offguardian--2020-08-30--REVIEW: Chasing the Light by Oliver Stone

Like the wandering and rascally Odysseus upon whom he models his life , Oliver Stone is “ double-minded ” in the most profound and illuminating ways .
The title of his fantastic new memoir is a case in point .
“ One of the first basic lessons in filming , ” he writes , “ is chasing the light .
Without it , you have nothing – no exposure that can be seen ; even what you see with your naked eye needs to be shaped and enhanced by the light.
” For as a true artist living out a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , his father and his mother , the warrior and the peacemaker , the domesticated and wild man , he has chosen a title that has a double meaning that is subtly woven like a thread through this labyrinthine tale .
It takes the reader from his childhood through his service in Vietnam and his struggles as a writer and filmmaker up to 1987 and his great success with his powerful autobiographical film , Platoon , for which he received Oscars for Best Film and Best Director , among others .
Driven by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demons first brought on by his mismatched parents ’ divorce when he was fifteen , Stone dropped out of Yale , his father ’ s alma mater , where he had enrolled to fulfill his stockbroker father ’ s dream .
He accepted an offer from a Catholic Church group to teach English-speaking high school students in Chalon , a suburb of Saigon , which he did for six months before traveling around southeast Asia .
Back in Saigon , he joined the merchant marine and worked his way back to the states @ @ @ @ @ @ @ job on the ship .
After a storm-tossed 37 days journey , he was cured of his desire to go to sea , a romantic fascination he had acquired from literature .
The lesson : Books are not life , nor are movies – they are ways to shape and illuminate it .
Back in the states he threw himself into writing , his first love and the place where his “ anxieties could be relieved ” and where he felt he could confirm his independent existence separate from his parents .
Through @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He wrote a novel called , A Child ’ s Night Dream .
He reentered Yale but only lasted a few months since his heart was not in the placid life of academia , having already had a taste of the wandering life .
He then quit Yale for good , to his father ’ s great disappointment .
Lou Stone thought Oliver might turn into a “ bum , ” a painful refrain in this memoir .
This twisted parental inculcation of shame and fear cast a deep shadow on Oliver ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ghosts that he spent years trying to outrun by becoming a workaholic desperate for success .
His novel was subsequently rejected and he fell into a deep depression and self-loathing .
Suicidal at nineteen , he volunteered to serve in the US Army in Vietnam to expiate his guilt , shame , and self-loathing , thinking that perhaps God would take his life for him .
“ Odysseus thought he would return home when he left Ithaca , ” he writes , “ I wasn ’ t sure of anything… ” It was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , after a terrifying night battle along the Cambodia border where his unit was in a hot zone interdicting North Vietnamese Army troops coming through Laos and Cambodia toward Saigon , when he experienced a profound light experience very different from the type he would later chase while making films .
The battle raged throughout the dark jungle night where confusion and terror reigned .
It was impossible to hear or see , and although 25 Americans and 400 North Vietnamese were killed , Stone “ hadn ’ t seen a single one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ although he performed bravely .
Here is his brilliantly disturbing and revealing description of what ensued [ emphasis added ] .
So after fifty years in another life , the survivor remembers in that odd mixture that memory is , a shaping force that relies on the light of experience to enhance the existential marriage of hope lost and found , fact and fiction joined to find the truth of an epiphany .
He continues : These passages appear early in the book , and I quote them not just to point out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s title – only something a truly creative writer would conceive – but because the dual theme of chasing and being chased by the light is central to Oliver ’ s life story .
It is a tale of a split-soul , the twice-wounded warrior who receives a Bronze Star for heroism but who hates war and journeys to get back home where he can rest with his family by the hearth and feel at peace , and the wild , restless , tormented free pirate sailing for adventure and new discoveries .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ simple matter , especially when you left because home had set the conflict in your heart in the first place , as it did for Stone .
Home is a country as much as a family , and this personal tale is also a guidebook through modern American history , a country riven since the 1960s .
A country that ’ s been feeding on lies that had “ infected everything , and I was still numb from it .
Because I ’ d basically never woken up.
” But there are epiphanies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , intuitions , hunches , risks he takes , and there are luminescent passages throughout this book to crack open the reader ’ s consciousness to a second reality .
Chasing the Light is not a superficial trip down memory lane like so many memoirs by famous people ; Stone is a wonderful writer , and as with his films , he takes you deep to places you may wish to avoid but are essential for true sanity .
The great thing about this memoir is his passion for truth and life that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the reader by the throat and shouts : Consciousness !
Wake up !
Don ’ t let sleep and forgetfulness make you into one of the living-dead !
A lesson he learned fortuitously at NYU when he took a course in classical drama and his professor , Tim Leahy , raged about the fate of Odysseus and how he was the only one of his crew to get back home because he dared to keep his eyes and ears open to both the dark and light forces whirling all around him .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forgetfulness .
But as the fates decreed , when the desperately poor warrior Stone came back from Vietnam to NYC and was still struggling to find his way back to a true home he couldn ’ t envision , writing to make sense of his life , he encountered his Calypso , as did Odysseus along his wandering journey to get home to Ithaca .
Her name was Najwa Sarkis , an older Lebanese woman who worked at the United Nations .
They fell together and for five years Najwa gave Oliver shelter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the East 50s .
The sex was passionate and the living conditions in Calypso ’ s cave comfortable , and although they married at her insistence , it was like his parents ’ marriage , built on a lie .
“ I can ’ t say the marriage , from my side , ” he writes , “ was built on love , but rather on comfort and caring for each other.
” Tempted to stay by the thought of comfort , as Odysseus was by the promise of immortality , Stone finally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , packs his bags and leaves “ his goddess.
” He knew he wasn ’ t home yet and had to risk much more to try to get there .
So Odysseus heads to the uptown subway with his two suitcases .
Vietnam haunts him .
He starts to write what eventually will become the script for Platoon , using Odysseus as his template and example of conscious behavior to expose all the lies of the Vietnam war and the insidious hypocrisy of American life .
As in Tennyson ’ s poem about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to seek , to find , and not to yield , ” the memoirist , himself now not young , says : Throughout this book , Stone is very hard on himself as well as the country : He tells us he didn ’ t wake up until he was nearly thirty-years-old – in 1976 .
Ever since he has devoted his life to the art of waking up his fellow Americans through writing and filmmaking , which he had the great good fortune to learn at NYU film school from that other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who was his professor .
Scorsese shone a light on Oliver after he had made a short film without dialogue called Last Year in Vietnam .
It was shown to the class , a tough group of critics , but before anyone had spoken , Scorsese said , “ Well – this is a filmmaker.
” It was an epiphany that Stone says he will never forget .
A pure gift that set him on his way to eventually make his great films .
But the journey was hard and took years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Jacqueline Pauline Cézarine Goddet , and his father , Louis Stone ( born Abraham Louis Silverstein ) , were married in Paris as World War II ended .
He was an US Army officer and she , a “ peasant ” French girl , were mismatched from the start .
They “ made possibly the greatest mistake of their lives – to which I owe my existence , ” he tells us .
Oliver became very close to his French grandparents , especially his Mémé .
As he was struggling to write @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his beloved grandmother dies and he goes to France for her funeral .
There is a scene in this memoir – I almost said movie – where he arrives alone in a suburb of Paris where she is laid out in her musty apartment in an old apartment building .
He felt the dead were calling to him from the past – Vietnam , France .
So much death , so many lies , betrayals .
He writes : For Oliver , his Mémé was like a mother to him , and with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who had predeceased her , was a symbol of what family life should be all about , the family Oliver had lost and desperately wished for .
Home as love and commitment .
“ Without a family , we one and all suffer , ” he says .
In less than four pages , his description of this encounter with his grandmother illuminates the heart of this memoir and is an exquisite example of a great artist at work .
An artist who uses words to touch your soul , heart-breaking , tender @ @ @ @ @ @ @ different from the often-popular image of Stone .
I would buy this book for these four pages alone .
Listen : I drew up my chair closer to be with her , like we ’ d been when I was young , cuddled in her big bed as she told me the stories of the wolves in Paris who ’ d come down the chimneys to snatch the children who ’ d been bad…There was the silence of ‘ la mort , ’ and then the October light began to drop .
No @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me .
And you , Mémé – and that something listening between us .
Not long ago I ’ d been twenty-three .
You were so happy when I ’ d returned in one piece from over there .
I ’ d tried to pay my debt to society .
We all have one , we don ’ t only live for ourselves .
But I still felt uneasy and Mémé did too .
What did Vietnam have to do with saving our civilization when it only made the world more callous ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Three wars in your life time…I ’ d done nothing .
I ’ d achieved nothing .
Therefore I was nothing…I was crying but didn ’ t know I was until I felt the tears .
I hadn ’ t cried in so any years – I was a hard boy .
I had to be , I felt , to survive .
I was raised to believe men don ’ t cry .
But this time it feels fresh , like a rain .
But who am I crying to ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ re not the one judging me .
You never have .
Is it my self I ’ m crying to ?
My self , but who was that ?
I could not see myself .
I was ugly , hiding .
I could cry myself dry with self-pity .
All this pain , so much pain .
Yes , I feel it now – feel sorry for myself , it ’ s okay – so raw , all my lies , my embarrassment naked for the dead to see , naked to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , no one will ever love me .
Because I can ’ t love anyone – except you , Mémé , and you ’ re gone now .
Can I…can I learn to love ?
How can I start ?
By just being kind like you were ?
Can I be kind – to myself ?
In my mind , I heard Mémé reply : ‘ Try – you ’ re a man now .
You ’ re no longer seventeen sitting on the sidelines of your life , judging .
You ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tears .
Now ’ s the time to recognize this , Oliver , Oliver , Oliver ’ – my name , invoked three times to rouse myself , to wake myself from this long slumber .
Do something with your life , I demanded , all this energy bottled up for years , hopeless dreaming and writing , no excuse , you can do better .
Stop fucking around..Mémé continued speaking to me so gently .
That soft voice : ‘ Mon chéri , mon p ’ tit Oliverre , te fais pas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fais ce que tu veux faire .
C ’ est tout ce quil y a. Je t ’ embrasse , je t ’ adore.
’ ( My darling , my little Oliver , don ’ t be miserable for nothing…Make your life .
Do what you have to do .
That ’ s all there is .
I embrace you , I adore you . )
…The other shades were approaching now , smelling the blood , so many young men groaning…faces distorted in death .
There was whispering , many voices .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t forget me !
Where you goin ’ ?
Gim me some !
Hey , tell my girl you saw me , will ya ?
Remember me , will ya ?
You got a joint ?
’ Mémé wanted me to go – quickly , before it was too late .
I couldn ’ t hear , but it clear what the shades were saying : We , the dead , are telling you – your lifespan is short .
Make of it everything you can .
Before you ’ re one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mémé ’ s face one last time…Au revoir , ma belle Mémé .
And I walked out – as she looked away and began slaking her thirst with the others…I walked the silent streets to the Metro .
Like in a dreamscape , there were no living people .
Maybe that ’ s the reason we die .
It makes us want to live again .
Oliver does exactly that .
Reborn , determined , he returns to the U.S. and makes his life by making the illuminating movies that have made his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what his father advised him .
“ People don ’ t want to know the truth , ” his father told him .
“ Reality is too tough .
They go to the movies to get away from all that.
” He knew his “ very nature was unacceptable to the fantasy world of moviegoers , ” but he wasn ’ t home yet and pushes on , getting in lots of trouble for telling truths people don ’ t want to hear , except perhaps the dead .
But making those films @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was another form of warfare , treacherous , filled with betrayals , drugs , Hollywood a place where you had to watch your back .
Just when the battle seemed over and you had won , another rocket would explode at your feet , throwing you for a loop .
It would take another toll on Stone .
So often , when he would think his screenplay or deal to direct a film was secured – that the stone he had rolled to the top of the hill was set – back it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ often what seemed to be up was down and that when he thought he was at the top , he was soon on the bottom .
The years that followed were a roller coaster ride .
He writes truthfully about his need to quell his anxiety with a host of drugs that fueled his days and nights and led to addiction , his guilt and confusion , his partying like his glamorous party-loving mother , who “ was there for me , and yet she wasn ’ t ; it was more like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us how he was always running from something , writing , hustling , trying to justify himself as he traveled toward a home called success , the bitch-goddess Success , the pipe dream nurtured in Hollywood .
In numerous chapters , a reader fascinated with the nuts and bolts of filmmaking , from the screenplay through directing , financing , casting , editing , distributing , etc.
, will delight in his detailed description of the movie game .
Midnight Express , Scarface , Salvador , Platoon are explored in depth .
If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Charlie Sheen , Michael Cimino , James Woods , Dino De Laurentiis , the wild Richard Boyle , et al.
, it ’ s all here .
The good , bad , and the ugly .
Gossip or insights , call it what you will .
It ’ s all interesting .
Stone writes about his second wife , Elizabeth , the joy that the birth of their son , his first child , Sean , brought him , the conflicts that developed as he ’ s torn between home life and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even if it ’ s leading you off a cliff.
” He wrote in his diary : By the end of the book , Oliver , now forty-years-old in 1987 , is on the top of the world when he wins Oscars for Platoon , and although he revels in this victory , something continues to eat at him , as if he hadn ’ t really reached Ithaca , but was still on the journey .
“ So I ’ d come to this moment in time , ” he writes .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ yes , but was I being seduced by this vindication , this proving myself to my father ; was it the acceptance , the power ?
What did I really believe ?
” The double-minded rascal was still alive and at sea , despite saying that , “ And truthfully , I don ’ t think I ’ d ever been happier.
” He had finally achieved great film success , had a lovely wife and child , a garden , his books , a pool to jump in .
Tranquility .
No @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will have to await a sequel to Chasing the Light to see if Odysseus ever finds his way to his true home .
In the meantime , Charlie Sheen ’ s words at the end of Platoon will have to suffice : Edward Curtin is a writer whose work has appeared widely .
He teaches sociology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts .
His website is http : //edwardcurtin.com/ .
He is the author of the new book Seeking Truth in A Country of Lies

