I'm sorry, so protection of speech only applies so long as you're talking about anything besides organized labor? Because the issue here isn't "Being expelled for organizing a union," the issue is "Being expelled for attempt to gauge interest or disseminate information on organizing a union."
I'm not aware of K-12 schools hiring students in large enough bodies to actually create a situation that might lead to something comparable either. Sorry if the differences between a state university (though only kind I'm personally familiar with) and public schools aren't clear enough to you.
If you wanted to talk about public universities, why did you start off your previous post with "K-12 public schools in the United States are "no freedoms" zones"? Sorry, but when you brought up K-12 public schools I assumed that, you know, you had a reason for doing so.
And, as I said, you are talking about a situation where your school administrators are violating the rights you have under law, not a situation where you don't have those rights in the first place. In your case, you seem to be describing a violation of your free-speech rights AND your right to organize. If you're not talking to the ACLU and representatives of whatever union you're thinking about joining, you should be.
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You have all your rights at a school, it's just an institution that has certain rules you need to follow if you wish to remain a member. Failing to work with the rules results in being suspended or expelled from the institution. What's so anti-freedom about this, again? If I joined a golf club and the clubhouse had certain rules but I said "fuck this no freedom zone, I'm going to exercise my right to be a jackass" and then they expelled me from the club, we'd agree that's a perfectly ordinary response right?
if we're going with the golf club analogy, it's more like you're required by law to join the golf club and have no say whatsoever in how it's run, since kids can't exactly decide they don't want to go to school anymore until they're almost done with the amount of education they're required to go through.
You have all your rights at a school, it's just an institution that has certain rules you need to follow if you wish to remain a member. Failing to work with the rules results in being suspended or expelled from the institution. What's so anti-freedom about this, again? If I joined a golf club and the clubhouse had certain rules but I said "fuck this no freedom zone, I'm going to exercise my right to be a jackass" and then they expelled me from the club, we'd agree that's a perfectly ordinary response right?
if we're going with the golf club analogy, it's more like you're required by law to join the golf club and have no say whatsoever in how it's run, since kids can't exactly decide they don't want to go to school anymore until they're almost done with the amount of education they're required to go through.
But in most cases they are also protected by the fact that they are guaranteed some degree of education by their state constitution.
So they can break the rules as many times as they want, as long as they are ok with being shuffled from one public school to another. They can't actually be denied education (with a few exceptions in specific states).
You have all your rights at a school, it's just an institution that has certain rules you need to follow if you wish to remain a member. Failing to work with the rules results in being suspended or expelled from the institution. What's so anti-freedom about this, again? If I joined a golf club and the clubhouse had certain rules but I said "fuck this no freedom zone, I'm going to exercise my right to be a jackass" and then they expelled me from the club, we'd agree that's a perfectly ordinary response right?
if we're going with the golf club analogy, it's more like you're required by law to join the golf club and have no say whatsoever in how it's run, since kids can't exactly decide they don't want to go to school anymore until they're almost done with the amount of education they're required to go through.
What are you arguing here, that we shouldn't require kids to get an education?
Also with regards to "say in how it's run", any individual member in any given club has very little to no say in the institution's rules. There's going to be an administration and bureacracy and politics the same as in the school system. If enough members feel the same way then they definitely can change the rules. And, wow surprise, the same is true of schools. When enough parents want something changed, it gets changed either by the school officials or the politicians above them that want to keep their jobs.
This whole "schools are a no freedom zone" argument just seems so bizarre to me because by this logic most of the planet is a "no freedom zone". If I go to a movie theater suddenly I'm supposed to be quiet during the movie? Waht, fuck that it's my freedom of speech, how can they remove me from the theater for being a jackass! The mall, the gym, the bookstore, damn near every place you go has rules that you agree to follow if you want to take part of their services. If the bookstore you want to go into has a "no dogs allowed" policy they aren't restricting your freedom to own a dog, they're just establishing the rules you need to play by to use their service.
I'm sorry, so protection of speech only applies so long as you're talking about anything besides organized labor? Because the issue here isn't "Being expelled for organizing a union," the issue is "Being expelled for attempt to gauge interest or disseminate information on organizing a union."
I'm not aware of K-12 schools hiring students in large enough bodies to actually create a situation that might lead to something comparable either. Sorry if the differences between a state university (though only kind I'm personally familiar with) and public schools aren't clear enough to you.
If you wanted to talk about public universities, why did you start off your previous post with "K-12 public schools in the United States are "no freedoms" zones"? Sorry, but when you brought up K-12 public schools I assumed that, you know, you had a reason for doing so.
...because this is an internet forum, and I wanted to talk about both of them? Because I think it's worth considering limitations of speech protection after 12th grade but still in state-owned facilities? Because "at least not officially" doesn't interest me personally as, you know, de facto limits of speech? I stated the opinion that K-12 public schools had very vigorous restrictions on freedom of students, and that universities had less vigorous restrictions, instead of the same degrees of restrictions. It's called a comparison.
I mentioned universities because they are intended to serve an education need, like schools, and pretty clearly differentiated between the two. Sorry, but just because the Supreme Court reverses a outcome on appeal on something comparatively mundane like Morse v. Frederick, that doesn't, you know, automatically mean all school administrations don't get to exercise their own interpretations anymore. With the limits of the law in mind, it's hard to imagine schools not having greater limitations on speech even in an ideal situation
EDIT: Also--just want to put this out here, a third thing--wasn't this about movies? How did we get from film to speech in schools?
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21stCenturyCall me Pixel, or Pix for short![They/Them]Registered Userregular
Also with regards to "say in how it's run", any individual member in any given club has very little to no say in the institution's rules. There's going to be an administration and bureacracy and politics the same as in the school system. If enough members feel the same way then they definitely can change the rules. And, wow surprise, the same is true of schools. When enough parents want something changed, it gets changed either by the school officials or the politicians above them that want to keep their jobs..
Seems to me like if the "social club" analogy is to stick, it's simpler to say it's a country because you can't really opt out of education.
