Politics War with Iran

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The Professional Fan said:
One little side bar about moderating this place. I may contribute in fits and bursts but I'm always reading and have been since the beginning. I sometimes position myself into a moderators shoes and try and see if I could do what they do and I put that hat on and within like 10 minutes I want to murder all of you
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I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I want to kill! I want to see
Blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth! Eat dead, burnt bodies! I
Mean Kill. Kill!"
And I started jumpin' up and down, yellin' "KILL! Kill!" and he started
Jumpin' up and down with me, and we was both jumpin' up and down, yellin'
"Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!" and the sergeant came over, pinned a medal on me
Sent me down the hall, said "You're our boy".

barfo
 
Messiah review – it's Homeland ... with a divine twist

A young preacher wants to share his message of peace, love and fantastic cheekbones with the world in Netflix’s potent new thriller. But the CIA have other ideas

4 / 5 stars 4 out of 5 stars.




The high priest of the zygomatic arch ... Mehdi Dehbi in Messiah. Photograph: Hiba Judeh/Netflix
Is he the messiah? Or is he a very naughty boy?

These are the animating questions of the 10-part Netflix drama Messiah, a political thriller built around the advent in Syria of a young preacher man (played with grace, charm and passion by Mehdi Dehbi).

He catches people’s attention by fearlessly urging them to set aside old divisions and listen to his message of peace, love and unity, which seems to incorporate the best of most of the main religions. This is very generous of him, considering he also possesses a set of cheekbones upon which he could hang a new and very self-centred one. For what I suspect are a variety of spiritual, aesthetic and carnal reasons, his following soon grows in numbers.

However, the CIA (particularly the agent Eva Geller – played by Michelle Monaghan – who is recently widowed and nursing a secret, possibly fatal, illness, because non-prophets are also interesting) is sceptical. Alongside assorted other cynical parties, the intelligence agency is not convinced that he is our saviour newly born to Earth. It runs him through its databases and finds no trace of him, but reckons he can only be either a con artist or a terrorist who has found a new way to bring about a war.

The latter view looks increasingly probable as our lord of the cheekbones leads a group of Muslim refugees out of Damascus, after (as they come to see it) conjuring a sandstorm that spikes the guns of Isis just as they are about to take the city, and up to the border of Israel.

He is arrested by the police and interrogated by Aviram (Tomer Sisley), a soldier in the Israeli army. The prophet seems to have unwarranted knowledge of his personal history. As a result, Aviram deletes the tape of their interview. This comes back to bite him when the high priest of the zygomatic arch pulls off his second apparent miracle and escapes from a locked cell overnight.

After only a brief pause at Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem – to preach the maxillofacial word and heal a boy shot in front of him by trigger-happy police excited to be closing in on their escapee – the prophet next appears in the US, seemingly having saved a pastor’s daughter from a tornado (and indirectly preventing the debt-ridden pastor from torching his church for the insurance). The seeds of another following are sown. Unsurprisingly, the CIA is no more keen on the home-soil outpost than it was on the original.

As the series goes on, the influence of social media and investigations into the potentially holy one’s motivations by old-fashioned “proper” journalists (represented by Jane Adams, playing a dogged CNN reporter called Miriam Keneally) add further layers of complexity. The whole thing is like Homeland, with a divine twist.

However, the twist may already have been spoiled. Muslim Arabic speakers have complained that one of the names the writers have used for Zygoman translates as something that gives away the ending; a hazard, these people say, of the writers borrowing names and iconography from a religion and a culture they don’t fully understand.

Whether this is the case, or an elaborate multiple bluff is in play, Messiah is potent stuff packed with fine performances. My feeling is that, even if the show’s creators had only a basic understanding of the relevant religious and cultural considerations, the mistake being asserted by viewers would be quite difficult to make. I hope that the people behind a multicultural series that deals with Jewish and Muslim conflict had the sense to hire all sorts of experts to protect sensitivities and highlight potential problems – but perhaps I am being overly optimistic.

