Not bad for left-wing propaganda
Whosoever will may come...and get your services for free.
shareYou're absolutely right. Especially since it featured one of the Left's outspoken personality: Damon.
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MovieChat Forums > Elysium (2013) Discussion > Not bad for left-wing propaganda
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Well, considering that one of the actors and the director are South African, I really think that you should shut up and think before typing next time. South Africa has a history where white people moved there from Europe (naturally) for a new start in life. Few black people were there in the 1600s. Over time, farms and towns developed, and white South Africans had developed a relatively good (or better) standard of living compared to Europe. With these higher standards of living, black people from other parts of Africa moved in to southern Africa, to get that better standard of living. Of course, you have probably heard the stories about apartheid, with the segregated living until the 1970s? But that wouldn't stop the Africans from heading south and making shanty towns around the cities.
Imagine since 1994, South Africa has seen a decline in the standard of living of most people in the country. The poor remained poor. The rich remained rich. But the middle income earners saw a steady decline and standards of living. Irrespective of race. Imagine further that those descendants of the Africans who had moved in to South Africa, have made up a disproportionate amount of criminals, irrespective of the fact that they have grown to become the majority and hold the power in the country. Friends of mine, who have come from Sth Africa, have told me about the blatant discrimination against caucasian people. Simply for the fact of being white, white people have to concern themselves with protecting themselves and their property from black gangs, as well as having to endure poor living standards exacerbated by affirmative action programs forcing companies to have a certain percentage of black people working in the company. Not difficult to see that white people are leaving the country each week for new countries. Oh, and the brain drain of skills and intellect they take with them isn't helping South Africa's new direction.
And as far as that list of stereotypes that you brought up to throw against right wing people, I find that "bigoted" and hypocritical of yourself. Should I start labelling you some kind of flower child, drugged out hippie, who thinks that the world's problems can be overcome through holding hands and singing "kum-bay-yah"? Interestingly enough, you bring up Adolf Hitler in your list of so-called insults. Hitler, for all the fact that he was my grandparents' enemy in the 1940s, was actually a reasonable leader. He had overcome poverty through his early adult life, and had built a following as a good orator and leader to become chancellor of Germany in 1933. His efforts to rebuild the German economy with innovation and German ingenuity made Germany the envy of the world in the 1930s. Not bad for a guy who was on the verge of starvation 20 years earlier. The fact that he used slave labour and executed people who weren't within the bounds of Nazi ideals, it does not detract wholly from all the scientific good that Germany progressed with in that time. It's a stigma that Germans hate. But not something that should be used against your opponent in dirty debating tactics. I dare say that you wouldn't have been born had it not been for the Nazis.
I would surmise that you are living quite a comfortable life, possibly living with your parents. The very idea of having to fight for your meals each night isn't something that comes your way of thinking. Perhaps when immigrants' descendants start telling you that you can't have with you have earned because of your culture and its history, and dictating what you do, you might think twice about who you let in to your country "shutting the gate after the horse has bolted". But for now, if you keep letting in every hard case story into your country, you are certain to see your taxes being redirected into welfare cases of people who didn't want to help themselves in their country of origin, and probably want to be babied by the promises that they were told. Rotsa ruck!
Few black people were there (South Africa) in the 1600s.LOL! You're not just an idiot, but a dishonest, untruthful, bigoted one.
The fact that he (Hitler)used slave labour and executed people (genocide of 6 million Jews) who weren't within the bounds of Nazi ideals, it does not detract wholly from all the scientific good that Germany progressed with in that time.Take your own advice clown:
I really think that you should shut up and think before typing next time.🐭 share
Either you are redefining what "idiot" means, or you have no idea what you are talking about. Black people in, what is now regarded as South Africa, were not all that numerous. Fact remains that if there were millions of black people in southern Africa, it stands to absolute high credibility that the Europeans wouldn't have been able to set foot on land for long in that region of the world. The tribes there would have had BBQ with the colonists/explorers not that long after they claimed the land for England or the Netherlands. Ergo, it is why the colonists were able to establish cities that evolved from the development of settlements. Are you really that oblivious to be unable to see that kind of scenario?
