Posted on 08/30/2016 9:14:06 AM PDT by pabianice
“What happened? What the hell happened!?”
asa663@verizon.net
These are the final words spoken by Jake Holman in the magnificent movie, “The Sand Pebbles.” Holman, played by Steve McQueen, serves as the protagonist in the 1966 movie, a movie about the Chinese Communist Revolution set in 1926 (although about Vietnam). Holman has just been shot to death by Communist soldiers as he gives his life to save his love interest and the lives of fellow crewmen from the gunboat USS San Pablo. Making the movie was a two-year ordeal and McQueen has said that making it “made up for all the bad things he had done in his life.” McQueen’s character – delinquent youth, poor fatherless family, sentenced to the military during World War I to avoid jail -- is a machinist’s mate first class (MM1) and in his Navy career has been obsessed only with being the best engineer he can be, to the detriment of human relations and political awareness. Upon reporting aboard, Holman goes directly to the engine room, looks around with a smile, and says, “Hello, engine. My name is Jake.”
Holman, along with the entire crew, is caught-up in the violence of the early Chinese Revolution and although the ship is stationed along Chinese back-waters, is soon involved. The story accurately depicts river patrol duty being done by the U.S. and European countries at the time. Because of his naiveté, Holman is unjustly accused of murder by the Communists and the following events spell his doom. But the bewilderment of the situation very well mirrors the state of the United States in this election year. “What the hell has happened?”
Today’s voters are far more bewildered by events than in the past. Politics has supplanted thought. Political affiliation is no longer to a party, but to whatever cult appeals more to the voter. Hillary Clinton, after 40 grasping years of avarice and congenital lying has her voters who are uninformed, bigoted, and want lots more free stuff from the government (re. us taxpayers). They are oblivious to fact or reason. Donald Trump, who spent 40 years single-mindedly amassing as much money and property as he could, now asks voters to “help make America great again” by essentially returning civic and government discourse to 1958. Trying to move a sense of country back in time is bound to allow progressive opponents call him every nasty thing in the book. From the relatively small number of independent thinkers we hear, “What the hell happened?”
At 240 years, the government of the United States is one of the oldest in the world. Is its time running out?
If Trump wants to return civic and government discourse to 1958, he's missing the mark. 1798 would possibly be a better target ...
My favorite film. Has everything: McQueen, love, marine engineering, conflict...PERFECT! And the musical score is OUTSTANDING.
Thanks for the memory!!
It was not the Boxer rebellion either.
China was in turmoil, Stalin sent an agent Borodin to stir up trouble. The Nationalists were involved, warlorda and communists too.
Simple:
“America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.”
- Alexis de Tocqueville
While it is disputed whether or not Tocqueville actually made this quote, I believe it is true; decade after decade America’s “goodness” declines, and our greatness along with it.
IOW, we are reaping what we have sown.
The Sand Pebbles is a great movie, but it is very deep.
I don’t think the movie was about our involvement in Vietnam.
The book is slightly different than the movie.
The female missionary doesn’t love Holman in the book.
I think that’s what Holman didn’t understand in the book.
His plans were messed up in the movie.
I think that’s what he didn’t understand in the movie.
The movie is more of a love story.
Holman and the missionary girl.
Frenchy and May Lee.
Holman and technology.
Fair enough.
I gotta go back and watch it when I have six hours (exagerating, just a little). That is one long movie.
One of my favorite movies.
“Main steam stop valve. Repeat after me ...”
“Men. Tim. Top. Wow.”
Resets are brutal events.
The writer was himself a China sailor.
Remember how Mitt Romney was destroyed by the American Press because he said that 47% of Americans automatically vote Democrat?
He was right.
And there’s nothing derogatory in what he said.
He spoke the truth, and the American Press attacked him for doing that.
That is amazing.
And no, I’m not a Romney fan.
It may be the better part of two decades on FR that is speaking here, but I don't get the sense that very many people are suddenly waking up from anything, shocked at the political watershed that is the 2016 election. If there is any surprise involved it is that the Constitution has managed to survive even in shreds for as long as it has.
There is, to be sure, a sense of dismay at how quickly the Left has become intolerably totalitarian once its more activist elements have achieved power enough to force the issue. I hear that dismay on the progressive side of the aisle as well. There is a bit of shock at how big government has become and how little its concern is for the governed compared to concern for its entrenched ruling class. But there is also a studied and jaded disinterest in that class being subject to the dictates of the people it rules - that word being now in the open and treated as if it were normal. And a lack of outrage at just how incredibly corrupt and criminal that class has become.
It is not shock that I perceive so much as the lack of it, and that's a problem, because people who wave their hands dismissively at the corruption, saying "it's always been like that and there's nothing to be done about it" - they are no part of any solution.
We lost the republic on Usurpation Day January 20, 2009
All of our elected and judicial officials refused to defend and protect the Constitution in violation of their oaths.
Barry Soetoro/Barack Hussein Obama, or whoever he really is, is not a natural born citizen if his father was the Kenyan.
Cruz, Rubio, Jidal and Haley are all ineligible and were the reason the GOP went along.
People rail against corruption until you point out that it is their guy who is corrupt. Then its “they are all alike”.
No, not all. Just the ones they keep voting for.
It wasn’t about Vietnam. The novel it was based on was written in 1962. It wasn’t about the Boxer rebellion. The setting was 1926. The Boxer rebellion was in 1900.
There were no communists in the film either. They basically were non existent in China in 1926.
Its a simple story about the western nations, patrolling the Chinese rivers. A missionary pisses off some locals and their warlords. Simple as that. No boxers. No commies. No Vietnam.
This guy is as good as our Never Trump GOP writer the other day who opined that the Germans were fighting with the Axis powers in WWI. He was trying to make a similar analogy. But this generation is just to ignorant of history to pull it off.
As far as I got in the article.
Why was the circus so important to the Romans?
Was it really necessary for them to be entertained?
Does man have an inherent need for gaudy spectacles?
I think that the circus itself wasn’t really that important.
What was important, was that the government could take the circus away.
It was fear.
Fear is a tremendous motivator.
The Democrats use fear with great skill.
“Vote for us or you’ll go hungry!”
The Democrats are some sick, evil bastards.
Makes you wonder though. What happened in 1959, to make 1958 the year chosen as "before the modern era" by the writer? Lol...
Hence, the old Navy saying: “He got Shanghai’ed.” That saying came about as a result of having to be in China during that period. ;-)
Agreed. No different than your local drug pusher on the corner establishing the “hook”, just on a much larger scale.
Answer: Yes.
Comment: "Running Out" is a process. Total collapse could be averted but it is not likely. The segment of our population that created and managed the United States from the beginning abdicated in 2008.
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