V for Vendetta - R for Reality

Friday, February 16, 2007

V for Vendetta - R for Reality


Inspirational
• Revolutionary ideas are bullet proof
• Not all “terrorists” are actually real terrorists but are actually fighting against tyranny
• Citizens initially believed the fear mongering on the television but by the end saw through the lies
• People only had to overcome their fear of government to restore their freedom because the power of the government was an illusion
• People within the government structure (the inspector) were initially unaware of the evil nature of the government but were able to change and resist
• Government originally dominated the people then began to rightly fear the people
• Chancellor died like a coward
• The army stood down because they are the people as well
• If we become united and organized as a people we can bring down a corrupt parliament without the help of a superhero Our Reality
• All powerful leader with no democratic power of the people to remove him (Bush signed a bill not passed by congress, Bush and the Fuhrer Principle and electronic voting machines)


http://godncountry.blogspot.com/2007/02/v-for-vendetta-r-for-reality.html

come back to 11 recs, and 5 great responses.

Excellent post. This is a must see film.

It doesn't have many church goers, like 15% or so, which was the tip off that V for Vendetta was about good old US. "Children of Men," a film I liked more than Vendetta, is a universal metaphor but , when you get to the end, in that sea side town, it sure looks like the US in Iraq. But WTF do I know. I thought that "Matrix" was a documentary;)

the American people, need to get back in the driver seat, or wee are going to lose everything.

I actually cried a bit during Children of Men, and I'm a white hetero male!

England's citizens have become the 'most watched' by any government, with their traffic cameras all over the place.

And now there's this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6346435.stm


Thousands of council staff are being trained to police the smoking ban in bars, restaurants and shops in England.

Ministers have given councils £29.5m to pay for staff, who will be able to give on-the-spot £50 fines to individuals and take court action against premises.

They will have the power to enter premises undercover, allowing them to sit among drinkers, and will even be able to photograph and film people.

...

Business owners also have a duty to ensure their customers comply - they are liable for £200 fines if proper signs are not displayed and, potentially, fines of £2,500 if they refuse to enforce the ban.

Local authorities have been given the power to enforce the ban so it does not consume police time.

I saw it last week for the first time, then I watched it with my 14 year old daughter, then I watched it with my 19 year old son, his girlfriend and my daughter. My son said, "I want to watch that again ... ".

Each time I have gotten more of the story. Each time, I have cried harder at what could have been, what should be, and what sacrifices will have to bear to set things right.

I agreed with all of the statements above except, perhaps, the reason for the police standing down. They had no one to tell them what to do anymore. They had lost their ability to make a choice on their own, so they made no choice at all. They let things happen around them, because no one told them NOT to. Perhaps, they can be reclaimed and made whole at the hands of the people after all. The mere confrontation by the people, IMHO, was not what facilitated their change in behavior, rather, the lack of a true leader at a moment of crisis was the catalyst to the beginning of rebirth among the people. They were not OF the chancellor or his mind set, they were BY the chancellor and his mind set, merely a byproduct of the environment that had adapted to.

Never forget that.
And you won't be dominated by bullshitters pulling'symbolic' social rank on you..

oops... posted in the wrong spot. :hi:

He's a deeply religious man and a member of the conservative party. He's completely single-minded and has no regard for the political process. The more power he attains, the more obvious his zealotry and the more aggressive his supporters become. Eventually, his party launches a special project in the name of national security. At first, it's believed to be a search for biological weapons and is pursued without regard to its cost. However, the true goal of this project is power; complete and total hegemonic domination. The project, however, ends violently. But the efforts of those involved are not in vain, for a new ability to wage war is born from the blood of the victims. Imagine a virus, the most terrifying virus you can, and then imagine that you and you alone have the cure. But if the ultimate goal is power, how best to use such a weapon?

It is at this point in our story that along comes a spider, Creedy. Here is a man seemingly without a conscience for whom the ends always justify the means, and it is he who suggests that their target should not be an enemy of the country, but rather the country itself. Three targets are chosen to maximize the effect of the attack: a school, a tube station, and a water treatment plant. Several hundred die within the first few weeks. Fueled by the media, fear and panic spread quickly, fracturing and dividing the country until at last the true goal comes into view. Before the St. Mary's crisis, no one would have predicted the results of the election that year, no one. But not long after the election, lo and behold, a miracle. Some believed it was the work of God Himself, but it was a pharmaceutical company controlled by certain party members that made them all obscenely rich. A year later, several extremists are tried, found guilty and executed while a memorial is built to canonize their victims.

But the end result, the true genius of the plan, was the fear. Fear became the ultimate tool of this government, and through it our politician was ultimately appointed to the newly created position of High Chancellor. The rest, as they say, is history.

K&R

And "R for Reason". The symbol could be like the anarchist symbol but with an R in a circle (instead of an A).

V is no more a freedom fighter than Tim McVeigh.

V is the cruel product of a cruel government. Is that what you want to become?

V tortured and brainwashed Evey. Sounds more like the people we're supposed to oppose than the ones we're supposed to admire.