So basically, if the American public schools were a country, it'd be one where citizen have no real say in how it's run unless they all mass together, but if someone tries to mobilize them, they get punished... Funny how it sounds like a dictatorship.
(I'm not saying schools are a dictatorship, I'm saying those analogies are dumb)
Still, I'm kind of baffled by Synthesis' story about how people at his university get sanctions for trying to get a student union going. Is it seriously how this goes in the US? That sounds crazy! I'm pretty happy that we have a student union here. Just last week, they organized a vote for a strike day to protest a province-wide hike in tuition costs. (In american currency, the costs would go from obscenely cheap the really really cheap). For 2 days, they asked people to vote, they counted the votes and announced the strike. These people are defending the student's interests and, even though I voted against it, I'm glad that they got the chance to do that.
As for why the topic drifted to school politics, it's because people talked about how it's normal to have restrictions when working with big institutions such as the military.
Still, I'm kind of baffled by Synthesis' story about how people at his university get sanctions for trying to get a student union going. Is it seriously how this goes in the US? That sounds crazy! I'm pretty happy that we have a student union here. Just last week, they organized a vote for a strike day to protest a province-wide hike in tuition costs. (In american currency, the costs would go from obscenely cheap the really really cheap). For 2 days, they asked people to vote, they counted the votes and announced the strike. These people are defending the student's interests and, even though I voted against it, I'm glad that they got the chance to do that.
It should be noted that not all schools behave that way--some do, in fact, have actual unions already. Wisconsin-Madison is the most famous example I can think of. There are others as well. And there are still others that don't have Unions, but do allow the discussion of Union--they usually rely on financial incentive to discourage/prohibit that sort of thing from gathering steam. Some schools in Illinois were like this (some have Unions now too).
The NYUcase is really famous too. I think they managed to get recognition as workers free to organize. Of course, my university's yearly pay for graduate assistants is less than the nationwide average unemployment benefit for someone in their mid-20s (actually closer to half, I think, I need to check that out), nor does it pay for any sort of health coverage (though you are required to have it). NYU's benefits might as well have been on an entirely different planet. I doubt that's something that will change left to its own as well (nor do I think organizing is particularly possible in Georgia, which has a reputation as something of an anti-labor state).
As for why the topic drifted to school politics, it's because people talked about how it's normal to have restrictions when working with big institutions such as the military.
You have all your rights at a school, it's just an institution that has certain rules you need to follow if you wish to remain a member. Failing to work with the rules results in being suspended or expelled from the institution. What's so anti-freedom about this, again? If I joined a golf club and the clubhouse had certain rules but I said "fuck this no freedom zone, I'm going to exercise my right to be a jackass" and then they expelled me from the club, we'd agree that's a perfectly ordinary response right?
if we're going with the golf club analogy, it's more like you're required by law to join the golf club and have no say whatsoever in how it's run, since kids can't exactly decide they don't want to go to school anymore until they're almost done with the amount of education they're required to go through.
What are you arguing here, that we shouldn't require kids to get an education?
Also with regards to "say in how it's run", any individual member in any given club has very little to no say in the institution's rules. There's going to be an administration and bureacracy and politics the same as in the school system. If enough members feel the same way then they definitely can change the rules. And, wow surprise, the same is true of schools. When enough parents want something changed, it gets changed either by the school officials or the politicians above them that want to keep their jobs.
This whole "schools are a no freedom zone" argument just seems so bizarre to me because by this logic most of the planet is a "no freedom zone". If I go to a movie theater suddenly I'm supposed to be quiet during the movie? Waht, fuck that it's my freedom of speech, how can they remove me from the theater for being a jackass! The mall, the gym, the bookstore, damn near every place you go has rules that you agree to follow if you want to take part of their services. If the bookstore you want to go into has a "no dogs allowed" policy they aren't restricting your freedom to own a dog, they're just establishing the rules you need to play by to use their service.
oh no, i'm definitely not saying compulsory education is a bad thing. i just think that there's really no reason that a kid in a public school should have any less expectation of privacy or any more restrictions on how they express themselves than anyone anywhere else.
You have all your rights at a school, it's just an institution that has certain rules you need to follow if you wish to remain a member. Failing to work with the rules results in being suspended or expelled from the institution. What's so anti-freedom about this, again? If I joined a golf club and the clubhouse had certain rules but I said "fuck this no freedom zone, I'm going to exercise my right to be a jackass" and then they expelled me from the club, we'd agree that's a perfectly ordinary response right?
Public schools are run by the government. This differentiates them from some random club. For instance, a young republicans club might require that their members be registered republican voters. But, of course, we can see how it would be completely improper for a public school to require its students to be registered republican voters.
This seems like a weird stumbling block for people. The government has special restrictions which do not apply to private institutions.
I think anyone that thinks they have all their regular rights while enrolled in public school hasn't been in one in a while. You should find a SRO(school resource officer, a cop stationed at a school, at least thats what its called here), and talk to him on this subject.
For one, I can't think of another zone in (at least most states) where you cant legally carry tobacco onto the property. not use, carry. Same for guns, but frankly I am not for arguing that guns should be allowed on school property, and alot of states say you cant do this in bars/hospitals either. Don't like someone? throw your lookalike gun into someones open car window, thats generally a automatic expulsion and arrest. Clubs generally don't get you arrested in the end for the things that are normally legal to happen, worse comes to worse you are thrown out. (this happened to a friend in a zero tolerance policy area, luckily the report was on good faith(father went "oh shit this was an accident but I better let the school know") and the SRO was *very good* friends with the person that had a civil war musket from her fathers reenactment in her trunk. the SRO was thankful he got the call, and that it was her because otherwise it meant he had to go ruin someones life instead of letting them off the hook discreetly.)