I don't know what you are concerned about with the talk about scientific knowledge that came from the Nazis rebuilding their society. Sad fact remains about how humans manage to evolve technologically from the chaotic ruins of war, and to be the benefit of mankind.
Back to your generation millenium bunker you go, little child.
... you are redefining what "idiot" means ...Idiots are apartheid apologists such as yourself who start blathering about the historical benefits of South African colonialism without mentioning slavery and the Forced Labour Model. You even have the brazen gall to try and suggest a kind of Terra nullius situation applied prior to settlement.
The indigenous peoples with whom the Dutch first came into contact, the Khoikhoi and San, had been settled in the region for at least a thousand years before the Dutch arrived. They quite swiftly ended up becoming incorporated into colonial society as unwilling, low-status servants and farm workers. By 1700, the traditional Khoikhoi lifestyle of pastoralism had disappeared, as they became indentured cheap labour on the Dutch farms, which also made use of imported slave labour from other parts of Africa and Dutch colonies. Thus the Cape and Southern African regions developed into a fully fledged slave society with slavery being fully supported by the Roman-Dutch legal system that the Dutch VOC brought to the Cape. Colonial South Africa was from the very start a society structured along racial lines, in which black people occupied a subordinate position. This in fact was
... why the colonists were able to establish cities that evolved from the development of settlements.Not difficult to see how Apartheid grew from such historic roots.
Are you really that oblivious to be unable to see that kind of scenario?I'm guessing yes. Judged by the saying, "What you don't know can't hurt you," I'd say you're practically invulnerable.🐭
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Yep, you really have redefined what "idiot" means. Because from my perspective, you have become the apologist for black South Africans who try and use the past to justify their criminal wrongs in the present. Not only that, but you seem to miss the blatant fact that the Dutch and the English settlers brought a vastly superior society in technology and socially, which allowed them to settle and expand their societies.
At no stage did I ever call a Terra Nullius scenario for what was going on in the South African region prior to European settlement. I have said that the Europeans were able to settle southern Africa because there weren't many black Africans living in the region. Ergo, little opposition = easier establishments of society for the Europeans. Imagine settling with 1000 other people in some far away land and all you have is some kind of firearm that you have to reload in time consuming fashion during perilous conditions of warfare. Kind of difficult if you have 10,000 people come to say that you are interfering in their hunting areas, and want you to move on. But it gets easier when the ratio of numbers are the same. Hence my "oh so not PC" brutal honesty about Europeans having the advantage because the natives weren't numerous -- not non-existent.
I just looked up the percentages of the demographics of black South Africans. Whites make up 9%. Black people about 80%. If in the year 1600-and-whatever the percentages that made up black and white people were the same as today, then you can very much kiss white settlement goodbye. I think today's black South African numbers are 40 million, and 4 million whites. 10,000 or 100,000 black South Africans from "the Khoikhoi and San" don't grow into 40 million people in 400 years. I suppose it is possible over a 400 year period. But I would infer that much of the growth was because black people from other parts of the country had been flowing into the country, from differing cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Much of it in the last 50 years because of the economic powerhouse that Southern Africa was in the continent.
And we can go on and on about slave labour all we want. But it won't get us anywhere in our arguments about inequality in the movie. But I won't digress to there. Had slavery been the be all and end all of prosperity, then African countries still practicing slavery must be really rich by now. Or has that something to do with abundant oil reserves, etc? Nah. They are still in the *beep* hole because they still practice barbarism, but only in much greater numbers. With your defense of Africans, it's a wonder why they still exist in large numbers. Because they were starving, and killing each other, and dying from whatever diseases eating rancid monkey meat or mosquitoes gave them. But atleast 200 to 300 years ago, they had more food because there were fewer Africans. Modern technology and medicines have bolstered their numbers exponentially. How would you feel like being a taxpayer in Sth Africa today?
