A 300-Degree Compass

The Lives of Others is a remarkable movie. I had the good fortune of stumbling upon it late tonight. It was nothing short of hypnotic for me, a tale of 1980's East German oppression distilled of any virulent strains of naivete regarding the reality of it. In fact, I find it wholly impractical to call this a "movie," rather it is a sincere, genuine and essential story told fictionally and applied to the screen too successfully to bear such a label.

I'm finding more and more talk on the Internet about how Barack Obama is a "socialist." Those labeling him as such don't seem to understand the term. One person mentioned that they are confused as to how so many European democracies can be socialist. Confused indeed.

I find this sort of political discourse so pathetically ill-informed, so ... distorted. It's bad enough to not understand how the world around you works, but to layer upon that a blanket of supposing one does is just plain useless. Nay, dangerous. Of course, most anyone who is convinced by these allegations from the ether would have probably drawn the same conclusions on their own because only one so impressionable and devoid of motivation to be informed would be attracted to such "information" and willing to pass it on as fact.

But this story, The Lives of Others, so deftly puts into focus where my heart should be with all this. Are these accusations of Obama being a "socialist" merely the ramblings of right-wing extremists who subscribe more fully (but without knowing) to fascism and militarism? Yes. But more importantly, they are an essential component in American discourse.

The Lives of Others is a vivid reminder that there was a place somewhere (not the first, not the last) where the state monitored and restricted expression carefully and methodically. The state conducted surveillance on artists, writers, pastors and activists. Why? What do all these have in common? Because ideas are dangerous to a state that pretends to provide for the people.

To those who allege Barack Obama is a socialist, I say play on. Run your mouth for all it's worth. Write and call in to the likes of Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, and Michael Savage. I'd sooner listen to such drivel and know better any day of my life than live in 1980's Germany and watch critical discourse - all manner of it - die on a vine. I'll rail against it in my own way, sometimes quiet and sometimes indignant. But either way, The Lives of Others has reminded me that sometimes the most outlandish, the most inappropriate and the most off-the-mark opinions are critical to the environment of truth and justice, as necessary an ingredient as the rest. After all, without all being exposed there can never be a clear and total comparisons drawn, no honest rationale for or against anything. It would be as though trying to find one's way with a 300-degree compass.