A case just went to the supreme court over weather the cops in school have to have your parents present in order for you, as a minor to wave your rights(so when questioned you can self incriminate), where under any other case they would have to have them there. the court said "olol its a school so of course they dont need parents there, if a principal and cop are questioning you about a crime, you should know to shut your mouth and lawyer up automatically even as a minor"
Anyone that makes a comparison to public schools being a club, what other clubs out there strip you of your 5th amendment rights when you become a member? "no freedoms zone" is a bit drastic for phrasing, but it applies
I larger issue is that the military will present pr as "fact-checking" when studios reach out to them, so that it's impossible to find out how a commander would really act because the best positioned consultants would call any deviation from omniscient godking inaccurate.
that's pure bullshit
the "new officer who chokes on his first mission" stereotype didn't come from thin air, plenty of movies and TV shows, even those supported by the pentagon use it
The best example of this is Stargate SG-1, I think its the only television series to get funding, or at least the first. It CONSTANTLY has the Air Force fucking up and almost destroying the world. beyond that theres service members making terrible decisions, emotional decisions, being to psychologically/physically injured to keep doing what they do, but continue anyways. The air force loved the show so much they started putting real cabinet members and generals/officers in the show in cameos. Theres argument that this show got funding and shows like JAG and NCIS don't because of sci-fi vs realism, there both basically procedural and justice and the american way always prevails.
Generally its something minor that gives a bad impression of the military that they dont want to support. Hell Dr Strangelove came out better because it didn't get extra funding from the military.
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21stCenturyCall me Pixel, or Pix for short![They/Them]Registered Userregular
edited April 2011
Man, American high schools/The american legal system sound pretty fucked up the more i hear about it...
But stuff like kids being strip-searched for aspirin and self-incriminatings/getting stuck in entrapment and no one caring only happens rarely, right?
I'd hardly call it funding when the military's the one receiving monetary compensation.
Even if they receive compensation, that still means that there's a service they render which they are only making available to a certain class of customer. What if, for instance, city surveyors would only come to your house and mark out the property lines if you were Christian? Does the fact that you pay for the survey make that any more acceptable?
One thing that nobody seems to be addressing with the schools conversation (which is wildly off topic, by the way) is the fact that schools are places full of people that are under the age of majority. That means that teachers and administrators are responsible for the safety of those young people, and can be held directly accountable for the actions of those young people whether or not they are under direct supervision. En loco parentis, I believe it's called. In place of the parents.
Which is not to say that we ought to be strip searching middle schoolers for aspirin bottles, but the basic systems that get used to keep track of students and keep them from getting into trouble are there for a reason. They might seem onerous at times, but when you're talking about the safety and well being of children there's a very heavy onus on the adults involved to make sure nothing goes wrong.
I'd hardly call it funding when the military's the one receiving monetary compensation.
Even if they receive compensation, that still means that there's a service they render which they are only making available to a certain class of customer. What if, for instance, city surveyors would only come to your house and mark out the property lines if you were Christian? Does the fact that you pay for the survey make that any more acceptable?
Then that would be a local government agency denying a necessary service based on someone's religion.
This is the military offering services to people who don't then use those services to harm recruiting goals, something that is indeed a part of their job.
...because this is an internet forum, and I wanted to talk about both of them? Because I think it's worth considering limitations of speech protection after 12th grade but still in state-owned facilities? Because "at least not officially" doesn't interest me personally as, you know, de facto limits of speech? I stated the opinion that K-12 public schools had very vigorous restrictions on freedom of students, and that universities had less vigorous restrictions, instead of the same degrees of restrictions. It's called a comparison.
Look, I'm not terribly interested in playing Let's Whipsaw The Conversation So I Can Always Argue with you. You brought up a topic, said you weren't talking about that but were talking about something else, now you were talking about both of them after all, even if you weren't making a hell of a lot of sense. Whatever. If your university is infringing on the legal rights you have, then you need to go talk to the ACLU and/or an organizer for the union you want to join, which is something that would be pointless if you had no legal rights in the first place. That will get you where you want to go a lot faster than complaining on the Internet.
On the actual topic, maybe this is a good place to bring up the Mo Movie Measure. (Which, as has been pointed out before, is not a test of whether an individual movie is 'good' or 'sexist' so much as a commentary on movies in general.)
mythago on
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...because this is an internet forum, and I wanted to talk about both of them? Because I think it's worth considering limitations of speech protection after 12th grade but still in state-owned facilities? Because "at least not officially" doesn't interest me personally as, you know, de facto limits of speech? I stated the opinion that K-12 public schools had very vigorous restrictions on freedom of students, and that universities had less vigorous restrictions, instead of the same degrees of restrictions. It's called a comparison.
Look, I'm not terribly interested in playing Let's Whipsaw The Conversation So I Can Always Argue with you. You brought up a topic, said you weren't talking about that but were talking about something else, now you were talking about both of them after all, even if you weren't making a hell of a lot of sense. Whatever. If your university is infringing on the legal rights you have, then you need to go talk to the ACLU and/or an organizer for the union you want to join, which is something that would be pointless if you had no legal rights in the first place. That will get you where you want to go a lot faster than complaining on the Internet.
Believe it or not, that wasn't my intention--and you're correct, contacting interest groups could help this specific issue. Nonetheless, I think it's perfect fine to bring it up. I'm sorry I'm apparently confusing, I didn't think I was--and so far, no one else has been particularly confused by this to my knowledge (then again, English isn't my first language, so it's possible I'm putting this awkwardly). I personally thought I made it clear, because I considered it important to distinguish between the two different instances--no one else was particularly confused about this but you. In all likelihood, there are probably even more instances within education, and insomuch as we're talking about education, I think it's perfectly reasonable for other people to relate their own situations.
Nonetheless, I don't think that diminishes it as a personal example related by someone--i.e. the vast majority of examples given in an internet discussion. I never claimed to have no legal rights--in fact, I'm fairly certain that "less freedom" quite clearly establishes that. I pretty sure I never claimed I wasn't talking about K-12 at all, but I wasn't talking about it when I was talking about a specific example in universities...perhaps a case of me misunderstanding you, thinking you were only addressing one specific circumstance while misunderstanding me. Given that I even stated "higher education" the first time, I thought it was apparent. If I worded this poorly, I apologize, but frankly, I think you're the only one who was confused about my explanation--then again, perhaps I was the only one misunderstanding you. It may be a case of both.