Geez, ignorance must be bliss for you. You must be on a morphine drip, I guess. Every South African I have met in my town -- and I am surprised by the number of them for this part of the world -- have said that they got out because they were sick of the continued and condoned violence perpetrated and downward turn their country was taking. But, boo-hoo, Africans didn't get things handed to them in the past. They had to wait until white people were gullible enough to take down apartheid barriers and let the blacks work together with the whites. You might need a documentary viewing to see how that has eventuated.
Oh, and if you were wondering, the fall of apartheid meant that rich whites were richer or stayed the same; middle income whites were poorer; and poor whites became destitute. Rich blacks because richer; middle income blacks became richer; and poor blacks were only slightly better off. Youtube some socioeconomic documentaries on that, if you are game.
Little wonder how in the movie and in South Africa, the feature of apartheid was put in to protect society from being overrun and degraded into the very societies that the refugees were fleeing. There's a reason why countries have borders. It's not to degrade foreigners. But to regulate how society operates. Don't like it? Spend a week in South Africa, and see if you can get some of that culture into you. I doubt that you would survive a week, with your attitude.
Because from my perspective ...This would be the right-wing, apartheid apologist, Hitler was really misunderstood, perspective. Sure to be guaranteed a clearly thought view there.
... black South Africans who try ... to justify their criminal wrongs in the present.And there's a perfect example. It's all those troublesome black and coloured folk causing the problems.
Much of it in the last 50 years because of the economic powerhouse that Southern Africa was in the continent.As I established in my previous post, the issue is that from time of settlement to the end of apartheid, the minority whites through political, legal, social, economic and military means established themselves as the haves, while the other races were subjugated to be the have nots.
They (the blacks) had to wait until white people were gullible enough to take down apartheid barriers and let the blacks work together with the whites.Well yes, thanks for reinforcing my point. Suddenly the majority races have some sort of political and legal equality with the whites and you're still whining about it 20 years later.
BTW, I love your euphemism for apartheid ...
to regulate how society operates.and to engender and extend white power over the other races.
Little wonder how in the movie ... the feature of apartheid was put in to protect society from being overrun and degraded.Yes thanks again for making the point that we see a privileged minority in Elysium trying to hold sway over the socially and economically disadvantaged majority on Earth. Don't worry. We know what side you were rooting for.
Youtube some socioeconomic documentaries on that, if you are game.I gather that's where you've received the majority of your education. And guess what? It does show.
Spend a week in South Africa, and see if you can get some of that culture into you. I doubt that you would survive a week, with your attitude.How breathtakingly ignorant of you to assume I've never been there! If it was raining brains, you'd be tinder dry.🐭 share
So, what is it with you? You think right wing is bad. You can't see the merits of borders. You think Adolf Hitler was some guy who wanted the world to suffer. You really have no room in your life for a different perspective. Were you one of those students who went to an upper class private school system, where the teachers gave you hula-hoops to put around yourself and teach you the value of "personal space"? Seems like you are an apologist for anyone who has ever failed as a result of their own cultural inferiority.
In the second paragraph, you defend criminal black people on the basis that they are black and should be immune from prosecution. You then finish in the last paragraph saying/implying that you have been to South Africa. So, you want to defend black criminals because you have been exposed to their criminality. Either that, or you spent your time in some gated community in South Africa and have had no experience with what goes on in public there.
And you are hung up on the horrendous thought that white people are part of the "haves" and black people are part of the "have nots" for the people of South Africa. Do you know why? Because white people have economic systems set up so that if you work for earning, you tend to get rewarded for it. Amongst European people, we have the idea that we can save for later use and avoid waste. There's also the technological advantage of producing things for trade and the recycling plants and herding of animals for continued food production. Black people in South Africa didn't have this idea of settling in one place. They moved as the climate determined. And they planned no further than the foreseeable future. Why would they become part of the "haves" group, when they only had what they needed.
Over the few centuries of Southern African settlement, black people learnt that if they stuck close to the settlements, they could acquire more food. All that livestock and such those white people have could become there's without asking. Just a matter of when to raid those settlements. And as the black people came to become a segregated member of the sth African society, so too did their wealth increase -- something that they didn't have 500 years earlier. And when the Sth African government succumbed to international pressure, the barriers came down. And then things have gone to crap for anyone white. Little wonder 1 million of them have escaped Africa in the last 20 years.