Edward Curtin
Like the wandering and rascally Odysseus upon whom he models his life, Oliver Stone is “double-minded” in the most profound and illuminating ways. The title of his fantastic new memoir is a case in point.
“One of the first basic lessons in filming,” he writes, “is chasing the light. Without it, you have nothing – no exposure that can be seen; even what you see with your naked eye needs to be shaped and enhanced by the light.”
For as a true artist living out a marriage between his writing and his filmmaking, his father and his mother, the warrior and the peacemaker, the domesticated and wild man, he has chosen a title that has a double meaning that is subtly woven like a thread through this labyrinthine tale. It takes the reader from his childhood through his service in Vietnam and his struggles as a writer and filmmaker up to 1987 and his great success with his powerful autobiographical film, Platoon, for which he received Oscars for Best Film and Best Director, among others.
Driven by a youthful urge to escape his internal demons first brought on by his mismatched parents’ divorce when he was fifteen, Stone dropped out of Yale, his father’s alma mater, where he had enrolled to fulfill his stockbroker father’s dream. He accepted an offer from a Catholic Church group to teach English-speaking high school students in Chalon, a suburb of Saigon, which he did for six months before traveling around southeast Asia.
Back in Saigon, he joined the merchant marine and worked his way back to the states cleaning boilers, the lowest and dirtiest job on the ship. After a storm-tossed 37 days journey, he was cured of his desire to go to sea, a romantic fascination he had acquired from literature.
The lesson: Books are not life, nor are movies – they are ways to shape and illuminate it.
Back in the states he threw himself into writing, his first love and the place where his “anxieties could be relieved” and where he felt he could confirm his independent existence separate from his parents. Through writing he could control his story. He wrote a novel called, A Child’s Night Dream.
He reentered Yale but only lasted a few months since his heart was not in the placid life of academia, having already had a taste of the wandering life. He then quit Yale for good, to his father’s great disappointment.
Lou Stone thought Oliver might turn into a “bum,” a painful refrain in this memoir. This twisted parental inculcation of shame and fear cast a deep shadow on Oliver’s soul and became one of the ghosts that he spent years trying to outrun by becoming a workaholic desperate for success. His novel was subsequently rejected and he fell into a deep depression and self-loathing.
Suicidal at nineteen, he volunteered to serve in the US Army in Vietnam to expiate his guilt, shame, and self-loathing, thinking that perhaps God would take his life for him.
“Odysseus thought he would return home when he left Ithaca,” he writes, “I wasn’t sure of anything…”
It was in Vietnam on January 1-2, 1968, after a terrifying night battle along the Cambodia border where his unit was in a hot zone interdicting North Vietnamese Army troops coming through Laos and Cambodia toward Saigon, when he experienced a profound light experience very different from the type he would later chase while making films.
The battle raged throughout the dark jungle night where confusion and terror reigned. It was impossible to hear or see, and although 25 Americans and 400 North Vietnamese were killed, Stone “hadn’t seen a single one of them [Vietnamese],” although he performed bravely. Here is his brilliantly disturbing and revealing description of what ensued [emphasis added].
Full daylight revealed charred bodies, dusty napalm, and gray trees. Men who died grimacing, in frozen positions, some of them still standing or kneeling in rigor mortis, white chemical death on their faces. Dead, so dead. Some covered with white ash, some burned black. Their expressions, if they could still be seen, were overtaken with anguish or horror. How do you die like this? Charging forward in a hailstorm of death into these bombs and artillery. Why? Were you terrified, or were you jacked out of your fucking mind? What kind of death did you achieve? It was frightening to contemplate, and yet, I wasn’t scared. It was exciting. It was as if I passed from this world and was somewhere where the light was being specially displayed to me in a preview of another life. Soldiers might say it was hell, but I saw it as divine; the closest man would ever come to the Holy Spirit was to witness and survive this great, destructive energy.
So after fifty years in another life, the survivor remembers in that odd mixture that memory is, a shaping force that relies on the light of experience to enhance the existential marriage of hope lost and found, fact and fiction joined to find the truth of an epiphany. He continues:
No person should ever have to witness so much death. I really was too young to understand, and thus I erased much of it, remembering it in this strange way as a stunningly beautiful night full of fireworks, in which I hadn’t seen a single enemy, been fired on, or fired at anyone. It’d been like a dream through which I’d walked unharmed, grateful of course, but numb and puzzled by it all. It reminded me of passages in Homer of gods and goddesses coming down from Mount Olympus to the bloody battlefields at Troy to help their favorites, wrapping a mist or cloak around them and winging them to safety.
These passages appear early in the book, and I quote them not just to point out the dual nature of the book’s title – only something a truly creative writer would conceive – but because the dual theme of chasing and being chased by the light is central to Oliver’s life story.
It is a tale of a split-soul, the twice-wounded warrior who receives a Bronze Star for heroism but who hates war and journeys to get back home where he can rest with his family by the hearth and feel at peace, and the wild, restless, tormented free pirate sailing for adventure and new discoveries.
Of course getting back home is no simple matter, especially when you left because home had set the conflict in your heart in the first place, as it did for Stone.
Home is a country as much as a family, and this personal tale is also a guidebook through modern American history, a country riven since the 1960s. A country that’s been feeding on lies that had “infected everything, and I was still numb from it. Because I’d basically never woken up.”
But there are epiphanies along the way that wake Stone up, intuitions, hunches, risks he takes, and there are luminescent passages throughout this book to crack open the reader’s consciousness to a second reality.
Chasing the Light is not a superficial trip down memory lane like so many memoirs by famous people; Stone is a wonderful writer, and as with his films, he takes you deep to places you may wish to avoid but are essential for true sanity. The great thing about this memoir is his passion for truth and life that courses through its pages.
He seizes the reader by the throat and shouts: Consciousness! Wake up! Don’t let sleep and forgetfulness make you into one of the living-dead!
A lesson he learned fortuitously at NYU when he took a course in classical drama and his professor, Tim Leahy, raged about the fate of Odysseus and how he was the only one of his crew to get back home because he dared to keep his eyes and ears open to both the dark and light forces whirling all around him. He refused “LETHE” – sleep and forgetfulness.
But as the fates decreed, when the desperately poor warrior Stone came back from Vietnam to NYC and was still struggling to find his way back to a true home he couldn’t envision, writing to make sense of his life, he encountered his Calypso, as did Odysseus along his wandering journey to get home to Ithaca.
Her name was Najwa Sarkis, an older Lebanese woman who worked at the United Nations. They fell together and for five years Najwa gave Oliver shelter from the storm in her apartment in the East 50s. The sex was passionate and the living conditions in Calypso’s cave comfortable, and although they married at her insistence, it was like his parents’ marriage, built on a lie.
“I can’t say the marriage, from my side,” he writes, “was built on love, but rather on comfort and caring for each other.” Tempted to stay by the thought of comfort, as Odysseus was by the promise of immortality, Stone finally admits the truth to Najwa and himself, packs his bags and leaves “his goddess.”
He knew he wasn’t home yet and had to risk much more to try to get there.
The flaw was that I hadn’t grown into my own man. This I knew in my gut – that I hadn’t yet been successful as a writer because I’d failed to complete the journey I started when I went to Vietnam.”
So Odysseus heads to the uptown subway with his two suitcases.
Vietnam haunts him. He starts to write what eventually will become the script for Platoon, using Odysseus as his template and example of conscious behavior to expose all the lies of the Vietnam war and the insidious hypocrisy of American life.
As in Tennyson’s poem about the older Odysseus, still wanting “to seek, to find, and not to yield,” the memoirist, himself now not young, says:
In my seventy-plus years from 1946 to now, the chorus of fear-mongering bullshit has never ceased – only grown louder. The joke is on us. Ha Ha Ha.”
Throughout this book, Stone is very hard on himself as well as the country:
I had my story, I realized. I was no hero. I slept on my consciousness. My whole country, our society had. But at the least – If I could tell the truth of what I’d seen – it was better than…what? Nothing – the void of a meaningless war and waste of life while our society was stuffing it’s ears with wax. Odysseus, lashing himself to his mast to preserve his sanity, had insisted on hearing the Sirens, and remembering it. Whereas I was honored for my service to my country, the truth was I soiled myself when I could’ve resisted, exiled myself, gone to jail for it like the Berrigans, the Spocks, and some 200,000 others. I was young, yes, and I can say that I didn’t know better, that I was part of the unconsciousness of my country.
He tells us he didn’t wake up until he was nearly thirty-years-old – in 1976.
Ever since he has devoted his life to the art of waking up his fellow Americans through writing and filmmaking, which he had the great good fortune to learn at NYU film school from that other passionate New York filmmaker, Martin Scorsese, who was his professor.
