The President

Religion and political power can be dangerous if combined and aimed at people deemed to be apostate or heretical. In calling for the Crusades, our Roman Catholic popes put their political power behind the theocratic and political goal of taking back Jerusalem and Constantinople/Istanbul “for Christ.” Those popes and the kings and soldiers who went to war with the Muslims there wittingly or unwittingly violated Jesus’s preachment to love rather than fight enemies. Christianity and political power have not mixed well, historically. The U.S. Constitution forbids the federal government and, presumably, the states, to establish or sponsor a religion or even favor one. Theocracies, such as those in the Calvinist colonies in New England (except for Rhode Island, which allowed freedom of religion), would be excluded as a political form for the Union as well as its member-states. Rather than meaning “sub-unit” or “province” as in Normandy in the E.U. state of France, the American Continental Congress has applied “state” in the generic sense of a polity with a yet-to-be-determined political system. Hence while the Articles of Confederation were in force, before the U.S. Constitution, the states could legally form theocracies. The film, The President (2014), is fictional, but this doesn’t stop its portrayal of a toppled president in hiding from looking realistic, given the cases of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The character arc of the president while he is in hiding, or “on the run,” captures a generally unknown way in which Jesus’ preaching on how to enter the unknown Kingdom of God can apply to political power in a good way. This is not to advocate theocracy, however. Rather, individuals who wield power, whether in government or business, can come to see the very nature of power differently and gain new insight into the Kingdom of God preached by Jesus.

In the film, the toppled president and his grandchild travel mostly by walking and in the back of a pickup truck (and even horse-led cart) to reach the sea, where someone is presumably to meet them and get them out of the country. By the time the two reached the beach, the United Opposition had a million-dollars bounty on the president’s head, dead or alive. Carelessness on the part of the president led a farmer to discover the president’s true identity; it wasn’t long before the farmer led opposition troops to the “traitor president.” The mob-mentality on the beach would have hanged or beheaded the former president were it not for one of the troops, who warned that killing the old would merely continue the despotic cycle. The United Opposition in turn would torture its way to the false dream of unanimous support from the people, just as the president had. Ending the cycle would be necessary, the soldier told the others, for democracy to have a chance. “Let’s make [the president] a voice for democracy,” the solder urged.  

Unknown to the soldier, the president may have already been convinced of the value of democracy because in fleeing, he had discovered the extent of injury that had been inflicted under his rule. He and his grandchild joined with a group of recent political prisoners who were on their way to their homes—one man after five years of imprisonment. That man, plus one other, both had a still-bloody foot and had to be carried. The president carried one, which is itself indicative that the former president felt some responsibility for the torture.  Power looks different on the ground level. The man being carried by the president said it was a good thing that the torturers had not discovered that he had been part of a group that had killed a brother of the president. At this point, the president weighs whether to throw the man down and kill him, but this could compromise his alias. This is shown to the viewer as an alternative vision of what could be.

Even though the president could have stopped carrying the man (e.g., out of staged tiredness), the president, an old man, astonishingly continues to carry the man who could not walk. Even some sympathy can be read on the president’s face. The image of the impoverished president in rags carrying his now-discovered enemy who had been wounded by the president’s men fits extraordinarily well with Jesus’ teaching to not just turn the other cheek (as when the president learned what the man had done), but also help. Whereas not fighting back tilts the world to one side, willingly coming to the aid of someone who, as in the film, wants to kill you or have you killed, turns the ways of the world upside-down. In this sense, the Kingdom of God is radical; it is so contrary to what people typically do in the world and what even society says is justified (e.g., public legal justice, which resonates with revenge).
It should be no surprise that the dictatorship form of government would be at odds with how Jesus says a person can get into, or, even better, instantiate the Kingdom of God. Facing no earthly constraints, according to Thomas Hobbes, a tynt who dies in office only faces divine judgment. A tyrant anticipating that he or she will hold onto power can feel free to direct severe torture and depriving the people of even sustenance for want of taxes. Those officials implementing such directives really face no choice, for disobedience could easily cost them their respective lives. 
In the film, the movement for democracy is in line with adopting Jesus' suggestions. This may be because such a movement does away with dictatorship. Yet this does not necessarily mean that democracy itself is in line what it takes to instantiate the ways of God to the Christian. 
In Iraq, Abu Ghraib prison was an American detention center for captured Iraqis from 2003 to 2006. Graphic photos depicting guards abusing  detainees were discovered in 2004 and yet the torture went on. 