I wonder what your life would be like if you had a regulated government that ensured electricity, water, and well maintained infrastructure? Then one day, a new government took over and discriminated against you based on your skin colour. New employees were hired based on ethnicity rather than merits. And then the infrastructure started to crumble because the employees had a "not my problem" attitude to work. Black outs; Unreliable fresh water supply; and the changing attitudes of police officers willing to let you die because some "native" decided that he didn't have to follow the law with his new freedoms, and he could treat you with barbarity with impunity. That's the reason why white South Africans are leaving and finding their own "Elysium" overseas.
With the Elysium analogy, the inhabitants of those stations have established a good standard of living to maintain, because they didn't want to be dragged down by the poor on Earth, who saw no responsibility in establishing higher standards of living for themselves. What you seem to miss is the fact that the Third World is the way they are because they live with corrupt rulers who only do things for their own benefit. There's no consideration for fixing up their own mess. They won't give women the right to choose how many children they have, or the rights to their own bodies. They won't build infrastructure based on needs. Or whatever infrastructure they have inherited has been laid to waste or underutilised. It's the reason why the leaders brazenly opt to blame former colonial powers for things happening 30 to 40 years earlier for what their people self inflict upon themselves today. It's also the reason why they pack up and move to first world countries, hoping that the first world has some infinite food and energy producing magical technology that stops all suffering. There's no reason why the movie "Elysium" the 'refugees' couldn't produce their own technology and fix their own problems, rather than running away from them, hoping that a minority of people will slave away for them.
So, what is it with you?What's with me is that I find myself constantly amazed at the sheer blind ignorance of jokers like you who seriously ask me to consider whether or not ... Adolf Hitler was really some guy who wanted the world to suffer, whilst advising me that I should be thinking of other perspectives. LOL! No of course he didn't want the world to suffer whilst he committed genocide and invaded sovereign countries.
You really don't get it do you. You just don't understand that thankfully, most people don't think like you. You don't even understand that Elysium is a warning against policies such as apartheid. You instead see it as some kind of grateful paen to it.
You don't understand the irony involved when you complain ...
Then one day, a new government took over and discriminated against you based on your skin colour. New employees were hired based on ethnicity rather than merits.You don't like the fact the new government brought in affirmative action policies designed to redress the many years of discrimination by the white minority government. Sucks doesn't it? Just doesn't seem fair.
There are reasons the world at large, doesn't celebrate a man at the centre of
a regime responsible for the genocide of at least 6 million Jews, and millions of other victims whom he and his followers deemed racially inferior, not to begin trying to count the costs of military, economic and social upheavals and losses to a string of countries. You don't get those reasons either.
You don't get that increasing local and international pressure on the governing National Party government, as well as the realisation that apartheid could neither be maintained by force forever nor overthrown by the opposition without considerable suffering, eventually led both sides to the negotiating table and the subsequent dismantling of apartheid. You just think you were stiffed.
You ask me do I have room in my life for a different perspective? I can categorically say, if I did World Sacred, it's not going to be any thing like yours.🐭
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Here's where I stand: I come along to find a poster who claims that the movie Elysium was some left wing propaganda movie designed to take pity on refugees who have run away from their problems. I happened to agree. You come along and flat out spit with rage at my lack of a leftist bleeding heart and white guilt shame.
Then we look in to apartheid, which you inexplicably claim to be the epitome of evil and shouldn't have been implemented in the first place. Am I close on that assumption? Because there are holes in your argument so big that you could steer a ship through. So, I'll assume that you are old enough to have graduated high school, but not old enough to have earnt a pay cheque from a 40 hour a week job.
To begin your schooling, discrimination has played a part of human history since time immemorial. Every society has practiced it, and to varying degrees. And since you take discrimination so severely as an absolute sin, can I ask you if you believe national borders should be abolished, and everyone in the world can come and go as they pleased? I mean, Europe has a type of borderless geopolitical structure, but they still use borders. And if you can appreciate that the world can't do without borders, you have opened your credibility account with a registered score.
