Pakatan Rakyat - Re-enacting the Rebels vs Galactic Empire Battles

Most newspapers and Malaysiakini showed a very big headline entitled the formation of Pakatan Rakyat, a more central-left wing oriented coalition aiming to cater more for the needs of the common people.

Despite election being over, the mood of people hating Barisan Nasional, except for stupid fools of course still remains at the high pitch and it is at the right time to further keep to momentum in turning the oppression back to Barisan Nasional. This whole thing was started by UMNO youths coupled by BN component parties who are merely yes-men to the mighty but illiterate leaders who cannot see the bottom.

Barisan Nasional is like the right-wing Americans right now, facing the pressure from the people and ultimately punished in the end. They lost the Vietnam war in 1975 because they simply don't understand the bottom. Last year was more of picking the tune of rebels vs the empire and we are looking at a possible real-life action of Return of the Jedi. Is it some coincidence there? I think there is.

UMNO-BN still remains in the denial mode, squabbling over nothing, like in the forum at the hotel in PJ. While the rebels are pushing to take over the government, they are still fighting in within and our friend said, BN could be finished as the fall of Saigon. Tuan Guru Hadi Awang did say on Malaysiakini of inviting BN disillusioned reps to come over but someone mentioned of concerns of backstabbing - Anwar said no problem, that can be handled.

Yes, Anwar has been on the round table after elections and there is a realistic chance of winning ahead. But will it come at the price of cronies of the past running away with money as what Daim did when Mr. Mahathir left in October 2003?

A big announcement is coming on April 13, what could that be?

I have no objection over this Pakatan Rakyat with only two observations, that is, keeping in line with the needs of the people and secondly, it is more appropriate to see this as on the people's side rather than thinking as the opposition.

Hidup RAKYAT!

Training Day - The Inspiration Behind The Iraq Invasion

Two days ago, I stumbled upon the published screenplay of Training Day by writer David Ayer (SWAT, Dark Blue). The draft is the shooting draft which includes deleted scenes excised from the final cut including the alternate ending of the film. You can check the shooting draft of the film here.

Before we go on, let me go through briefly the premise of film:

Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke) is a rookie cop who is out to make a cut as a detective in LAPD's Narcotics Division. On this training day, he was assigned to be the understudy of veteran head Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington), whose methods of law enforcement are being under question. Harris methods has landed Hoyt into various problems including being framed for a murder, being a central character of a corruption scandal within the LAPD. Soon, he began to witness the dark, corrupt side of Harris which he must try to solve various twists and turns to solve a puzzle.

Much of the premise was written based on the 1998 Rampart Scandal involving disgraced office Rafael Perez. Hence, Washington based his character on Perez himself. If you look at some of the scenes of both cops beating up and arresting gang members only to have Alonzo letting them go and under his thumb, you can see this was how it culminates to Perez's testimonial of the Rampart Scandal. People in Los Angeles began to call the 70 groups of CRASH - Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums - the worst gang compared to the LA street gangs themselves. Following the scandal, CRASH was disbanded by then L.A.P.D head Bernard Parks.

It was only then I later found out that much of the metaphors of the script written by Ayer served as parallels that the White House would use in its official stance behind the decision to invade Iraq in 2003. Here is a summary of the metaphors written by Mark Kelly, a PhD candidate of philosophy of The University of Sydney :

1. Film: Jake Hoyt is a naive rookie who aspires to reach success and assumes that his methods and his contributions will help to make the community safe. On the training day, he helps Alonzo to patrol the streets of L.A from narcotics. On certain occasions, he played into the hands of Alonzo in his naivety.
Real Life: America's current aim is to spread its intention of peace using its own forthrightness, spreading its own doctrine and subversion to the entire world. During the 80s, America had come to work and helped Iraq to stop the Iranian Islamic Fundamentalism. But secretly, America had allowed Saddam to invade Kuwait and started the Gulf War.

2. Film: Alonzo is king of his neighborhood, but he was hated in secret by everyone.
Real Life: Saddam Hussein is president of Iraq but every Iraqis hated him in secret.

3. Film: Hoyt was nearly killed by Smiley (Cliff Curtis) and his gang in the bathroom but his forthrightness through saving Smiley's cousin who was gang-raped earlier of the day spared him and earned Smiley's gratitude. That allowed him to go out and hunt down Alonzo later.
Real Life: America was nearly destroyed by the 9/11 attacks, but the right-wing American government had a moral fortitude of going to Iraq and eliminating Saddam fearing that it has WMDs. In the end, the government was accused of lying to the people by fabricating the fact that Iraq has WMDs.

4. Film: Nobody helped Alonzo during the final stand-off. Not even his own children or the neighborhood. Even the gangs did not do what he said. Hoyt had earned his respect of the neighborhood.
Real Life: When the Iraqis learned that the U.S military was in Baghdad to remove Saddam Hussein from power, they just let them pass through without hindrance. Even the Republican Guard does that too since Saddam never respected them for what they did.