Ironically using dogs to dehumanize a person. 

Acting contrary to instantiating the Kingdom of God. Justified by following orders?

Is "the ends justify the means" inherently contrary to instantiating the Kingdom of God?

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" (John Acton)

This photo suggests that not every torturer was reluctantly acting on orders. (source: Wired)

The George W. Bush administration's claim that Iraq had been involved in the demise of the World Trade Center in New York did not stand up, so the decision to torture was not justified by the claim. The horrific extent that the torture violated human rights is enough to strike down the thesis that democracy is in line with the Kingdom of God whereas dictatorship is not. Perhaps it can only be said that government officials in a democracy (i.e. with checks and balances) may have more freedom (i.e., without facing death) to refuse to torture and--even more of a stretch--to go on proactively to reduce an enemy's suffering. In other words, perhaps democracy can give enough space for government officials, including soldiers, to act on conscience. Even here, a religion's ethical teachings (i.e., in line with reducing suffering) can be distinguished from dogma, which can be used to legitimate suffering, especially of enemies, political or religious. 

See Christianized Ethical Leadership: The Servant, Shepherd, and Steward, available at Amazon. 

The Post

In Spielberg’s The Post (2017), the fateful decision to publish portions of the Pentagon Papers centers on Katharine Graham’s being willing to rebuff her newspaper’s lawyers, who represent the company’s financial interests, in favor of Ben Bradlee’s argument that free speech of the press as a check on government in a viable democracy—the company’s mission—is of overriding importance. As important as this critical decision was historically, I submit that the film allots too much attention to the decision and even the relationship between Graham and Bradlee at the expense of other deserving matters.

The film gives scant attention to Daniel Ellsberg, the former Marine and military analyst who “brought the Pentagon Papers to The Times, and later to The Post, motivated by an all-American notion that the nation’s citizen’s had the right to know more about what was going on half a world away in a war financed by their tax dollars and fought by so many of their children.”[1] The script does not include, for example, his statement, “Taking an oath as a public servant does not mean keeping secrets or obeying the president—it’s respecting the Constitution.”[2] The viewer sees little if any of the internal struggle that must have led to his conclusion.

Secondly, that Ellsberg first brought portions of the Pentagon’s study to The New York Times is shown in the film mainly through Ben Bradlee’s competitive disappointment rather than showing more of what was going on at The Times. In fact, whereas Bradlee and Graham could look to The Times as a precedent, Arthur O. Sulzberger, publisher of The Times, had no forerunner and thus “took on far more risk,” James Goodale, the paper’s in-house counsel at the time, has written.[3] “It’s as though Hollywood had made a movie about the Times’s triumphant role in Watergate,” he added.[4] Neil Sheehan, the lead reporter on the story, has said in retirement that Sulzberger “was absolutely heroic in publishing the Pentagon Papers. . . . He was all alone in making his decision.”[5]

Thirdly, and most importantly, although the film gives viewers the “important lesson . . . that, in both cases, family-led newspapers placed their journalistic missions ahead of business imperatives. And they did so under intense governmental pressure,” scant attention is allotted to the contents of the articles themselves.[6] Little is revealed other than that administrations going back to Truman’s lied to the American people regarding American involvement and prospects in Vietnam. The film highlights the lying by showing Nixon’s Secretary of State blatantly lie to the press on his view of the prospects for winning the war. The viewer is left with the image of a misled public that is nonetheless supposed to hold its government accountable. Even so, the film does not convey much of what the Pentagon study found. The scattered, cryptic references made at Bradlee’s house are not sufficient, given the potential for informing the viewers, and thus a sizable portion of the American people, on just how bad the lies were by spelling them out.

The medium of film, as well as its popular situs in modern society, can handle making “deep” philosophical issues transparent. In the case of The Post, the increasing power of the American presidency, referred to academically as the imperial presidency, could have received attention, as could have the particular cover-ups by Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon—each lie specified rather than glided over. It was not just Richard Nixon, who can be easily relegated as the crook who occupied the White House for a term and a half. That several presidents successively lied points to something systemic getting in the way of democratic accountability in the U.S. Besides the growing power of the presidency since World War II, the ease by which administrations can insulate themselves from the public, rather than being accountable to it, would have come through more in the film.