Now, imagine if you will that the apartheid system was set up to protect settlers from the few black people (which I assume numbered millions by your wailing cries of indignity) and be able to establish the strongest country in the African continent. When black people were able to mingle upon the white people, I don't know. But I have seen footage of the 1970s Johannesburg with black and white people mingling peacefully. So, more credibility to me that this apartheid topic is embellishing the problems black South Africans had in the 20th century.
It's been 20 years since I studied the apartheid, so I don't care about it too much to discuss further until I am caught up on some reading about such. But I have been reading the American War of Independence books, and it too has some parallels with the apartheid. The way the British funded their war efforts against France. The way that upper class and lower class societies anywhere didn't have different problems to face in combatting social ills. But I suppose you might entertain and counter with some crap about slavery funding the Americans, and such shhtuff. But it doesn't diminish the idea that conditions of 18th century America, Britain, and South African whites didn't have it easy like we do today. So, ya might as well sod off with the argument that "black South Africans didn't get rich because white people didn't share" crap that you have been ranting about for the past few weeks. White people weren't rich either!
I find myself constantly amazed at the sheer blind ignorance of jokers like you who seriously ask me to consider whether or not ... Adolf Hitler was really some guy who wanted the world to suffer, whilst advising me that I should be thinking of other perspectives. LOL! No of course he didn't want the world to suffer whilst he committed genocide and invaded sovereign countries.
Well, you're more naive than a 5 year old at a magic show. Let me guess, Hollywood gave you the idea that Hitler would froth at the mouth with rage at the sight of a Jewish person? That the war was fought over rescuing Jews from concentration camps? Forgive me for thinking this, but I had the researched impression that Hitler was all about rebuilding Germany after enduring a catastrophic war, and was motivated by the obligatory economic collapse of the late 1920s to make Germany a world power. His personal gritty determination having suffered poverty post war incited him to rebuild, regrow and rearm Germany, and to punish those he deemed responsible for the capitulation of Germany. And seeing that the numbers of Jewish people killed in concentration camps has been exaggerated, I doubt that you need to comment any further on this until you get your head straight. But, hey, Hitler wanted to extend his borders and take over the lives of neighbouring peoples. So, I guess he and you have something in common.
And thanks for pointing out that most people don't think like me. I would also assume that. I tend to be a genuinely pragmatic person. You have demonstrated that this is where we differ. You are emotionally driven.
I don't know where you get the idea that apartheid is warned against in Elysium. It was so pro-illegal immigration throughout the movie, that I have to wonder where your real life priorities lay. The people of Earth in this movie are so devoid of fixing their own problems, that they have to resort to running/flying space ships to people who work for their high standard of living and outer-space-gated communities. I doubt that the med bays and the parks and the infrastructure they use just sprung up out of nowhere. The residents of Earth didn't put their heads together and construct their own med bays to fix their medical problems. They could have enable birth control to help fix their overpopulation problems. They could have built infrastructure of adequately resourced and maintained quality. They could have strategeised ways fixing their water and reworked the environment to allow some form of improved farming methods and keep the masses employed in whatever they could do. But that's the pragmatic way of looking at improving their lives. Not wasting their time dreaming up ways of getting in Elysium to live.
You don't like the fact the new government brought in affirmative action policies designed to redress the many years of discrimination by the white minority government. Sucks doesn't it? Just doesn't seem fair.
It's not my concern, since I don't live there. But I do live in a country where race based discrimination for jobs is allowed. But yeah, no matter how you look at it, it's discrimination at contemporary white Africans in jobs for the sake of criticising past white Africans for protecting themselves.
Make sure you don't lock your doors at night. Don't lock your car when you park it publically. Flash your money around. And when you get mugged, don't complain. Otherwise, we can accuse you of not sharing. share
You come along and flat out spit with rage at my lack of a leftist bleeding heart and white guilt shame.No I marvel at your casually racist stupidity which has rather almost wonderfully combined with an arrogant ignorance.
Let me guess, Hollywood gave you the idea that Hitler would froth at the mouth with rage at the sight of a Jewish person?
