"300" is a DOMESTIC PSYOP!

You've undoubtedly heard as much as you want to about the box office phenom called "300," in which a few computer-generated Spartan warriors hold off the entire Persian army way back in history when swords were the WMD, aided only by courage and about 1300 special effects shots. However, here's more.

Persia, as most people might know, is Iran. That's right, a movie about a war with Iran is making more money than seems possible for a niche flick. There's been some contention in whether this was simply a good use of a "news hook" or whether someone is making a political statement as the country debates another massive strategic blunder, sorry, liberation campaign, in the Middle East.

Now, as we know, the bloated, lumbering newspaper known as the L.A. Times is usually rather slow getting to things. Today, they ran two reviews of the flick, side by side, below a huge photo which will probably sell 2000 more tickets by itself. The headline raises this same question. Better late then never, I guess.

One review is by Patrick Goldstein, and argues that the "300" money thing is because it's good cinema, not crypto-colonialist home-front domestic psyops aimed at creating sympathy for an attack on Iran. That one you can see online, at least today, without registering.

The other is by Carina Chocano, and argues that movies are never made in a vacuum, especially when the underlying graphic novel comes from a rabid, post-9/11, clash-of-civilizations hawk who happily spouts militarist cliches to all media which will listen. You can NOT see that one online, unless you register and divulge personal information.

If it walks like political censorship, and talks like political censorship, and is done by the Tribune company, which has a history of systematically purging liberal and progressive staff writers from the L.A. Times, well, it's political censorship.

In the headline, the Times asks the question, "'300': It's just a movie -- or is it?" I think, by their deliberate political censorship of a dissenting review, they have answered THAT one themselves.

The question is worth asking too. We know that a dedicated right wing cadre exists inside the movie industry, and seeks to indoctrinate audiences with its blood-and-guts price-of-freedom message every time it looks like the public is wavering a bit on the need for dirty little neo-colonial wars every 10 years or so.

And so, we must wonder if this war has now reached the point where the Hollywood militarist cabal must, either on its own volition or in meetings with the usual suspects, be turned loose to create another Rambo cycle. Is it once again time to pack theaters with Angry White Males, making a few zillion bucks in the process, thus attracting investors and ensuring hundreds of imitation kill-em-all-let-God-sort-em-out snuff flicks? Is it time to revise history in the Middle East, in the same way this industry so effectively revised Viet Nam in the mass consciousness? Is this why the latest movie one-sheets plastered all over town are so unrelentingly degrading and depressing to the human spirit?

Sure looks like it.

I'll try to get a link to Chocano's review. Last time I looked, this was still not a totalitarian country.

Last time, anyway.