Semi-truth: “The Social Network”

The New Neo Posted on by

Last night I watched the movie “The Social Network,” the story of Mark Zuckerberg and his creation of Facebook, which featured his various and sundry betrayals of former friends, who later sued and won settlements against him.

Ironic, of course, because Facebook is all about keeping in touch with friends. But, as its ads note, “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.”

The mostly-praised movie was okay, fast-paced and fairly entertaining, featuring snappy dialogue while it raises (and never answers) various moral, ethical, and legal questions. It also is, of course, about real people and real events, although somewhat fictionalized.

That’s what makes it both interesting and annoying in equal measure, at least to me. What’s fiction and what’s truth? I have always been disturbed by the indiscriminate blending of the two, and the resultant confusion of one for the other. How many people will see the movie and come away from it convinced that it depicts what actually happened? How many people will care?

In a way, whether one thinks Mack Zuckerberg is every bit as dipshitty a back-stabber as in the movie, or an even worse one, or a slightly nicer guy, is not of much import to anyone other than Zuckerberg, family, friends, and multiple (that’s a pun, by the way) ex-friends and their lawyers. But inaccuracies bug me nevertheless; I’d much rather the film used pseudonyms to make it crystal clear this is a work of fiction—but of course, then it would lose almost all of its gossipy appeal.

Zuckerberg is on record as saying:

…that the film portrayed his motivations for creating Facebook inaccurately; instead of an effort to “get girls”, he says he created the site because he enjoys “building things”. However, he added that the film accurately depicted his real-life wardrobe, saying, “It’s interesting the stuff that they focused on getting right ”“ like every single shirt and fleece they had in that movie is actually a shirt or fleece that I own.”

Screenwriter Sorkin (of “The West Wing”) has said, “I don’t want my fidelity to be to the truth; I want it to be to storytelling. What is the big deal about accuracy purely for accuracy’s sake, and can we not have the true be the enemy of the good?” Sound familiar?

But I’m a lot more upset when filmmakers such as Oliver Stone take liberties with far more important history, and their revisions and fantasies become real history in the mind of many. How many, I have no idea; certainly not everyone who watches their creations. But enough to make some sort of difference, I believe.

There’s no way to block this sort of artistic license, and no way I’d wish to do so. What I really wish is that history were taught in such a way as to make people more impervious to those who would play fast and loose with it.

Fixed

The New Neo Posted on by

If some of you saw a problem with the comments here this afternoon, I just want you to know it’s been fixed and everything seems to be working just fine now.

Notes from Chairman Khomeini: on church and state

The New Neo Posted on by

I keep revisiting events in Iran in 1979, as a reminder of what can happen in those other countries in upheaval today in the Muslim world (which is not necessarily what will happen, of course).

Here are some selected quotes from the Ayatollah Khomeini, whose utterances before his return to Iran in 1979 were quite different from his utterances after his return.

Just as an example, in November of 1978 he said, “Personal desire, age, and my health do not allow me to personally have a role in running the country after the fall of the current system.” Then on his return to Iran about a year later: “I will strike with my fists at the mouths of this government. From now on it is I who will name the government.”

Here’s another later quote:

Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled or incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of [other] countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world. . . . Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill them [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims] overcome us?…Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for the Holy Warriors!

Straight from the horse’s mouth: Islam, not a religion of peace.

Here’s another that chills the blood, and is meant to:

There is no room for play in Islam … It is deadly serious about everything.

The following is not a quote from Khomeini, but I include it because it so perfectly illustrates the Orwellian madness/stupidity/deception/amorality (take your pick, or take them all) of so many on the left in their confrontation with totalitarian tyranny of the non-Western variety. It was spoken on the occasion of Khomeini’s death in 1989:

The freedom-lovers of the world mourn the sad demise of Imam Khomeini.

The speaker was Ernesto Cardenal, “Nicaraguan combatant, scholar, poet, and liberation theologian.” “Liberation theologian” could be a description of how Khomeini regarded himself, as well, so it’s not so very surprising that Cardenal would see him as a kindred spirit. Cardenal is a Catholic priest, a man of the left who affiliated himself back in the 70s and 80s with the Sandinistas in his native Nicaragua:

On 19 July 1979, immediately after the Fall of Managua, [Cardenal] was named Minister of Culture by the new Sandinista regime. He occupied this office until 1987, when his ministry was closed owing to economic reasons. When Pope John Paul II visited Nicaragua in 1983, he openly scolded Cardenal, who knelt before him, on the Managua airport runway, for resisting his order to resign from the government. The Pope admonished Cardenal: Usted tiene que arreglar sus asuntos con la Iglesia (“You must make good your dealings with the Church”).

One of the doctrines Khomeini was noted for was his idea that Islam should be closely intertwined with politics. This philosophy represented a break with most of his immediate predecessors. Khomeini fully lived out his own beliefs, beginning with his triumphant return to Iran in 1979. The deadly serious repercussions of that decidedly unplayful philosophy are still being felt by the Iranian people today.