Even in the earliest episodes, Messiah is capable of delivering gut punches – the flashback to Aviram holding a cloth over a boy’s face as he struggles for breath, for example – that surprise you into noticing how far you have been sucked in. Perhaps the fact that the show becomes so harrowing so fast, and is compelling throughout, is a sign that we are hardwired for hope – the man standing in front of me promises to end all human suffering– and programmed deeply to seek answers and invest in those who purport to provide them. I have no saviour to turn to, and if one appeared I would probably be among the very last converts, sitting canker-hearted as water jug after water jug was turned to wine. But I believe in television, and I believe in Netflix’s latest offering to us. Salvation from the outside world for at least 10 hours lies within.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/jan/01/messiah-review-its-homeland-with-a-divine-twist
 
SlyPokerDog said:
No worries my friend, if he actually succeeds in killing you I will ban him.
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I think that's a fair ban if you were wondering. I mean, we could start a whole thread about murder being a reasonable ban and you could make like a game show out of it where you award people for the least amount of murders a month but whatever....
 
The Professional Fan said:
I think that's a fair ban if you were wondering. I mean, we could start a whole thread about murder being a reasonable ban and you could make like a game show out of it where you award people for the least amount of murders a month but whatever....
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giphy.gif
 
By the way, before I go to bed, I want to say that I hope my fears are totally 100% unwarranted and killing this asshole was the right thing. We shall see. I do have a semblance of hope.
 
The Professional Fan said:
By the way, before I go to bed, I want to say that I hope my fears are totally 100% unwarranted and killing this asshole was the right thing. We shall see. I do have a semblance of hope.
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As much as I loathe Trump, I seriously do not want to see this escalate to full scale war, again. If being the tough guy works and going over the top works, then good. I'll say that. I just don't typically subscribe to that strategy in most scenarios. That's all. Good night.
 
Well, a lot of these folks on social media didn’t seem to have a problem with Obama’s unauthorized drone strikes, I have to bring this up just to point out irony. BUT...with that being said, screw it. Now is as good of a time as ever for people to wake the fuck up. I’m completely content with saying fuck Trump right alongside people on the left or whoever else, so long as they are against war. It time for people to stand up against the media and the military industrial complex and get us the hell out of the Middle East. A war with Iran will be catastrophic.
 
jonnyboy said:
Well, a lot of these folks on social media didn’t seem to have a problem with Obama’s unauthorized drone strikes, I have to bring this up just to point out irony. BUT...with that being said, screw it. Now is as good of a time as ever for people to wake the fuck up. I’m completely content with saying fuck Trump right alongside people on the left or whoever else, so long as they are against war. It time for people to stand up against the media and the military industrial complex and get us the hell out of the Middle East. A war with Iran will be catastrophic.
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President Biden will cool things off just a bit and we'll keep on killing just enough brown people to scare them and still keep making money off bombs and oil. Aren't you excited? I'm not.
 
jonnyboy said:
Well, a lot of these folks on social media didn’t seem to have a problem with Obama’s unauthorized drone strikes, I have to bring this up just to point out irony. BUT...with that being said, screw it. Now is as good of a time as ever for people to wake the fuck up. I’m completely content with saying fuck Trump right alongside people on the left or whoever else, so long as they are against war. It time for people to stand up against the media and the military industrial complex and get us the hell out of the Middle East. A war with Iran will be catastrophic.
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You expect people who watch a reporter on CNN sniff a backpack in a suspected chemical weapon attack zone and think "oh man she said it smells funny so it must be true" to wake up? Good luck.


I'm speaking of average Americans here, not any posters in particular.
 
Did anyone else find it pretty striking that a NY Times opinion piece, Hypersonic Missles Are a Game Changer, published this afternoon (just hours before the strike) had the line: "What if the former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Soleimani, visits Baghdad for a meeting and you know the address?"
 
The Professional Fan said:
Thanks for posting. Man, this Suleimani guy is a massive piece of shit. Glad he's dead. I just have one counterpoint, though. I feel some risk assessment should be implemented in this move and I fear there was none and our administration has zero idea how to deal with this going forward sans a "my cock is bigger than yours" policy and that's what scares me. Glad the dude is dead. Super glad. Now what. Now what.
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Brother, this has been what's running through my mind all night...
 
SlyPokerDog said:
Did anyone else find it pretty striking that a NY Times opinion piece, Hypersonic Missles Are a Game Changer, published this afternoon (just hours before the strike) had the line: "What if the former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Soleimani, visits Baghdad for a meeting and you know the address?"
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Hadn't seen it but don't think that all of this isn't orchestrated. Gotta get us all scared of Russia and more weapons.

Scared is good for control.
 
bodyman5000 and 1 said:
Hadn't seen it but don't think that all of this isn't orchestrated. Gotta get us all scared of Russia and more weapons.

Scared is good for control.
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It's not about being scared.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

- Sun Tzu​
 
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