Author’s Note: Two of the most effective Cold War lies that the intelligence agencies of the United States perpetuated were that a) there was ‘no-difference’ between the regime of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and b) every accomplishment of this working-class (Soviet) regime was to be viewed as ‘deficient’, ‘devious’ and the product of ‘dishonesty.’ Instead of humanity celebrating every achievement of Soviet Socialist Science regarding space-exploration, industrial technology and medical capability – the US government directed the education system of America to down-play these progressive advancements – and view each as being nothing short of an extension of the policies that led directly to the ‘Holocaust.’ The fact that the Soviet Union pursued a collectivised working-class ideology that fundamentally ‘opposed’ fascism (in all its forms) is hidden and obscured so that no individual American (or anyone living under America’s influence) could easily discover this inversion of reality. America presented its distorted ‘anti-intellectual’ viewpoint of the world as being just another point of view (when it obviously was not), and reduced the ‘Communist Party’ all over the world (which continuously expressed the correct reality) as being just another maniacal entity opposed to the existence of the US (in much the same way Israel paints individuals or groups which protests its continuous Human Rights abuses)! Today, a ‘capitalist’ Russia still attracts this negative attitude from the United States as Russia refuses to allow a Rothschild-controlled central bank to run its economy from Washington. Furthermore, a particularly repugnant form of anti-Asian racism is still perpetuated against ‘Socialist’ China and North Korea, (and to a lesser extent, Vietnam, whose Communist Party betrayed Ho Chi Minh shortly after his death in 1969 and the country’s victory over the US in 1975).
In 1890, the US government was issuing similar racist propaganda dictating against immigrants arriving from Eastern Europe who expected to reach American shores and be treated ‘equally’ by the US legal system (which privileged the original Western European settlers – expressing its laws through the pretentious bourgeois legal language of ‘universalism’). As a consequence, the US government (and the Local Authorities) perpetuated a rhetoric which led directly to the ethnic violence expressed in Michael Cimino’s masterpiece – ‘Heaven’s Gate.’ This is the reason that this great film was seen to ‘fail’ at the box-office – that measurer of capitalist success! A similar manipulation of US society can be seen following the 2001 terror-attacks in New York. Like the plight of the central characters in The Deer Hunter film – the enemy is ‘dehumanised’ and perceived US suffering elevated to new levels of ‘exceptionalism.’ Once again, the legal fiction of American suffering being viewed as ‘special’ was emphasised which gained mileage because of common notions of decency. In the case of 911, the enemy was not properly known (although 17 of the alleged bombers were Saudi citizens and 2 were Egyptian – with both countries being seen as close allies of the US. The mystery has deepened over the years by at least 9 of these alleged bombers still being known to be ‘alive’) and so the ex-CIA Operative of ‘Osama Bin Ladin’ was created – a once staunch supporter of the US and who subsequently denied any participation in the attacks.
Prior to 2001, the Gansta Rap industry was a multi-million-dollar enterprise which saw supposedly disgruntled young Black men singing about the injustices and racism of living in a ‘White’ capitalist America! This was allowed because the biggest market that consumed this product was ‘White’, middle-class men! These were men who were already privileged within ‘White’ society and financially well-off. They consumed Gangsta Rap as a form of ‘escapism’ that reinforced their ‘racist’ notions that Black people were ‘out of control’! ‘White’ middle-class men were not going to overthrow the society that privileged them from the base up, even though their dollars were going to seriously enrich the Black Artists who participated in the making of these recordings! The US government viewed it as a win-win situation as already well-off Black Artists got to sing about a ‘Black’ working-class experience very few of them had experienced directly – and ‘White’ middle-class men got to consume this fantasy. In the meantime, the masses of oppressed ‘Black’ working-class men and women were not allowed anywhere near a recording studio! They, like their ‘White’ working-class equivalents – could not afford food, housing or medical care and certainly had no disposable income to purchase CDs and the like!
