John Fugelsang on American Sniper

[Quixote1818]

>>>American Sniper is the best film ever made about shooting people in a country that never attacked us.


My comment:

There are a lot of movies that fall into that category, set in Vietnam etc. but as Fugelsang points out, anyone watching this flick, it gives the impression that the towers were hit by Sadam himself and Iraq was infested with Al Qaida before we got there. But we get it Mr. Eastwood, bringing up bogus yellowcake allegations and the zero WMD's and the whole bogus reason we were there in the first place would have made all the completely un-necessary death a bit less satisfactory and prevented some pro US erections from being as hard as they ended up being.

[kelliekat44]

1. Yes, and no one would ever believe that Saddam had made peace overtures several time and was

rejected by the Bush administration and Intelligence officials. Same thing happened with Viet Nam.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/nov/07/iraq.brianwhitaker

I remember well the reports over some trustworthy media outlets. Saddam was willing to leave the country and seek safe haven in Jordan or some other country that would allow him and his family safety. But the PNACers were hell-bent on having a war with Iraq just like they are trying to do with Iran.

[BlueCaliDem]

9. I remember that, as well, kelliekat. I knew then and there that Cheney would push for

war no matter what. Republican friends of mine at the time said that I was a pessimist and that I just didn't like G.W.Bush, and that was the reason why I was convinced that he would force America to go to war. Well, suffice it to say she was wrong and I was correct. Unfortunately.

[JDPriestly]

13. I specifically recall the interview by Dan Rather of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_2003_Saddam_Hussein_interview

Here are videos on that interview.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video;_ylt=AwrSbnlxvLxURLMAz0pXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTB0bThodmlhBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2dxMQR2dGlkA1NNRTkyMF8x?p=saddam+hussein+dan+rather+interview

[kelliekat44]

19. Thanks for posting the links. nt

[Dustlawyer]

25. They definetely had to get rid of Dan Rather b/c he would not play the game! He thought that

he was still supposed to be a journalist!

[BlueCaliDem]

38. And from then on, American "journalists" morphed into propagandists for the GOP

and they haven't looked back since.

Lucky for us, we're no longer reliant upon them to get our news. We have the internet and progressive blogs that have a good nose for picking true reporting that are usually buried deep in a newspaper or merely mentioned on a ticker at the bottom of a "news" show (a tactic they use so that they can claim credibility that they're still reporting the news, of course).

[Dustlawyer]

45. The problem is, we are in the minority! The propaganda has been wildly successful!

We need to demand that Congress bust up the media and banking oligarchies! Then you will see who is bought off and how few are not! Most Americans buy into the BS, even if it is not Fox News spreading it.
For all of the propaganda telling us that Bernie Sanders is "out there" marginalizing him completely, even here at DU, he is the only one making sense! He is the guy we should be backing as he wants to attack the 1%'s ability to buy our politicians. He supports Publicly Funded Elections and an end to campaign contributions, Super Pacs, and the Revolving Door! We no longer have "Representative Democracy." They represent Donors and their Lobbyists, not us. The laws passed are a reflection of that just like the co-opted regulatory agencies who are run by the industries they are to regulate. Their budgets are so small they have no teeth to enforce anything even if they wanted to.

[Fred Sanders]

62. Well said and spot on. I hope Americans are finally waking up to the horror show of their media.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

63. But the people will not wake up

they have been conditioned from cradle to grave, though effective propaganda to believe in "America land of the free and home of the brave."

They cry patriotic tears and lay down their lives for what they believe to be the only country in the world to live in, they have lost their ability for critical unemotional thinking.

They have lost their ability to say NO, no more of this crap, no more pledging allegiance to this corporation ruled government.

The people will not wake up.

[Dustlawyer]

71. I am as frustrated as you on that point. All I can do is keep trying to spread the word and

motivate others to do the same. I hope Bernie Sanders will be able to at least get his message heard, though they have done a great job marginalizing one of the few in power who are speaking the truth.
The good thing is that we don't have to convince many that the system is corrupt, most know that already. What we have to do is show them how we can fix it if they will get off of their asses and participate.

[Octafish]

69. Also what happened in 1991 for Gulf War I.

Tariq Aziz told James Baker that Iraq would withdraw from Kuwait -- without an American-led invasion. Baker said, "Too late," as in we are going to war.

Q: A lot of your colleagues, even talking to them now, regarded this as a James Baker plot to avoid the war?