Scorsese shone a light on Oliver after he had made a short film without dialogue called Last Year in Vietnam. It was shown to the class, a tough group of critics, but before anyone had spoken, Scorsese said, “Well – this is a filmmaker.”
It was an epiphany that Stone says he will never forget. A pure gift that set him on his way to eventually make his great films.
But the journey was hard and took years to complete.
Stone’s mother, Jacqueline Pauline Cézarine Goddet, and his father, Louis Stone (born Abraham Louis Silverstein), were married in Paris as World War II ended. He was an US Army officer and she, a “peasant” French girl, were mismatched from the start.
They “made possibly the greatest mistake of their lives – to which I owe my existence,” he tells us. Oliver became very close to his French grandparents, especially his Mémé. As he was struggling to write successful screenplays and break into filmmaking, his beloved grandmother dies and he goes to France for her funeral.
There is a scene in this memoir – I almost said movie – where he arrives alone in a suburb of Paris where she is laid out in her musty apartment in an old apartment building. He felt the dead were calling to him from the past – Vietnam, France. So much death, so many lies, betrayals. He writes:
I thought about how Odysseus went to the Underworld to find Tiresias for a prophecy about when and how he’d return home to Ithaca. And once in the Underworld, he recognized his mother, Anticlea, who, like the other shades, had come to him to slake herself at the pool of sheep’s blood he had sacrificed to get there.
For Oliver, his Mémé was like a mother to him, and with her forty-year marriage to her beloved Pépé who had predeceased her, was a symbol of what family life should be all about, the family Oliver had lost and desperately wished for. Home as love and commitment. “Without a family, we one and all suffer,” he says.
In less than four pages, his description of this encounter with his grandmother illuminates the heart of this memoir and is an exquisite example of a great artist at work. An artist who uses words to touch your soul, heart-breaking, tender, and hopeful in turns, far different from the often-popular image of Stone. I would buy this book for these four pages alone. Listen:
I drew up my chair closer to be with her, like we’d been when I was young, cuddled in her big bed as she told me the stories of the wolves in Paris who’d come down the chimneys to snatch the children who’d been bad…There was the silence of ‘la mort,’ and then the October light began to drop. No one else knocked or visited. Just me. And you, Mémé – and that something listening between us. Not long ago I’d been twenty-three. You were so happy when I’d returned in one piece from over there. I’d tried to pay my debt to society. We all have one, we don’t only live for ourselves. But I still felt uneasy and Mémé did too. What did Vietnam have to do with saving our civilization when it only made the world more callous? You never asked me for an explanation. Three wars in your life time…I’d done nothing. I’d achieved nothing. Therefore I was nothing…I was crying but didn’t know I was until I felt the tears. I hadn’t cried in so any years – I was a hard boy. I had to be, I felt, to survive. I was raised to believe men don’t cry. But this time it feels fresh, like a rain. But who am I crying to? Not you, Mémé – you’re not the one judging me. You never have. Is it my self I’m crying to? My self, but who was that? I could not see myself. I was ugly, hiding. I could cry myself dry with self-pity. All this pain, so much pain. Yes, I feel it now – feel sorry for myself, it’s okay – so raw, all my lies, my embarrassment naked for the dead to see, naked to the whole world! No one loves me, no one will ever love me. Because I can’t love anyone – except you, Mémé, and you’re gone now. Can I…can I learn to love? How can I start? By just being kind like you were? Can I be kind – to myself? In my mind, I heard Mémé reply: ‘Try – you’re a man now. You’re no longer seventeen sitting on the sidelines of your life, judging. You’ve seen this world, tasted its tears. Now’s the time to recognize this, Oliver, Oliver, Oliver’ – my name, invoked three times to rouse myself, to wake myself from this long slumber. Do something with your life, I demanded, all this energy bottled up for years, hopeless dreaming and writing, no excuse, you can do better. Stop fucking around..Mémé continued speaking to me so gently. That soft voice: ‘Mon chéri, mon p’tit Oliverre, te fais pas de soucis pour rien…Fais ta vie. Fais ce que tu veux faire. C’est tout ce quil y a. Je t’embrasse, je t’adore.’ (My darling, my little Oliver, don’t be miserable for nothing…Make your life. Do what you have to do. That’s all there is. I embrace you, I adore you.) …The other shades were approaching now, smelling the blood, so many young men groaning…faces distorted in death. There was whispering, many voices. ‘Stone, hey man, don’t forget me! Where you goin’? Gimme some! Hey, tell my girl you saw me, will ya? Remember me, will ya? You got a joint?’ Mémé wanted me to go – quickly, before it was too late. I couldn’t hear, but it clear what the shades were saying: We, the dead, are telling you – your lifespan is short. Make of it everything you can. Before you’re one of us. I rose and kissed Mémé’s face one last time…Au revoir, ma belle Mémé. And I walked out – as she looked away and began slaking her thirst with the others…I walked the silent streets to the Metro. Like in a dreamscape, there were no living people. Maybe that’s the reason we die. It makes us want to live again.
Oliver does exactly that. Reborn, determined, he returns to the U.S. and makes his life by making the illuminating movies that have made his reputation. He does the opposite of what his father advised him.
“People don’t want to know the truth,” his father told him. “Reality is too tough. They go to the movies to get away from all that.” He knew his “very nature was unacceptable to the fantasy world of moviegoers,” but he wasn’t home yet and pushes on, getting in lots of trouble for telling truths people don’t want to hear, except perhaps the dead.
But making those films was far from smooth sailing. It was another form of warfare, treacherous, filled with betrayals, drugs, Hollywood a place where you had to watch your back. Just when the battle seemed over and you had won, another rocket would explode at your feet, throwing you for a loop. It would take another toll on Stone.
So often, when he would think his screenplay or deal to direct a film was secured – that the stone he had rolled to the top of the hill was set – back it would roll. He would find that often what seemed to be up was down and that when he thought he was at the top, he was soon on the bottom. The years that followed were a roller coaster ride.
He writes truthfully about his need to quell his anxiety with a host of drugs that fueled his days and nights and led to addiction, his guilt and confusion, his partying like his glamorous party-loving mother, who “was there for me, and yet she wasn’t; it was more like she was on display.”
He tells us how he was always running from something, writing, hustling, trying to justify himself as he traveled toward a home called success, the bitch-goddess Success, the pipe dream nurtured in Hollywood.
In numerous chapters, a reader fascinated with the nuts and bolts of filmmaking, from the screenplay through directing, financing, casting, editing, distributing, etc., will delight in his detailed description of the movie game. Midnight Express, Scarface, Salvador, Platoon are explored in depth.
If you want to know about Al Pacino, Charlie Sheen, Michael Cimino, James Woods, Dino De Laurentiis, the wild Richard Boyle, et al., it’s all here. The good, bad, and the ugly. Gossip or insights, call it what you will. It’s all interesting.
Stone writes about his second wife, Elizabeth, the joy that the birth of their son, his first child, Sean, brought him, the conflicts that developed as he’s torn between home life and the mad pursuit of filmmaking, “even if it’s leading you off a cliff.” He wrote in his diary:
What have I become? A Macbeth of workaholics. I’ve worked straight 17 years, two scripts a year, etc., and what has it brought me? Never been able to relax, but must. I’m always running like a mad rabbit down an Alice in Wonderland hole, always getting bigger or smaller and never knowing what will happen next.”
By the end of the book, Oliver, now forty-years-old in 1987, is on the top of the world when he wins Oscars for Platoon, and although he revels in this victory, something continues to eat at him, as if he hadn’t really reached Ithaca, but was still on the journey.
“So I’d come to this moment in time,” he writes. “Success was a beautiful goddess, yes, but was I being seduced by this vindication, this proving myself to my father; was it the acceptance, the power? What did I really believe?”
The double-minded rascal was still alive and at sea, despite saying that, “And truthfully, I don’t think I’d ever been happier.” He had finally achieved great film success, had a lovely wife and child, a garden, his books, a pool to jump in. Tranquility.
No. He tells us:
Mine was a free man’s life, without a home, really, except for the wenches in the local ports, like Sabatini’s Captain Blood, who ‘was born with a gift for laughter and the sense that the world was mad.’ Thus it remains a split in my soul – the home, the hearth, and then out into the wind with your crew – Odysseus’s ‘I am become a name.’ Could this be? Could I live two different lives? Like those hard men I’d worked with in the merchant marine twenty years before – six months on land, six at sea; unsettled, eccentric men who remained free in their souls yet tormented. In the next years, I’d live out this split in my nature to the fullest.
The reader will have to await a sequel to Chasing the Light to see if Odysseus ever finds his way to his true home.
In the meantime, Charlie Sheen’s words at the end of Platoon will have to suffice:
Those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again, to teach to others what we know, and to try with what’s left of our lives to find a goodness and meaning to this life.
Edward Curtin is a writer whose work has appeared widely. He teaches sociology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. His website is http://edwardcurtin.com/. He is the author of the new book Seeking Truth in A Country of Lies