On September 12th, 2001, a dictate was sent-out by the US government to all recording studios which saw the onus ‘switch’ from the angry intention of ‘overthrowing’ the ‘White’ and ‘oppressive’ capitalist system – to Gangsta Rap ‘embracing’ and ‘affirming’ the ‘power’ of the capitalist system and broadcasting the message that ‘making money’ was more ‘important’ than overthrowing injustice! These types of ‘re-sets’ occur fairly regularly throughout US history and the film ‘Heaven’s Gate’ is one of those times! Another re-set which is happening as I write, is that of erasing from US history the election of a ‘fascist’ Donald Trump’ and the fact that he inspired a near popularist revolution for the far-right near the end of his time as President! (27.12.2021)
The Deer Hunter is an award-winning film directed by Michael Cimino which was released to wide critical acclaim throughout the Western world in 1978. The Vietnam War had only been over since 1975 – with images of North Vietnamese tanks successfully entering the grounds of the former US Embassy in ‘Saigon’ (now ‘Ho Chi Minh City’) situated in the former US (and ‘Catholic’) colony of the Republic of South Vietnam – beamed across the world! Celebrations throughout Vietnam signified the first ‘defeat’ for the US military since its colonial battles with the British throughout the 1770s and the 1812 War, etc. Behind this victory of the Communist World over the Capitalist World was between 3-6 million Vietnamese casualties (dead and wounded), immeasurable counts of torture and countless incidents of ‘rape’ (of Vietnamese men, women and children). White America has always perceived itself as ‘exceptional’ as if there is something ‘special’ about the colour of the Western European skin-tone and the Judeo-Christian (capitalist) culture this ethnic group upholds. It is ‘exceptional’ in one area and that is in its ‘spite’ and ‘willingness’ to commit mass murder in the pursuit of its interests.
Despite justifying its ruthless capitalist system by stating that ‘everything possessed has been earned’, the White avalanche that occurred from 1492 onwards, has been revealed by modern scientists as killing around 60 million indigenous people throughout the Americas by 1610 CE. This statistic is so huge and its implications so catastrophic, that the reader may have to take time to sit with it for a moment. In just under 130-years, the White European settlers had murdered their way through the environs of North and South America killing, maiming and raping as they went, using the advantage they possessed of fire-arms being the main vehicle of dispatch, but which was augmented by cannon, mortars, lances, swords and knives, etc. Later, as the Industrial Revolution in Europe developed – added to this ability to ‘destroy’ would be the machine-gun and high-explosives, etc. Although other human-beings already existed within the Americas and lived upon the land they owned through historical occupation, the arriving ‘White’ Europeans quite literally ‘killed’ the inhabitants so as to intimidate the survivors to flee from these ancestral lands and give them up to the process of ‘White’ colonial settlement. (Zionist Israel has performed a similar re-settlement process in Palestine since 1947).
Although ‘everything is supposedly earned’ within the capitalist system, the example of the ‘White’ Europeans arriving in the Americas contradicts this basic dictate as the land settled was ‘stolen land’ – for which they paid no money – and was in effect ‘free land’. As land-ownership defined social status in 1500 and 1600 Britain (as well as other parts of Europe), ‘White’ European migration into the Americas saw quite often poor people seizing land and automatically assuming the airs and graces of those already existing ‘landlords’ in their home countries – the tyranny of which they had left Europe to escape! The major difference was that in the early years of ‘White’ European expansion from the East Coast into the hinterland – there was no ancient legal system that regulated life as there was already existing in Europe that the Europeans recognised (as they ignored the already existing legal systems developed by the indigenous population) – and no lawful reason for a European settler to limit their actions when interacting or dealing with natives. Indigenous people were not viewed as ‘human-beings’ as they were not a) ‘White’ Europeans, or b) members of Judeo-Christian religions. Yes – versions of British or European legal systems were adopted ‘at a distance’, so to speak, but these were used only to regulate relations between individual ‘White’ Europeans who were all competing for free land – and were never intended to be applied to indigenous people (or the Black slaves arriving from Africa). Those who existed ‘outside of the law’, were not considered ‘human’ and not subject to any laws that could be applied to their person so as to grant each individual the ‘dignity’ to be considered a ‘human-being’ under the law.
