In the Orwellian world of U.S. politics, often it takes artists to say the truth that otherwise can’t be said – or heard. Stanley Kubrick brought home the reality of militarism and the madness of U.S. nuclear doctrine in Dr. Strangelove as no nonfiction work of the time could. Sidney Lumet’s Network did the same for the corporate takeover of our culture. Today, John Cusack’s War, Inc. fires a similar shot across the bow of our tortured political discourse.
War, Inc. is a Swiftian allegory of the world not as it might be in some possible future but as it is today, with a performance from Ben Kingsley as memorable as Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove. (It also features a deconstruction by Hilary Duff of her own fame and our twisted, sexist culture that has to be seen to be believed.) The film is scathing, farsighted, bold, and truer than nonfiction. Cusack and the stellar cast of War, Inc. don’t blink. War, Inc. takes inside the world of war profiteers, war makers, embedded journalists, mercenaries, entertainment moguls, and “disaster capitalists” (as Naomi Klein has called them) who form the interlinking military-industrial-media-entertainment-political complex.
Set in fictional Turaqistan, the film tells us more about Iraq – and U.S. politics – today than anything on offer from the establishment media, with it’s 24/7 barrage of abuse of our intelligence.
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In times such as these, the role of filmmakers, musicians, poets, playwrights is vital….
A Practical Policy 