offguardian--2020-08-30--Three New Reads – August

Three New Reads – August

There ’ s been more than one reason for my long silence on CV-19 , so readers might forgive me – if they forgive me on nothing else – for so long an introduction to my first read of the month , by the Oxford theoretical epidemiologist , Sunetra Gupta .
My second read ’ s a characteristically close argued piece by Craig Murray on the transparency – in and of itself worrying – of the UK government ’ s attempts to silence “ Russia trolls ” .
Yes , we know who they are by their use of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , for the second time in less than a week , I ’ m offering in all seriousness a piece on China by that crypto-marxist outlet , the Economist .
Try as it might , it can ’ t quite conceal its grudging respect for Mr Xi ’ s China !
We may already have herd immunity – interview with Sunetra Gupta ( 4426 words ) I ’ ve been having a hard time over Covid-19 .
It ’ s not that I lost a dear friend to it in May .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ m open to the views of some sceptics – Kit Knightly at OffGuardian , Profs Bakhdi and Wittkowski , Prof Piers Robinson and the Swiss Propaganda Group – my refusal to commit on a matter I don ’ t know enough about enrages or disappoints even some of my friends .
I ’ ve spoken of a religiosity of tone in many who challenge the idea that CV-19 is as serious as claimed .
They may be right , though epidemiologists have been telling us since SARS 2003 that a global pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
( See Mike Davis , Planet of Slums author and one of my three April reads . )
Is this the big one we ’ ve been promised for the best part of two decades ?
I don ’ t know , though I suspect not .
But my agnosticism angers some .
Which begs the question , what are they doing ?
It ’ s clear what those named in my opening paragraph are doing .
They are tireless in alerting us to their view that we ’ re sleepwalking into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or at the very least have bought into a suboptimal response to a threat overstated .
Like Professors Bhakdi ( his open letter to Chancellor Merkel ignored by mainstream media ) and Wittkowski ( censored by Youtube ) Professor Sunetra Gupta , my first read , insists that even on clinical , let alone socioeconomic grounds , wholesale lockdown is not the way to go .
But my experience is that those who apply Believes/Does Not Believe ‘ the official narrative ’ on CV-19 as the acid test of a person ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any subject are zealots .
Yes , this is a moral judgment .
And unlike those named earlier , most do nothing .
No , this is not a moral judgment .
My point – I paid top dollar for this insight from a flawed but brilliant spiritual teacher – is that the importance of the internal babble we call thought is more overegged than even the most draconian of claims by the CV-19 ‘ official narrative ’ .
How could it possibly matter a bean what a person believes , if no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same with 9/11 .
There ’ s a hard core of ‘ truthers ’ for whom a person who Gets This Wrong need not be listened to on any political matter .
Not only is this an absurd piece of reductivism .
* Again the question is begged : what does it matter what we believe unless belief informs praxis ?
We can ’ t all be writers or epidemiologists .
But we can all apply our energies and organisational skills to advance causes we hold dear .
If we mean business @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sneering at the saps who ’ ve been taken in ?
It might make us feel good about ourselves , but it ’ s lousy salesmanship .
I take the questions arising from CV-19 and governmental responses seriously , but less so than the war fever on China ( too similar in its drivers and implications to that on Russia for either to be viewed in isolation from the other ) .
Even on its own terms I don ’ t see the question – is CV-19 truly as bad as they say @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That honour goes to one more pressing , more practical , and in principle capable of uniting sceptics , agnostics and believers .
Who will decide the terms on which lockdown ends and how will we resist our rulers ’ inevitable attempts to saddle us , as they did after 2008 , with the bill for its immense economic consequences ?
But back to Sunetra Gupta .
Call me a dirty lowdown agnostic , but might my promoting her here be an act almost as useful as sneering at the deluded ?
…the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they thought of Russian propagandists .
Every one of the witnesses makes their living from postulating the Russian threat .
They said the Russian threat is very big indeed .
…the Intelligence and Security Committee Report on Russia is so flawed it is tempting to mock it .
But it calls expressly and repeatedly for the security services to be actively involved in “ policing the democratic space ” and castigates the security services for their unwillingness to interfere in democratic process .
It calls for tough government action against social media who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ believes inspired by foreign states .
It accepts Integrity Initiative ’ s Christopher Donnelly and Ben Nimmo as good identifiers of material which should be banned – though Nimmo stated that use of the phrase “ Cui bono ” is indicative of a Russian troll …It remains the most important single fact in British politics that , despite the fact almost everybody now acknowledges it was a disaster , nobody ever lost their job for supporting the Iraq war .
Quite a few lost their job for opposing it , Greg Dyke , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Morgan among them .
It is a simple matter of fact that the Iraq War ’ s biggest cheerleaders dominate the London political and media landscape , whereas there is no critic of the Iraq War in an important position of power .
As the drive towards war on Russia ( and more immediately China ) continues apace – see my recent post , Our beautifully democratic wars – former UK Ambassador Craig Murray applies his forensic skills to the risible notion that “ Russia , rather than deep disaffection of the less @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Brexit and even support for Scottish Independence.
” Xi Jinping is trying to remake the Chinese economy ( 3529 words ) As in my post earlier in the week on Huawei , I ’ m again recommending a China piece from the Economist .
The well read red keeps tabs on that organ , whose mood music carries truths liberal media daren ’ t deliver .
Not that this fascinating read , replete with every prejudice in the Economist book – above all private profit good ; state control baad – reveals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fissures within Western ruling classes on matters China .
It ’ s a good read simply because its look at China ’ s economy , under Xi ’ s stewardship , is not only more detailed than anything you ’ ll get in more general media .
It is also , for all its obligatory deprecations , shot through with what looks suspiciously like grudging respect .