If I'm wandering from the (apparently secondary) topic of education, I apologize, but I'm not fan of "Oh yeah, well, you just don't get it, because you don't." Especially if it's caused by a misunderstanding. And I could be wrong, but I didn't bring up the example because I wanted a solution, particularly because I'm a pessimist--I brought it up because I believed it was worth demonstrating limitations of speech in education. "Go complain to the ACLU" could resolve the issue, or it couldn't--which is why some limitations exist.
One thing that nobody seems to be addressing with the schools conversation (which is wildly off topic, by the way) is the fact that schools are places full of people that are under the age of majority. That means that teachers and administrators are responsible for the safety of those young people, and can be held directly accountable for the actions of those young people whether or not they are under direct supervision. En loco parentis, I believe it's called. In place of the parents.
Which is not to say that we ought to be strip searching middle schoolers for aspirin bottles, but the basic systems that get used to keep track of students and keep them from getting into trouble are there for a reason. They might seem onerous at times, but when you're talking about the safety and well being of children there's a very heavy onus on the adults involved to make sure nothing goes wrong.
One thing that nobody seems to be addressing with the schools conversation (which is wildly off topic, by the way) is the fact that schools are places full of people that are under the age of majority. That means that teachers and administrators are responsible for the safety of those young people, and can be held directly accountable for the actions of those young people whether or not they are under direct supervision. En loco parentis, I believe it's called. In place of the parents.
Which is not to say that we ought to be strip searching middle schoolers for aspirin bottles, but the basic systems that get used to keep track of students and keep them from getting into trouble are there for a reason. They might seem onerous at times, but when you're talking about the safety and well being of children there's a very heavy onus on the adults involved to make sure nothing goes wrong.
This.
Plus kids are dumb as hell.
There's validity behind this. Okay, maybe not "kids are dumb as hell", but I didn't go to public school in the United States, only assisted and taught at them, so maybe I'm the fool and the kids are that dumb. It's the reason I've never claimed that, in K-12, there's a working alternative to the limitations that exist on speech and other personal freedom. I think it's worth observing, and I don't think we should delude ourselves into thinking "schools have free speech!" or "schools technically have free speech, you know, except ___, but that's not really making it unfree..." but I can't think of a balance that might less destructive in the areas of other educational issues.
At the same time, I say this as a person who grew up in a much more restrictive society, with considerably more restrictive schools, particularly in regards to free speech, and I do greatly appreciate the education afforded to me.
For all my griping about faculty actively limiting speech about organizing graduate employees, I can't say I'd know exactly which rights of speech needed to be better protected in light of other problems confronting a lot of public schools in the US.
I'd hardly call it funding when the military's the one receiving monetary compensation.
Even if they receive compensation, that still means that there's a service they render which they are only making available to a certain class of customer. What if, for instance, city surveyors would only come to your house and mark out the property lines if you were Christian? Does the fact that you pay for the survey make that any more acceptable?
The government is allowed to support a certain viewpoint. If government wants to spend funds on, say, anti-drug advertising while not giving any funds to pro-legalization groups, that's perfectly legal. The 1st Amendment doesn't require the government to be neutral on an issue, it just prevents the government from supressing viewpoints it doesn't like.
So, the military has the right to pick and choose which movies it will give its support to. You don't have a right to military support for your movie project.
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21stCenturyCall me Pixel, or Pix for short![They/Them]Registered Userregular
edited April 2011
I don't think the problem is that the government supporting a certain viewpoint is illegal as much as the fact the it leads to entertainment that is close to propaganda at times and which spreads values that might be harmful in the long run.
Can we, I don't know, maybe get this thread back on topic? Or at least something resembling the topic?
The only time I have ever been so offended by something that I just stopped reading/watching/etc it was with the first Thomas Covenant book. I got to you-know-what and it was just the last straw and I threw it down never to pick it up again.
That said there are many other moments that are really cringe worthy and actually harm my enjoyment of an episode or series. For example:
A certain part in Fruits Basket well the lesson is apparently to deal with bullying by conforming better. Japan! *shakes fist*
The general misogyny in Death Note. But there are two or three truly horrible scenes, such as when Light monologues that he can totally beat up a trained veteran FBI agent just because she's a girl. o_O
That one episode of Host Club.
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But isn't it kind of the point that Light is a arrogant, deluded asshole? All the shit he talks just makes his fall better. You're not supposed to believe or agree with anything he says. He's the bad guy. Unless you're a really "alienated" 15 year old, and then watching the show must be like masturbating.
Only a slightly different tangent, I find that my eyes start to glaze over when an otherwise decent action movie feels the need to shoehorn a stiff and pointless love interest into its running time. It's pandering at its finest, but it still annoys me.
The A-Team remake was a good action movie, but that cheesy love interest for Face killed all the momentum and fun every time it showed up.
That, and it had one of the worst subplots ever. Taking the prime badass of the group and giving him a forced, off-screen conversion to religious pacifism was a terrible idea. His only job on the team is wrecking shit, but he spends 2/3rds of the movie unwilling to do anything. And it was obvious it would never stick.
I think the last anime that was so dumb I had to stop watching was Gunslinger Girls. As if the whole "omg it's lil girls and they're shooting people" gimmick wasn't bad enough, the show is just really slow and boring.
Oh yes, and The Boondocks. That show is one half hilarious and one half wtf are you even talking about. I have to assume that not being American, I just don't get the ridiculous politics and weird religious stuff, so I ignore it. But it's really hard to watch sometimes, especially in the first season.
I might not be getting it, since I was born in 1986, and didn't come to the United States until almost 20 years later, but the times that I've seen Red Dawn, three things strike me:
First, there's the pretty obvious chauvinism. Which is to be expected--it'd be very difficult not to have that sort of ideological conflict film with a lot of chauvinism. The chauvinism is made extra awkward, of course, because of the nature of the fictional scenario presented: while the Soviet Union never invaded the continental United States, and probably did not have the capacity to do so in a meaningful way, the United States did invade the Soviet Union--or more accurately, they invaded the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic after the First World War. With actual troops and cavalry and everything.
