Jumping the Rubicon

[Wombaticus Rex]

Second half really got me. By the end I was fiending for the next episode. Best of all, even if there's never a second season, the ending was still hugely appropriate and clean.

Re-watching it now front to back. It was incredibly good, and more importantly, it's making me reckon with the extent to which my attention span has been beaten to a pulp by LOST and Battlestar Galactica. I need to watch more French movies. Or just a marathon weekend of Tarkovsky.

[LilyPatToo]

I've been watching the entertainment news obsessively ever since the finale, hoping not to see cancellation rumors. But there've been some. Word is that, if the axe is to fall on my favorite TV show, it'll be this month Here's a good link: Rubicon Information Archive

Fingers crossed.

LilyPat

[nathan28]

The upthread comments on Rubicon reminded me of The Wire, which means it must be pretty good, except it's not on HBO or Showtime so it can't cater to any prurient interests.

The best thing about The Parallax View is that it posits a very strong form of deep politics, a far-ranging assassination conspiracy. (The name "Parallax" reminds me of "Permindex.") But except for the great photography (Gordon Willis) it wasn't much of a movie.

Blow Out was much better, though it posits a very weak form of deep politics (a single rogue agent, almost a lone nut.) (Someone was just comparing the two, here or somewhere else.) But both deserve a lot of credit for their descent into intense paranoia and their uncompromising bleakness.

Mostly agree. Parallax View looks great but the pacing, dialogue and acting suck. Not even that great $cientology sequence could save the movie from Warren Beaty. OTOH Blow Out was really, really good. I don't think it "posits" a "weak" deep politics. After all, an unnamed alphabet agency was setting up the candidate and covering its tracks, just not in the way it plays out. I think the rogue agent / lone nut angle actually assumes that deep politics are *more* natural than in Parallax View, b/c in Blow Out the deep state can get it wrong, fail, hire nutjobs, etc., and still get away with it while everyone else's life goes on. To me that's a more sophisticated view. At the same time that's me filling in the backstory.

[nathan28]

More 9/11 truth counterpropaganda, hijacking Mike Ruppert's best-selling 2004 book, 'Crossing the Rubicon.'

Irony, u haz it.

is touting someone else's book (by rigging the "most emailed" list) about economic crashes and using the headline to displace the 800 year-old legal right called habeus corpus since July 4th evokes fond memories of the Bill of Rights.

Problems:

01. Your "800 year[s]" refers to the Magna Carta
02. Habeus corpus predates the Magna Carta
03. The Magna Carta was executed on 15 June
04. 4 July is the Declaration of Independence ratification date
05. The Declaration of Independence does not mention habeus
06. U.S. Const. art. I, § 9 is the habeus clause
07. 21 June is the Constitution ratification date
08. The Constitution is closer to 200 than 800 years old
09. The Bill of Rights does not mention habeus
10. 15 December is the Bill of Rights ratification date

Magna Carta ≠ Decl. of Indep. ≠ Const. ≠ Bill of Rights

Not even on the same days, dawg. Magna Carta and U.S. Const. are kinda close, only, what, 7 days and the 574 years.

See, all of them do have due process language, but it's a very minor concern in the Decl., so I still don't see what, exactly, is holding together your conflationary magic. OTOH, I'm about to go home and smoke a couple grams of an herbal remedy, so, what do I know.

"They started their book around 2003, years before the economy began to crumble. "

The economy only wasn't "crumbled" if you weren't on the job market in 2003.

Kenneth Rogoff looks just like Richard Gage of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth and Every Other Bald White Guy With Glasses In America

Fixed.

[MinM]

The false-flag scenario reminded me of another short lived series, Traveler.

[anothershamus]

Second half really got me. By the end I was fiending for the next episode. Best of all, even if there's never a second season, the ending was still hugely appropriate and clean.

Re-watching it now front to back. It was incredibly good, and more importantly, it's making me reckon with the extent to which my attention span has been beaten to a pulp by LOST and Battlestar Galactica. I need to watch more French movies. Or just a marathon weekend of Tarkovsky.

If you want a really good series, Caprica via internet is really really good. It works even better if you know the Battlestar Galactica front story. They make some really funny connections. You can find it via syfy.com and fastpasstv.com (bootleg streaming video)

And if you want a good place to go to get clean video links (even new release movies, don't tell riaa)
http://www.bspcn.com/2007/10/22/38-sites-to-replace-tv-links/

[LilyPatToo]

I agree that Caprica is excellent...which of course is why it's been cancelled However, there's another Battlestar Galactica spin-off in the works called Blood and Chrome, which will have more shoot-'em-ups and 'splosions NOT gonna make up for the loss of Caprica, at least not as far as The Skeptic and I are concerned. If I have to grieve the loss of 2 really excellent shows this winter, that plus SAD is going to make it a bad year indeed.