Philip Roddis
There’s been more than one reason for my long silence on CV-19, so readers might forgive me – if they forgive me on nothing else – for so long an introduction to my first read of the month, by the Oxford theoretical epidemiologist, Sunetra Gupta.
My second read’s a characteristically close argued piece by Craig Murray on the transparency – in and of itself worrying – of the UK government’s attempts to silence “Russia trolls”. Yes, we know who they are by their use of the dog-whistle term, cui bono?
Finally, for the second time in less than a week, I’m offering in all seriousness a piece on China by that crypto-marxist outlet, the Economist. Try as it might, it can’t quite conceal its grudging respect for Mr Xi’s China!
*
I’ve been having a hard time over Covid-19. It’s not that I lost a dear friend to it in May. It’s more that, while I’m open to the views of some sceptics – Kit Knightly at OffGuardian, Profs Bakhdi and Wittkowski, Prof Piers Robinson and the Swiss Propaganda Group – my refusal to commit on a matter I don’t know enough about enrages or disappoints even some of my friends.
I’ve spoken of a religiosity of tone in many who challenge the idea that CV-19 is as serious as claimed. They may be right, though epidemiologists have been telling us since SARS 2003 that a global pandemic is a matter of when not if. (See Mike Davis, Planet of Slums author and one of my three April reads.)
Is this the big one we’ve been promised for the best part of two decades?
I don’t know, though I suspect not. But my agnosticism angers some. Which begs the question, what are they doing? It’s clear what those named in my opening paragraph are doing. They are tireless in alerting us to their view that we’re sleepwalking into ever more dangerous losses of liberty, or at the very least have bought into a suboptimal response to a threat overstated.
Like Professors Bhakdi (his open letter to Chancellor Merkel ignored by mainstream media) and Wittkowski (censored by Youtube) Professor Sunetra Gupta, my first read, insists that even on clinical, let alone socioeconomic grounds, wholesale lockdown is not the way to go.
But my experience is that those who apply Believes/Does Not Believe ‘the official narrative’ on CV-19 as the acid test of a person’s right to be heard on pretty much any subject are zealots. Yes, this is a moral judgment. And unlike those named earlier, most do nothing. No, this is not a moral judgment.
My point – I paid top dollar for this insight from a flawed but brilliant spiritual teacher – is that the importance of the internal babble we call thought is more overegged than even the most draconian of claims by the CV-19 ‘official narrative’. How could it possibly matter a bean what a person believes, if no practical consequences follow?
It’s the same with 9/11. There’s a hard core of ‘truthers’ for whom a person who Gets This Wrong need not be listened to on any political matter. Not only is this an absurd piece of reductivism.* Again the question is begged: what does it matter what we believe unless belief informs praxis?
We can’t all be writers or epidemiologists. But we can all apply our energies and organisational skills to advance causes we hold dear. If we mean business, why would we confine ourselves to sneering at the saps who’ve been taken in? It might make us feel good about ourselves, but it’s lousy salesmanship.
I take the questions arising from CV-19 and governmental responses seriously, but less so than the war fever on China (too similar in its drivers and implications to that on Russia for either to be viewed in isolation from the other).
Even on its own terms I don’t see the question – is CV-19 truly as bad as they say? – as the most important. That honour goes to one more pressing, more practical, and in principle capable of uniting sceptics, agnostics and believers. Who will decide the terms on which lockdown ends and how will we resist our rulers’ inevitable attempts to saddle us, as they did after 2008, with the bill for its immense economic consequences?
But back to Sunetra Gupta. Call me a dirty lowdown agnostic, but might my promoting her here be an act almost as useful as sneering at the deluded?
*
…the UK was asking its paid propagandists what they thought of Russian propagandists. Every one of the witnesses makes their living from postulating the Russian threat. They said the Russian threat is very big indeed. …the Intelligence and Security Committee Report on Russia is so flawed it is tempting to mock it. But it calls expressly and repeatedly for the security services to be actively involved in “policing the democratic space” and castigates the security services for their unwillingness to interfere in democratic process. It calls for tough government action against social media who refuse to censor and remove material it believes inspired by foreign states. It accepts Integrity Initiative’s Christopher Donnelly and Ben Nimmo as good identifiers of material which should be banned – though Nimmo stated that use of the phrase “Cui bono” is indicative of a Russian troll …It remains the most important single fact in British politics that, despite the fact almost everybody now acknowledges it was a disaster, nobody ever lost their job for supporting the Iraq war. Quite a few lost their job for opposing it, Greg Dyke, Carne Ross, Elizabeth Wilmshurst and Piers Morgan among them. It is a simple matter of fact that the Iraq War’s biggest cheerleaders dominate the London political and media landscape, whereas there is no critic of the Iraq War in an important position of power.
As the drive towards war on Russia (and more immediately China) continues apace – see my recent post, Our beautifully democratic wars – former UK Ambassador Craig Murray applies his forensic skills to the risible notion that “Russia, rather than deep disaffection of the less privileged classes, ’caused’ Trump, Brexit and even support for Scottish Independence.”
*
Mr Xi is not simply inflating the state at the expense of the private sector. Rather, he is presiding over what he hopes will be the creation of a more muscular form of state capitalism. The idea is for state-owned companies to get more market discipline and private enterprises to get more party discipline, the better to achieve China’s great collective mission. It is a project full of internal contradictions. But progress is already evident in some areas.
As in my post earlier in the week on Huawei, I’m again recommending a China piece from the Economist. The well read red keeps tabs on that organ, whose mood music carries truths liberal media daren’t deliver.
Not that this fascinating read, replete with every prejudice in the Economist book – above all private profit good; state control baad – reveals any deep state secrets, or highlights fissures within Western ruling classes on matters China.
It’s a good read simply because its look at China’s economy, under Xi’s stewardship, is not only more detailed than anything you’ll get in more general media. It is also, for all its obligatory deprecations, shot through with what looks suspiciously like grudging respect.
*Jan Oberg – Syria blogger who actually makes frequent trips there, splendid writer and photographer, and one of the few pacifists I truly have time for – has been attacked for not “speaking out” on 9/11 as an inside job. His response? “I blog only about things I know with certainty.” With you all the way, Jan.< a href=”#i”>^