No one in the United States seems to know about this, though, either because of a printing error in every history textbook press in the country, or because you're not allowed teach it (I'll except a third excuse, if anyone knows--the whole thing stumps me), which might make the movie fit the definition of 'irony'. I first heard about it as a footnote a world history course in Japan of all places.
But, cultural and ideological chauvinism is generally considered perfectly acceptable in the interests of entertainment, like violence.
Second, there's an anti-US government angle, which isn't exactly atypical of many '80s films, at least in my experience.
Third, and maybe I'm missing it, but there feels like there's a weird sort of "suspicious brown people" bigotry angle. Maybe I'm fundamentally misunderstanding what Colorado is like, but the portrayal of these kids--all white, all from the same background--and the inclusion of Cubans and Nicaraguans as a sort of "exotic" enemy in addition to the usual suspects is weird. On the other hand, it doesn't really go anywhere besides, "Oh, those silly brown people and their tin pot communist dictatorships, they can't do anything without the Russian bear." As though Nicaragua or Cuba ever entertained any thoughts of the United States besides "Holy fuck nuclear bombs." Almost like there was really going to be some ugly racist finger-pointing, but they cut it out because it was unfinished or it got in the way of having more scenes with helicopters.
It's a weird movie. Still, people seem to love it, and everyone considers it a classic.
Also, I do think Death Note does play up the arrogance of the main character--mostly because you'd have to be an incredibly arrogant bastard to accomplish those events in the story. It's quite possible that degree of arrogance is beyond human beings as a species--people who execute whole legions of their enemies did so through incredibly complex apparatuses, often involving a comparable number of people as to whom they hoped would kill (for example, Stalin's infamous purges and arrests claimed hundreds of thousands of people, but involved a security directorate and government offices of tens of thousands, if not more; Germany used about 3 to 5 million soldiers to kill 25 to 27 million Soviet soldiers and civilians). To do it by yourself demands a phenomenal amount of arrogance, but it is a fictional story.
I didn't really like Fruits Basket or Ouran, so...I got nothing.
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. . . and the sort of extreme suspicion of misogyny ascribed to Catholicism at this board. I think I remember Atomic Ross speaking about it a bit during the last thread about the Catholic Church...
In all honesty, if it sounded authoritative it was probably Thanatos that said it. I mean, I'm a raging anti-dogmatic, but Thanatos makes it seem like somewhere someone is offering Ph.D.s in Negative Religious History. Dude can cite precedence for days.
Could have been Thanatos. It was a while ago. All I remember was it ended with a mod informing everyone in the thread they should have been embarrassed for themselves.
Third, and maybe I'm missing it, but there feels like there's a weird sort of "suspicious brown people" bigotry angle. Maybe I'm fundamentally misunderstanding what Colorado is like, but the portrayal of these kids--all white, all from the same background--and the inclusion of Cubans and Nicaraguans as a sort of "exotic" enemy in addition to the usual suspects is weird. On the other hand, it doesn't really go anywhere besides, "Oh, those silly brown people and their tin pot communist dictatorships, they can't do anything without the Russian bear." As though Nicaragua or Cuba ever entertained any thoughts of the United States besides "Holy fuck nuclear bombs." Almost like there was really going to be some ugly racist finger-pointing, but they cut it out because it was unfinished or it got in the way of having more scenes with helicopters.
If you are looking for the racist boogey-man, you are sure to find him.
The fact of the matter is, however, that rather than being some sinister conspiracy on the part of the film-makers, Colorado, like much the interior United States, is overwhelmingly populated by European peoples. And that Cuba and Nicaragua are the sort of places you would have been able to find Marxists willing to wage war against Americans.
Cuba is, incidentally, majority white, too.
The entire move is absurd and generally considered silly, given the collapse of the Soviet Union only a few years later. No one knew how weak the USSR was then, though. While the chances of the USSR ever invading the United States were basically nothing, it should be noted that the chances of the events portrayed in Red Dawn having ever happened are infinitely more likely than those depicted in the film Independence Day. ;-)
edit: the various Western battles against the early USSR are an interesting piece of generally overlooked 20th century history. Not really relevant to 1980s action movies, but certainly fascinating. Poland also invaded the USSR, but unfortunately for them, they could not finish it. That fact came back to bite them a few decades later.
The fact of the matter is, however, that rather than being some sinister conspiracy on the part of the film-makers, Colorado, like much the interior United States, is overwhelmingly populated by European peoples. And that Cuba and Nicaragua are the sort of places you would have been able to find Marxists willing to wage war against Americans.
If you're going to use words like "the fact of the matter is"--then I'll have to be something of a stickler myself. That's not quite the fact of the matter, because if we're going by historical reality, both of those countries were far more willing to export revolution to nations in Africa than the United States, simply because they considered countries like Angola more receptive to such ideas. It wasn't just a matter of not having enough planes, parachutes, and people who spoke English. In actuality, the US was far more interested in commando-type operations in Cuba, than the reverse.
Then again, the jump from "willing to fight Americans in their own home country" to "willing to fight Americans by parachuting into Colorado" isn't the craziest one in that movie alone, much less American war films in general.
and the inclusion of Cubans and Nicaraguans as a sort of "exotic" enemy in addition to the usual suspects is weird.
The Cuban Missile Crisis ('62), Noriega (80's) in Panama, and the Sandanista's in Nicaragua(70's-80's) were still very much in the forefront of the American psyche at the time. Due to, intentional and unintentional propaganda.
Using Cubans and Nicaraguan's makes a lot of sense in that context. Even if it isn't reasonable, at the time it would seem compelling to an audience.
and the inclusion of Cubans and Nicaraguans as a sort of "exotic" enemy in addition to the usual suspects is weird.
The Cuban Missile Crisis ('62), Noriega (80's) in Panama, and the Sandanista's in Nicaragua(70's-80's) were still very much in the forefront of the American psyche at the time. Due to, intentional and unintentional propaganda.
