re: #19 BigPapa

No I just saw a really lousy film. To answer the Imam at the end, no we haven’t learned anything from the Holocaust. I think it’s important to learn a lot about media and the very subtle ways that messages move from mind to mind.

Let’s skip over the part IV, one because we disagree and two, more important, it didn’t tell me anything about Wilders. He spent time in a Kibbutz. He seemed nice when his hair was darker. The guy who used to work with him, his old partner, the bald guy, said that even working with him, he was closed off from others. So we know that Wilders is closed off and that he closes himself off. The film maker gets to the editing room, reads his outline—Wilders past, the real Wilders, and there is nothing, no information, no footage of meaning, which he managed to paste together into 15 minutes of shadows, innuendos, and that good old fashioned European racism.

What about the other three sections? Europe and America (America—the home of conspiracy theories? Really? The home?). In America he talks to some nuts, that is, people with some following, but no power. The power in America, as I’ve said other times, is the undecided voter. Anyway, he asks the nuts to give opinions of Wilder. They have opinions. We are close to having 30 minutes of nothing in this documentary.

But Europe, here’s where it is interesting. Because 19% means something. And his support seems to come from the middle class. So I have questions that the film didn’t answer, didn’t even try. Is Europe a rigidly stratified society, with each country democratic, but socially, are there still remnants of royalty, the aristocrats, the guilds? In other words, Europe has always had trouble assimilating groups into the mainstream. In America, you just jump in and begin climbing. Is that the case in Europe? Does Europe have an unofficial caste system? Does the system of European entitlements, rules on hiring and firing, subsidies, pensions reinforce a rigid social order?

Was I seeing immigrants coming into Europe and finding themselves trapped in this caste system, essentially getting too crowded in the locked basement. If that’s the case, Europe’s historical response has been to look for someone else to blame. The ruling elite in Europe haven’t had the best record of looking at themselves and making necessary changes—heaven forbid they should open their society like America. Consequently, the European societies divide, one caste against the one below it, and this is the kind of politics that you get in a socially closed democracy. Wilders is just the tip of this very deep and very old iceberg. And yes it’s dangerous. The film maker didn’t explore this. Would have been a pretty good film, yes? Too bad he was busy pasting together his own conspiracy theory.

And, by the way, I asked you what you did see. I didn’t ask you how you didn’t see what I saw.