AM

Almost all movies made today are designed either for Valley Girls or boys under 12 (mentally as well as chronologically). These are the people who sit in the movie theatres talking loudly to one another and shouting into their cell phones to people who are sitting in other public places shouting back. They live in the nanosecond because they have been told that Someone Else is in charge of all the other seconds, minutes, hours and days of their lives. It is not their responsibility to look after themselves. King Zero says so. All they have to do is climb on the gravy train and Someone Else will drive them to the Big Rock Candy Mountain. All they do on the way is yell and twiddle, twitter and blabber, curse and swear.

My father died in October, and I have been ironically comparing the response of those around me to the death of my father (indifference, basically) to their response to the death of Michael Jackson (hysteria, tears, memorials, and half a day sitting in front of the teevee listening to people praise him). These people would not extend a hand to a neighbour they have worked beside for five years in her moment of grief; yet they will hug one another and bawl their eyes out for a strange Hollywood freak they actually believe, because they watch him and listen to him and see his picture, that they intimately know.

Why are you surprised that when you infantilize the country by becoming their Mommy and Daddy, that they remain infants? If you can read, get yourself a copy of Brave New World and read the lecture Mustapha Mond gives to John Savage before the latter departs and hangs himself. Its all right there -- in 1942.

Ryan| 7.24.09 @ 8:19AM

Actually, Transformers and GIJoe, as well as Land of the Lost, are catering NOT to 12-and-unders, but to those of us who grew up watching the shows either in the afternoon or Saturday morning in the 1980s, and playing with the toys (of which GIJoes have held up remarkably well as a product through the years, having been rarely not for sale since 1982).

Roy| 7.24.09 @ 9:48AM

Ryan: I've made that point to Mr. Bowman before but it kinda slid past. And by the way, Transformers can beat up GI Joe, contrary to what my brother said in the 80's.

Then again, his major point is, unfortunately, well taken. I will admit to enjoying fantasy, in particular the video game World of Warcraft. Bear with me here because there's a serious point among all the geekery.

The storyline has been developing for 15 years. It started out with a simple pseudo-Tolkien plot of evil Orcs vs. humans for the first two games. Then one day, Blizzard(the creators) decided the orcs were cool and they were going to be good. So: abracadabra! They were mind controlled, so they weren't responsible for all the people they killed, even though they are not the least bit sorry. The humans on the other hand were RACIST! Then on game-related discussion boards there are huge fights over who is and isn't "racist" against groups of on-screen pixels. You can generate a 10,000 post discussion over whether the human king "Varian" is a "racist". Maybe, somewhere in the 10,000 posts will be one single one pointing out the obvious fact that no, he isn't a "racist", because..he um..uhh.. doesn't, ya know..exist.

Without that mental discipline an endless diet of tripe that ends with the "anti-racist" heroes riding off into the sunset does indeed shape people's real attitudes.

Dropping By| 7.24.09 @ 10:05AM

As usual, James Bowman proves that he is one of the finest minds and writers in the U.S. today. I have thought for a while that because of our affluence, the past (say) 50 years will be remembered as an Age of Creativity -- but he persuades me with this piece that the more likely historical judgment will be that we are living in an Age of Fantasy, and that won't be a compliment.

Bohred| 7.24.09 @ 10:06AM

You went to a kid's movie and were surprised to see kiddie previews??? Come on, all this is planned marketing. You won't see Henry James or even Michael Crighten previews at a Spongebob movie. Stop trying to find deep cultural meaning in simple mechanical events.

Ryan| 7.24.09 @ 11:25AM

I'll give you the TF win - the cartoon was better, though I think the toys were essentially equal.

Never got into the WoW ethic crowd, though I played for about 2 years.

The author is well-spoken on his ideas about living in fantasy, particularly for those post-gen-x. We seem to be the last generation with any concept of waiting for what's good instead of instant gratification.

On fantasy, I think the dividing line is Power Rangers. Before, we were MacGyver, A-Team, good live-action shows (which have made a resurgence in recent years) that were kid-friendly and little less escapist and down-to-earth. There were definitive dividing lines between good and evil and unsympathetic villains.