Using Cubans and Nicaraguan's makes a lot of sense in that context. Even if it isn't reasonable, at the time it would seem compelling to an audience.
Absolutely. Which, I would say, makes them demonstration of political (and, let's face it, at least partially racist) chauvinism.
It's 'weird' in the context of using them, rather than, for example, China (with whom relations are souring over contentious issues) or Vietnam. But that's splitting hairs, since the whole situation exists in a degree of ridiculousness anyway.
Yes, but its not "weird" in any way. Unless you consider it "weird" that as soon as the national attention shifted from the Soviets and communism with the fall of the USSR to the troubles in the middle east that we started seeing Arabs as the main villain in U.S. Movies (E.G. True Lies ('94)) that has continued (and increased after 9/11.) to dominate as the national attention continues to dominate those regions.
Edit: Nixon went to China and the U.S. was not so concerned about North Korea or Vietnam. By then they had ended as boogiemen.
I have to disagree--I think the choice in supplementary foreign villains was weird--but I'm coming at it as someone who finds the film on the whole as rather strange, primarily as being a sort of foreign invasion fantasy. I come from an island which, apparently, is a far more likely target of foreign invasion (I'm not terribly convinced of the likelihood), and yet no foreign invasion film has ever gotten anywhere near as popular.
Maybe I'm not giving enough credit to the directors and acting. That's entirely possible.
If anything, I'd think you'd want to do everything not to diminish the attention from the primary enemy (it's the reason given, besides a practical one, why portrayal of people from the Soviet Union in American films have that they be white, whereas throughout much of the country's early history it was actually considered by the west to be an "Asiatic" country, and demographically shifted towards a less Slavic population towards its later history--one consistent image is more memorable). Having multiple groups almost seems to be aiming at a sort of subtlety that the film otherwise doesn't use.
I don't think the shift was weird, in large part because the popularity of a Russian enemy hasn't really left cinema or popular media (see: Air Force One, movies set in the earlier period, a huge quantity of video games), it's just diminished somewhat, particularly in the mid to late 90s. The shift you've described isn't nearly as cut and dry in terms of actual film content.
Yes, but its not "weird" in any way. Unless you consider it "weird" that as soon as the national attention shifted from the Soviets and communism with the fall of the USSR to the troubles in the middle east that we started seeing Arabs as the main villain in U.S. Movies (E.G. True Lies ('94)) that has continued (and increased after 9/11.) to dominate as the national attention continues to dominate those regions.
Edit: Nixon went to China and the U.S. was not so concerned about North Korea or Vietnam. By then they had ended as boogiemen.
Was there an increase in middle-eastern villains after 9/11? I remember that sort of plot being conspicuously absent. Lately it's been Big Evil Corporations (though that's a pretty common theme just in general).
Can you list some post-9/11 movies where the antagonist was of Arab descent?
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If you wanted to talk about public universities, why did you start off your previous post with "K-12 public schools in the United States are "no freedoms" zones"? Sorry, but when you brought up K-12 public schools I assumed that, you know, you had a reason for doing so.
And, as I said, you are talking about a situation where your school administrators are violating the rights you have under law, not a situation where you don't have those rights in the first place. In your case, you seem to be describing a violation of your free-speech rights AND your right to organize. If you're not talking to the ACLU and representatives of whatever union you're thinking about joining, you should be.
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if we're going with the golf club analogy, it's more like you're required by law to join the golf club and have no say whatsoever in how it's run, since kids can't exactly decide they don't want to go to school anymore until they're almost done with the amount of education they're required to go through.
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So they can break the rules as many times as they want, as long as they are ok with being shuffled from one public school to another. They can't actually be denied education (with a few exceptions in specific states).
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
What are you arguing here, that we shouldn't require kids to get an education?
Also with regards to "say in how it's run", any individual member in any given club has very little to no say in the institution's rules. There's going to be an administration and bureacracy and politics the same as in the school system. If enough members feel the same way then they definitely can change the rules. And, wow surprise, the same is true of schools. When enough parents want something changed, it gets changed either by the school officials or the politicians above them that want to keep their jobs.
This whole "schools are a no freedom zone" argument just seems so bizarre to me because by this logic most of the planet is a "no freedom zone". If I go to a movie theater suddenly I'm supposed to be quiet during the movie? Waht, fuck that it's my freedom of speech, how can they remove me from the theater for being a jackass! The mall, the gym, the bookstore, damn near every place you go has rules that you agree to follow if you want to take part of their services. If the bookstore you want to go into has a "no dogs allowed" policy they aren't restricting your freedom to own a dog, they're just establishing the rules you need to play by to use their service.
...because this is an internet forum, and I wanted to talk about both of them? Because I think it's worth considering limitations of speech protection after 12th grade but still in state-owned facilities? Because "at least not officially" doesn't interest me personally as, you know, de facto limits of speech? I stated the opinion that K-12 public schools had very vigorous restrictions on freedom of students, and that universities had less vigorous restrictions, instead of the same degrees of restrictions. It's called a comparison.
I mentioned universities because they are intended to serve an education need, like schools, and pretty clearly differentiated between the two. Sorry, but just because the Supreme Court reverses a outcome on appeal on something comparatively mundane like Morse v. Frederick, that doesn't, you know, automatically mean all school administrations don't get to exercise their own interpretations anymore. With the limits of the law in mind, it's hard to imagine schools not having greater limitations on speech even in an ideal situation
EDIT: Also--just want to put this out here, a third thing--wasn't this about movies? How did we get from film to speech in schools?
Seems to me like if the "social club" analogy is to stick, it's simpler to say it's a country because you can't really opt out of education.
So basically, if the American public schools were a country, it'd be one where citizen have no real say in how it's run unless they all mass together, but if someone tries to mobilize them, they get punished... Funny how it sounds like a dictatorship.
