One Nation Under God (Documentary)
Picture:
C Sound: C+ Extras: D Program: B
Any and
all attempts to control, eradicate and “cure” a group of people of anything and
especially themselves, it is really a way to go after everyone they hate and
disagree with. Then in a “say uncle”
fashion that is obnoxious and sinister, the ideological aggressors will start
to chant immorality and “reason” that the group is committing an “evil” that is
absolutely intolerable and that you “have to admit” how wrong it is, so just
agree with everything they say they are going to do about this “problem” and
“trust them” so life and the future will be “better” as after all, since they
know what is “right”, they’ll be happy to “take care of it”.
So what
can we say about this? I made a new
friend? What a great guy (or girl)? What a load off of my back and a relief that
I do not have to take care of that burdensome problem I did not even know
existed. I guess the only way to make my
like and the world better is to get into other people’s business that is none
of mine so my life is better, though this person did not explain to me the
link. After all, who wants to be
uncomfortable?
These are
the seeds of propaganda that makes hate and war possible on any minority group,
and it is certainly the invisible way many oppressive policies and bigotries
are formed. With homophobia, it has been
particularly a problem. After the Gay
Rights movement made classifying homosexuality as a mental disease illegal,
those hatemongers had to reinvent the hate, and with the AIDS virus (which we
will not go into here) and the Reagan years, those who came up with the above
moral justifications were back with a vengeance, like all those who need to get
a life.
The new
documentary One Nation Under God (1993)
shows the extreme Religious Right, who have been destroying the country lately
and bringing on war baiting and even the second coming of Christ after the
events of 9/11/01, have come up with a new twist: “ex-Gays” who are now
straight and trying to “save” others from being Gay. As has been the case since the 1980s, these
dark forces have found enough groups of self-hating persons to do their dirty
work for them for free, not knowing that under more thriving Fascist
circumstances, they would be “eradicated” as quickly as those they “used to be”
if we did not live in a freer country.
Over a decade since the making of this documentary, freedom has never
been so threatened.
The
Teodoro Maniaci/Francine Rzeznik-directed work goes back 50 (and now over 60)
years to see the roots of the well-funded (disturbingly so, when they have to
spend money at all) efforts of the extreme Right to wage war on homosexuals and
anything or anyone gay, seeing this as a threat to the extremist power they
would do anything to get at any cost.
This includes the allowing these people to organize their own Gay reform
organization called Exodus to organize the “conversions” to their way of
thinking and living for their version of “God & Jesus”. We now know more than ever how far they have
gone and will go, but when One Nation
Under God was released, many still scoffed at the idea. That is why its DVD release could not be
timelier, and it only sometimes overlaps other programs on the subject. The treatment of gays it reveals is an
inexcusable disgrace and is why everyone should see this at least once.
The full
screen image is overly digitized with some slight noise in most of the footage,
but the footage is worth seeing under any circumstances. Otherwise, this offers the diversity of film
and video quality over the years that is to be expected by such a
documentary. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo,
but compressed, without surrounds. You
only get a trailer gallery for other First Run DVDs, which is a shame, because
an update would have been nice.
Those who
are only watching this for the comedy and think/assume they and everyone else
with “common sense” knows how “obviously” wrong what is going on here is making
the same error the Right has been counting on for decades, because that is
complacency and the kind of assumed comfortableness and “everything is alright”
attitude that the extremists are counting on.
This does not mean you have to go out an be a radical protester, but now
more than ever, you need to be more on guard than ever of extremists and the
subtle ways they manipulate and ruin freedom and life. One
Nation Under God is a great record of destruction succeeding without anyone
realizing it. Bit by bit, this has got
to be reversed, but some lives are permanently damaged and that is the saddest
reality we have to deal with in dark times.
- Nicholas Sheffo