The Deer Hunter film inverts reality and falsely presents the American POWs in Vietnam as being the ‘victims’ of the Vietnamese people who they were sent into Asia to persecute, rape, maim and kill! When it was released, this film hit a nerve in the US and seemed to make the recent US military defeat in Vietnam more acceptable and palatable to the average ‘brain-washed’ American mind. The ‘White’ Americans are the embodiment of highly effective European murderers who left their homelands and stole the land of others in a process that took hundreds of years to complete from 1492 onwards. America, as a ‘White’ country, continued this process of expansionism, destruction and colonisation throughout Vietnam. Michael Cimino’s next film – the ‘Heaven’s Gate’ (1980) – appears to be a ‘corrective’ to The Deer Hunter, albeit within the European model. In this regard, this film is a cinematic masterpiece that was panned at the time (within months of the Carter Administration establishing full diplomatic relations with Communist China), and treated with a distain that is so ‘anti-intellectual’ that it suggested a deliberate and coordinated operation throughout American society such as that formulated and applied by the CIA. No other explanation gives an overarching description of what was happening at the time. The film studio – ‘United Artists’ – was said to be bankrupted through backing this film with Michael Cimino’s judgement ridiculed and questioned at every step.
What does this film portray? Michael Cimino chose the Johnson County War, also known as the War on Powder River and the Wyoming Range War (1889-1893). This was an ‘all White’ affair with regards to immigration. This film covers a time in US history which sees descendants of the original ‘White’ Europeans from Western Europe consolidating the land they had ‘stolen’ from the indigenous people of America and exploiting it to the highest and most oppressive financial degree (with ‘law’ falling-in behind this exploitation rather than protecting individuals from its excesses). Vast tracks of land had come into the hands of a few financially well-off and politically privileged ‘White’ individuals who handed this land down through the generations of their families as time passed by. This land was kept as empty as possible for prospecting needs (looking for gold, silver and oil, etc), as well as renting-out to cattle-farmers, etc. What was not allowed from the mid to late 1800s onward was for ‘new’ arrivals from ‘Eastern Europe’ to ‘settle’ on this land! The land itself was owned by ‘White’ Western Europeans and this caused friction between ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ (White) Europeans – although the racism of the Western European often interpreted the ‘Eastern’ Europeans as being ‘tainted’ with Asian genetic influence! This is exactly the same ‘anti-Slavic’ racism seen today that is aimed at modern Russia (and which was certainty aimed at the Soviet Union).
Michael Cimino decided to make a film which portrayed the two different cultural groupings concerned, and implied that the US government backed the armed resistance of the ‘White’ Western European landowners against the ‘Eastern’ European settlers! Although conveniently ‘side-stepping’ the matter of ‘genocide’ between ‘Whites’ and ‘non-Whites’ – Michael Cimino nevertheless does approach this subject as happening between two different groups of ‘White’ Europeans – although those from ‘Eastern’ Europe may well be the product of ‘mixing’ between Europeans and Asians down over the centuries. Therefore, the US government and the US legal system is portrayed by Michael Cimino as being ‘racist’ although only to the point of only discriminating between different groups of ‘Europeans.’ If the film had been allowed to be a success, I suspect Michael Cimino might well have earned the moral (and financial) right to expand this narrative outward to penetrate into the Native American, Asian and African communities. Of course, this is only a speculation on my part, as Michael Cimino’s follow-up films appear designed only for entertainment rather than any great or in-depth examination of US life, history and culture. One point is firmly established within the film Heaven’s Gate and that is that North America is owned and run by the ‘White’ Western Europeans and that no other people are allowed to share in this invasion regardless of where they are from, unless they take an obvious subordinate position within the ‘White’ Western European society! Ironically, the arriving ‘Eastern’ Europeans wanted the same right of invading and taking ‘free land’ from the indigenous people as the ‘Western’ Europeans had done since 1492 – but by the 1890s there was very little land left for this type of unbridled settlement (as the vast open lands left had been turned into ‘National Parks’ for ‘White’ entertainment and leisure whilst preventing indigenous people living upon them as ancestral lands).
THE SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 