(I'm not saying schools are a dictatorship, I'm saying those analogies are dumb)
Still, I'm kind of baffled by Synthesis' story about how people at his university get sanctions for trying to get a student union going. Is it seriously how this goes in the US? That sounds crazy! I'm pretty happy that we have a student union here. Just last week, they organized a vote for a strike day to protest a province-wide hike in tuition costs. (In american currency, the costs would go from obscenely cheap the really really cheap). For 2 days, they asked people to vote, they counted the votes and announced the strike. These people are defending the student's interests and, even though I voted against it, I'm glad that they got the chance to do that.
As for why the topic drifted to school politics, it's because people talked about how it's normal to have restrictions when working with big institutions such as the military.
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It should be noted that not all schools behave that way--some do, in fact, have actual unions already. Wisconsin-Madison is the most famous example I can think of. There are others as well. And there are still others that don't have Unions, but do allow the discussion of Union--they usually rely on financial incentive to discourage/prohibit that sort of thing from gathering steam. Some schools in Illinois were like this (some have Unions now too).
The NYU case is really famous too. I think they managed to get recognition as workers free to organize. Of course, my university's yearly pay for graduate assistants is less than the nationwide average unemployment benefit for someone in their mid-20s (actually closer to half, I think, I need to check that out), nor does it pay for any sort of health coverage (though you are required to have it). NYU's benefits might as well have been on an entirely different planet. I doubt that's something that will change left to its own as well (nor do I think organizing is particularly possible in Georgia, which has a reputation as something of an anti-labor state).
Ah.
oh no, i'm definitely not saying compulsory education is a bad thing. i just think that there's really no reason that a kid in a public school should have any less expectation of privacy or any more restrictions on how they express themselves than anyone anywhere else.
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Public schools are run by the government. This differentiates them from some random club. For instance, a young republicans club might require that their members be registered republican voters. But, of course, we can see how it would be completely improper for a public school to require its students to be registered republican voters.
This seems like a weird stumbling block for people. The government has special restrictions which do not apply to private institutions.
For one, I can't think of another zone in (at least most states) where you cant legally carry tobacco onto the property. not use, carry. Same for guns, but frankly I am not for arguing that guns should be allowed on school property, and alot of states say you cant do this in bars/hospitals either. Don't like someone? throw your lookalike gun into someones open car window, thats generally a automatic expulsion and arrest. Clubs generally don't get you arrested in the end for the things that are normally legal to happen, worse comes to worse you are thrown out. (this happened to a friend in a zero tolerance policy area, luckily the report was on good faith(father went "oh shit this was an accident but I better let the school know") and the SRO was *very good* friends with the person that had a civil war musket from her fathers reenactment in her trunk. the SRO was thankful he got the call, and that it was her because otherwise it meant he had to go ruin someones life instead of letting them off the hook discreetly.)
A case just went to the supreme court over weather the cops in school have to have your parents present in order for you, as a minor to wave your rights(so when questioned you can self incriminate), where under any other case they would have to have them there. the court said "olol its a school so of course they dont need parents there, if a principal and cop are questioning you about a crime, you should know to shut your mouth and lawyer up automatically even as a minor"
Anyone that makes a comparison to public schools being a club, what other clubs out there strip you of your 5th amendment rights when you become a member? "no freedoms zone" is a bit drastic for phrasing, but it applies
The best example of this is Stargate SG-1, I think its the only television series to get funding, or at least the first. It CONSTANTLY has the Air Force fucking up and almost destroying the world. beyond that theres service members making terrible decisions, emotional decisions, being to psychologically/physically injured to keep doing what they do, but continue anyways. The air force loved the show so much they started putting real cabinet members and generals/officers in the show in cameos. Theres argument that this show got funding and shows like JAG and NCIS don't because of sci-fi vs realism, there both basically procedural and justice and the american way always prevails.
Generally its something minor that gives a bad impression of the military that they dont want to support. Hell Dr Strangelove came out better because it didn't get extra funding from the military.
But stuff like kids being strip-searched for aspirin and self-incriminatings/getting stuck in entrapment and no one caring only happens rarely, right?
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edit: Not to mention game studios. IE Americas army and full spectrum warrior.
You don't have all your regular rights, but you do, however, have some rights.
This should not be this difficult.
Even if they receive compensation, that still means that there's a service they render which they are only making available to a certain class of customer. What if, for instance, city surveyors would only come to your house and mark out the property lines if you were Christian? Does the fact that you pay for the survey make that any more acceptable?
Which is not to say that we ought to be strip searching middle schoolers for aspirin bottles, but the basic systems that get used to keep track of students and keep them from getting into trouble are there for a reason. They might seem onerous at times, but when you're talking about the safety and well being of children there's a very heavy onus on the adults involved to make sure nothing goes wrong.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Then that would be a local government agency denying a necessary service based on someone's religion.
This is the military offering services to people who don't then use those services to harm recruiting goals, something that is indeed a part of their job.
These are two very different things.
Look, I'm not terribly interested in playing Let's Whipsaw The Conversation So I Can Always Argue with you. You brought up a topic, said you weren't talking about that but were talking about something else, now you were talking about both of them after all, even if you weren't making a hell of a lot of sense. Whatever. If your university is infringing on the legal rights you have, then you need to go talk to the ACLU and/or an organizer for the union you want to join, which is something that would be pointless if you had no legal rights in the first place. That will get you where you want to go a lot faster than complaining on the Internet.
On the actual topic, maybe this is a good place to bring up the Mo Movie Measure. (Which, as has been pointed out before, is not a test of whether an individual movie is 'good' or 'sexist' so much as a commentary on movies in general.)
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Believe it or not, that wasn't my intention--and you're correct, contacting interest groups could help this specific issue. Nonetheless, I think it's perfect fine to bring it up. I'm sorry I'm apparently confusing, I didn't think I was--and so far, no one else has been particularly confused by this to my knowledge (then again, English isn't my first language, so it's possible I'm putting this awkwardly). I personally thought I made it clear, because I considered it important to distinguish between the two different instances--no one else was particularly confused about this but you. In all likelihood, there are probably even more instances within education, and insomuch as we're talking about education, I think it's perfectly reasonable for other people to relate their own situations.