Baker: Well that's really not correct, this was certainly not a plot on my part to avoid the war but I'd strongly supported the President's inclination to do this in terms of its impact on the judgement of history and I think it was the right thing to do as it turned out. I'll tell you this, the meeting with Tariq Aziz in Geneva permitted us to achieve congressional support for something that the President was determined to do in any event, but how much better that he could do it with the support of the peoples' elected representatives in Congress and really with the support of the American people rather than just, having to go off and do it. And I think Senator Sam Nunn who was opposed to the idea of using forces as early as we used it in the Gulf would tell you that congressional opposition to the use of force pretty well collapsed in the aftermath of my meeting with Tariq Aziz so it was clearly the right thing to do at the time, and probably the right thing to do I think when looked at in retrospect.

SOURCE: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral/baker/1.html

These are the folks who get to write history.

[Chakab]

2. I'm still at a loss to understand how this guy is a hero for shooting

undertrained (if not completely untrained) combatants from fixed positions at great distances when said undertrained combatants were fighting against an armed force that unjustly invaded their country.

That's not even mentioning the fact that he believed that all Muslims are evil and deserved to die or that he was a proven pathological liar who lied about number of people whom he murdered in combat and the manner in which his victims were killed.

He also claimed that he singlehandedly stopped the looting during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina by climbing to the top of the Superdome and shooting three dozen "thugs" and that he murdered two other "thugs" in a gas station.

This guy was such a liar that his estate and his publisher lost a settlement for defamation regarding claims that he made in his book about assaulting Jesse Ventura. Do you know how fucking hard it is to win a defamation or libel judgement if you're a public figure and former politician in the US?

If this is what passes for a "hero" these days in the US, then I'm glad that I don't live there anymore.

[sabrina 1]

4. He isn't. Not to any rational person.

But I think there is an effort to try to get us used to murderous thugs as heroes. It will work on those who receive their education from Rupert Murdoch's Media Empire.

The rest of the world are simply disgusted.

[VanillaRhapsody]

10. South Carolina wants to have 3 weeks a year "education" on 2nd Amendment Rights in public schools

[belzabubba333]

18. a well-armed militia is no longer need so there goes the 2nd amendment,as extinct as the blunderbuss

there that didn't need even 1 week

[VanillaRhapsody]

59. No but indoctrination does....

this education is sponsored by the NRA!

[Paladin]

32. There's lots of sniper worship amongst the right wing. Has been for some time. (nt)

[Spitfire of ATJ]

54. That's because snipers are like trolls.

[samsingh]

51. no, this is a hero to empty chair eastwood

it better not win any Oscars

it's already making money at the box office

[olddots]

3. war movies are just movies

they break for lunch,war doesn't break for lunch .

[delrem]

5. Without war propaganda the empire's wars of choice would be depressing.

With Eastwood style cinematics, I'm certain the population will feel uplifted, even heroic.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

23. ^ n/t

[Enthusiast]

26. +1 You nailed it.

[tech3149]

6. my comment

If you want to promote the heroism of a sniper I would suggest Vasilli Zaitsev as was in "Enemy at the Gates"
There is nothing heroic about killing but if it is done in the defense of others I would consider situation.

[Cha]

7. Well, Eastwood(of the Empty Angry Chair)Eastwood is a republicon so I wouldn't expect him

to bring any reality to bear with a War on Iraq movie. They wouldn't invite him back to any rnc .. oh wait.. they may not anyway.

Thank you, John Fugelsang and thank you, Quixote

[JDPriestly]

14. Remember the empty chair scene at the Republican convention. When was that?

Eastwood is beyond his prime. He should have quit long ago when he was ahead.

[BlueMTexpat]

52. While Eastwood, unlike many of today's Republicans

actually served in the US military (during the Korean War), his "active" duty took place only in Fort Ord, CA and consisted primarily of being a swimming instructor and a bouncer at an NCO club.

The closest he ever came to any military action was when he hopped a military torpedo plane from Fort Ord to visit his parents (and girlfriend) in Seattle. The plane developed engine trouble and had to make a water landing off San Francisco. Clint "survived" by swimming more than a mile to shore.

http://www.military.com/veteran-jobs/career-advice/military-transition/famous-veteran-clint-eastwood.html

Many like Clint, who glorify combat, war and violence, have never, ever been on a battlefield. But they seek to compensate for that by being more gung-ho for war than most generals are.