And seeing that the numbers of Jewish people killed in concentration camps has been exaggerated ...
But, hey, Hitler ... and you have something in common.Enough said.
People like you don't hesitate to speak their minds because they have nothing to lose.🐭 share
Wow! As if being racist is against the law.
shareNo, being a racist, like just being a pedophile, is not against the law. It's just evil. And in the States anyway, it's a very good way to lose your job.
http://redkincaid.com
I would hardly equate pedophilia and racism in terms of negative contexts. Pedophiles have fantasies about young children. Racists hold beliefs that race accounts for differences in abilities.
shareI would hardly equate pedophilia and racism in terms of negative contexts.
I would.
Pedophiles are people who somehow got their wires crossed -- probably because someone messed with them when they were kids, which was not their fault -- and they now confuse normal affection for children with sexual desire. They didn't choose that, and we don't know how to cure them.
Racists want to keep other groups in subordination, and they cover up their vile selfishness with lies and rationalizations, contrary to all scientific evidence, that the other groups are inferior.
http://redkincaid.com share
Pedophiles are people who have sexual attraction to young children. It's likely that I can find pedophiles to have emotional problems that need addressing. I worked with a pederast, and his problem stemmed from the fact that he was abused emotionally by his father for coming out as gay. He takes homophobic comments much more seriously than any other homosexuals. And I had to learn the more difficult way of steering clear of his temper tantrums because it would lead to getting reported for false accusations. But I digress.
Straight pedophiles obviously have some kind of emotional need to be with people who can't fight back. They might have relationships with people around their age, but they have a preference to the more "naive" people. They may keep it secret. But sometimes these people are caught out leering on children for no reason other than sexual. It's the reason parents can't take pictures of their children at sporting events.
Racists believe in the idea that race determining the ability of a person. "Black people can run faster. White people can swim better. Asian people can't drive" type of thinking. You are probably referring to racial supremacists. Racists who believe in dominating or ruling over other races.
Oh I get it. You come to this thread offering extended defenses of apartheid, one of the most rigid systems of "racial supremac[y]" in history, but when challenged, you say that "racists" are just the knuckleheads who really believe nonsense like "White men can't jump," "Black people have rhythm," etc.
http://redkincaid.com
I can't recall ever being in defense of apartheid. All I said in that regard to apartheid was that it happened, and people used it for a reason. I said it was for protecting the settlers, and the other doofus attacked me trying to reason a strawman argument that I thought it was a good thing. I don't care either way about it's use. But atleast I can understand why it was implemented.
And you seem to have this idea that the apartheid was implemented to reinforce the egos of white people. I dunno. Maybe you grew up in some ghetto, and you are lashing out incited by an inferiority complex that the white man do well by disciminatin'. Don't try and reason that I think that racists are all knuckleheads. Because racists make up about 100% of the world population. I bet you wouldn't admit it, but I believe you would have differing feelings seeing a room full of a homogeneous racial group, and a multiracial group. Or for that matter, the above vitriol of how you feel about white people.
Thank you for showing people that you are a blatant hypocrite.
one thing i am against open door policy for inferior races
And who decides what "inferior" is? You?
Now THAT is funny.
Watta ya lookn here for? share
open door policy for immigration
Is that your picture? I wonder what the Lakota, Chumash, and Pawnee people would say about your take on things white boy.
Watta ya lookn here for? share
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Its actually really terrible left-wing propaganda.
In the horrendous final act, the last sliver of uncrowded, clean land is invaded by untold thousands, perhaps millions of people, who raid all the medical supplies. These supplies are sure to do little to make even a slight dent in Earth's problems. Essentially the ridiculously "happy" ending is actually the final nail in the coffin of the human race.
Its inadvertently the most anti-immigration movie ever, and just a really REALLY bad film altogether.
People have to stop looking at this movie in an American Left vs Right perspective and see it for what it really is; an allegory to Arpartied (like most of Neil's works).
shareImagine that.
A South African director focusing on South African society.
Wait... lots of Americans probably can't. ;p
There's a whole world out there America, and not everything is about you.
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