LilyPat

[anothershamus]

I agree that Caprica is excellent...which of course is why it's been cancelled However, there's another Battlestar Galactica spin-off in the works called Blood and Chrome, which will have more shoot-'em-ups and 'splosions NOT gonna make up for the loss of Caprica, at least not as far as The Skeptic and I are concerned. If I have to grieve the loss of 2 really excellent shows this winter, that plus SAD is going to make it a bad year indeed.

LilyPat

I discovered, Satisfaction, Showtime Original Series, and it is in it's third season already funny, smart, and sexy. Lot different than Rubicon, Caprica, but you get a big insight into Australia right before the economic crash. It looked like the USA in the 80's. In the third season the economy is crashing good up to episode 3.

[whipstitch]

Bummer.

AMC Should Have Let Rubicon Live

Rubicon is, sadly, no more. AMC announced today that there will not be a second season of the moody thriller. In a statement, AMC said, "This was not an easy decision, but we are grateful to have had the opportunity to work with such a talented, dedicated team.” Fine, I'll take AMC's word for it that this wasn't an easy decision. But I also think it was very much the wrong decision...

[LilyPatToo]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

<sob!>

How could they axe Rubicon? Oy. I hate television executives. Hate 'em.

LilyPat

[Wombaticus Rex]

Had someone lecture me on Twitter about some major inconsistencies between ep. 1-4 and the rest of the season. I have watched it straight through twice and didn't catch it. The mammal in question also knew why the gap was there...a change in showrunner and a few other positions...which leads me to suspect they were watching for flaws and thus...

Now that I'm primed to look for some kind of weird gap cluster after ep. 4, maybe I'll see them on the 3rd viewing but that's probably a year off.

I really thought the show was perfect, though. Great, honest note to end on. One great season is way better than a season 2 compromise abortion.

[anothershamus]

Wombaticus Rexwrote:

I really thought the show was perfect, though. Great, honest note to end on. One great season is way better than a season 2 compromise abortion.

Yeah, I have to agree. It did end on a solid enough note to tidy up most loose ends and left the bigger picture to continue along as it does in real life. Good ending and not over the top.

The subtleties were a really good touch, added depth and interest. That neighbor lady was a good character. I didn't watch as closely as you WR, when did you see her as a bigger player? I didn't know she had more going on until she was trying to save the Miranda Richardson character, and we know that how that worked out. The biggest loose end, for me; who was the crowd she worked for, did I miss it or was it left as a mystery?

I won't have time to watch it again until maybe this spring.

[Wombaticus Rex]

The first time I was completely flabbergasted to have Andy behind that door, acting focused and capable and fully armed. Didn't see it coming at all. There was, near as I can tell, no resolution on who anyone worked for, including the Kateb character. Which I liked quite a bit. There was always infighting and factions we never saw -- pretty true to form for that line of work.

[thatsmystory]

I watched the extras with the producer. He said they were going for the Three Days of the Condor vibe. Then he said that before 9/11 the FBI and CIA didn't communicate. WTF? I remember Three Days of the Condor and the Parallax View. I don't recall anything like turf battles and communication failures. Yet the plot of Rubicon turned out to be that Spangler and his pals were profiting from terrorist attacks they helped orchestrate. Which happens to fit the suspicion of many people in relation to 9/11.

A creepy meme introduced is the notion that people who profit from terrorist attacks they help orchestrate are doing so because they truly believe it is good for the country. This notion was put forth to explain Spangler. This is an underlying meme surrounding 9/11. This is also the talking point put forth By Bush administration officials--"In 50 years Iraq will be viewed as a great success." This sort of bullshit only works if one discounts all the murdered people.

[JackRiddler]

Yet the plot of Rubicon turned out to be that Spangler and his pals were profiting from terrorist attacks they helped orchestrate. Which happens to fit the suspicion of many people in relation to 9/11.

A creepy meme introduced is the notion that people who profit from terrorist attacks they help orchestrate are doing so because they truly believe it is good for the country. This notion was put forth to explain Spangler. This is an underlying meme surrounding 9/11.

Creepy, and in no way exculpatory of crime, but very likely true. These are not great philosophers or moralists. People who persuade themselves of a geostrategic imperative to which the many are blind, which therefore requires them to deceive and even play god for the greater good, will have no trouble persuading themselves that they can, should, and indeed must profit from their actions. Should they not be rewarded for seeing the greater good and defending it? Should they not have control of resources that allow them to keep defending it?

Other way around also applies: The same kind of people have never had trouble persuading themselves that what profits them is also the higher good. Many ideologies dating back to Plato exist to support this combination: the invisible hand, the master race or caste, the Christian elect, the Philosopher Kings. If you're rich, it's because you're good.

.