2645 days ago
My father and I chat every day about urgent matters such as the GCSE's of my uber smug daughter Olaf and less critical matters such as how the world is going to pot. Being keen on history my father is a big supporter of General Lee statues noting that - unlike say George Washington - Lee opposed and hated slavery. He also opposed the secession of the South and agreed only to join its army as he wished to stand shoulder to shoulder with his fellow Virginians.
2654 days ago
Of all of the liberal media harpies covering the US election, beltway Kylie Morris of Channel 4 fake News was the most openly partisan as I exposed time and again HERE. Her crowning glory was to make up words for Donald Trump to smear him as a racist HERE. Like her fake news colleagues Kylie cannot get over the defeat of crooked Hillary so she fights on, twisting the truth to smear POTUS. The pulling down of Confederate staues and war memorials has been one of her finest hours.
2657 days ago
When Donald Trump spoke to the USA about his priorities for America, folks outside the liberal metropolitan hotpots of the coasts loved it. Crooked Hillary's waffle and re-hashing of ideas that have failed ordinary Americans did not wash and so Trump won. The liberal elites of the media still cannot accept it and so now simply content themselves with smearing POTUS at every opportunity. The more the Russia smears fail the more desperate they become and the more real Americans see through them. As the MSM tries to label Trump a Nazi, those of us who supported him in November look forward to an inevitable win in four years time. Truly the liberal left is pathetic. I start with the State funded UK broadcaster the BBC.
3949 days ago
Last night’s film. Having watched producer Steve McQueen being interviewed about his latest flick I was not entirely minded to trot along and see it. I am thankful to the Mrs. for ensuring that I did as this is a powerful – true life – tale and a brilliantly shot movie. At the (happy) end I could hear sobbing in the audience and even a hard hearted old guy like myself shed a tear. But the ending is the only happy bit of an otherwise grim tale.
Post 1833 it was illegal to import slaves to the American South. In the North the black population was free and it appears, from the film, integrated. I think this is a bit of an airbrush of history. During the Civil War elements of the Irish Community in New York protested about being asked to “fight for the niggers.” I am not so sure the North was a place of universal tolerance. But at least there was no slavery.
Hence some “entrepreneurs” decided that kidnapping blacks from the North to sell in the South was a cunning wheeze. This is the true story of one such slave.
There is one scene that made the whole audience wince. If you have not seen this film yet I won’t ruin the surprise. But it is very good cinema.
The South - “Dixie” was for too long romanticized on our screens. The rebels were in some way seen as re-asserting the rights of the States or of the individual against Big Government. You remember the “Good old boys” of the Dukes of Hazard driving “General Lee” (a Southern war “hero”)? Gone with the Wind depicts a happy sort of slave, fat and laughing. Even uber-PC Tom Petty sings “I was born a rebel, down in Dixie” – hmmm, rebel against what Tom?
This film should shatter such romantic illusions. Slaves were viewed as commodities to be bought, sold, raped, killed, worked until they dropped at will. Life expectancy on the more brutal plantations was not long. Even the “kind hearted slavers (the one played by “Sherlock”) still viewed slaves in this light. I am not sure that I entirely share the agenda of Steve McQueen, the film’s very able producer, in making points about today’s America. But in showing the true horror of a society some still seek in some way to romanticize, he does us all a service. So far, in 2014, 12 Years a Slave has to be my film of the year.
Next up is the Wolf of Wall Street.
