Operation Strangelove

May 12, 2003 10:19 AM

Operation Strangelove is orchestrating showings of Dr. Strangelove around the U.S. on Wednesday, May 14. There will be screenings in cinemas, living rooms, schools, offices and community centers, many of which will raise money for humanitarian organizations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
posted by homunculus (16 comments total)

And speaking of learning to love the bomb, "The Bush administration is proposing to spend billions of dollars rebuilding the country's nuclear weapons manufacturing industry, resuming the production of nuclear components and materials halted after the end of the Cold War."
posted by homunculus at 10:21 AM on May 12, 2003

"I have become death, the destroyer of worlds" - Robert Oppenheimer
posted by the fire you left me at 10:42 AM on May 12, 2003

Surely they could spend some fraction of this testing and implementing some of the new ideas about nuclear power plants I've been hearing about and generally cleaning up this country's electrical grid. This could go a long way toward improve national security assuring that cheap, reliable power is available to important institutions in times of crisis, not to mention the much needed economic and environmental benefits. I should really take the time to put links to back me up in here, but this is really just a diversion from the comment I really wanted to make about how much I love Dr. Strangelove (which is a lot).
posted by wobh at 10:55 AM on May 12, 2003

"If man does find the solution for world peace it will be the most revolutionary reversal of his record we have ever known." - George C. Marshall
posted by The Michael The at 10:59 AM on May 12, 2003

The exact quote from the Bhagavad-Gita is:

If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once into the sky
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty one...
I am become Death,
The shatterer of Worlds.
posted by homunculus at 11:11 AM on May 12, 2003

I recommend you view "Fail Safe" first (or read the book....Eugene Burdick is the author), then watch Strangelove.

And now, one of you self-parodying, MetaFilter right wingers....bring me a tall glass of grain alcohol and rain water. Right now.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 12:25 PM on May 12, 2003

Homunculus: The exact quote from the Bhagavad-Gita is...

This is not an exact quote, even accounting for legitimate variations in translation. The 'thousand suns' line and the 'shatterer of worlds' line are not adjacent but separated by twenty lines (11.12 to 11.32). IIRC, this "quote" is actually made up from two distinct recollections of Oppenheimer at Trinity.

The irony of glumly quoting the Bhagavad Gita in an anti-war context has been discussed elsewhere.
posted by Hieronymous Coward at 12:26 PM on May 12, 2003

And if you find yourself in London, don't miss "The Madness of George Dubya, Dr. Strangelove Revisited" . . . a timely updating examining Iraqistan and the War on Tourism, complete with "precious bodily fluids."
posted by donovan at 12:34 PM on May 12, 2003

Thanks for the correction, HC. When I pasted it in I did wonder how many lines where being omitted, but I had no idea it was that many.
posted by homunculus at 12:42 PM on May 12, 2003

Excellent...
posted by drstrangelove at 1:08 PM on May 12, 2003

Also, be sure to check out:

"The Bedford Incident", and "On The Beach"

BTW, years ago, I knew a young thespian who figured he could do a stage production of Dr. Strangelove, with two lower sets and an upper set on top of them (for the airplane). The more I think about it, the more I wonder if it could have worked.
posted by kablam at 1:18 PM on May 12, 2003

Operation Strangelove is orchestrating showings of Dr. Strangelove around the U.S. on Wednesday, May 14.

Yeah, except they don't actually, you know, tell you where these showings will be. They ask you to register your screening, but they don't publish it?

I looked pretty closely, is that in there anywhere?

I think I'm going to "orchestrate" an Andy Griffith 96-hour marathon the same way.
posted by Ynoxas at 1:53 PM on May 12, 2003

Hmm, charity to Iraq/Afghan humanitarian charities? Excellent! Those of us for or against the war are in support of that, right?

Except that's not where the money goes to. "United for Peace and Justice" organizes protests, that, at least to my mind, only would have perpetuated Iraqi suffering under their former genocidal leader had the protests been effective. "Voices in the Wilderness" is another group that does very little to actually help, y'know, humanitarianism in Iraq.

Now MADRE, Doctors w/o Borders and RAWA are more-or-less legitimate charities, but they're only 3 of the 5 listed as beneficiaries. If you really want to help human rights, give to DwB, give to the Red Cross/Red Crescent, give to the Freedom House, give to the Peace Corps.

Helping pay for next month's street protest is not humanitarian aid.
posted by Kevs at 2:02 PM on May 12, 2003

Except that's not where the money goes to. "United for Peace and Justice" organizes protests, that, at least to my mind, only would have perpetuated Iraqi suffering under their former genocidal leader had the protests been effective.

I'm sure the thousands of dead Iraqis are ever so eternally grateful that the United States ended their terrible suffering. And do you have any word yet on whether the United States will actually try to register some of the Iraqi corpses to vote? You know, what with their newfound freedom and all....

Thank god some jumped off the red, white, blue, and yellow bandwagon and spoke out against this squalid, cowardly little American war. Fighting against war constitutes the finest humanitarian aid.

The irony of glumly quoting the Bhagavad Gita in an anti-war context has been discussed elsewhere.

There is absolutely nothing remotely ironic about quoting the Gita in such a context (one advises those of an alternative viewpoint to consider trying something other than a selective, surface reading of the Gita, and of checking into the definition of the curious word "allegory" -- or did you actually think that arrows empowered by mantras literally became nuclear weapons?). Krishna's timeless admonitions to Arjuna are precisely cogent to consideration of roots of violence in attachment, to justification for taking action against violence, and they were of extreme importance in the development of Ghandi's satyagraha.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 3:26 PM on May 12, 2003

BTW, years ago, I knew a young thespian who figured he could do a stage production of Dr. Strangelove, with two lower sets and an upper set on top of them (for the airplane). The more I think about it, the more I wonder if it could have worked.

Well the London production I linked to above had one lower set and an upper set (the airplane) and it worked marvelously, particularly since they also turned d the production into a musical farce.
posted by donovan at 5:20 PM on May 12, 2003

This one's being coordinated by the same brilliant lady from Little Italy who did all the publicity and booking for the Lysistrata Project, by the way: Jen Nessel. Hire her and make her wealthy and complacent or she will ridicule you into retirement, oh ye masters of war.
posted by hairyeyeball at 1:12 AM on May 13, 2003