5. Film: Jake shot Alonzo at the last minute (seeing that he was to get shot too) on the thigh and left them to the people, including the Russian gangsters to deal with Alonzo - only after he settles some things including his evidence. From what he learned about Alonzo owing money to the Russians and the forbidden rule of killing a fellow officer, he delayed and left Alonzo to his grim fate.
Real Life: Though capital punishment is objected by Britain and Australia, the Americans left it to the Iraqis to decide justice on Saddam.

The legacy of CRASH and the 1992 L.A riots was still a painful scar of the past for Los Angeles. There was a rift corruption among the D.A's office, the LAPD. Take the "Three Wise Men" in the film, each represents the upper levels of corruption. The three helped Alonzo to solve his problem by cashing out on Roger (Scott Glenn) and fabricated the fact that Roger is a drug dealer. As the result of that, the naive Jake was setup as the man who killed Roger in cold blood in front of witnesses and Alonzo the perpetrator. Even Garth Ennis modeled the crooked cop and the police Tom Price (as in The Slavers) from Bernard Parks.

Maybe I might get out of point, but reading the script again and noticing the parallels made me realized that the similarities that the Bush Administration is using to manipulate the people to invade Iraq. And the 3 Wise Men subplot also serves as the corruption in White House and currently the scandal of Alberto Gonzales and his men.

The Fight Club

Do you know what Shaziman Mansor called us today? According to The Star paper today and complimented with this interesting article by Jeff Ooi himself, Shaziman is calling us - the bloggers as the snipers. Snipers at shooting at the powerful people from far and hiding in the shadows! Hey, the local daily isn't the only daily that documents the 'sniper' calling. It's mentioned in articles from international dailies including Jerusalem, Paris, Canada and Sydney! This newspaper extract was taken from Berita Harian.

Seriously, I need to discuss this because this case is getting out of control and I feel that our right as responsible bloggers are in jeopardy from the remarks of certain people who are not IT-savvy. Shaziman was proposing of having every blogger registering. But he has forgotten something: there is no free blog. Whoever wants to have a blog will have to register to Blogger - the current blog software that I'm writing on or even fill up a form to apply for a web server either locally or elsewhere! Where is the logic? Is he trying to spread the pre-paid doctrine used in the mobile phone episode over here?

The current episode of Shaziman proposing the idea of registration clearly mimics Marvel comics big event of 2006: Civil War. Civil War is Mark Millar's mockery of the 2002 Patriot Act. In the story line, superheroes are required to be registered under the Superhero Registration Act as to control the uncertainty pertaining to superheroes that might go out of control. The main proponents of the program would be Iron Man, Miss Marvel, Mr. Fantastic and certain people. America's icon Captain America refused to register saying that it will take away the free rights that everyone has. Eventually, there was a battle by the proponents and those who refused it.

Seeing that the fight causes more damage, Captain America eventually surrendered but before he could go on, he was assassinated by an unknown gunman. See what happens? Captain represents the perfect utopia - the American Dream, the ideal world. With his death, it spells the end of the dream and plunging into the current chaos that parallels our world. It is like everyone of us being torn of choosing good or evil and in the end we become a clockwork orange.

I look at some of the pictures which featured the establishment of the NAB - National Alliance of Bloggers led by Jeff and Ahiruddin. Great bravery there - out to protect the interests of bloggers like us. I wonder what if the mandatory registration is enforced, will those people even read cooking recipes that are shared by female bloggers? Will my mum's posts be scrutinized by them?

Update: My connection crashed just now, but now I got all my previous written paragraphs back! So that's one of Blogger's safety net. Hmm....

Seeing that clearly the main interest of BAM is to protect the interest of bloggers reminds me of the establishment of our very own Fight Club. Author Chuck Palahniuk was inspired to write the novel after he was beaten by some people of the neighborhood when he screamed at them as to request them to lower the volume as he wanted to sleep. He vented everything in the novel.

Here's something funny in related to the case above. In the DVD, there was a 1-second only blink-and-you-miss disclaimer from Tyler Durden. Part of the disclaimer reads:

"Are you so impressed with authority that you give them respect and credence to all who claim it? Do you read everything you are supposed to read? Do you think everything you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told you should want? Get out of your apartment....Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned...Tyler."

The last few lines in the disclaimer clearly mirrors what we bloggers are facing right now. We are at the point where the best defense is the offense. Jeff's post on Mahatma Gandhi's method might help to sway public opinion on this matter: Satyagaha

via mass disobedience. Ever wonder why students nowadays start to disobey certain school rules? They find it is absurd. They act by mass disobedience. Start booing teachers, start mocking teachers. In my brother's class, some of his students drew a chalk outline on the floor representing the dead body of one of their teachers that they hate.