In any case, that may be part of the larger problem - lack of moral direction, possibly in fantasy, where we're supposed to be all nice like Picard instead of getting the job done like Kirk.

Loren| 7.24.09 @ 11:41AM

My head is spinning after reading this article. It fails to provide a critical analysis of the fantasy genre or of one single policy. Instead, the message reads: "Fantasy is bad for us...just look at all the liberal policies that I find unrealistic!" 1) If you read something written by a fantasy writer or academic, Ursula LeGuinn, Michael Chabon...you quickly discover that fantasy stories not only contribute to mythmaking, but tend to reflect social and political realities more powerfully than 'realistic' stories themselves via metaphor. That isn't to say that these summer blockbusters are making any deep statements, they are mostly money engines, whose largest direct political effect would probably be...apathy. As for Obama's policies, each of which was devoted no more than a 100 words in this article, there are much larger discussions to be had. However in the name of brevity, I will ask a few provocative questions: "Can you really simplify international relations to the point that it resembles a playground where the only display of strength is through force? Although our enemies are fierce, is military might and refusal to be self-critical the only route to victory? What about every other political and social force, like economics and public opinion?"

Johnny P| 7.24.09 @ 1:25PM

@Steve| 7.24.09 @ 7:17AM: There are certainly lots of people living in a world with little relevance to the real-world, where anybody from Jon&Kate; to Frodo Baggins or their own conception of a current president (Bush or Obama) figures larger than the people around them. However, I'm not sure that they really skew left quite that much. What about the birth-certificate conspiracy, or the McCain supporters shouting "He's an Arab!"? If I skewed a little more polemical in my own ideological leanings, I might even invoke the fantasy of a ticking time-bomb in a Jack Bauer-inhabited world, where torture actually does solve problems.

In the meantime, Obama's apologetic rhetoric is arguably aimed less at China and Russia than at the Middle Eastern world, particularly Iran. We already have relations with those nations that are little affected by what Obama is apologizing for. By contrast, despite all the state's wrongdoing, doesn't Iran have at least one glaringly legitimate grievance against us? (I mean, of course, the CIA-backed documented coup in the '50s that reinstated the shah; I was very glad that Obama acknowledged and apologized for that.)

If we want to stop them using nuclear methods to dominate the region, what exactly would work better? I, for one, have had enough of America solely and less-than-credibly brandishing a rapidly shrinking stick.

Lastly, whoever administrates needs to delete the handbag comment.

Steven Weingartner| 7.24.09 @ 2:15PM

Jim Bowman hits another one out of the park. How many is that in the past 6 months? And he's not using steroids!

James Wilson| 7.24.09 @ 2:44PM

Fantasy and Science Fiction ought to be the apotheosis of fiction, but they reach that level very rarely. Art is deception that illustrates (or attempts to illustrate) truth; fantasy and science fiction are more deceptive than historical or contemporary fiction, and have greater potential to illustrate truth because there are fewer givens in a made-up world. Unfortunately the vast majority of novels & movies fail to live up to that potential, becoming instead what you might call soft-core pornography. Pornography is pure deception, and fantasy, science fiction and especially romance are all pornographic in the sense that they are masturbatory; they might make you feel good but there's no purpose to it. It doesn't have to be obscene to be pornographic. As many of us embrace deception more and more often, eventually the hold on the truth, ie reality, will become ever more tenuous. A whole generation of college students embraced a fantasy and haven't learned a thing since, and they're still teaching that deception to students today. It's hardly surprising that those who refused to learn anything after the early twenties would have trouble understanding reality, and prefer comforting lies.