There are many great idols to follow to change the world. V isn't one of them.

V is a character in a fictional story.

Art is designed to entertain, inform and inspire.

Q: How many buildings have people blown up because of "V"?

A: Zero

Q: How many children were accidentally hung trying to imitate the real-life hanging of Saddam Hussein?

A: Three

"Jan. 5, 2007— Sergio Pelico, a 10-year-old boy from Webster, Texas, hanged himself from a bunk bed last Sunday.

On that same day, a 9-year-old Pakistani boy, Mubashar Ali, hanged himself, with help from his 10-year-old sister.

And three days later, in the suburbs of Kolkata, India, 15-year-old Moon Moon Karmarkar hanged herself from a ceiling fan...."

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2773792&page=1

But he doesn't, not around here anyway. V is often lionized here, it fits nicely into the threads about "the second revolution" and "civil war" and all the rambo fantasies some have about battling Republicans in the streets. It's all fiction, but it's all extremely negative.

n/t

The monsters running this government, and the Corporations who are profiting from this war, and the wars of the past, are infinitely bigger and much more true terrorists, and are far bigger threats than your paranoid delusions about the imagined cataclysmic social and cultural upheaval caused by the perceived lionization of a masked fictional character from a Comic Book and Film.

Methinks thou doth protest to much, and should render unto everyone a fucking break.

There was plenty of fighting them in the streets then and I don't count anything out for the future either. Not exactly based on "fiction" but rather, based on many different acts of braveery all through out history that changed the course of things for the better.

edit - typo

Can't help it, I wasn't born yet. But if I were there, I'd like to think that I'd have been one of the stoic protestors adding their dignified presence to a sit in or other peaceful statement.

And, for the record I'd love to know one of these instances of heartless violence like V commits in history you point to, that lead to a better world. Which exploding metropolis has bettered us? Hiroshima? Dresdin?

The plot depicted by V is of a country who's at a point of desperation. I don't think we want to hope for that scenario either, but at some point we may have to recognize we may face it. And we can't be as timid as we have up to this point or we will be forever victims. I don't think we're quite at that point just yet, but you can see a lot of warning signs now.

I want to not have to become a "cruel product" of a cruel government, but if the government becomes like that of what is depicted in the film, it might take something like his response to fight it. It is the government that is provoking someone like V's actions. If V weren't subject to the experimentation/torture and rule of this government, I don't think he would have resorted to the measures he did.

V tortured Evy, but I would argue that he didn't "brainwash" her. I think he was trying to get her to face that her ultimate test is that she had to be prepared to give her life for change to happen if necessary. Once that was achieved, he stopped that whole scenario. If she didn't face that ultimate choice properly, she could always be held hostage by a tyranical government. He wasn't sadistic for his motivations to do that, nor was it towards selfish ends for himself, or his desire to hurt Evy, but for what he perceived was needed to help mobilize her as someone who could fearlessly lead a people away from fascistic domination.

Every day here we have to face that. People are very afraid to "upset the apple cart" of what they have, and that is what our leadership plays on us. Those in power know that even if many of us are hitting the boiling point with anger, there are still way many people that don't want to lose what they have in things like material goods, and our past history of peace and civility to cross that barrier and deal with a coming lingering oppression. The slow pot boiling the frog in other words. If we can't shut down their ability to boil us, we may have to face this test ourselves.

We're a very unique country on this planet in this regard now, as most other countries besides our own for the last two generations have had some moment in their countries' histories where there have been big changes and those in that country have been called upon to take risks to help make those changes, and many of those who have at one time sacrificed also know what it takes to help fix their countries' situation again. We don't have that sense here. We've not gone through that sort of change in ours or our parents' lifetimes. It's harder to face the unknown and know when to act to change, and know when that change will be over with and how we might revert back to a stable situation again.

Israel and Palestine are kind of opposite of this. They almost have two generations of trying to imagine how they might get back to a peaceful state again, and many can't picture that either. So many try to keep perpetuating the conflict state they have as a "known quantity".

from the graphic novel. Maybe the movie isn't so subtle, but the book makes it clear that this isn't a "hero." When we say he's the product of a cruel government, we both mean that literally. You stated he wouldn't have done what he did if they hadn't done what they did to him. They made him what he was through experimentation, and so really he was an extension of that government, not a peasant revolting against it.

Again, I'm not saying this about you but there are a lot of people here, far too many imo, who seem almost giddy at the idea of violence and civil war. It's sickening. We were far closer to that point a few years ago than now, now people are waking up. They are standing up. They are pushing back. Next year we will have total Democratic control of Washington, so I don't understand the insane saber rattling people do here.

V is indeed a murderer and terrorist.

In the movie, his actions are justified by the change he brings in the government, the abuse he has suffered, his mental liberation of Evey, and his sacrifice of his own life and body before the revolution.

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Would you rather live under an oppressive government?

Evey matured due to V - ask her.

And yes, I was disturbed by what he did to Evey. And I also didn't like the killing.

But I saw the parallels to our own government, and that's what I would hope most people would take from the movie. Maybe it could pry a few minds open.