Show me a movie from the Indigenous viewpoint for once

People’s World readers offer their take on a number of recent articles featured in our pages. The comments below have been proofread and edited for length. Join the discussion on the PW website and on Facebook. Your thoughts could be the next to appear in this space.

Re: “Hostiles”: An apology for imperialism in a colorful package

Kelly Sinclair says:

I’d like to see a film or streaming series in which the point of view is completely from the tribal end of a conflict. The daring and sophisticated military strategy of the tribes involved, lightning raids, ambushes, and pitched battles designed for maximum effect by tribal resistance fighters, buttressed by their religious and cultural imperatives.

Anglos seen as an alienating Other presence. Much like German and WWII Japanese troops of the WWII era portrayed as a no-name presence in the distance, with the occasional foil at point of attack.

As for white children raised in the tribes, have them appear happy and proud in their adopted element. We know that such individuals more often than not foundered when forcibly returned to Anglo society. However, they’re only an element, and not a primary one in the military and cultural struggle between indigenous and the Euro invaders.

I wouldn’t be the only one watching on Netflix. A story devoid of the usual poor, pitiful narrative of the Noble Native, and all about tough-minded real survivalists who fought from the East to the West coasts for self-determination. Make the film bawdy, make it funny, make it violent, make it thoughtful.

“Hostiles” doesn’t look as though it hits even the most modest of benchmarks—which makes the film a stone in the path of progress, and a waste of the audience’s time.

 

Re: Working class unity is key to ending racism and male supremacy

Eric A. Gordon says:

“The united fight of Black and white workers against racism is like the sound of Joshua’s trumpets in the battle of Jericho.” It is time to retire this analogy. Joshua and his followers were (according to Biblical record which may be more legend than history) the Hebrews who had escaped Egyptian slavery to occupy the land of Canaan which had been “promised” them by God (!). So they were an occupying force displacing and disinheriting the local population of Canaanites. This story is used to justify a whole host of colonial ventures and needs to be examined more carefully. An article in People’s World not long ago went into this issue in some depth.

A second point: What about male domination in the socialist societies? It seems somewhat disingenuous to ascribe class and gender exploitation only to capitalist societies without at least trying to explain if there were/are any differences from actually existing socialist countries. I’m not saying they’re the same, but if they are in some respects, that needs to be said, and if different in other respects, that needs to be discussed.

 

Re: The Trump spectacle and the end of truth in the United States

Zen Arts says:

A product of his base: “Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the real problem is not Trump but his supporters—the Republican constituency and their mind-set.”

President Trump is a product of his base. They created him and voted to put him in power. But his base is also the product of years and generations of extreme right-wing agitation and propaganda.

Most of these people are isolated in rural areas with little or no contact with urban minority groups. They are bombarded daily with hate radio and conservative fake Fox News. They suffer from high rates of unemployment and the deindustrialization of the Midwest. Drug and opiate use is rampant in these areas. They are beginning to experience many of the social problems they accuse minority groups of, like fatherless families. Evangelical religion and apocalyptic end-time prophecy dominate the consciousness of much of the rural South. Many rural areas lack powerful unions to inform workers of their rights, and operate under right-to-work for less laws. Also political movements like the Fight for 15 are absent or weak.

The conservative elites have played up racism and ethno-nationalism to demonize the ‘other.’ They have manipulated the fears of rural-based Republican constituencies to believe they will lose whatever ‘privilege’ they may have to a multicultural and multiracial society that will be minority majority. The structures and institutions that have mobilized the conservative rural base will take generations to deinstitutionalize. The demographic changes in the country are not on the side of the conservative movement and only makes it more adamant and extreme.

These are the kinds of people who voted for Trump and staunchly support him, no matter what. Why? There is a rural-urban divide here that reinforces the more important class divides in the society.

I think much of the strategy and tactics of the ruling conservative elites is basically a reformulation of Mao Zedong’s thesis. Their strategy is to encircle the progressive, forward-looking modern cities and urban areas with a backward-looking, conservative, and traditional rural ethos. Like President Trump, the conservative elites have played up racism and ethno-nationalism to win the support of the rural South and de-industrialized Midwest. With the election of President Trump, the once moderate conservative establishment has lost control of the movement to ever-more extreme extremists.

 

Re: Memo War: The latest episode in Trump’s attack on democracy

Norman Markowitz says:

It is almost like being in a twilight zone alternate world, where the federal government is attacking the FBI and accusing it of manufacturing evidence instead of conspiring with it to manufacture evidence, but the article’s points are well taken.

Even though the FBI is not nor has it ever been an instrument to defend democracy, its own institutional survival depends on its not becoming a Gestapo for the Trump administration, but that is exactly what Trump and the GOP are trying to make it—to kill the investigation, have it sign off on a whitewash, and turn it loose on an enemies list that would make Richard Nixon’s seem very mild.

Trump’s end game is to end the investigation by turning it on the Democrats and dividing them. That is why we must keep united and keep the heat on, until we have a Congress that will block appointments and investigate his administration’s tyrannical and corrupt actions, which after one year are already breaking records.

 

Re: War between Trump and FBI reflects divided ruling class

Cameron M Orr says:

I agree “the war between the Trump Administration and the FBI reflects a deep division in the U.S. capitalist ruling class,” and that the “effort of the Democrats to take Trump down and thereby weaken the right-wing section of corporate power must be supported,” but I don’t think the Mueller investigation in particular helps us very much in this regard.

I think it’s very possible Trump is involved with other billionaires in Russia in “a crime syndicate involving massive theft, embezzlement, fraudulent real estate deals, and money laundering.” Unfortunately, I don’t think the Mueller investigation is aimed at exposing corruption, which is structurally built into the U.S. system of elections, and a core feature of billionaire rule. I think the Mueller investigation is more aimed at building up anti-Russia sentiment in the U.S., and distracting the people in the U.S. from the class issues that led to Trump becoming president.

The billionaires do not want to address voter suppression, and they certainly do not want to address the billions Trump got in free advertisements from the corporate media during his campaign, or the discriminatory policies that have created a segregated society where racism and sexism can be fostered. Trump reveals too much about the nature of capitalist rule in the U.S. It’s destabilizing, and this is what worries the other billionaires. Blaming Russia is good for smoke and mirrors, and for raising popular support for the war drums which are beating louder and louder with every passing day.