One of my all-time favorite movies is Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). The recent discussion that has been ongoing in the Virginia blogosphere, about the value and propriety of a mischievous blogger using stills of captives being beheaded by terrorists, has just reminded me of that tart Cold War black comedy.
Sterling Hayden as Gen. Jack D. RipperWhen I saw Dr. Strangelove as a teenager it knocked me out. It was liberating! I loved it then and still do.
The blatant and backward anti-Muslim prejudices being exhibited by some of the defenders of both Goode and the aforementioned beheading post have reminded me of the same sort of goofy anti-commie attitude -- like that of General Ripper -- which was in the air when I was growing up.
Now I think some of the tough-guy bloggers, who claim to have such a yen for spilling Muslim blood, would be happy to install Gen. Ripper as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, if they could. Their cartoon-like swagger is pure Gen. Ripper.
A few of Gen. Jack D. Ripper’s choicest lines from Dr. Strangelove are as follows:
“...Your Commie has no regard for human life. Not even his own.”
“...He [Clemenceau] said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.”
“...Fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face.”
Maybe some of my readers have their own favorite Dr. Strangelove lines that I overlooked in this post?
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