MovieChat Forums > The Good Shepherd (2006) Discussion > the rest of you are just visiting

the rest of you are just visiting


when palmi explanined that every ethnic group had their own thing to live/believe in except edwards people (upper class? wasps? cia?) his response was that his people had the united states of america and the rest of them where just visiting.

look i know its just a movie but has anybody out there really felt that the rich priviliged class of white america really feels that way? you know the super wealthy familys that own or have an intrest in major levels of buisness finance and politics in this country?

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If you watched Charlie Wilson's War..do you recall the character Gust? Now, have you read the book? If not do so. Gust explains in detail how the CIA recruited upper class Yalie Wasps to the exclusion of competent American-born minority people because they were minorities, therefore they weren't real Americans, and couldn't be trusted. This has been the dirty little secret of the CIA since its inception. I doubt if it that way today but it was 40 years ago.

Finally, I don't know where you live but I grew up in Manhattan. I live near San Francisco today. Ask yourself this: Have you ever seen a truly wealthy white person (you'd know if you saw them simply by the way they dress, the quality of their clothes, the manner of their speech, and how they carry themselves. The reason why you have never seen anyone in the extreme upper echelons of rich white America is simple: They don't associate with the upper class. Even Eastern upper class liberals posses the same penchant for associated with people in their class. They attend the same churches, clubs, social groups, country clubs, and they usually intermarry ensuring that their wealth does not dissipate. In short, they live in a total different reality then you and I. Further, what happens to you and I has absolutely no effect on them because they are insulated from the realities that the rest of us have to deal with.

I don't say this do be mean or to suggest I hate the upper class. I'm simply pointing out reality. An extremely wealthy upper class white world exist and it is insular from the every day reality. It is very hard for a non-member to enter the ranks of this Waspish group.

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It's not really so much a question of race. Remember the guy who worked under Edward was an Italian - Ray Brocco.
This was more of question of who is part of Skull and Bones. If you are not part of that society you cannot be trusted...

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If you watched Charlie Wilson's War..do you recall the character Gust? Now, have you read the book? If not do so. Gust explains in detail how the CIA recruited upper class Yalie Wasps to the exclusion of competent American-born minority people because they were minorities, therefore they weren't real Americans, and couldn't be trusted. This has been the dirty little secret of the CIA since its inception. I doubt if it that way today but it was 40 years ago.

Finally, I don't know where you live but I grew up in Manhattan. I live near San Francisco today. Ask yourself this: Have you ever seen a truly wealthy white person (you'd know if you saw them simply by the way they dress, the quality of their clothes, the manner of their speech, and how they carry themselves. The reason why you have never seen anyone in the extreme upper echelons of rich white America is simple: They don't associate with the upper class. Even Eastern upper class liberals posses the same penchant for associated with people in their class. They attend the same churches, clubs, social groups, country clubs, and they usually intermarry ensuring that their wealth does not dissipate. In short, they live in a total different reality then you and I. Further, what happens to you and I has absolutely no effect on them because they are insulated from the realities that the rest of us have to deal with.

I don't say this do be mean or to suggest I hate the upper class. I'm simply pointing out reality. An extremely wealthy upper class white world exist and it is insular from the every day reality. It is very hard for a non-member to enter the ranks of this Waspish group.

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The Wasp feeling is strong in the CIA but there's maybe a more important reason. It's because their ultimate loyalty is to the USA, duty etc at the expense of their families and faith. The 'just visiting' scene is also a slight attack on the 'soulless' nature of CIA which leads them to have little love for anyone.

As to whether the WASP ideal is actually in control, well that's another matter. Notice that 'strangely' there are quite a few 'Catholics' high up. Angleton also grew up in Italy and was close to the Vatican and Israel throughout his career.

Now while all these 'agencies' use their fiercest nationalists 'CIA-wasps, Isreal-JewZealots etc for operational duties.... the top line of operatives have far more in common and maybe work for different 'ideals' then you think.

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I think its a pretty good point he's making.

If you don't feel American or you have to put a prefix to your ethnicity all the time, maybe you're not 100% American?

My parents are from Korea but I feel 100% American. If someone would ask me, what am I, I'd say I'm American. I don't say "oh hey I'm asian-american, I don't feel the need to point that out, heck anyone can see I'm not white but that doesn't make me less American.

But if you have to say how african or how italian you are all the time, maybe you should simply move back to wherever your lovely prefix comes from.

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Suzi just because you do not choose to identify with your bloodline doesn't mean everyone has to follow suit. Do you even know the history of America? Some people were brought here as slaves. There is no going back.