offguardian--2020-08-31--OffG at Trafalgar Square

OffG at Trafalgar Square

Unite for Freedom protest was frenetic , cathartic and necessary – but held back by distractions and contradictions OffG ’ s Samuel May , aka Admin2 , was in London for the Unite for Freedom protest , and shares his experiences and impressions .
It is estimated that approximately 10,000 gathered in Trafalgar Square to protest on 29 August .
This may be an underestimate .
I perched atop a portacabin to gain the footage of the turnout you see here , and later joined the march to Downing Street .
The most notable thing was the huge diversity of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So much varying dress sense , hinting at so many varied backgrounds .
Middle-aged , middle-class women who looked like they ’ d never attended a rally in their lives .
Festival-wear-clad individuals with long hair , who looked like they probably had .
Burly , vocal , tattooed gentlemen and professional-looking types .
People old and young , although I would say young people were underrepresented at this demonstration .
The atmosphere was peaceful and welcoming .
The sense of relief at being amongst a crowd of similarly-minded people , of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brief and rare time , was visible on the faces of all those around .
The tone of the crowd , frequently chanting ‘ Shame on you ’ at police and establishment figures , was passionate and angry , but not at all violent .
There was no hint of violence throughout the protest , reflected in the very low number of police arrests .
I think it was two , including a gentleman in his 70s .
The emphasis was that ‘ we are the 99 % ’ , and that ‘ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power we , the people , choose to imbue it with .
Police presence in Trafalgar Square was minimal overall .
The number of officers were gradually stepped up at the start , however many of these officers were withdrawn quite suddenly a bit later and didn ’ t return .
Perhaps a decision not to intervene was reached .
Unfortunately police helicopters hovering overhead drowned out some of what was said by the speakers , from my position set some way back from the stage .
However the speakers were all passionate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ focus and the crowds responded well to him .
His message was that the covid agenda is a distraction to take away our basic human rights , used by powerful people , and we need to stop this from happening .
‘ You are being lied to ’ he emphasised .
He didn ’ t stray far off this topic and steered clear of more ‘ out there ’ theories .
He ’ s been extremely strong on this issue from the start .
He spoke passionately and well .
Kate Shemirani acted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ together the different speakers , and had plenty of valuable things to say .
Unfortunately I missed Dolores Cahill speaking and Vernon Coleman ’ s prerecorded address , but I managed to watch them later here and here .
Both extremely powerful in their own contrasting ways .
Dr Kevin Corbett , former nurse , also spoke excellently , and raised some amazing points .
Doctor Adil sounded like he was making a lot of sense , although he spoke quietly and much of what he said was drowned out by the helicopter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up with some splendid lyrical writing .
Senator Dr Scott Jensen , via audio uplink , spoke strongly for a time , but a technical hitch seemed to cut his bit short quite quickly .
Do I have any reservations ?
Yes , a few .
I work in theatre ( well worked , until lockdown closed them all ) .
If this was a theatre show I ’ d probably describe the actors as brilliant , but criticise the Director for lack of discipline in keeping the narrative spare and true .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the issue is important at the moment and unfortunately some of the speakers raised points that were irrelevant or self-contradictory or just pure speculation .
I heard declarations from Piers Corbyn and others that the virus wasn ’ t real or is virtually harmless juxtaposed with claims it ’ s actually caused by 5G and is part of a bid to kill us all .
Well , which is it ?
Because it can ’ t be both .
Kate Shemirani also diverted at some length into how flu vaccines actually alter us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ) , the dangers of fluoride , as well as stating that the biggest killer of black people in America is abortion under the Planned Parenthood initiative .
Institutional paedophilia and Qanon-related theories were mentioned by Chico and other speakers .
One speaker also publicly shamed an individual for wearing a mask during the rally – which is of course exactly the type of intolerance we are opposing .
The point is , surely , people must be free to choose – and if that means they want to wear a mask @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so without being pilloried .
OffG has tended to avoid giving too much space to claims that Covid19 is caused by or linked to 5g .
For much the same reasons I myself don ’ t conflate the two .
I haven ’ t seen any substantial evidence to link the two issues , medically or otherwise .
I may be wrong , and I am open to correction , but since I don ’ t feel the covid statistics require an exotic explanation , and since it ’ s the ‘ pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most immediate threat ( as opposed to wider health/surveillance implications ) , I don ’ t believe 5g has a useful place in any anti-covid campaign , at this time .
Likewise , Qanon stuff is not directly relevant .
Why blur the picture ?
Public perception of 5g skepticism is largely one of ridicule , so why risk discrediting a movement by bolting on this 5g side-issue ?
Why lend credence to the mainstream claim that SARSCOV2 is unique and dangerous and requires some exotic explanation , when all the evidence suggests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ things ?
What I mean is , maybe Piers Corbyn et al would be better off organising a 5G demonstration , and leaving it out of this issue .
For the first time there is a real chance to reach many more people , to inform them that the facts about covid are being distorted , to encourage people to question and inform themselves .
In order to pay respect to the many whistleblowers who have put their careers in danger – and encourage the doubtless many more waiting in the wings – @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one battle at a time and keep it simple ?
Why not stick to the basic fact that SARSCOV2 is demonstrated to be a largely harmless coronavirus , and encourage people to join us as opposed to seed divisiveness from the word go and risk alienating the very people we dearly wish to reach ?
These are my reservations , but they shouldn ’ t take anything away from the positive message this day of protest sends to all of us .
Despite the avalanche of propaganda urging conformity , many , many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Berlin and elsewhere – to express their refusal to be coerced and cowed into silence .
The strongest speakers stuck to a very clear message , a call to arms for people to question , question , question and oppose draconian social policy .
This was a terrific thing .
And we should all take a positive message from it .
Huge credit is due to the speakers , the organisers and all those who helped spread the word .

Unite for Freedom protest was frenetic, cathartic and necessary – but held back by distractions and contradictions
Sam May
OffG’s Samuel May, aka Admin2, was in London for the Unite for Freedom protest, and shares his experiences and impressions.
It is estimated that approximately 10,000 gathered in Trafalgar Square to protest on 29 August. This may be an underestimate. I perched atop a portacabin to gain the footage of the turnout you see here, and later joined the march to Downing Street.
The most notable thing was the huge diversity of those attending. So many different ethnicities. So much varying dress sense, hinting at so many varied backgrounds.
Middle-aged, middle-class women who looked like they’d never attended a rally in their lives. Festival-wear-clad individuals with long hair, who looked like they probably had. Burly, vocal, tattooed gentlemen and professional-looking types. People old and young, although I would say young people were underrepresented at this demonstration.
The atmosphere was peaceful and welcoming. The sense of relief at being amongst a crowd of similarly-minded people, of feeling some safety in numbers for a brief and rare time, was visible on the faces of all those around.
The tone of the crowd, frequently chanting ‘Shame on you’ at police and establishment figures, was passionate and angry, but not at all violent. There was no hint of violence throughout the protest, reflected in the very low number of police arrests. I think it was two, including a gentleman in his 70s.
The emphasis was that ‘we are the 99%’, and that ‘authority’ is only imbued with the power we, the people, choose to imbue it with.
Police presence in Trafalgar Square was minimal overall. The number of officers were gradually stepped up at the start, however many of these officers were withdrawn quite suddenly a bit later and didn’t return. Perhaps a decision not to intervene was reached.
Unfortunately police helicopters hovering overhead drowned out some of what was said by the speakers, from my position set some way back from the stage. However the speakers were all passionate and brave.
David Icke had real focus and the crowds responded well to him. His message was that the covid agenda is a distraction to take away our basic human rights, used by powerful people, and we need to stop this from happening. ‘You are being lied to’ he emphasised. He didn’t stray far off this topic and steered clear of more ‘out there’ theories. He’s been extremely strong on this issue from the start. He spoke passionately and well.
Kate Shemirani acted as a sort of MC, linking together the different speakers, and had plenty of valuable things to say.
Unfortunately I missed Dolores Cahill speaking and Vernon Coleman’s prerecorded address, but I managed to watch them later here and here. Both extremely powerful in their own contrasting ways.
Dr Kevin Corbett, former nurse, also spoke excellently, and raised some amazing points. Doctor Adil sounded like he was making a lot of sense, although he spoke quietly and much of what he said was drowned out by the helicopter rotors.
Chico really got the energy up with some splendid lyrical writing. Senator Dr Scott Jensen, via audio uplink, spoke strongly for a time, but a technical hitch seemed to cut his bit short quite quickly.
*
Do I have any reservations? Yes, a few.
I work in theatre (well worked, until lockdown closed them all). If this was a theatre show I’d probably describe the actors as brilliant, but criticise the Director for lack of discipline in keeping the narrative spare and true.
I think keeping a narrow focus on the issue is important at the moment and unfortunately some of the speakers raised points that were irrelevant or self-contradictory or just pure speculation.
I heard declarations from Piers Corbyn and others that the virus wasn’t real or is virtually harmless juxtaposed with claims it’s actually caused by 5G and is part of a bid to kill us all. Well, which is it? Because it can’t be both.
Kate Shemirani also diverted at some length into how flu vaccines actually alter us genetically (turning us into ‘trans-humans’), the dangers of fluoride, as well as stating that the biggest killer of black people in America is abortion under the Planned Parenthood initiative.
Institutional paedophilia and Qanon-related theories were mentioned by Chico and other speakers.
One speaker also publicly shamed an individual for wearing a mask during the rally – which is of course exactly the type of intolerance we are opposing. The point is, surely, people must be free to choose – and if that means they want to wear a mask then they should be free to do so without being pilloried.
Prev 1 of 12 Next
OffG has tended to avoid giving too much space to claims that Covid19 is caused by or linked to 5g. For much the same reasons I myself don’t conflate the two. I haven’t seen any substantial evidence to link the two issues, medically or otherwise.
I may be wrong, and I am open to correction, but since I don’t feel the covid statistics require an exotic explanation, and since it’s the ‘pandemic’ and subsequent measures that are the most immediate threat (as opposed to wider health/surveillance implications), I don’t believe 5g has a useful place in any anti-covid campaign, at this time. Likewise, Qanon stuff is not directly relevant.
Why blur the picture? Public perception of 5g skepticism is largely one of ridicule, so why risk discrediting a movement by bolting on this 5g side-issue? Why lend credence to the mainstream claim that SARSCOV2 is unique and dangerous and requires some exotic explanation, when all the evidence suggests it isn’t either of these things?
What I mean is, maybe Piers Corbyn et al would be better off organising a 5G demonstration, and leaving it out of this issue.
For the first time there is a real chance to reach many more people, to inform them that the facts about covid are being distorted, to encourage people to question and inform themselves.
In order to pay respect to the many whistleblowers who have put their careers in danger – and encourage the doubtless many more waiting in the wings – surely we have a duty to fight one battle at a time and keep it simple?
Why not stick to the basic fact that SARSCOV2 is demonstrated to be a largely harmless coronavirus, and encourage people to join us as opposed to seed divisiveness from the word go and risk alienating the very people we dearly wish to reach?
*
These are my reservations, but they shouldn’t take anything away from the positive message this day of protest sends to all of us. Despite the avalanche of propaganda urging conformity, many, many people turned up – in London, Berlin and elsewhere – to express their refusal to be coerced and cowed into silence.
The strongest speakers stuck to a very clear message, a call to arms for people to question, question, question and oppose draconian social policy.
This was a terrific thing. And we should all take a positive message from it. Huge credit is due to the speakers, the organisers and all those who helped spread the word.