[NOTE: This all is another excellent reminder of the remarkable prescience and wisdom of our own founding fathers, who were not against religion itself but who were profoundly against the establishment of a state religion, even a seemingly benign one. ]

Solway on his Obama fixation

The New Neo Posted on by

David Solway is a Canadian poet who used to be a man of the “soft” left.

He was happy there. But, as with many, 9/11 began for him a period of learning, reading, thinking, and ultimately revising his political opinions. That change in turn has led to the severing of relationships with many of his liberal friends—not his doing, but theirs.

Sound familiar? Sure does to me.

Now Solway offers this meditation on how it was that he started out liking and even admiring Obama, and ended up not trusting a word the man says. He says he has written of:

Obama as a defective scholar, as a greedy restaurateur, as a mad apologist, as a Science Fiction Destructor, as a sorcerer’s apprentice, as a sly feline, as a flamboyant orchid, as President Stuxnet, as an arboreal lycopod, as an arrogant college sophomore with failing grades, as a Burgher of Schilda, as the Playboy of the Western World, as the Pied Piper, as Zartan who assumes the identity of the president in the film G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, as the reincarnation of the false messiah Sabbatai Zevi, and more. I have even suffered nightmares in which he appears like a spook out of the yawning earth to haunt a terrified people.

Solway is stunned that so many intellectuals and friends of his have exhibited such fawning admiration for Obama, which persists for many in the absence of any evidence to support it. But as a poet, he must know how often that’s the way of love.

Obama’s lips are sealed on Libya

The New Neo Posted on by

But why?

The most benign interpretation is that he’s learned that anything he does is criticized as well as ineffectual, and so he’s keeping his mouth shut.

The in-between interpretation is that he has no idea what would be best to say, and so he’s keeping his mouth shut.

The least benign interpretation is that Egypt was an ally and Libya is not, so it was a no-brainer to support the opposition in the first case and somewhat more difficult to choose sides in the second.

Libya at the brink: who is Saif al-Islam Qaddafi?

The New Neo Posted on by

As events in Libya began to spiral out of control, it was Qaddafi’s son Saif who went on the air to give a rambling speech that talked of impending civil war and dark conspiratorial forces at work.

I noted yesterday that “Qaddafi’s son Saif is an interesting figure, who was apparently behind a failed drive for reform in Libya a couple of years ago.” The reform, offering greater freedom of speech and the beginnings of democracy in that beleaguered and oppressed and highly tribal country, were rejected by Qaddafi in 2008, and Saif gave a speech at the time in which he announced his retirement from public life.

The question now is: was Saif’s dedication to reform a sham all the time, an attempt to put a modern face on the Qaddafi regime while perpetuating the dynasty? Or was it real? And if the latter, what compelled Saif to be the one to make that speech the other day?

There are those who believe that Saif’s latest speech has ripped the mask off the Qaddafi scion’s pose and revealed him to be a non-reformer in hiding all the while. There are others—including David Held of the London School of Economics, a professor who helped Saif with his doctoral dissertation there (yes, he’s Doctor Saif al-Islam Qaddafi), who says:

The discussions [Held had with Said] were passionate and often “very, very heated…When I first met Saif, he was struggling with himself and his place in the world, in the context of his family. By the end of his time at the LSE, he had discovered a deep commitment to liberal democratic reform of his country.

“The man giving that speech wasn’t the Saif I had got to know well over those years. The Saif I knew will be in turmoil over the beliefs he had to betray in order to demonstrate his support to his father…”

Held remembers Saif as man with a curiosity for knowledge and a huge appetite for reading and learning. “He always wanted to test arguments for his views, always wanted to engage in dialogue,” said Held.

Then there’s this WaPo article from last May, which seems to be conveying that idea that Saif is/was mostly sincere. Contains this:

Gaddafi turned down his father when he offered him the second-most powerful post in the government. “We want to see a constitution to create a more democratic and transparent political game in Libya,” he said. “Until that time, I am not interested in being part of the government.”

Gaddafi’s biggest rivals are his brothers — Mutassim, Libya’s national security adviser, and Khamis, a military commander. Unlike Saif, both reportedly have strong power bases in the military, whose support is essential to hold power, analysts say. Mutassim also appears to be close to the hard-liners who oppose Saif’s reforms.

One potential weapon Saif Gaddafi holds is Libya’s youth. In a nation where an estimated 70 percent of the population is younger than 30, he views himself as the champion of a generation longing for change. “I embody the dream of the young people,” he said.

His popularity is visible on the streets of Tripoli. In cafes, young Libyans openly declare their support for him and credit him with gaining them more freedom to speak openly.

That was then; this is now. If you go to a translation of the full text of Saif’s speech (unofficial, but it’s the only one I could find so far) and study it, you’ll find it a very curious document. Saif talks about a coming civil war and “100,000s of deaths,” but does he threaten such a war or merely warn of it? He talks about reforming Libya, which seems like a transparent lie but is given a sharply ironic twist by his previous seeming commitment to such reforms.