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I'm with Suzi on this one. People who live in America, yet complain about it all the time and hyphenate their ethnicity, are a very odd and destructive force. I've lived in other countries and you don't see people calling themselves "Italian-German" or "African-British," even though Britain set up the slave system when America was a colony. I like to think De Niro was bucking the Hollywood trend of bashing America, recognizing that it has given its people opportunities no other country ever has.

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Well America is not Europe. It has been divided by race. It was founded and built on that division. So you can't compare it to what they do in other nations.

"What happens to a dream deferred?"

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Maybe I have concluded something totally different from this scene, but I believe “the rest of you are just visiting” line is a tongue in cheek rebuttal from Edward, as though that was the response that was expected of him. He doesn’t have the inclination to take on Palmi – he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t rise to the insinuation that because he isn’t of Irish, Italian or black heritage he is therefore automatically a bigot or a racist. He doesn’t need a statue of the virgin margin on his lawn to sleep tight at night, Edward doesn’t publicly display these insecurities.

De Niro plays on the overused cliché “we Irish”, “we Italians”. Edward was an “American” was his ancestry even disclosed to the viewer? He didn’t care if Palmi was from Mars or Ireland or Italy or New Jersey.

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Palmi was getting in his face and Edwards just gave it back to him

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what they call on the hoops court 'trash talk'.



Hey, sprechen sie talk?

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'Just visiting'. Probably one of the most apt lines spoken by a representative of an elite society or 'tribe' if you will. Fits perfectly with the notion of individuals bound to each other in ways which are probably the opposite of what most of us deal with in real life.

What I think is fascinating about the film is the fact that those who were in the the secret society that would eventually be the CIA go much farther than simply profess great loyalty to the United States of America doing anything they have to do to protect it. They sure knew what was needed for the nascent CIA. They actually know 'betrayal' will occur at some time in a spy's career. So they 'vaccinate' each other for eventual betrayals both within and without by always having something on the other guy. That 'honesty' in confessing ironically helps in unmasking a potential spy. De Niro's character was an ultimate realist when it came to developing the CIA and only certain kinds of individuals are made for it as the film shows. And I wonder how it did as a 'recruiting' tool...;-)...

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blackmail is the american way!




Key to winning baseball games? Pitching, fundamentals, and three run homers.-Earl Weaver

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I'd say that MOST white Americans feel that way. Political correctness is out of control here though in the States. ALWAYS remember this: WHATEVER is going on in a nation is going on because the majority of its inhabitants are ALLOWING it to go on. For example, what do you think would happen if police officers started shooting unarmed white males with the same frequency as they've been murdering Black males? Do you think that the society would allow it? Let's be truthful and stop all of the lying. When a Black man is murdered for WHATEVER reason, whites have been programmed to feel SAFER. How were they programmed? By viewing racist, white supremacist-themed movies and television, and by reading the same type of printed media. When you put your eyes to the media and absorb its overt and covert white supremacist messages, they go STRAIGHT to your subconscious mind and it doesn't attempt to rationalize or make sense of what it's absorbed. ALL data is simply perceived as REALITY and stored. So when you have been secretly manipulated into watching images of Black men being portrayed as criminals, deadbeat fathers, womanizers, and other characters that destroy a community, you'll believe that's what they REALLY are. Likewise, Black males are being subconsciously told that this is what they REALLY are, and those with weak minds will play out the part that they have been given subconsciously. All of this is a Satanic operation started at the top by the mostly Jewish oligarchs. And because they have almost total control of the media, if a person(Farrakhan, for example) or an organization calls them out on their devilment, they simply use their power of the media to attack the accuser by calling them anti-Semitic and digging up dirt on them to discredit their statements. Even my white friends are even fully aware of how often Blacks(especially males) are killed in movies and tv shows often without even having any significant role or screen time in the production. We all joke that the Jewish writers have conversations like, "If we make the "bad guy" Black, then the white "good guy" will look even more bad-ass because defeating a white guy just isn't that difficult or memorable!" and "The Coen Brothers killed a Black guy in the first 4 minutes of one of their movies. We're gonna beat their time and show them how it's done! Mazel tov!!".

I prefer watching movies by non-sellout Blacks like Spike Lee, OR movies made by whites that DON'T have any Blacks in them. That way, I get to watch whites killing each other instead of killing POC. History tells us that they've GOT to kill SOMEBODY, and since they started out on each other in Europe, it just brings it around full circle!!

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