Unfortunately the connection between art and deception is too little understood by conservatives. We spend all our time citing truths blandly and plainly without taking the trouble to illustrate them. The fact is that a good story explains a truth far more effectively than simply stating a truth. Bromides might all be true, but they never convince. Fiction, and especially fantasy and science fiction, could be used to convince the younger and coming generations to embrace truth instead of deception, but I wouldn't hold my breath. The debate about whether Christ's parables were fictional or not still rages whether we realize it or not; and the Victorian assertion that they must've been absolutely literally true should be abandoned. Conservatives need to embrace fiction and learn to do it right; no homilies thinly disguised as novels. The left has destroyed all the stories that used to do the duty; everyone from George Washington to Martin Luther King Jr. has been lessened by liberal 'debunkers' who have nothing better to do than destroy heroes. Writing factual books about what the sheer nobility of Washington in giving up his power does no good. Writing yet another historical novel about it won't do any good either because it'll come across as preaching. A novel about Cincinnatus or Arbroath XI of Planet Vernon 6 might do the trick. Hopefully somebody will write it soon, and a passel of others with cleverly hidden morals. I'm working on a few myself.

dcc| 7.24.09 @ 4:52PM

Sounds like Bowman wants the government to takeover Hollywood in addition to GM and healthcare. That way elitists like himcan mandate that only politically acceptable films, as determined by a board of expert, are produced. It's for the good of the citizens and the country.
As for SciFi, the only way to get somewhere (ie space) is to dream about it first. Sure Star Trek is kitsch but it has inspired more technology than Dickens.

Paul Revere| 7.24.09 @ 5:27PM

Speaking of Elitist New World Order films, Daniel Estulin's book: "The True Story of The Bilderberg Group", has been chosen to be created into a movie as far as I know it is presently in production! This will not be a movie of ficticous Elitists - it is a story of the Elitists and the NWO and Foreign Bamkers that are fleecing America to bankruptcy!
Would you like to be a part of stopping the New World Order? I am sure Senator Ron Paul would appreciate your help in the second step of his effort to "Audit The Fed" Re: Step 2: Your Senator
HR 1207’s identical companion bill in the Senate is known as S 604, the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act, sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders.

If your Senator is not on the following list of S 604 co-sponsors, call their offices, write to them, email them. Let them know they need to support S 604. If you live in their district, let them know. Go to their office.

Enter your zip code to contact your senators:

S 604 Co-Sponsors (as of 7/21/2009)

Sen Barrasso, John [WY] – 7/15/2009
Sen Bennett, Robert F. [UT] – 7/15/2009
Sen Brownback, Sam [KS] – 7/8/2009
Sen Burr, Richard [NC] – 7/9/2009
Sen Chambliss, Saxby [GA] – 7/8/2009
Sen Coburn, Tom [OK] – 7/20/2009
Sen Cornyn, John [TX] – 7/20/2009
Sen Crapo, Mike [ID] – 6/25/2009
Sen DeMint, Jim [SC] – 6/11/2009
Sen Feingold, Russell D. [WI] – 7/15/2009
Sen Harkin, Tom [IA] – 7/20/2009
Sen Hutchison, Kay Bailey [TX] – 7/20/2009
Sen Inhofe, James M. [OK] – 7/9/2009
Sen Isakson, Johnny [GA] – 7/8/2009
Sen Lincoln, Blanche L. [AR] – 7/15/2009
Sen McCain, John [AZ] – 7/15/2009
Sen Vitter, David [LA] – 6/16/2009

shaggydave| 7.25.09 @ 11:43PM

Die, spammers, die!

Seeking new members| 7.26.09 @ 3:22PM

About the Ku Klux Klan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Ku Klux Klan is a racist, anti-Semitic movement with a commitment to extreme violence to achieve its goals of racial segregation and white supremacy. Of all the types of right-wing hate groups that exist in the United States, the Klan remains the one with the greatest number of national and local organizations around the country.

More than 40 different Klan groups exist, many having multiple chapters, or “klaverns,” including a few that boast a presence in a large number of states. There are over a hundred different Klan chapters around the country, with a combined strength of members and associates that may total around 5,000.

After a period of relative quiet, Ku Klux Klan activity has spiked noticeably upwards in 2006, as Klan groups have attempted to exploit fears in America over gay marriage, perceived “assaults” on Christianity, crime and especially immigration.