In my experience, most of those who have been there and who survived who do not glorify any of it at all. Those of us who have had to deal with the consequences of war - either on the ground or in the aftermath - thoroughly detest it and loathe anyone who glorifies it.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

66. Eastwood opposed going into Iraq AND Afghanistan.

I recall hearing he was against the war 10 years ago. He's apparently a flip-flopper.

http://m.hollywoodreporter.com/race/clint-eastwood-i-was-going-754761#!/entry/view/id/875069

[BlueMTexpat]

68. Ah well, where there's $$$ to be made ....

But I believe that Eastwood used to be a fairly reasonable person politically, all told, not an ideological zealot.

But that was all before that inane "empty-chair" routine for the Romney people. The routine showed that perhaps a touch of senility is setting in. But then, the whole Romney campaign was rather nutty - if Romney runs again, it will likely get even nuttier. Nuttiness seems to be a hallmark of today's GOP and that is the most benign comment I can make.

I haven't seen this film so really can't comment on it.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

74. He doesn't make movies I want to see.

I saw "J Edgar". One of the few who did I believe.

Can't take this movie seriously though since he had the father's threat hanging over him: http://www.mediaite.com/online/american-snipers-dad-threatened-to-unleash-hell-on-clint-eastwood-and-bradley-cooper/

[SleeplessinSoCal]

75. Eastwood thinks it's an anti-war movie.

So what does that tell us about war and ticket buyers?


"The biggest anti-war statement any film" can make is to show "the fact of what [war] does to the family and the people who have to go back into civilian life like Chris Kyle did," Eastwood said, per The Hollywood Reporter.

"One of my favorite war movies that I've been involved with is 'Letters from Iwo Jima,'" he continued. "And that was about family, about being taken away from life, being sent someplace. In World War II, everybody just sort of went home and got over it. Now there is some effort to help people through it. In Chris Kyle's case no good deed went unpunished."

more at: http://huff.to/1JtVJL7

[ReRe]

8. I don't plan on seeing the movie

... and I don't even like to see/hear the damn ads for it on TV. IMHO, it is nothing but advertisement for the MIC Empire, America's life-means-nothing killing machine.

[RoverSuswade]

41. I don't like the trailer either.

This may be silly but I cringe whenever the sniper and his wife keep saying "baby" over and over. Makes me wonder if it is just a deceptively marketed "chick flick."

[Johonny]

44. I respect Eastwood as a film maker but that pretty much summed up my feelings

I haven't watched Hurt Locker or zero dark thirty or any of these war of option movies. The pain of the lies is too great for me. The movie could be a fantastic movie and I simply refuse to see them. I just can't stomach it.

[ReRe]

65. I watched the VietNam movies...

... back in the day. But these new ones of late, no. There is no "glory" in war.

[BlueCaliDem]

11. Leave it to Fugelsang to hit the nail on the head each and every time.

The man is pure genius, and I still don't understand how Comedy Central hasn't picked him up for a show a la Daily Show. He would be PERFECT for that, and he's educational, good-looking, intelligent, and although not the least bit religious, knows more about Christianity than the self-proclaimed ordained of the Right-wing kind.

[libdem4life]

60. His observations are dead on...not cutsey. I don't want to see him end up like Jon Stewart.

I still love Jon, but he lost his edge...happens to most of them.

[3catwoman3]

76. To listen to John Fugelsang...

...take down holier-than-thou RWNJs when they try to justify mean-spirited actions using scripture is a thing of beauty. He is always polite about it, but anyone who attempts to out-quote him on the bible does so at their own peril.

I totally admire John.

[BlueCaliDem]

77. That's why he should have his own show, either on MSNBC or Comedy Central.

He's unique. There isn't another like him. He has it all and everything it takes to appeal to a younger audience.

When he was a regular on The Stephanie Miller Show, I always sat down, no matter what I was doing, and enjoyed his quick wit and spot-on observations. The man knows how to deliver a message like nobody's business! He's never crude, always accurate, and his insights are just pure genius. He's a talent that this country needs more than ever in a sea of right-of-center and right-wing liars.

I totally admire John Fugelsang, too, 3catwoman3.

[3catwoman3]

78. Mrs. Fugelsang is one...

...lucky woman!

[BlueCaliDem]

79. He's married? Damn! lol Just kidding. Yes, if there's a Mrs. John Fugelsang, she's one lucky lady!

[3catwoman3]

80. And they have a son...

...whose middle name is Jack, after his dad.