offguardian--2020-08-31--WATCH: The Jab – How the WHO Faked a Pandemic to Sell Vaccines

In 2009 the W.H.O changed their definition of “ pandemic ” in order to create an artificial panic and sell billions of doses of untested flu vaccines , ruining at least 1300 young lives .
This brilliant short video from the Children ’ s Health Defense concisely summarises the corrupt tragedy of the H1N1 vaccine , and how that situation should serve as a warning to the whole world today .
• Governments all over the world sign “ sleeping contracts ” with pharmaceutical firms to buy flu vaccines in the event of a pandemic .
• In 2009 the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of “ pandemic ” to a much looser one ( with no requirement for anyone to have died ) .
• Just weeks later they declared the H1N1 flu a “ pandemic ” , despite minuscule numbers of deaths • Governments were legally obliged to buy up and distribute untested flu vaccines .
• The vaccines caused serious , life-long side effects in over 1300 children .
• Legal immunity meant no pharmaceutical firm paid any compensation , instead reparations were paid by taxpayers • Many of the scientists who advised the WHO @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have financial interests in vaccine manufacturers .
This shocking recent history has been totally memory-holed in the mainstream , but serves as a dress rehearsal for our current “ crisis ” .
Watch the video , share it widely .
It has , quite obviously , never been more important or more relevant .
Many thanks to the subscriber who brought this to our attention .
It ’ s great to have readers who are always on the ball , makes our job so much easier .

In 2009 the W.H.O changed their definition of “pandemic” in order to create an artificial panic and sell billions of doses of untested flu vaccines, ruining at least 1300 young lives.
This brilliant short video from the Children’s Health Defense concisely summarises the corrupt tragedy of the H1N1 vaccine, and how that situation should serve as a warning to the whole world today.
A brief summary:
Governments all over the world sign “sleeping contracts” with pharmaceutical firms to buy flu vaccines in the event of a pandemic.
In 2009 the World Health Organization changed its official definition of “pandemic” to a much looser one (with no requirement for anyone to have died).
Just weeks later they declared the H1N1 flu a “pandemic”, despite minuscule numbers of deaths
This triggered sleeping contracts worth billions.
Governments were legally obliged to buy up and distribute untested flu vaccines.
The vaccines caused serious, life-long side effects in over 1300 children.
Legal immunity meant no pharmaceutical firm paid any compensation, instead reparations were paid by taxpayers
Many of the scientists who advised the WHO declare a pandemic were later revealed to have financial interests in vaccine manufacturers.
This shocking recent history has been totally memory-holed in the mainstream, but serves as a dress rehearsal for our current “crisis”. Watch the video, share it widely. It has, quite obviously, never been more important or more relevant.
Many thanks to the subscriber who brought this to our attention. It’s great to have readers who are always on the ball, makes our job so much easier.


offguardian--2020-09-01--Waiting for the Old Bailey: Julian Assange and Britain’s Judicial Establishment

On September 7 , Julian Assange will be facing another round of gruelling extradition proceedings , in the Old Bailey , part of a process that has become a form of gradual state-sanctioned torture .
The US Department of Justice hungers for their man .
The UK prison authorities are doing little to protect his health .
The end result , should it result in his death , will be justifiably described as state-sanctioned murder .
This picture was not improved upon by a prison visit from his partner , Stella Morris , accompanied by their two children .
Almost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meeting .
Physical distancing was practised during the twenty-minute meeting in Belmarsh Prison .
Morris and Assange wore face masks and visors , a state of affairs curious given the conspicuous lack of protective wear that has been given to Assange during the pandemic .
A prohibition on touching was observed .
Were officials being careful and considerate ?
Not according to Assange , who claimed it was the first time he had received a mask “ because things are very different behind the doors.
” Morris noted a prevailing thinness , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the fact that he was “ in a lot of pain.
” What awaits Assange next month promises to be resoundingly ugly .
He will have to ready himself for more pain , applied by Judge Vanessa Baraitser .
Throughout her steering of proceedings , Baraitser has remained chillingly indifferent to Assange ’ s needs , a model of considered cruelty .
Keen followers of justicia will be crestfallen : limiting access to legal counsel by keeping him caged behind a glass screen ; ignoring his health considerations in refusing emergency bail @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has been in keeping with that of Chief Magistrate Lady Emma Arbuthnot , who has done her precious bit to soil the citadel of British justice in previous rulings on Assange .
With a family well and truly embedded in the British intelligence and military establishment , it was alarming to even see her name allocated to the Assange case .
In February 2018 , she dismissed an application by the publisher to cancel his arrest warrant for refusing to surrender for his extradition to Sweden .
It did not matter that Swedish @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or that prosecution proceedings for breaching bail had not been commenced .
To this ruling came her cool judgment on February 13 , 2018 on claims by Assange ’ s legal team that proceedings for failing to surrender to British authorities were disproportionate and not in the public interest .
The judgment is horrendous for a few reasons , and in keeping with the intentionally harsh , and unimaginative way British courts have dealt with his case .
Arbuthnot , for one , was unmoved by the findings of the UN Human @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
His “ house arrest ” and “ harsh restrictions ” had been proposed by Assange himself .
His time in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London could have been ended by leaving “ the embassy whenever he wishes ” .
He could use the computer facilities , eat what he wanted and see guests .
This caricature of freedom and choice was topped by her assessment that read grotesquely then , and even more appallingly now .
While accepting that Assange “ had expressed fears of being returned to the United States from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ extradition proceedings ” , she found little merit to them .
Sweden would not have rendered him to the United States .
To have done so would have precipitated a diplomatic crisis between the UK , US and Sweden .
( And how , pray , would she know ? )
As for whether Assange would face an extradition request to Britain , he could always : Which brings us to Baraitser , who has served as an appropriately bad replacement after Arbuthnot stood aside from the case , despite refusing to admit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ little is known about Baraitser in the public domain , though the investigative outfit Declassified UK has been busy with some dedicated digging .
On February 28 , 2020 it filed a Freedom of Information request with the Ministry of Justice ( MOJ ) seeking a list of all the cases which Baraitser had ruled upon since her appointment in 2011 .
Of particular interest was her record on extradition rulings .
Two months elapsed before a reply from the information officer at the HM Courts and Tribunal Service confirming that it held @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” .
But the request was flatly turned down for not being consistent with the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 .
“ The judiciary is not a public body for the purposes of FOIA…and requests asking to disclose all the cases a named judge ruled on are therefore outside the scope of the FOIA.
” This limitation maintained “ the independence of the judiciary which also means that the government does not provide guidance or policy on how judges should operate in court.
” The information officer ’ s reasoning was specious , not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on identifying what should , in any case , be on the public record : the cases upon which a judge has seen fit to rule upon , with outcomes .
This also ignored the fact that some cases involving Baraitser are actually accessible through the legal database Westlaw .
As a barrister wishing to remain anonymous explained to Declassified , “ A court is a public authority for the purposes of the Human Rights Act and a judge is an officer of the court.
” A court also acted in public .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the names of cases , unless children are involved or other certain limited circumstances , nor the judges who rule on them.
” Undeterred , Declassified persevered and found 24 extradition cases over which Baraitser presided between November 2015 and May 2019 mining Factiva and Westlaw .
The results show an overly keen enthusiasm for extradition .
One of Baraitser ’ s rulings was overturned on appeal , with the appellate court attaching “ considerable weight to the likely impact of extradition upon the health and wellbeing of the defendant ’ s wife @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with very little support.
” A scintilla of hope , perhaps , is in the offing .
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College , Cambridge .
He lectures at RMIT University , Melbourne .
Email : [ email protected ]

