Pentagon: 1 In 3 Female Soldiers Are Raped Or Sexually Assaulted By Fellow Servicemen
"Russia Today interviews one woman about her personal experience of being raped while serving in Iraq. What is even more shocking than the victim’s story is that RT actually releases a statistic given to them by the Pentagon in which the military claims that one in three female soldiers are raped or sexually assaulted by their fellow servicemen."
In 1997 a very misunderstood movie came out, an adaptation of a scifi novel by Robert Heinlein, directed by Paul Verhoeven and called Starship Troopers. Heinlein wrote his book in the 50s and it was critiqued as being a militarist screed right in line with his anti communist views at the time. As a matter of fact according to Wikipedia "Almost half a century after its publication, Starship Troopers is on the reading lists of the United States Army, the United States Marine Corps, and the United States Navy. It is the only science fiction novel on the reading list at four of the five United States military academies."
Verhoeven took the basic concept and made, in my estimation, a science fiction masterpiece that had underlying messages which seemed to be overlooked by the general audience. Most people never get beyond the surface story of a future intergalactic war intersperced with plenty of soap opera shmaltz between the principle characters, although even there the director is making a point with his too-beautiful-to-be-true leads.
No, Verhoeven took Heinlein's hoo rah militarism and fed it LSD to show us a fascist attitude that's manifesting in american society today. Fascism which negates sense of self, sense of one's humaneness, in service to an all pervasive war culture. Fascism wants it all from it's troops; it wants total subservience while at the same time feeding it's warriors a steady diet of murderous, testosterone drenched machismo entitlement.
Throwing young men and women together into impossible situations and not expecting big trouble is part of the fascist fantasy world, expecting the mission to take over their lives to the exclusion of all else. It's no wonder women are abused to such a horrific extent in the american military. When you create a perverted, psycho, mercenary attitude it shouldn't come as a shock that women die from dehydration in the desert because they're afraid of getting raped if they have to get up at night to pee.
This scene of casual male - female camaraderie in the showers might have amused us a dozen years ago but what Verhoeven was doing was showing us the raw fascist wet dream of total subservience to duty, a Spartan negation of physical self, a psycho impossibility that gives us the shitty situation in the military today.
Starship Troopers Shower Scene -
In 1997 a very misunderstood movie came out, an adaptation of a scifi novel by Robert Heinlein, directed by Paul Verhoeven and called Starship Troopers. Heinlein wrote his book in the 50s and it was critiqued as being a militarist screed right in line with his anti communist views at the time. As a matter of fact according to Wikipedia "Almost half a century after its publication, Starship Troopers is on the reading lists of the United States Army, the United States Marine Corps, and the United States Navy. It is the only science fiction novel on the reading list at four of the five United States military academies."
Verhoeven took the basic concept and made, in my estimation, a science fiction masterpiece that had underlying messages which seemed to be overlooked by the general audience. Most people never get beyond the surface story of a future intergalactic war intersperced with plenty of soap opera shmaltz between the principle characters, although even there the director is making a point with his too-beautiful-to-be-true leads.
No, Verhoeven took Heinlein's hoo rah militarism and fed it LSD to show us a fascist attitude that's manifesting in american society today. Fascism which negates sense of self, sense of one's humaneness, in service to an all pervasive war culture. Fascism wants it all from it's troops; it wants total subservience while at the same time feeding it's warriors a steady diet of murderous, testosterone drenched machismo entitlement.
Throwing young men and women together into impossible situations and not expecting big trouble is part of the fascist fantasy world, expecting the mission to take over their lives to the exclusion of all else. It's no wonder women are abused to such a horrific extent in the american military. When you create a perverted, psycho, mercenary attitude it shouldn't come as a shock that women die from dehydration in the desert because they're afraid of getting raped if they have to get up at night to pee.
This scene of casual male - female camaraderie in the showers might have amused us a dozen years ago but what Verhoeven was doing was showing us the raw fascist wet dream of total subservience to duty, a Spartan negation of physical self, a psycho impossibility that gives us the shitty situation in the military today.
Starship Troopers Shower Scene -
posted by nolocontendere at 4:13 PM
4 Comments:
What a horrifically sad and awful statistic-and you are right-inevitable in the climate of imperialism/fascism
i will have to check out the Verhoeven film-it sounds like he really did put a mirror up to what is actually taking place here and has been for some time.
about 7 years ago I had this thought "why am I being programmed to hate Arabs?"
then I got to looking into conspiracy theory-the politics of fascism -and other things along this line in 2004 -and found my answer -they are supposed to be the new "reds under the bed" until such time as our overlords invent a new boogeyman for us to hate -now the only people I dislike intensely (as I think pure hatred is corrosive to one's own psyche) is the reich wing establishment in the US that has destroyed every decent thing about this nation
thanks again nolo and patootie!!!
This movie is way up on my list for several reasons, one of them being a fast paced, rousing, special effects extravaganza. Cheesy acting and soap opera style romance, but that plays into the main purpose of the film which is to show us that a shiny, smiley faced, militaristic fascist-hell is in our future and fast becoming reality. The whole enterprise comes close but never crosses the line into parody which confuses the unwary who need their serious drama. There are totally brilliant recruitment spots sprinkled about, and the enemies are giant bugs, repulsive and oh so easy to demonize. However it's us who invade them.
Sound familiar?
Personally i don't like war-movies, not even science-fiction war-movies, because they generally just overdo the violence and sensationalism. But it became fairly obvious to me by the end of Starship Troopers that it had a very darkly satirical bend within it and anyone who could see that should also understand that it was actually as much antiwar as pro-war with its complete message.
What gave it away? The carelessness by which the "troopers" were expended and how easily it was all rationalized by the officers and politicians. At the very end of the movie, when a young girl is enlisting, a legless veteran in a wheelchair says, "Welcome to the Meat-Grinder!"
War is hell and most kids don't find out just how bad it is until it's too late to turn back.
I just penned a long response nick, and this motherfucking shit connection made it go poof.
"darkly satirical bend"
Indeed, the whole movie is intensely tongue in cheek.
Another thing about that shower scene - with all the rah rah jingoistic boosterism, what happens in an unguarded, literally naked scenario? They all talk about very personal reasons to be where they were that had absolutely nothing to do with the phony patriotic fervor in the rest of the flick. I think Verhoeven has a very clear message here.
Post a Comment
<< Home