If you have never read his Twitter account of his parents' unlikely love story, you are in for a treat. He published a year after his dad died.

[BlueCaliDem]

81. Do you have a link?

Now you've gotten me all curious and everything.

Thanks in advance, 3catwoman3.

[3catwoman3]

82. Indeed I do.

Here you go - http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/02/14/146717078/a-brother-and-sister-get-married-and-later-their-son-tweets-it

Also, if you Google his name under images, there is a very touching photo of him cradling his newborn son's face in his hands.

[3catwoman3]

83. Make sure to listen to the audio of the interview on the NPR link.

It brings tears to my eyes.

[3catwoman3]

84. This should be the link to the...

...above mentioned photos -
https://www.google.com/search?q=john+fugelsang&biw=1130&bih=488&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=esvHVOb2H4mdNte4grgN&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg#imgdii=_&imgrc=79IJxpAGznK5YM%253A%3BCWkciAcmezRo8M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fradioornot.com%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2012%252F03%252FJohn-and-Henry-Jack-Fugelsang.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fradioornot.com%252Fblog%252Flaughter-and-tears%252F%3B644%3B480

[Heidi]

12. Kick!

[JI7]

15. didn't he complain about OBama not getting out of Iraq at the bizarre Republican Convention Speech

with the Chair ?

[polynomial]

16. This Republican culture

The empty chair syndrome does show a serious disorder in mental cognitive perspective. That is what America is dealing with in this Republican culture. Or just gaming any which way…

In a public debate to talk to an empty chair shows an extraordinary liberal bend as a Conservative to make an argument. Some may categorize it as genius or it is lop-sided in favor as a completely dysfunctional fool supporting a condescending social structure.

There is a favorable audience that believes the Hollywood character to be a true and honest guy, yet as a war symbol using sniping is a tranny terror culture. More or less sniping is a sort of torture a fascist reflection of most unfair practices.

A sniper as military camouflage is the use of camouflage hidden by a military force any different than masked Isis sneaking to strike. I don’t think so.

Islam has even penetrated the American Hollywood frame of mind to be like them…worse as being popular! America is in a very clever proselytization, the Arabs using their money in Hollywood to fuse Islam into the America. The Bush Cheney profiteer Bible belt proselytizers should be condemned and banished.

[belzabubba333]

17. too bad the movie didnt play to empty chairs

[kelliekat44]

21. Best sentiment of the day! nt

[TheKentuckian]

20. I don't think it is fair to say the movie gives the impression that Iraq attacked on 9/11

I'd say it does nothing going to counter it either, the film is agnostic on the connection. It just isn't a thing from the perspective of the film at all though I understand why that would be desirable it is an expectation that is severe back seat film making. If someone really wanted to they could possibly work such an angle but it would probably require the film to take a perspective it does not aspire to, it just isn't a big picture view of events it follows one man far removed from decision making in Washington.

It also isn't accurate to say that Iraq was running over with anyone, it was an odd thing but the feel is actually more of Iraq as almost a deserted ghost town that for some reason requires bombardment.

I think it does sneak in the impression that for the high side of the most part, before our military went to work all the "real civilians" are evacuated from hot spots sanitizing any killing by essentially implying anyone in harm's way we're combatants at a clip of at least 99/100. Only one example in the film of someone who wasn't and they were brutally killed by the shadowy villain sniper's crew.

The movie doesn't particularly identify the enemy as AL Queda, it doesn't seem to care who the enemy is though it does identify the enemy sniper as a Syrian Olympian so I guess it could be said it leaves that impression though I don't feel it cares at all about such details only that they are the enemy. Kinda like some old cowboy flicks didn't worry about which indians, just that indians attacked the wagon train or whatever.

I also notice no one mentions that once the movie gets going, Kyle is pretty much the only person oblivious to the fucked uppedness of the situation, everyone else seems to think the war is bullshit, he can't get the damage it is doing to him and his family, and I tell you that the look in the eyes of his little brother as he is getting on his transport plane and saying "fuck this place" is almost worth the price of admission alone I don't know if I've seen haunted so well expressed in so little time in a movie.

Sometimes I feel some folks aren't really being critical of the film presented as much as they are bothered that the film they wanted wasn't made. It isn't being judged on its own merit which to me is a good but not great and certainly not spectacular big budget bio picture of an American soldier in the Iraq War.

