FROM FILM TO ACTION

I went to see the new movie Avatar recently and like many others found it to essentially be a film trashing US military "snatch and grab" operations to control resources on behalf of greedy corporations. In this case it is a story about the US trying to control an entire planet for their "unobtainium".

While in the car today, listening to right-wing talk radio, I heard a woman call in and say that she had walked out of the film because it was portraying the Marines as the bad guy. She said her Marine son, home for the holidays, stayed and watched the whole film along with her husband.

It is good that the woman got the message. And it is good that millions of Americans, seduced by the 3-D fantasma-gorgia-optics of the movie, will see it. It is indeed a picture of our satiable appetite for resources, our nature killing ways, and our propensity for shock and awe when we want the natural resources that other people happen to be sitting on.

It's not likely the woman, her husband, and her solider son would have knowingly gone to a movie with such a story line. But because of public's love for "the lastest entertainment" they couldn't resist the hoopla surrounding this 3-D extravaganza.

The real question is - will watching this movie get people out of their seats into the peace movement or inclined at all to "see and feel" how we are now destroying our own planet for corporate profits?

David Swanson had this to say about that question: "When I saw 'Avatar' in a packed 3-D theater in Virginia, and the crowd cheered the closing shot, I shouted: 'And get out of Iraq too!' No one cheered for that. But no one called me a traitor either."

Knowing is one thing but doing something takes a another big step. Let's hope Avatar helps move people from docility to action.

Like Swanson says in his post on the film: "Did you know that the Na'vi people are real, their troubles are real, and you can be a hero who saves them? It's true! The story of 'Avatar' is the story of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other countries attacked and occupied by U.S. mercenaries and U.S. troops. You don't have to ride a dragon or shoot an arrow, but you do have to call this number 202-224-3121 and ask to speak with your representative in the U.S. House of Representatives and tell them that their career will be over if they vote another dime to pay for the evil depicted in Avatar."