THE MERRY DANCE OF DEATH AND TRADE

Caption: Image courtesy of wikipedia.

Recently El Cabrero re-read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. I was struck more than ever by the force of its denunciation of colonialism and imperialism. It was set in the Congo of a century ago, where the "Christian" king Leopold of Belgium and his minions perpetrated a holocaust that rivaled Hitler's. (See yesterday's post.)

I know that the interpretation of this short novel remains controversial. A colleague who is a native of Congo pointed out to me recently that the great writer Chinua Achebe thought that the novel de-humanized Africans by denying them language and culture.

Achebe has a point, but in fairness Conrad would probably get clobbered these days for presuming to speak for Africans as a European. And, with the exception of the narrator, the Europeans in the novel who do speak talk nonsense. Conrad went as far as he could go in this novel, which was pretty far. It is an unmistakable and explosive condemnation of the atrocities perpetrated not so long ago.

I first became aware of Conrad's brutal gem in the late 1970s with the release of the film Apocalypse Now, which is still one of my favorites. The film, as the reader will no doubt recall, was set not in Africa but in Vietnam, but it seems to me to be pretty close in spirit to the novel that inspired it.

But while Apocalypse Now was a film about war, Leopold's holocaust was perpetuated in a time of official "peace" in the name of Christianity, commerce and humanitarianism. Conrad described it best ironically in the tile of this post: "the merry dance of death and trade" whereby millions of people were exploited, exterminated and/or mutilated, physically or otherwise.

Sad to say, the merry dance continues, although generally in a more subtle form.

SHOCK AND ALL. Here's an interesting piece on neocons and the roots of the "shock doctrine" of disaster capitalism which was the subject of Naomi Klein's recent book.

SOCIAL EUTHANASIA. A few years ago, a dear friend and comrade applied for Social Security disability. By the time she finally got it, death was near. As this New York Times article shows, her case was not an isolated one:

Steadily lengthening delays in the resolution of Social Security disability claims have left hundreds of thousands of people in a kind of purgatory, now waiting as long as three years for a decision...

But in the meantime, more and more people have lost their homes, declared bankruptcy or even died while awaiting an appeals hearing, say lawyers representing claimants and officials of the Social Security Administration, which administers disability benefits for those judged unable to work or who face terminal illness.

WHAT DUMB ANIMALS? In lieu of Goat Rope's usual gratuitous animal picture, here's an item on animal intelligence. And here's one about the longstanding bond between animals and fermentation. Drink up!

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

WEEKEND SPECIAL: THE CANINE FILM CRITIC REVIEWS "THE GODFATHER"

For first time readers, this blog generally deals with fairly serious topics during the week. Weekends, however, are reserved for the commentaries of various animals in and around Goat Rope Farm.

We are pleased to once again welcome Mr. Sandor Sege (pronounced Shandor Shegg-AY), our official film critic.

We must remind our readers that Mr. Sege suffered a head injury when he crashed into a wall whilst chasing a squeaky toy. As a result, he has been known to transpose the plots of the films he discusses. Nonetheless, we believe that his unique insights into the world of cinema more than compensate for this regretable shortcoming.

It is our hope that features such as this will promote a greater appreciation of both the humanities and the animalities.

THE CANINE FILM CRITIC EXPLAINS "THE GODFATHER"

OK, so this movie is about an old guy who is like the head of a crime family and he's trying to figure out which of his kids is going to take over the business. His name is Don Corleone.

He's about to pick one of the kids when he goes to this science lab and is bit by a genetically modified spider. After that, he can climb up walls, jump all over the place and squirt web out of his wrists.

Doodus said if he was like a real spider, the web would come out of someplace else. Moomus told Doodus he was a dork.

Anyway, he gets this cool uniform and swings around all over New York City. Everything goes OK until this great white shark starts eating tourists right at the height of vacation season and then everybody wants him to stop it so he goes out on a boat all the way to Cambodia to kill the shark who used to be a Colonel but then went nuts.

There's a big storm and the boat lands on a witch. This makes these little people happy but not her sister, who is like the editor of some fancy fashion magazine. It all works out though, because when everything starts to get really crazy she turns out to be his sister, so they can't get married.

The symbolism of this movie is really deep, especially the part where a monkey throws up a bone and it turns into a space ship.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED