wikipedia | A down-on-his-luck Democratic Senator, Jay Bulworth is losing his bid for re-election to a fiery young populist. Bulworth's socialist views, formed in the 1960s and 1970s, have lost favor with voters, so he has conceded to more conservative politics and to accepting donations from big corporations. In addition, though he and his wife have been having affairs with each other's knowledge for years, they must still present a happy façade in the interest of maintaining a good public image.
Tired of politics, unhappy with his life in general, and planning to commit suicide, Bulworth negotiates a $10 million life insurance policy with his daughter as the beneficiary in exchange for a favorable vote from the insurance industry. Knowing that a suicide will void his daughter's inheritance, he contracts to have himself assassinated within two days' time.
Turning up in California for his campaign extremely drunk, Bulworth begins speaking his mind freely at public events and in the presence of the C-SPAN film crew following his campaign. After dancing all night in a club and smoking marijuana, he even starts rapping in public. His frank, potentially offensive remarks make him an instant media darling and re-energize his campaign. Along the way he becomes romantically involved with a young black activist named Nina, who tags along with him on his campaign stops. Along the way he is pursued by the paparazzi, his insurance company, his campaign managers and an increasingly adoring public, all the while fearful of his impending assassination.
After a televised debate where Bulworth drinks out of a flask on air and derides insurance companies and the American healthcare system, he decides to hide at Nina's family's home, located in the ghetto of South-Central Los Angeles. While hiding at Nina's he wanders around the neighborhood, where he witnesses a group of kids selling crack, and buys the group ice cream. After saving the group from a racially motivated encounter with a cop, he finds out they are "soldiers" of L.D., a local drug kingpin whom Nina's brother owes money to. Bulworth eventually makes it to a television appearance arranged earlier by his campaign manager, during which he raps and repeats truths Nina and L.D. told him about the lives of poor black people and their opinions of various American institutions, like education and employment. Eventually he offers the solution that "everybody should fuck everybody" until everyone is "all the same color" stunning the audience and his interviewer.
After Bulworth's TV appearance he escapes with Nina and goes with her back to her house, where she reveals that she is the assassin he indirectly hired (ostensibly to make the money needed to pay off the debt her brother owes to L.D.) and will now not carry out the job. Bulworth, finally relieved that he is not in danger of being killed, falls asleep, having not slept for the past several days.
The next morning the press and Bulworth's campaign managers converge on Nina's house, all eager to talk to him. L.D. also comes to Nina's house, and having had a change of heart says he will let Nina's brother work off his debt instead of hurting or killing him. Bulworth emerges from the bedroom looking rested, and as he steps outside he invites Nina to go with him, who eventually joins him after some hesitation. Bulworth and Nina embrace and begin to kiss as people cheer. As Bulworth happily accepts a new campaign for the presidency, he is suddenly shot in front of the crowd of reporters and supporters by an agent of the insurance company lobbyists, who were fearful of Bulworth's recent push for single-payer health care.
Bulworth's fate is left ambiguous. The final scene shows an elderly vagrant, played by Amiri Baraka, whom Bulworth met previously, standing alone outside a hospital. He exhorts Bulworth, who is presumably inside, to not be 'a ghost' but 'a spirit' which, as he had mentioned earlier, can only happen if you have 'a song'. In the final shot of the film, he asks the same of the audience.
11 comments:
Amiri Baraka? Isn't his son attempting leadership in Newark these days?
Ras J. Baraka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ras_J._Baraka
I was so ready to get "offended" by your call out (like you friend gets offended over me). Instead I was left disappointed as the contents didn't live up to the title.
Try again CNu. Get your circle of fiends to help
No one is "offended" by you, we just can't offer up our community valuables trying to decipher the 450 idiosyncratic ways you say the same shit over and over again every day, as if you're sincerely doing something or accomplishing something.
https://youtu.be/AKFD7Cjypy4
The greatest contradict that you are going to realize, Brother CNu, is that your charge to "So something" or "Convict the people", as you assumed that their popular acceptance was evidence of CORRECTNESS is that you failed
you failed To apply sufficient qualitative constraints to you request
I didn't make any requests. Bulworth was quantitatively better than your many blogs, and, the character managed to say in less than one minute - more than you've managed to say in the course of the past 8 years.
were the most successful at picking your people's wallets
My peoples' community values have gone unmolested Bro. Feed. You see, I'm extremely selective in the first place, so, as a practical matter, there's a pretty small upper bound to how many you can meaningfully describe as "my people" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
Besides which, you already know more than enough about me to know and understand that from where I sit, there's at least 6 billion too many in any event.
My Dear Friend CNu:
Where is the source of the text from above?
The link you provided is Dr Gates (The Mastermind Colonizer's) article on "The Root.com"
This sentence made me chuckle:
[quote] The white scourge of Cuba that fled to Florida/the U.S. were the ones upholding racism and oppressing blacks - period.[/quote]
The Americanized Black Progressive Fundamentalist loves to "Play Through" with his claim that the RIGHT-WING WHITENESS (Conservetard-ness) is the container for RACISM.
As I look very carefully at how the the ACHIEVEMENT of labeling someone a RACIST produces endorphins within Progressives both "Black and White" - it is clear that RACISM ALONE (or in the case of "The Root" a Negro debating vociferously that IT DEPARTED CUBA along with the Mariel Boat Lift) does not provide a sufficient model of the REAL WORLD and the forces that people deal with.
As a Black American who actually visited Cuba - (and speaking for Havana and not the entire nation which I did not see) there are more "mixed raced Cubans" that would be considered light-skinned Hispanics if they were in American and not "Black", even though it is popular to label them as such.
The Root.com author DOESN'T GIVE A DAMN about the mentality that socialist oppression has produced when such a person comes into contact with an "Outsider". Just as people say that you should "Marry into your own class" (or at lest not to jump between more than 1 strata - the average Cuban woman who gets her eyes fixed on an "American tourist" turns into a groupie, and (speaking ONLY for the young girls 20s through 40s that I saw) 'What Their Momma Gave Em' becomes their currency that they will negotiate in exchange for your hard currency.
My Dear Friend CNu:
When you see "Crooks And Liars", "Young Turks", "SALON.com" and "Alternet" taking up the cause of "The Negro" - AFFIRMING that today's Blacks are indeed "DAMAGED GOODS"..............................AS LONG AS IT IS CLEAR that it is due to "White Right-Wing Racism and Oppression".
If we agree that BLACK PEOPLE ARE "PURCHASING" a definitive set of assumptions, having fused their "Black Struggle" into something that these White Progressives feel that they are NATURAL ALLIES (to fight against "Confederates", "Conservetards" and "Christian Evangelicals") my question to you:
DO YOU BELIEVE THAT THESE WHITE PROGRESSIVES (who in this case are "Running Cover For Ta-Nehisi Coates' article when a WHITE CONSERVETARD attacks it) ARE INTERESTED IN "DEVELOPING BLACK PEOPLE", LEAVING THOSE WHO FOLLOW WITH DEFINED "ORGANIC COMPETENCIES" THAT THEY CAN TRANSLATE INTO A HIGHER STANDARD OF LIVING FOR THEMSELVES AND FAMILY?
OR ARE THEY JUST RUNNING THE SAME OLE: "A FRIEND WHO HELPS ME DEFEAT MY CONSERVETARD ENEMY IS MY FRIEND, BUT IT AIN'T MY FAULT IF HE FAILS TO DEFINE A SUFFICIENT SET OF DELIVERABLES OF HIS OWN, SEPARATE AND DISTINCT FROM OUR JOINT VENTURE, AND HE HAS NEVER DETAILED A POINT IN TIME THAT HE WILL CUT BAIT IF HE IS NOT DEVELOPED AS HE ASSUMES?
You see that link at the upper left corner of the excerpted "article"? Click it and it will take you directly to the comment appended to Gates pathetic article.
Thank you sir. It was a COMMENT and not a stand alone article that referenced the original piece.
My Friend CNu:
You gave me an interesting idea for a blog post, but first I wanted to give you first crack.
Could you distinguish for me the difference between:
1) The CHASE after the "American Dream"
2) The Perpetual Pursuit Of 'SOCIAL JUSTICE'?
With these structural items as part of your response (you know that "quantitative" think that I talked about)
a) WHO are are you 'Struggling Against', in each case? (your enemies list)
b) HOW do you know if you have succeeded (your measuring device)
c) WHICH set of constrains that you never yield from your 'personal sovereignty' are required to make sure that YOU ARE NOT STRUNG ALONG and used in someone else's agenda?
It seems to me that a CAPITALISTIC ENTITY would see both as a prized possession to dangle in front of a subject whose pockets and mind are pregnant with valuables for him to harvest.
(I too am conditioned by my world experiences. Doing "gap analysis" and "transformations to end states" as part of my profession has definitely altered my way of thinking.)
Post a Comment