KKK Symbol
Founder: Confederate Civil War veterans Captain John C. Lester, Major James R. Crowe, John D. Kennedy, Calvin Jones, Richard R. Reed, Frank O. McCord
Founded: 1866
Headquarters: Each different Klan group has its own headquarters.
Background: The Klan has fragmented into more than 40 separate factions of varying sizes. There is no “one” Ku Klux Klan.
Estimated size: There are over a hundred different chapters in the various Klan organizations, with varying memberships. Overall, there may be as many as 5,000 members and associates of the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan is strongest in the South and in the Midwest.
Criminal Activity: The Klan has a relatively high association with criminal activity, ranging from hate crimes to acts of domestic terrorism.
Media: Mass mailings, leafleting and the Internet
Strategy: Public rallies and protests, "adopt a highway" programs and other attention getting stunts, Internet
Ideology: White supremacist ideology not far from that of neo-Nazis, although it tends to be more Christian-oriented and to stress nativism.
Affiliations: National Socialist Movement, Aryan Nations, Christian Identity groups
Financial support: Little. Most funding comes from membership dues and sales of Klan paraphernalia.

The Ku Klux Klan first emerged following the Civil War as America’s first true terrorist group. Since its inception, the Ku Klux Klan has seen several cycles of growth and collapse, and in some of these cycles the Klan has been more extreme than in others. In all of its incarnations, however, the Klan has maintained its dual heritage of hate and violence.

Richard Baker| 7.26.09 @ 4:27PM

Stuart Koehl:
Why did NBC use Judith Crist as their on-screen film critic for years? Answer: Because at least one is needed in a media source, it seems. She downed just about every movie that she ever reviewed while on the Today program. I stopped listening to her. Maybe she's the reason Gene Shalit came to Today.

Israelis Killing US Troops| 7.26.09 @ 6:20PM

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ISRAELI SNIPERS KILLING US TROOPS IN IRAQ.
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#1 (permalink) 07-12-2009, 04:08 PM
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ISRAELI SNIPERS KILLING US TROOPS IN IRAQ.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Israeli Snipers Killing US Troops In Iraq

Israeli Snipers Killing
US Troops In Iraq
Source: Joanna Francis and CNN
11-11-6

Anderson Cooper of CNN showed this video of snipers killing U.S. troops in Iraq on his October 18, 2006 show. CNN says it obtained the video from a "representative" of an unnamed "insurgent leader." Bear in mind that Anderson Cooper used to work for the CIA.

Richard Wilson's hypothesis: Israeli soldiers and/or Mossad agents are killing our soldiers in Iraq in order to enrage American troops so that the slaughter continues.

Proof: At the very beginning of this video clip, you see a rifle with a video camera attached to it. This weapon is made by the Rafael company, an Israeli arms manufacturer, that also makes IEDs. If you watch the video all the way through, it explains how this rifle works. CNN stated that the camera used to film these shootings was not a mounted rifle camera. But as you watch the video, you see that with each shot fired, the camera recoils. That would only happen if it were mounted on the rifle. Why is this significant? Because this kind of rifle-camera is extremely sophisticated and not available to your average Iraqi insurgent. I mean, it's not exactly an easily obtainable Saturday night special! Something this sophisticated points to Mossad.

Mossad is a master at false flag operations, e.g., Oklahoma City, the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, the July 7, 2005 London bombings, the 9-11 attacks in New York, the assassination of the Prime Minister in Beirut, the stoking of Muslim riots in France last year, the bombing of the Hassan al-Askari Mosque in Samarra, Iraq, etc.

Israelis freely move among US and UK troops in Iraq, and have access to top-level US intelligence. Until July 2003, the head of all US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan was General Tommy Franks, a Zionist Jew. (He is now on the board of directors for Bank of America.) On November 7, 2006 another Zionist Jew became a principle liaison between Mossad and US forces in Iraq: Major General Richard F. Natonski of the Marine Corps. His title is Deputy Commandant for Plans, Policies and Operations.

Because of this access, the "insurgents" (i.e., Mossad agents) know exactly where US vehicles will be and who will be inside them. This allows them to target for maximum false flag effect.

