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129 lines
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Plaintext
129 lines
6.5 KiB
Plaintext
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Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 12 Num. 19
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=======================================
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("Quid coniuratio est?")
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-----------------------------------------------------------------
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BULWORTH
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========
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Movie Review by Conspiracy Nation
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---------------------------------
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Senator Bulworth (Warren Beatty) has some sort of nervous
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collapse, then begins ignoring his handlers and says what he
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really thinks. Interwoven through all this is an assassination
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plot against Bulworth, financed by Bulworth himself who wants to
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be murdered and have his daughter collect on a $10 million life
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insurance policy. The $10 million life insurance policy, in
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turn, is a little "gift" to Sen. Bulworth from the insurance
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industry in return for his help impeding insurance reform
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legislation.
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The year is 1996 and Bulworth is up for re-election. He and his
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people are scrounging for "campaign contributions" (bribes) from
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corporate America. Senator Bulworth, in one scene, gives a
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disorderly speech to assembled movie moguls whom he is pumping
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for cash. But embarrassingly, the Senator informs the gathered
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tycoons that their product is not very good. He even goes so far
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as to note that most of them are Jewish and are lobbying for
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legislation favorable to Israel.
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Later, the unbalanced senator goes to a black, all-night rap bar
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and lets his hair down. He smokes pot and parties all night.
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>From this emerges a latent talent for rap music; henceforth the
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senator speaks and responds to reporters with rap songs. Typical
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mainstream movie reviews have complained that Bulworth gives a
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white version of rap, but the mainstream reviewers miss the
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point: Bulworth has assimilated black rap music, but the whole
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point is that he is a white man doing rap -- if he did it too
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well he'd not be Bulworth!
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The soul-brother senator later participates in a debate against
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his chief opponent in the primary. Questioning the two are a
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trio of celebrity journalists. Responding to the first question
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asked, Bulworth goes into a rap about how he's rich, his opponent
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is rich, the trio of journalists are rich, and that they are all
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of them bought and paid for by corporate America, which also owns
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the media outlets televising the debate. "All of us get our
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money from the same corporations. We all have the same boss."
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Then, "mysteriously," there are "technical difficulties" and the
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broadcast is halted.
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The black girl who becomes Senator Bulworth's love interest turns
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out to be his hired assassin. She and the senator discuss "where
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have things gone wrong since the 1960s?" She acknowledges that
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some believe assassinations of key populist leaders caused the
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downfall of "the movement," but she herself traces the defeat of
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popular movements originating in the 1960s to the decline of
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America's manufacturing base. As Conspiracy Nation has noted
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before, the factories are all moving away from the USA, and cheap
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foreign labor is being imported into the USA to handle the
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"service jobs" which cannot feasibly be exported. The senator's
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black girlfriend believes that the failure of "the movement" is
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due to loss of economic dynamism rooted in a well-employed
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populace; with the people scrounging just to survive, there is a
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concurrent diminuition of economic confidence which had in the
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past translated to a surge in populist democratic movements.
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With less and less money, the common people have a consequent
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loss of esteem translating into political apathy. And her
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opinion itself becomes transformed later into a senatorial rap
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sequence outlining her ideas -- as if Senator Bulworth has become
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a blank slate which merely echoes the voices of his constituents.
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Ironically, Bulworth winds up as the target of an assassination
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attempt -- but not at the hands of the original paid killers.
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Lurking in the background when Bulworth is shot is the insurance
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lobbyist, who feels the senator has betrayed the insurance
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industry by his candid explanations of what it is all about.
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After all, "They had a deal!!" In return for certain "gifts,"
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the senator had agreed to bottleneck pending reform legislation
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-- yet subsequently he had aired the insurance industry's dirty
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laundry in videogenic rap music-type press conferences.
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The movie closes with us not knowing whether the senator will
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survive being shot. An intermittently appearing street bum sums
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it up: We need you as a =spirit=, not as a ghost!
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Although some might not agree with all the political views
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expressed in Beatty's movie, such as his advocacy of socialism,
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there is still a lot in this movie which "hits the nail on the
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head." Beatty attacks the media monopoly relentlessly, pointing
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out how a handful of corporations control what views America is
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allowed to hear discussed. He even goes so far as to question,
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"Who exactly owns the airwaves? Aren't they really owned by the
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American people?" Conspiracy Nation feels that this movie would
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never have existed without the power of Warren Beatty behind it.
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Mr. Beatty obviously cares a great deal about where his country
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is in 1998, and his movie, "Bulworth," boils down to a giant "I
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care." Maybe he's wrong in some things, maybe the movie gets
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"preachy" once or twice, but once again (as in Michael Moore's
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"The Big One"), somehow a bit of the truth has gotten past the
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corporate censors and into the consciousness of everyday America.
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+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
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For related stories, visit:
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http://www.shout.net/~bigred/cn.html
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http://www.netcom.com/~feustel
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-----------------------------------------------------------------
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Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those
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of Conspiracy Nation, nor of its Editor in Chief.
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-----------------------------------------------------------------
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I encourage distribution of "Conspiracy Nation."
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-----------------------------------------------------------------
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New mailing list: leave message in the old hollow tree stump.
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-----------------------------------------------------------------
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Want to know more about Whitewater, Oklahoma City bombing, etc?
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(1) telnet prairienet.org (2) logon as "visitor" (3) go citcom
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-----------------------------------------------------------------
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
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Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et
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pauperem. -- Liber Proverbiorum XXXI: 8-9
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