The Mindcontrolled Candidate
More Netflix synchronicity. The term is from Carl Jung, who wrote about collective unconscious. He was a student of Freud's who noticed classic archetypes and meaningful coincidences - synchronicity. This DVD came near the Bourne flick I just wrote about. Again, the Cold War, which was the setting of the book and 1962 film. Both feature men who can't remember. Seems there are a lot of male protagonists these days who are not in touch with deeper thoughts and feelings. Bourne, gets conked on the head, Carrey, in Eternal Sunshine goes in for voluntary mind deletion (see my 12/7/04 post) & the principals in Manchurian Candidate have had small but effective chips implanted in their heads. Well, you can't say men aren't creative in the ways they can figure out to numb their brains.
Like Bourne, this story is supposed to be current. This version features a monstrously mindcontrolling Meryl mom who's a successful politician in her own right (though she got her seat from her husband, not uncommon) and a venal Carlyle/Haliburtonesque Manchurian Global instead of Korea as the looming dark power. The great Demme tried to "stay in front of the news". Shooting started before Gulf Oil Play II started, but, the players are pretty obvious, especially when the film opens with a great Wyclef Jean version of Fortunate Son... we all know who that is. I just see Cheney & Rumsfeld's scared old Cold War visages on every twisted face on screen.
When I saw them literally screwing into their candidates brain I thought, you don't have to do all that, just pick someone who has already been cultivated, play to their ego, win their trust... isn't that exactly what we have? And, Jon even says the mom is the real villian, the real power. I do disagree though. Although the real imprint we get in life comes in childhood and mismanagement of that can really interfere in one's life, the kind of active, content oriented influence they talk about in the movie is very difficult in this day and age, unless you cut off media, and parents DO do that, even around here.
So, what's the big message? Our leaders are not in control - they are puppets of the military industrial complex Eisenhower warned of & Kennedy died of? Well, that's one of them, and the fact that we are all ever puppets of our parents until we find the chip and dislodge it is probably another. But, I see even deeper messages in this movie. It has to do with the reactions these men have to the lack of access to their thoughts and feelings. It has to do with the fact that there was some inner kernal each principal had, where they did remember and know truth.
Not just the principals in this movie but all these men with lost minds movies, and there have been many... these men are searching. Men are searching for truth. Careers are not panaceas, they don't address the inner needs. And if the men can't trust women, don't have women they can look to... it's tough... maybe as tough as it is for women to get male support in the workplace. Despite the current feel of these movies, or maybe because of it, men are not portrayed in the classic macho mode, they are portrayed as gentler but lost. They are trying harder, but the link between men and women is still fragile, we're still very far apart. It costs women careers and it costs men their wholeness. It costs our society to tip macho... wars start, people contract, socially and economically.... it's all connected.
When you talk about mind control you need to ask about free will. Can someone's mind be controlled by others? Absolutely. We've all heard about the cults, several of whom have committed mass suicide & heard war stories. Demme said something very interesting in the commentary track. He said that what he learned about mind control in making this film is that you don't need torture to control someone. The key is sleep deprivation and making them uncomfortable and disoriented. Another classic mode used by the Moonies, and other cults, is to deny privacy. Without any access to their inner guides, people lose their center and look to those around them to tell them what to do... and then... they often do it. We can clearly see the danger when it comes to cults, but that doesn't happen to us, right? As I said in the reality posts (12/31/04 & 11/26/04), we often can't see things when they are too close.
I don't know anyone who has focused more on keeping in touch with intuition and center than myself, BUT, when I heard Demme say that all you really need is lack of sleep.... so much came clear. When my kids were young, the combination of pregnancy and childcare, and my marital situation, left me extremely sleep deprived for many years. Although I'm usually very protective of my alone time, that's just impossible as a diligent young mom...so, no privacy either. For many years, I was a good mom, but I was not really myself.
In a way, it absolutely is brainwashing. It has all the attributes, and the fact that it may have been a good and right and extrememly common choice does not change that fact. However, as the film so wonderfully highlighted, there is always a kernal of truth that survives. Our core never leaves us. It can feel like a recurrent dream, as in the film, or an unidentified longing or incompleteness. Sometimes we barely see, hear, feel it, BUT, it never leaves us completely. God never leaves us completely, we just stop listening sometimes. I was very lucky. I walked into a band room one night, and the music & other things brought me back. It would have happened anyway, though maybe not so Tsunami-like.
It's not just the men that are lost, it's all of us. The constant backgound soundtrack of our lives fills us with so much noise and so little silence. How many of us understand the value of spending time to just connect with our inner voices, thinking about who and where and what we are? Most don't dare do that, because it will cause them confusion, or, they might have to make changes, and people fear change. I did. We focus on this exciting and demanding world of coworkers and family members, who all want something from us, and media constantly coming at us.
I was found, and then I lost it for a while when I focused on my career and law school and a fabulous love affair and then my kids. It was worth it, so they will have a chance at inner peace for their own lives, so I could experience putting others truly before myself, so I could be in full relationship to someone else, so I could learn and earn. Fortunately for me, I had built something very solid and real that I was able to call upon to find myself again. I had spent many years in my youth questing for peace, learning about psychology and spirituality, meditating, focusing on awareness etc. partially because my parenting had been so harsh. For some, all that's been built has been a career or some type of external structure and, for all the external benefit that affords, it means very little in the end compared to the inner structure of peace, love and understanding that can be built.
We all have two lines. One leads within, to God. One leads out to the material world and other beings around us. We choose how to open those lines. In my view, the vast majority of people, no matter how religious sounding, have an oil pipeline to the outside world and a copper thread to God. And, though we are not being fed instructions to assasinate, only to assimilate, we are much like the Manchurian Candidate, ever searching for the real truth and struggling to find it and communicate, knowing it's there somewhere. We feel the pull, but until we let the truth find us, there is no resolve or direction.
In my own life, I found that by listening to those barely audible messages, they got louder and I got happier. It did cause me to restrict up on the pipeline, and that does have a cost. In my case, I think probably in all, it's well worth it. No amount of social standing or money was ever comparable to the inner happiness. There is a price to pay for everything, a price to pay for inner peace and a price to pay for "success". But every great teacher we have ever had has said that it's the inner peace route, not the material route, that is the true goal. So, I'm gonna go w/ Buddah & Jesus.
Anyway, I heartily recommend the DVD, if, for no other reason, than to see the "political pundits", actually artists, discuss profound issues such as whether our culture is becoming too "gangsta", or too apathetic. Probably both, but I also think there is hope we could see another age of aquarius enlightenment-type 60's, but a slow burn, mellower thing. The 60's was like the trailer, a little peek of all to come. The real deal could start. We've got the 9/11/war/Big Co. takeover issue to mobilize folks if we could get a spark lit. We have the internet still infiltrating. I guess the wild card is the kids, you start drafting these puppies and all hell is gonna break loose, I guarantee it, cause these kids are hooked up. and their parents aren't WWII relics. We're boomers and some of us do remember.
Like Bourne, this story is supposed to be current. This version features a monstrously mindcontrolling Meryl mom who's a successful politician in her own right (though she got her seat from her husband, not uncommon) and a venal Carlyle/Haliburtonesque Manchurian Global instead of Korea as the looming dark power. The great Demme tried to "stay in front of the news". Shooting started before Gulf Oil Play II started, but, the players are pretty obvious, especially when the film opens with a great Wyclef Jean version of Fortunate Son... we all know who that is. I just see Cheney & Rumsfeld's scared old Cold War visages on every twisted face on screen.
When I saw them literally screwing into their candidates brain I thought, you don't have to do all that, just pick someone who has already been cultivated, play to their ego, win their trust... isn't that exactly what we have? And, Jon even says the mom is the real villian, the real power. I do disagree though. Although the real imprint we get in life comes in childhood and mismanagement of that can really interfere in one's life, the kind of active, content oriented influence they talk about in the movie is very difficult in this day and age, unless you cut off media, and parents DO do that, even around here.
So, what's the big message? Our leaders are not in control - they are puppets of the military industrial complex Eisenhower warned of & Kennedy died of? Well, that's one of them, and the fact that we are all ever puppets of our parents until we find the chip and dislodge it is probably another. But, I see even deeper messages in this movie. It has to do with the reactions these men have to the lack of access to their thoughts and feelings. It has to do with the fact that there was some inner kernal each principal had, where they did remember and know truth.
Not just the principals in this movie but all these men with lost minds movies, and there have been many... these men are searching. Men are searching for truth. Careers are not panaceas, they don't address the inner needs. And if the men can't trust women, don't have women they can look to... it's tough... maybe as tough as it is for women to get male support in the workplace. Despite the current feel of these movies, or maybe because of it, men are not portrayed in the classic macho mode, they are portrayed as gentler but lost. They are trying harder, but the link between men and women is still fragile, we're still very far apart. It costs women careers and it costs men their wholeness. It costs our society to tip macho... wars start, people contract, socially and economically.... it's all connected.