[kelliekat44]

22. Look at the "historical inaccuracies" of Selma but don't mention anything about them in "American

Sniper." That's how those in power want the discussion to go.

I'm with Michael Moore on this one.

https://celebrity.yahoo.com/news/michael-moore-blasts-american-sniper-hero-gunmen-cowards-050002508.html;_ylt=AwrBJR9X8LxUZkIAdpjWwOZ_

[sammythecat]

28. Oh man, did you read the comments to that article?

Scary and depressing. War is a birthright, the military is sacred, and Americans are God's chosen people. These beliefs go right down to the core of their being. They are incapable of seeing gray and they never have any doubt. It is impossible to argue with them.
There's a whole hell of a lot of them and it's depressing.

[Quixote1818]

43. Well, it shows the 9-11 attacks and then Kyle gets more ramped up than he already was

Then the next thing you know, they are called up and he is in the middle of it in Iraq and they are after Al Qaeda's second man. Nothing is ever done to show the attacks didn't come from Iraq. I almost forgot Iraq didn't attack us while watching it. Eastwood really should have done a better job throwing in all the ambiguities and how we should not have been there in the first place.

You say everyone around him thinks war is BS? Where did you get that impression? Everyone around him except the atheist guy from Oregon who was a very small part of the movie seemed into it to me and they are constantly calling him a hero. He must have been called a hero at least 15 times or more.

I saw it in a very conservative town and left right when it was finished while the rest of the crowd sat there and stared in awe as if they had seen a movie about Jesus being crucified.

[TheKentuckian]

70. I don't conflate people calling him a hero as support for the war, to them individually he was a

hero, he saved their lives or saved lives of other soldiers.

If someone's actions kept me above ground even in a situation I considered wholly fucked up, I'd at minimum think kindly of them and be thankful for what they did aka hero.

Vietnam was all kinds of fucked up but I'm sure the men John Kerry pulled to safety considered him a hero. This shit only gets complicated because folks want to boil it down to black and white or at least can't contemplate there can be white in the black and black in the white. I remember few teeth being gnashed when Kerry was referred to as a war hero other than from Republicans. I'm sure some few took exception but it flat out wasn't a thing in an significant level but here it seems to really bother some folks because of the nature of the Iraq war, well domino theory was no more noble.

Hey, I don't think of Chris Kyle as a hero holistically but then my "hero" list is very brief as to be nonexistent, I see a soldier that was very good at his job but I don't discount that I'd want someone of that ability as my over watch or that he kept our soldiers alive and that if someone kept keeping me alive I'd probably think highly of them. Maybe even call them a hero.

[Taitertots]

24. American Sniper is a perfect display of the collective insanity known as patriotism

Because the insanity of American patriotism turns murder porn about slaughtering innocent people into a blockbuster.

[Surya Gayatri]

34. ^^^This!^^^

[abelenkpe]

39. + 1000 nt

[wildbilln864]

27. k & fucking r! So now lying sociopaths are heros? WTF! n/t

[lunasun]

31. +1 !! exactly- now lying sociopaths are heros

[Grins]

29. Link to the full quote? Source?

I found the quote; couldn't find the direct attribution.

Link?

[Demit]

37. It was a tweet by John Fugelsang.

[Quixote1818]

42. Here you go

I saw it on his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/john.fugelsang?fref=nf&pnref=story

[amuse bouche]

30. Don't forget that Kyle is the one who defamed Jesse Ventura in his book

Jesse didn't turn the other cheek. He won 1.8 million from the liar

"Kyle did not identify Ventura by name in the book, but said that he swung at the individual after he “started running his mouth about the war and everything and anything he could connect to it.” That included President George W. Bush and deployed SEALs, who “were doing the wrong thing, killing men and women and children and murdering,” the man said, according to Kyle’s book. Ventura said the whole episode was fabricated"

[lunasun]

33. Glad Ventura called the lying psychopath out before Kyle died & became a celluloid hero

[AzDar]

49. ^ This.

[edhopper]

35. The success of this movie

tells me many Americans are desperate to feel Iraq was not the fiasco it was from day one.
Let's rewrite history and not see it as the greatest foreign policy fiasco in history, perpetrated by the worst President.

[Coventina]

36. I love that guy!!

[liberalgunwilltravel]

40. Point of Order

I would just like to note that snipers are part of our president's protection detail every day. I am not trying to justify the unjustifiable (Cheney's Iraq folly), just pointing out that snipers do have a legitimate role.

[Quixote1818]

46. I agree with you. If I were in battle I would want a sniper on my side. nt

[KingCharlemagne]

47. The Red Army was damned glad for snipers:

Vasily Grigoryevich Zaytsev (Russian: Васи́лий Григо́рьевич За́йцев; IPA: [vɐˈsʲilʲɪj ɡrʲɪˈɡorʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈzajtsɨf]; 23 March 1915 – 15 December 1991) was a Soviet sniper and a Hero of the Soviet Union during World War II. Between 10 November and 17 December 1942, during the Battle of Stalingrad, he killed 225 soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht and other Axis armies, including 11 enemy snipers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Zaytsev

[MrMickeysMom]

56. uh huh….

[AzDar]

48. K & R

[PumpkinAle]

50. Once again Fugelsang nails it

American Sniper is just playing into the hands of those who believe guns = glory and anyone that doesn't agree 100% with America is an enemy.

[SummerSnow]

53. Great point ...

Eastwood, just continues to stir the lies along with the rest of his party. And they know the truth.

[ND-Dem]

55. k&r and boos to dirty harry. gone completely over to the dark side.

[deutsey]

57. That's what I thought when I saw a commercial for it yesterday

It was really milking the patriotism and protecting America angle, but that falls apart when you remember that Iraq had 0 to do with 9/11 and posed no threat to America.

[Octafish]

61. Truer words were never spoken.

John Fugelsang on American Sniper:

[font color="red"]American Sniper is the best film ever made about shooting people in a country that never attacked us. [/font color]

War without End for the BFEE really is becoming a taboo topic these days.

[Paladin]

64. Fugelsang attained national treasure status with me, some time ago.

What a perfect counter-statement to all the reactionary sniper lust we're caught up in, right now.

[lordsummerisle]

67. I agree with a lot of the comments on this film

but I saw it from a slightly different angle. I actually saw it as an anti-war movie. A professional killer's tours in Iraq are highlighted and then he returns and in the comfort and safety of the homeland he is gunned down by one of his own (as it were).
My takeaway is that war is a senseless waste of lives. And what did they die for? Fallujah, Iraq where some of the action took place, is now in the hands of radical militants, who do want want to kill us, as opposed to the citizens of that city who had nothing against us until we invaded their country.

I had the same feeling at the end of the film Das Boot. Those sailors went through many dangerous battles at sea in the u-boat, only to be blown out of the water when back home while tied up at the pier.

As for the 9-11 connection, I think a lot of enlistees signed up to avenge the terror attacks even though we now know Iraq had nothing to do with it. But hey, it was somewhere in the Middle East and that was close enough...

[Crowman1979]

72. This movie is the Iraq war equivalent of John Wayne's "Green Berets".

More hokey propaganda BS! BTW, where were Kyle's bar fight, gas station shooting and Katrina sniping exploits in this movie? Seems to me that this film is a sanitized version of what was in his god awful book.

[tenderfoot]

73. I find it interesting that not one of DU's 101st Keyboardist Brigade has a response to this.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

85. A really good explanation of the enemy within aka the GOP

MONDAY, JAN 26, 2015 01:35 PM PST

American Sniper’s” biggest lie: Clint Eastwood has a delusional Fox News problem

The insanities and fantasies at the heart of "American Sniper" explain everything
about the state of the 2015 GOP

Much has been made recently about the inaccurate representation of Chris Kyle in “American Sniper.” We’ve learned that, despite the fact that the film depicts Kyle as a hero and a martyr, the real American sniper was heartless and cruel. Rather than struggle with moral dilemmas as we see in the film, the actual man had no such hesitation and no such conscience.

But to focus on “American Sniper’s” depiction of Kyle is to miss the larger problems of the film. In addition to sugarcoating Kyle, the film suffers from major myopia — from a complete inability to see the larger picture. And that is why criticism of the film has to look at its director, Clint Eastwood, and the troubling ways he represents a dark, disturbing feature of the GOP mind-set...."

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/26/american_snipers_biggest_lie_clint_eastwood_has_a_delusional_fox_news_problem/

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

86. Pro US eretions not as hard as they would be?

Funny. Did you write that yourself? Love it.

The fact that this movie got so much love, even w/o an Oscar win, with the Hollywood bigwigs disproves the RW notion that Hollywood is run by "liberals."