#495 Movies, Candidate Forums, MLK on Nukes January 24, 2020
Note: Today is the national March for Life. Stay tuned for reports next week. If you have reports or photos from there or from local events, please send to weekly@consistent-lifre.org.
Better Movies Nominations for the Oscars are out. But three recent movies not on their list have these admirable features: * they’re based on true stories * the heroes worked toward honestly solving problems, spread the truth to the public through the media, and appealed to consciences. Just Mercy Based on a 1980s case with a man on death row in Alabama from shockingly shoddy evidence, this movie portrays how racism becomes lethal when connected to the death penalty. A connection to war is also shown when another man on death row was suffering from PTSD from his combat experience in Viet Nam. The heroes form an organization to provide equal justice in such cases; that’s all they advocate for. Still, the movie makes a good case against having the death penalty at all. Currently in theaters.
Dark Waters A large company is poisoning the waters in the county where their employees work. The hero is a corporate lawyer who – knowing them as the neighbors he grew up with – takes the side of the poisoned. That the poisoning is injuring unborn children is one of the shocking details of the callousness of the corporation. It has their pregnant mothers continue working in dangerous conditions. The mothers, of course, don’t know of the danger, but the corporation bosses do.
The Report This is the story behind the official report on torture of prisoners of war under the Bush administration, with the euphemism “enhanced interrogation.” One point the movie makes crystal clear is how utterly wrong is the idea that violence may be necessary to prevent greater violence. In the movie, building rapport with prisoners sometimes works as a way of getting information. Torture, on the other hand, always got information that was false or already known. Therefore, to make the case against torture as a war tactic, we need not rely entirely on the assertion that it’s wrong. It’s also demonstrated to be entirely useless. The theater run is finished; it’s apparently only available on Amazon Prime now, because they’re the producers.
Do You Have Suggestions for Questions to Candidates in Forums? We’re planning a blog post of well-thought-out questions we can pose to candidates in forums. Some will be for all candidates, and others will be tailored to different offices or different parties. We want take advantage of our insights about connections between issues and the importance of consistency. We need to think these through carefully, since candidates and audiences are often not accustomed to thinking our way. This is uppermost on our minds as the lengthy U.S. election year unfolds, but can hopefully be useful in other countries as well. The consistent-life community needs to put our heads together. If you have some ideas of questions you’d love to ask and think others might as well, please send them to weekly@consistent-life.org.
Our Latest Blog Post: MLK on Nukes
In honor of Martin Luther King Day this last Monday, John Whitehead offers a compilation of things King had to say in the 1960s about nuclear weapons: “An Inferno That Even the Mind of Dante Could Not Envision”: Martin Luther King on Nuclear Weapons.”
Didache, Chapter 2 (first-century Christian teaching manual) You shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born . . . You shall not take evil counsel against your neighbor. You shall not hate any person.
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