For example, on July 23, 2005, a detachment of 19 female US Marines was sent to Fallujah to check Iraqi women for bombs. An IED blew up their truck. Two of the young American women were killed, five were critically wounded, and four were captured. The bodies of the four captured women turned up later in a garbage dump with their throats cut. Americans were outraged. Islamic clerics insisted that only Israelis could be so cold-blooded. And who was in charge of US forces in Fallujah at the time? None other than Major General Natonski, the Mossad liaison.

Americans are supposed to believe that rag-tag "insurgents" use IEDs powerful enough to kill three US troops per day, on average. An American soldier even set up a blog on how "Intel" is betraying and targeting US troops. But sometimes Mossad bomb-makers accidentally blow themselves upin Iraq.

According to Richard Wilson, Israeli sniping and IEDs are false flag operations. He says that on March 28, 2005, Americans arrested 19 Mossad agents who fired twice on a US Marine checkpoint. The Marines beat up the Mossad agents and tore off their Star-of-David necklaces. (The US media incorrectly said the agents were Americans.) The Mossad agents said they were employees of Zapata Engineering, which helps the CIA conduct interrogations, and also manages US ammo dumps and US motor pools in Iraq.

IEDs in Iraq are powerful enough to flip over a 70-ton tank. Some of the models shoot depleted-uranium projectiles, and are triggered by electronic devices surreptitiously planted on US armored vehicles. Zapata Engineering (which employs Mossad agents) makes this exact kind of trigger, and oversees some of the US motor pools.

Rumsfeld says the IEDs come from Iran, but Richard says they come from Mossad, and are not "improvised" at all. The Israeli company, Rafael (see above), makes IEDS, which are buried in the middle of a road. Beside the road is a device which emits a laser or radio signal. This device is manufactured by firms like Zapata Engineering, which is controlled by Zionist Jews. The IED mine, manufactured by Israel, is inert until a US vehicle (secretly planted with a triggering device) rolls over it.

Whenever Mossad carries out these false-flag operations they produce a videotape or a recording from an "unnamed source" that is "close to al-Qaeda." Sometimes they say "the claim was posted on an Internet website, but its authenticity could not be verified."

But Israelis would never kill anyone in cold blood, would they? After all, the USS Liberty massacre was "an accident!"

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Robert Hobart| 8.4.09 @ 3:52PM

Bowman is stealing multiple bases here. He is conflating "fantasy" -- telling imaginary tales of imaginary worlds -- with wishful thinking and reality-denial. They are not in any way the same thing, and to suggest that one is the other is a profoundly dishonest argument. He then follows that up with the further leap that the popularity of fantasy entertainment is somehow connected to the dishonesty and wishful thinking of modern progressive politicians. Never mind that progressive politicians were selling the same claptrap to credulous voters in the 1910's, 1930's, and 1960's when there was far, far less "fantasy" out there to supposedly corrupt our brains.

As a conservative who enjoys fantasy and science-fiction literature (some of the best fiction writing around, by the way), games, film, and television, I am tired unto death of "mundanes" on both the right and the left who dislike fantasy and imagination and attempt to make it responsible for all manner of ills. To them I always respond with the words of J.R.R. Tolkien, one of the great 20th century conservatives: "The only people afraid of escape are jailers."

Kell Brigan| 8.11.09 @ 5:25PM

What!? All this discussion of fantasy, and no mention of "Friends" as the initial lefty propaganda device, designed to establish and inculcate new societal norms? (Porn is OK. Homosexuality is normal. Sleeping around is normal and good. Look to advertising to figure out what "beauty" is. Parents not living with their parents is OK. Non-stop obnoxious sarcarm is OK. Etc. Etc. (Good article, BTW.) (Who are these people with the handbag obsession?)

Tommy Phame| 9.16.09 @ 1:07PM

I think this is a real insightful, witty and interesting article. Although I must say that I liked Terminator Salvation and didn't fully appreciate the joke or remark in regards to that movie. But one great part of this article is when the author, Mr. Bowman talks about movies and then goes into the strength of current President Obama and former President Clinton. When he makes that rant, what I take from it is that great presidents like those too do know how to give confidence to the nation when the nation needs it the most. I trusted former President Clinton and I trust current President Barack Obama.