He warns Libyans that tribal struggles and division of the country will ensue, and that Islamicists and/or colonial and other foreign powers (including Arab) will try to take over Libya. This seems another way to manipulate the people into backing off and leaving his father in charge. But then again, who knows who it is who is actually behind the uprising in Libya, which seems to have organized itself unusually quickly, and who knows what the final result will be? He says the killings of the Libyan people resulted from the fact that the army was under stress and unused to crowd control. This seems a very lame excuse, as later events have indicated.

Since Saif gave that speech, the Libyan conflict has escalated. Qaddafi the elder has reiterated the charges against the demonstrators that Said first outlined. Iraqi planes have strafed demonstrators and many more are reported to have died. The fog of war and the lack of outside observers precludes our knowing the details, but suffice to say that it seems very brutal.

So was Saif’s former reputation a good cop bad cop scenario, a fiction designed to disarm? One would think so. But the nagging notion remains that it was real but unheeded, and when everything fell apart Saif decided on family loyalty and going down with his wretched father’s ship. Or perhaps he was threatened and forced by father and brothers to be the face of the regime’s message, due to his previous reputation as the good (or at least better) one.

One thing is certain: therein lies a tale worth telling, although we probably will never hear it. My guess is that if we did, it would sound somewhat like the story of Michael Corleone in the Godfather movies: the son who may have initially aspired to be something better (scholar, war hero), but returned in a time of crisis to family loyalty—and to the family business of graft, power, and murder.

Hijacking has bad ending: pirates kill hostages

The New Neo Posted on by

US naval ships who were shadowing the Somali pirates who had captured two American couples were negotiating with two of the kidnappers, who had come aboard one of the Navy vessels, when the pirates unexpectedly launched a grenade at the ship and gunfire erupted on the kidnapped yacht. When US special forces boarded the boat, a fight ensued that left two pirates dead.

Unfortunately, so were the hostages, apparently killed by the pirates at the outset for reasons unknown. These were no ordinary naive vacationers:

Since 2004, the Adams lived on their yacht in Marina Del Rey for about half the year and the rest of the year they sailed around the world, often distributing Bibles in remote parts of the Fiji Islands, Alaska, New Zealand, Central America and French Polynesia, Johnston said.

Scott and Jane Adam documented their maritime missionary work on their website, S/V Quest Adventure Log…

Johnston said that despite an adventurous spirit, the Adams were meticulous planners who knew the dangers they faced. The couple had sailed with a large flotilla to stay safe from pirates near Thailand earlier in the trip.

RIP Jean and Scott Adam, and Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle.

Civil war in Libya?

The New Neo Posted on by

As a consequence of the domino effect that’s currently sweeping the Arab world, Libya’s Qaddafi is facing the challenge of his 41-year dictatorship’s life.

There are tyrants, and then there are tyrants. Qaddafi is no Mubarak; he’s more brutal and repressive, and already a great many more people have been killed in demonstrations in Libya than in Egypt as Qaddafi tries to hold on to power. That’s the way it is with dictatorships: the worst of them are always prepared to do more violence against their own people.

That means it ordinarily takes far more courage and far more lives to depose them, or is even impossible. If the ruler wants to up the ante, it can be made very costly indeed. The turning point often happen only when their own armies and police forces refuse to follow orders.

It’s impossible to know how many people have already died in Libya, and even more impossible to know how many more will be killed. Qaddafi’s son Saif has warned that “rivers of blood will flow” if there is civil war. He has also played the Islamist fear card simultaneously with the colonial fear card, saying:

If civil war ensued, Qaddafi warned that “oil will stop. Foreign companies will leave Libya tomorrow.” He said it would also invite a return of colonial powers: “Do you think Europe, NATO, the U.S. will accept an Islamic emirate in the middle of the Mediterranean,” he said.

I have read nothing that indicates any sort of knowledge about who the Libyan protesters are. Patriots eager for liberty? Islamists eager for a theocracy? Enemies of Qaddafi eager for their own leaders to take over, establish their own tyrannical dictatorship, and enjoy its spoils? Young men just tired of being poor, and angry in general? All of the above?

[NOTE: Qaddafi’s son Saif is an interesting figure, who was apparently behind a failed drive for reform in Libya a couple of years ago.

…Ahmed Gabriel Fituri, a Libyan analyst close to the regime, [said] “What Saif al-Islam [a son of Qaddafi] offered in lieu of reform could have saved the regime and transformed it at the same time.”

But Saif’s struggle with the traditionalists, largely from Muammar Qaddafi’s revolutionary committee movement, who dislike change and feared that Saif’s reform program would threaten their own privileges and interest, was ended by Qaddafi himself in 2008, in favor of the traditionalists””ending Saif’s attempt for gradual reform.

Many young Libyans who embraced Saif’s “Libya al-Ghad” plan were left angry and in despair. Their hope that the regime might understand and respond to their economic needs and their yearning for more openness and freedom were dashed, said Tahani Tarapolisi, a writer and activist.]