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All war, all the time
Jarecki was in Denver recently to discuss his film, which alludes to the series of morale-boosting World War II documentaries by Frank Capra. Serenely articulate and full of facts, Jarecki was in anything but a combative mood—surprising since he had just come off an hour of sparring with über-conservative KOA radio host Mike Rosen. Though Jarecki's collage-style documentary has a liberal bent, it's far more fair-minded and thorough than Michael Moore's mud-slinging screeds. Jarecki deftly moors his argument with Eisenhower, the fatherly Republican president and war hero. If only because of the urgency of Eisenhower's farewell speech, the subject "cried out for me to make a film," says Jarecki. "He's sitting there in the Oval Office, and he's taking his last few minutes, not to have the public pat him on the back to tell him what a great job he did, but in order for him to issue a warning about the forces that he had felt first-hand." Those "forces" had their source in the military-industrial complex, a powerful alliance that begins with Congress, the Pentagon and the weapons industry and today extends to neo-con think tanks. But don't get the idea that Why We Fight is simply another Bush-bashing campaign. According to Jarecki, of the 24 people interviewed in the film, 20 are Republican. Those names include Sen. John McCain and hawkish Pentagon advisor Richard Perle. "It's not a partisan film," says Jarecki, "because war is not a partisan issue. The forces that drive us to war in this country don't care who's president. There's a big myth in his country that the Republicans own the copyright on war." For sobering proof, Jarecki points to President Johnson and the Vietnam War. "We now know too well about Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin. The Tonkin 'incident' was just as illusory as Iraq's weapons of mass destruction... Iraq isn't the first time that America has engaged in a war only to find out after later that the reasons for war weren't the same ones discussed behind closed doors." For Jarecki, the word "empire" is inevitable in analyzing America and the lessons of history. "If there's a better word for what the United States is today, I'll use it. The U.S. has 860 military bases in 130 foreign countries—and those are the bases we know about." The great danger in creating such a permanent military establishment is that it "becomes the focus of enormous energy and attention, and, in doing do, tilts the balance of society towards militarism." As the saying goes, to a man with a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. I asked Jarecki if the military-industrial complex hasn't become so entrenched in our economy that it will be impossible for us to pull out. His answer was brilliantly succinct: "Yes, but at the same time, America was once dependent on slavery. This country undid that institution when it realized that slavery was leading us away from our founding principles, from what we wanted to hold dear." Armed with urgency, Why We Fight asks tough questions—and provides even tougher answers—on modern American militarism. Countermanding Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, Jarecki is earnestly optimistic about our ability to change course. " I believe the American public can handle the truth." Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
Southern man
Singing backup at Young's side at Memphis' historic Ryman Auditorium are his wife, Pegi, and silver-haired Emmylou Harris, joined by more strumming guitars than you'd see at a mariachi convention. The all-acoustic, Young-unplugged concert is gilded in reverence but is appreciably lacking in, well, electricity. A chill of mortality blows through Young's latest songs, their melancholy tone compounded by revelations of his recent illness. Just weeks before the concert, the 60-year-old Young was diagnosed with a potentially fatal brain aneurysm (a successful surgery followed). The somber atmosphere seems to have hampered Jonathan Demme, whose perfunctory direction yields nothing like the results he orchestrated with Talking Heads in Stop Making Sense, one of rock's top concert films. Demme's static cameras bow down and pay their respects to Young, always front-and-center, whose white suit, Stetson and sideburns give him the appearance of a riverboat gambler in dry-dock. Young goes Southern in Elvis country, belying the Canadian-born singer's roots in 1960s counterculture. Is this the same man who rocked against Nixon in "Ohio" and racism in "Southern Man" and collaborated with Pearl Jam? In Heart of Gold, Young's neck gets noticeably redder, but then so has most of America's over the past 30 years. When Young croons about caribou, chicken farming and voices his quavering plea to "bury me on the prairie," I thought for dang sure I was listening to a tinny Waylon and Willie. Diehards will have to wait until the last 20 minutes for Young to mine his repertoire of golden 1970s hits. Compared to much of his new material, "Old Man," "Heart of Gold" and "I Am a Child" still sound priceless—and young. Thomas Delapa reviews the latest movies on KUVO (FM 89.3) Fridays at 8:40 a.m. Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
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On grainy black-and-white TV images, we see President Dwight
Eisenhower delivering his famous 1961 speech that warned against the growing
power of America's "military-industrial complex." Ike's prescient words are
returned to more than once in Eugene Jarecki's Why We Fight, a punchy
documentary that asks not what Americans can do for their country, but poses a
timelier and more complex question: Why is the U.S. almost always at war?
Don't go searching for many golden oldies in Neil Young's
latest concert film, Heart of Gold. Most of the songs come wafting out of his
2005 CD, Prairie Wind, which finds Young sounding like a good-ol'-boy country
singer at the former home of the Grand Ole Opry.