When you talk about mind control you need to ask about free will. Can someone's mind be controlled by others? Absolutely. We've all heard about the cults, several of whom have committed mass suicide & heard war stories. Demme said something very interesting in the commentary track. He said that what he learned about mind control in making this film is that you don't need torture to control someone. The key is sleep deprivation and making them uncomfortable and disoriented. Another classic mode used by the Moonies, and other cults, is to deny privacy. Without any access to their inner guides, people lose their center and look to those around them to tell them what to do... and then... they often do it. We can clearly see the danger when it comes to cults, but that doesn't happen to us, right? As I said in the reality posts (12/31/04 & 11/26/04), we often can't see things when they are too close.
I don't know anyone who has focused more on keeping in touch with intuition and center than myself, BUT, when I heard Demme say that all you really need is lack of sleep.... so much came clear. When my kids were young, the combination of pregnancy and childcare, and my marital situation, left me extremely sleep deprived for many years. Although I'm usually very protective of my alone time, that's just impossible as a diligent young mom...so, no privacy either. For many years, I was a good mom, but I was not really myself.
In a way, it absolutely is brainwashing. It has all the attributes, and the fact that it may have been a good and right and extrememly common choice does not change that fact. However, as the film so wonderfully highlighted, there is always a kernal of truth that survives. Our core never leaves us. It can feel like a recurrent dream, as in the film, or an unidentified longing or incompleteness. Sometimes we barely see, hear, feel it, BUT, it never leaves us completely. God never leaves us completely, we just stop listening sometimes. I was very lucky. I walked into a band room one night, and the music & other things brought me back. It would have happened anyway, though maybe not so Tsunami-like.
It's not just the men that are lost, it's all of us. The constant backgound soundtrack of our lives fills us with so much noise and so little silence. How many of us understand the value of spending time to just connect with our inner voices, thinking about who and where and what we are? Most don't dare do that, because it will cause them confusion, or, they might have to make changes, and people fear change. I did. We focus on this exciting and demanding world of coworkers and family members, who all want something from us, and media constantly coming at us.
I was found, and then I lost it for a while when I focused on my career and law school and a fabulous love affair and then my kids. It was worth it, so they will have a chance at inner peace for their own lives, so I could experience putting others truly before myself, so I could be in full relationship to someone else, so I could learn and earn. Fortunately for me, I had built something very solid and real that I was able to call upon to find myself again. I had spent many years in my youth questing for peace, learning about psychology and spirituality, meditating, focusing on awareness etc. partially because my parenting had been so harsh. For some, all that's been built has been a career or some type of external structure and, for all the external benefit that affords, it means very little in the end compared to the inner structure of peace, love and understanding that can be built.
We all have two lines. One leads within, to God. One leads out to the material world and other beings around us. We choose how to open those lines. In my view, the vast majority of people, no matter how religious sounding, have an oil pipeline to the outside world and a copper thread to God. And, though we are not being fed instructions to assasinate, only to assimilate, we are much like the Manchurian Candidate, ever searching for the real truth and struggling to find it and communicate, knowing it's there somewhere. We feel the pull, but until we let the truth find us, there is no resolve or direction.
In my own life, I found that by listening to those barely audible messages, they got louder and I got happier. It did cause me to restrict up on the pipeline, and that does have a cost. In my case, I think probably in all, it's well worth it. No amount of social standing or money was ever comparable to the inner happiness. There is a price to pay for everything, a price to pay for inner peace and a price to pay for "success". But every great teacher we have ever had has said that it's the inner peace route, not the material route, that is the true goal. So, I'm gonna go w/ Buddah & Jesus.
Anyway, I heartily recommend the DVD, if, for no other reason, than to see the "political pundits", actually artists, discuss profound issues such as whether our culture is becoming too "gangsta", or too apathetic. Probably both, but I also think there is hope we could see another age of aquarius enlightenment-type 60's, but a slow burn, mellower thing. The 60's was like the trailer, a little peek of all to come. The real deal could start. We've got the 9/11/war/Big Co. takeover issue to mobilize folks if we could get a spark lit. We have the internet still infiltrating. I guess the wild card is the kids, you start drafting these puppies and all hell is gonna break loose, I guarantee it, cause these kids are hooked up. and their parents aren't WWII relics. We're boomers and some of us do remember.
posted by Intervision at 3:07 AM
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