A Clockwork Orange, novel by Anthony Burgess, published in 1962. Set in a dismal dystopian England, it is the first-person account of a juvenile delinquent who undergoes state-sponsored psychological rehabilitation for his aberrant behavior. In place of peace and love and prosperity, A Clockwork Orange offered a new zeitgeist-decade of violence, anger, misogyny, the degradation of the public space in dreary suburban locales, and modernist designs for living that had been vandalized. John Barry’s production design showed us “ruin porn” before the phrase had been invented.
Straw Dogs, David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman), a mild-mannered academic from the United States, marries Amy (Susan George), an Englishwoman. In order to escape a hectic stateside lifestyle, David and his wife relocate to the small town in rural Cornwall where Amy was raised. There, David is ostracized by the brutish men of the village, including Amy's old flame, Charlie (Del Henney). Eventually, the taunts escalate, and two of the locals rape Amy. This sexual assault awakes a shockingly violent side of David.
To this moment in my 71 years alive, the two films, A Clockwork Orange and Straw Dogs remain two films I cannot watch again without the feeling of revulsion, nausea, and an incomprehensible sense of anguish and anger overtaking my ENTIRE body. To watch as these creatures these delusional men, with intended malicious rage, with the total lack of sympathy empathy, acknowledgment of the other, the sheer cowardness of men who think because they have unleveled the playing field and are the dominating factor, behave like wild beasts were and are overwhelming and make me sick. I mention these two films because, as I now watch, (RELUCTANTLY, CAUTIOUSLY, AND WITH GREAT TREPIDATION) the video feeds from the INSURRECTIONISTS, at the Capitol, my mind wanders to the violent and inhuman scenes of BRUTALITY as portrayed in both A Clockwork Orange and Straw Dogs.
As I witness these spineless self-absorbed, enemies of the state rampage through OUR CAPITOL screaming as hyenas on a hunt to find Pelosi, hang Pence, or seek out any person in the Congress, all full of the shit Trump and Cruz and Giuliani had fed them; I cringe, my stomach curdles, and I actually shake to the core of my body and soul. These THUGS, the MAUARDERS, these DOMESTIC TERRORISTS, thinking they are all-powerful preening in front of the cameras, ARE, for me, the myriad of nightmares and the content of what HELL must be like. AND, to think, there are people in power, STILL WITH THAT POWER, who have not come out loud and strong against anyone who has raped and pillaged my democracy, are as disgusting as the INSURRECTIONISTS, and should be held accountable. Oh yeah, this is not a debate or an issue of one side or the other. THESE were acts of criminality treason and tyranny!
