TRIUMPH OF THE WILL TO KILL:

Movies about disabled keep myths alive (STEPHEN DRAKE AND MARY JOHNSON, February 12, 2005, Chicago Sun-Times)

Clint Eastwood's ''Million Dollar Baby'' has scored seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. Alejandro Amenabar's ''The Sea Inside'' has come away with two, including Best Foreign Language Film. What links both movies? The message that it's kind to help a paralyzed person die.

To our knowledge, few critics have picked up on the films' shared ''right-to-die'' message. Had the plot been racial or homophobic killing, however, we'd be hearing an outcry (if the movie ever got made at all). Why the silence? We think it's because much of society believes it's the right thing to do, to grant the wish of any severely disabled person who asks us to help them die.

To us this exhibits an appalling lack of knowledge of severely disabled people, and an even more appalling lack of interest in questioning why films with this message are winning awards.

Woodrow Wilson screened Birth of a Nation at the White House.

MORE:
‘Million Dollar Baby' Is a Neo-Nazi Movie (Dr. Ted Baehr, Feb. 12, 2005, NewsMax)

The forerunner of "Million Dollar Baby" was the very entertaining Nazi movie "I Accuse," which won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival and was the propaganda that Dr. Goebbels used to convince the German people to switch their vote from "vehemently opposed to the holocaust" to over 60 percent in favor of so-called "mercy killing." In fact, "I Accuse" is a very subtle film that inspired the killing of millions of people.

Dr. Joseph Goebbels was the National Socialist (Nazi) propaganda minister from 1933 to 1945. He exploited radio, press, cinema and theater in Germany to destroy the Jews, evangelical Christians, handicapped Germans and other groups. In 1994, the Discovery Channel aired "Selling Murder," an important documentary investigating how Goebbels used mass media to influence the German people to accept the mass murder of human beings.

The documentary shows that at a time when a majority of German people rejected mercy killings (a euphemism for murder), Goebbels produced the movie "I Accuse," an emotive feature film about a beautiful, intelligent woman who is dying of an incurable disease and begs to be allowed to commit suicide.

After the movie was released, a majority of German people said they had changed their minds and now supported mercy killings. After a few more of Goebbels' films about invalids and handicapped people, the German people became strong believers in the efficacy of mass mercy killings.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 12, 2005 6:24 PM