Binoy Kampmark
On September 7, Julian Assange will be facing another round of gruelling extradition proceedings, in the Old Bailey, part of a process that has become a form of gradual state-sanctioned torture.
The US Department of Justice hungers for their man. The UK prison authorities are doing little to protect his health. The end result, should it result in his death, will be justifiably described as state-sanctioned murder.
This picture was not improved upon by a prison visit from his partner, Stella Morris, accompanied by their two children. Almost six months had passed since the last meeting.
Physical distancing was practised during the twenty-minute meeting in Belmarsh Prison. Morris and Assange wore face masks and visors, a state of affairs curious given the conspicuous lack of protective wear that has been given to Assange during the pandemic. A prohibition on touching was observed.
We had to keep social distancing and Julian was told he would have to self-isolate for two weeks if he touched the children.”
Were officials being careful and considerate? Not according to Assange, who claimed it was the first time he had received a mask “because things are very different behind the doors.” Morris noted a prevailing thinness, a yellow armband to indicate prisoner status, and the fact that he was “in a lot of pain.”
What awaits Assange next month promises to be resoundingly ugly. He will have to ready himself for more pain, applied by Judge Vanessa Baraitser. Throughout her steering of proceedings, Baraitser has remained chillingly indifferent to Assange’s needs, a model of considered cruelty.
Keen followers of justicia will be crestfallen: limiting access to legal counsel by keeping him caged behind a glass screen; ignoring his health considerations in refusing emergency bail during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Her behaviour has been in keeping with that of Chief Magistrate Lady Emma Arbuthnot, who has done her precious bit to soil the citadel of British justice in previous rulings on Assange.
With a family well and truly embedded in the British intelligence and military establishment, it was alarming to even see her name allocated to the Assange case.
In February 2018, she dismissed an application by the publisher to cancel his arrest warrant for refusing to surrender for his extradition to Sweden. It did not matter that Swedish proceedings against the Australian had been discontinued, or that prosecution proceedings for breaching bail had not been commenced.
To this ruling came her cool judgment on February 13, 2018 on claims by Assange’s legal team that proceedings for failing to surrender to British authorities were disproportionate and not in the public interest. The judgment is horrendous for a few reasons, and in keeping with the intentionally harsh, and unimaginative way British courts have dealt with his case.
Arbuthnot, for one, was unmoved by the findings of the UN Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. His “house arrest” and “harsh restrictions” had been proposed by Assange himself. His time in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London could have been ended by leaving “the embassy whenever he wishes”. He could use the computer facilities, eat what he wanted and see guests.
This caricature of freedom and choice was topped by her assessment that read grotesquely then, and even more appallingly now. While accepting that Assange “had expressed fears of being returned to the United States from a very early stage in the Swedish extradition proceedings”, she found little merit to them.
Sweden would not have rendered him to the United States. To have done so would have precipitated a diplomatic crisis between the UK, US and Sweden. (And how, pray, would she know?) As for whether Assange would face an extradition request to Britain, he could always:
be able to argue extraneous considerations, fair trial and conditions of detention in the United States prison system.”
Which brings us to Baraitser, who has served as an appropriately bad replacement after Arbuthnot stood aside from the case, despite refusing to admit to any perception of bias. Very little is known about Baraitser in the public domain, though the investigative outfit Declassified UK has been busy with some dedicated digging.
On February 28, 2020 it filed a Freedom of Information request with the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) seeking a list of all the cases which Baraitser had ruled upon since her appointment in 2011. Of particular interest was her record on extradition rulings.
Two months elapsed before a reply from the information officer at the HM Courts and Tribunal Service confirming that it held “some information that you have requested”. But the request was flatly turned down for not being consistent with the Constitutional Reform Act 2005.
“The judiciary is not a public body for the purposes of FOIA…and requests asking to disclose all the cases a named judge ruled on are therefore outside the scope of the FOIA.” This limitation maintained “the independence of the judiciary which also means that the government does not provide guidance or policy on how judges should operate in court.”
The information officer’s reasoning was specious, not least because the FOIA request was premised on identifying what should, in any case, be on the public record: the cases upon which a judge has seen fit to rule upon, with outcomes. This also ignored the fact that some cases involving Baraitser are actually accessible through the legal database Westlaw.
As a barrister wishing to remain anonymous explained to Declassified, “A court is a public authority for the purposes of the Human Rights Act and a judge is an officer of the court.”
A court also acted in public. “There is no default anonymity of the names of cases, unless children are involved or other certain limited circumstances, nor the judges who rule on them.”
Undeterred, Declassified persevered and found 24 extradition cases over which Baraitser presided between November 2015 and May 2019 mining Factiva and Westlaw. The results show an overly keen enthusiasm for extradition.
Of these 24 cases, Baraitser ordered the extradition of 23 of the defendants, a 96% extradition record from publicly available evidence.”
One of Baraitser’s rulings was overturned on appeal, with the appellate court attaching “considerable weight to the likely impact of extradition upon the health and wellbeing of the defendant’s wife”, who would be “left with very little support.” A scintilla of hope, perhaps, is in the offing.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]


offguardian--2020-09-01--Facebook Censors Defense of “Unite for Freedom” Protest

Jill Kirkwood posted this on Facebook .
It was censored .
Can you think of a single good reason why ?
If you find yourself ‘ disapproving ’ of the massive protest in London yesterday which was ignored by the BBC ( yet they reported on the Berlin protest ) , if you find yourself agreeing with the completely distorted and misleading propaganda/disinformation in some other trashy tabloids , if you find yourself believing that we were all a big group of fascists , because there was ( apparently but not seen by me ) , a fascist flag spotted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which had nothing to do with us and was away from the main body of people ) , despite the fact that one of our main concerns is the loss of freedom resulting from the policies of this oppressively authoritarian government , shame on you .
We were all there because we question government .
When the masses are supporting kids wearing masks in schools , we are the people who have spent entire evenings trawling through peer reviewed science and censored information and are wondering who makes these decisions when more under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now turns out that every one of the supposed Covid deaths had serious underlying conditions .
We are the people who have spent months of our spare time studying independent epidemiologists who are ignored by the media and who are saying that more lockdowns will result in a 15 million NHS backlog and resulting in thousands of unnecessary deaths , more increases in domestic abuse and rocketing suicides .
We are the people who are asking why are we destroying the mental health of millions of healthy people by fining them for having @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meeting up with who they want to , in any location , when they are not at risk , but at the same time BLM protests where statues were pulled down get the police kneeling and full support from the establishment .
We are the ‘ mad conspiracy theorists ’ who have studied the origins of the PCR test , and understand that entire areas are being locked down based on either false-positive results , or positive results that have not detected a live virus , but dead remnants of viral fragments that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I can tell you from being at the protest yesterday that I am absolutely fuming at how this diverse group of intelligent and well informed , sane human beings are being deliberately smeared and ridiculed .
I have had it with what is going on in this country .
Sometimes I feel like screaming with frustration , particularly at the insane desire to follow nonsensical rules without questioning .
”

Jill Kirkwood posted this on Facebook. It was censored. Can you think of a single good reason why?
If you find yourself ‘disapproving’ of the massive protest in London yesterday which was ignored by the BBC (yet they reported on the Berlin protest), if you find yourself agreeing with the completely distorted and misleading propaganda/disinformation in some other trashy tabloids, if you find yourself believing that we were all a big group of fascists, because there was (apparently but not seen by me), a fascist flag spotted draped somewhere at a height, (which had nothing to do with us and was away from the main body of people), despite the fact that one of our main concerns is the loss of freedom resulting from the policies of this oppressively authoritarian government, shame on you.
We were all there because we question government. When the masses are supporting kids wearing masks in schools, we are the people who have spent entire evenings trawling through peer reviewed science and censored information and are wondering who makes these decisions when more under 19s died from flu, and it now turns out that every one of the supposed Covid deaths had serious underlying conditions.
We are the people who have spent months of our spare time studying independent epidemiologists who are ignored by the media and who are saying that more lockdowns will result in a 15 million NHS backlog and resulting in thousands of unnecessary deaths, more increases in domestic abuse and rocketing suicides.
We are the people who are asking why are we destroying the mental health of millions of healthy people by fining them for having kids parties and preventing them from freely meeting up with who they want to, in any location, when they are not at risk, but at the same time BLM protests where statues were pulled down get the police kneeling and full support from the establishment.
We are the ‘mad conspiracy theorists’ who have studied the origins of the PCR test, and understand that entire areas are being locked down based on either false-positive results, or positive results that have not detected a live virus, but dead remnants of viral fragments that cannot be called ‘infections’.
I can tell you from being at the protest yesterday that I am absolutely fuming at how this diverse group of intelligent and well informed, sane human beings are being deliberately smeared and ridiculed. I have had it with what is going on in this country. Sometimes I feel like screaming with frustration, particularly at the insane desire to follow nonsensical rules without questioning.”