In short, more substance on the main character, the Pentagon Papers, as well as the initial roles of Ellsberg and The New York Times, could have come in by not giving so much screen time to the Bradlee-Graham relationship and even the competing interests within The Washington Post. The result would have been more of a multi-level film.  

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[1] Jim Rutenberg, “Spielberg’s ‘The Post’ Provides Fitting End to Turbulent Year for the Media,” The New York Times, December 24, 2017.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

Snowden

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then how many words are moving pictures worth? Add in a script and you have actual words—potentially quite substantive words—grounding all that pictorial worth. Moving pictures, or movies for short, are capable of conveying substantial meaning to audiences. In the case of the film, Snowden (2016), the meaning is heavy in political theory. In particular, democratic theory. The film’s value lies in depicting how far short the U.S. Government has slipped from the theory, and, indeed, the People to which that government is in theory accountable.

Secrecy is synonymous with security, Corbin O’Brian, an instructor at the CIA, tells Snowden. To inform even Congress is tantamount to the intel getting to America’s enemies. Lest it be assumed that the secret FISA court is a viable fallback democratic check on the CIA and NSA, Gabriel Sol informs Snowden that the court is merely a rubber-stamp. This view is confirmed when Corbin confirms to Snowden that Jennifer, Snowden’s girlfriend, is not sleeping with anyone else. The extent to which the CIA could spy on American citizens is presented best through image rather than word, as Gabriel shows Snowden (and the viewer) how much information can be gleamed on a person by looking at emails, Facebook pages, and even webcams presumably turned off. The extent to which the CIA was spying on Americans is shown by Snowden himself as he moves a laptop cursor from country to country on a map. The number of emails, etc. captured does not match with the countries thought to be America’s enemies. Interestingly, the Japanese government refuses to spy on their own people for the CIA, saying that doing so would be illegal. Tellingly, the CIA went around the Japanese government and collected emails, Facebook pages, and other material on Japanese citizens. The lack of limitation is the motif that best describes American intelligence, and yet how very stupid it is to presume that no accountability is somehow ok in a democratic republic.

A video of President Obama referring dismissively to Snowden as just some 28-year-old hacker puts the president firmly on the side of the CIA and NSA. That the man who campaigned on “real change” would end up defending a corrupt old guard is a sad commentary that is only implicit in the film. The president’s arrogance is more apparent. That the DNC under Obama would unfairly favor Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in the selection of the party’s nominee for president in 2016 can be seen as an extension of Obama defending the corrupt CIA and NSA.

Edward Snowden is left with the heavy duty of acting on behalf of the American people. They should know what is going on so they can decide whether the security interest trumps civil liberties as much as the People’s agents in the executive branch conveniently assume. An expose on CBS’s 60 Minutes, shown in part in the film, tells the viewer that working internally—being a whistleblower—is a recipe only for retaliation, so acting on behalf of the American People—trying to reach them—must be done outside of the government. In no way does acting on this duty constitute espionage; rather, the CIA and NSA are depicted in the film as being guilty of breaking the law in spying on untainted American citizens. By implication, the judges sitting on the FISA court must have been similarly guilty, in so far as they acted as a rubber-stamp resulting in Americans being spied on by their own government without any reason of suspicion to justify the permission of the secret court.

In the end, the film depicts the terrible power in the establishment, as well as how distant it is from the popular sovereign, the People. In terms of democratic theory, the agents are not well controlled by the principals. That is to say, the agency costs are high in the American republic. Historically, the American founders even in the Constitutional Convention in 1787 would have bristled at the CIA’s power depicted in the film. Surely those men would label such a government as a tyrant operating at the expense of liberty—ironically to safeguard what little is left. The purpose of the CIA and NSA is the true irony in the film, which succeeds in holding up an uncomfortable mirror both to the governors and the governed in the United States. In writing essays, I attempt a similar role, and in so doing I’m sure I have just lost some liberty in terms of privacy, since this essay is full of keywords—hardly the least of which is liberty, as from unreasonable searches.