Operation Strangelove:

Today (Wednesday, 14 May 2002) is the day.

Yes, this is the day people are encouraged to ...

... put on a screening of "Dr. Strangelove" – in your living room, at the local theater, on campus, on your laptop, anywhere you can - and say no to unilateral invasions, to endangering our troops for the sake of oil, to flouting international law and the world community in the name of empire. Follow the film with discussions, forums, debates. Keep talking. Keep acting. Let's give new meaning to the old Strategic Air Command motto, "Peace Is Our Profession."

This, according to operationstrangelove.org, which is organizing the following:

Operation Strangelove: a National Movement of Solidarity and Satire May 14, 2003

On Wednesday, May 14, activists in New York and around the country will unleash screenings of Stanley Kubrick's biting 1964 Cold War satire, "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" to protest cowboy diplomacy, unilateral preemptive strikes and wars fought for precious fluids. Er, oil.

Janeane Garafolo (recent target of blacklist threats), Art Spiegelman ("Maus", The New Yorker), David Rees ("Get Your War On"), Jeremy Pikser ("Bullworth", "Reds"), and a representative from the Guerrilla Girls (who make their anonymous appearances in gorilla masks) will discuss "The Art of Dissent: Satire and Protest" on a panel moderated by critic John Leonard (CBS Sunday Morning, New York Magazine, Harper's, The Nation) immediately following the main New York screening of "Dr. Strangelove."

The event takes place in New York on Wednesday, May 14, 7:00 PM at United Artists Battery Park overlooking Ground Zero.

For most of us, it will mean getting out the videotape and enjoying the movie at home in our personal War Room.   (In our opinion, the best scene in the film is when Capt. Lionel Mandrake and Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper discuss precious bodily fluids - especially Mandrake's initial "Huh?" when told about Ripper's discovery about the weakness that follows the act of love.)

NOTE: A comprehensive review of the film can be found here.

posted by Quiddity at 5/14/2003 06:36:00 AM