Nonetheless, I don't think that diminishes it as a personal example related by someone--i.e. the vast majority of examples given in an internet discussion. I never claimed to have no legal rights--in fact, I'm fairly certain that "less freedom" quite clearly establishes that. I pretty sure I never claimed I wasn't talking about K-12 at all, but I wasn't talking about it when I was talking about a specific example in universities...perhaps a case of me misunderstanding you, thinking you were only addressing one specific circumstance while misunderstanding me. Given that I even stated "higher education" the first time, I thought it was apparent. If I worded this poorly, I apologize, but frankly, I think you're the only one who was confused about my explanation--then again, perhaps I was the only one misunderstanding you. It may be a case of both.
If I'm wandering from the (apparently secondary) topic of education, I apologize, but I'm not fan of "Oh yeah, well, you just don't get it, because you don't." Especially if it's caused by a misunderstanding. And I could be wrong, but I didn't bring up the example because I wanted a solution, particularly because I'm a pessimist--I brought it up because I believed it was worth demonstrating limitations of speech in education. "Go complain to the ACLU" could resolve the issue, or it couldn't--which is why some limitations exist.
This.
Plus kids are dumb as hell.
There's validity behind this. Okay, maybe not "kids are dumb as hell", but I didn't go to public school in the United States, only assisted and taught at them, so maybe I'm the fool and the kids are that dumb. It's the reason I've never claimed that, in K-12, there's a working alternative to the limitations that exist on speech and other personal freedom. I think it's worth observing, and I don't think we should delude ourselves into thinking "schools have free speech!" or "schools technically have free speech, you know, except ___, but that's not really making it unfree..." but I can't think of a balance that might less destructive in the areas of other educational issues.
At the same time, I say this as a person who grew up in a much more restrictive society, with considerably more restrictive schools, particularly in regards to free speech, and I do greatly appreciate the education afforded to me.
For all my griping about faculty actively limiting speech about organizing graduate employees, I can't say I'd know exactly which rights of speech needed to be better protected in light of other problems confronting a lot of public schools in the US.
So, the military has the right to pick and choose which movies it will give its support to. You don't have a right to military support for your movie project.
Rigorous Scholarship
More specifically, violence and militarism.
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That's...important too.
The only time I have ever been so offended by something that I just stopped reading/watching/etc it was with the first Thomas Covenant book. I got to you-know-what and it was just the last straw and I threw it down never to pick it up again.
That said there are many other moments that are really cringe worthy and actually harm my enjoyment of an episode or series. For example:
A certain part in Fruits Basket well the lesson is apparently to deal with bullying by conforming better. Japan! *shakes fist*
The general misogyny in Death Note. But there are two or three truly horrible scenes, such as when Light monologues that he can totally beat up a trained veteran FBI agent just because she's a girl. o_O
That one episode of Host Club.
Only a slightly different tangent, I find that my eyes start to glaze over when an otherwise decent action movie feels the need to shoehorn a stiff and pointless love interest into its running time. It's pandering at its finest, but it still annoys me.
The A-Team remake was a good action movie, but that cheesy love interest for Face killed all the momentum and fun every time it showed up.
That, and it had one of the worst subplots ever. Taking the prime badass of the group and giving him a forced, off-screen conversion to religious pacifism was a terrible idea. His only job on the team is wrecking shit, but he spends 2/3rds of the movie unwilling to do anything. And it was obvious it would never stick.
I think the last anime that was so dumb I had to stop watching was Gunslinger Girls. As if the whole "omg it's lil girls and they're shooting people" gimmick wasn't bad enough, the show is just really slow and boring.
Oh yes, and The Boondocks. That show is one half hilarious and one half wtf are you even talking about. I have to assume that not being American, I just don't get the ridiculous politics and weird religious stuff, so I ignore it. But it's really hard to watch sometimes, especially in the first season.
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First, there's the pretty obvious chauvinism. Which is to be expected--it'd be very difficult not to have that sort of ideological conflict film with a lot of chauvinism. The chauvinism is made extra awkward, of course, because of the nature of the fictional scenario presented: while the Soviet Union never invaded the continental United States, and probably did not have the capacity to do so in a meaningful way, the United States did invade the Soviet Union--or more accurately, they invaded the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic after the First World War. With actual troops and cavalry and everything.
No one in the United States seems to know about this, though, either because of a printing error in every history textbook press in the country, or because you're not allowed teach it (I'll except a third excuse, if anyone knows--the whole thing stumps me), which might make the movie fit the definition of 'irony'. I first heard about it as a footnote a world history course in Japan of all places.
But, cultural and ideological chauvinism is generally considered perfectly acceptable in the interests of entertainment, like violence.
Second, there's an anti-US government angle, which isn't exactly atypical of many '80s films, at least in my experience.
Third, and maybe I'm missing it, but there feels like there's a weird sort of "suspicious brown people" bigotry angle. Maybe I'm fundamentally misunderstanding what Colorado is like, but the portrayal of these kids--all white, all from the same background--and the inclusion of Cubans and Nicaraguans as a sort of "exotic" enemy in addition to the usual suspects is weird. On the other hand, it doesn't really go anywhere besides, "Oh, those silly brown people and their tin pot communist dictatorships, they can't do anything without the Russian bear." As though Nicaragua or Cuba ever entertained any thoughts of the United States besides "Holy fuck nuclear bombs." Almost like there was really going to be some ugly racist finger-pointing, but they cut it out because it was unfinished or it got in the way of having more scenes with helicopters.
It's a weird movie. Still, people seem to love it, and everyone considers it a classic.
Also, I do think Death Note does play up the arrogance of the main character--mostly because you'd have to be an incredibly arrogant bastard to accomplish those events in the story. It's quite possible that degree of arrogance is beyond human beings as a species--people who execute whole legions of their enemies did so through incredibly complex apparatuses, often involving a comparable number of people as to whom they hoped would kill (for example, Stalin's infamous purges and arrests claimed hundreds of thousands of people, but involved a security directorate and government offices of tens of thousands, if not more; Germany used about 3 to 5 million soldiers to kill 25 to 27 million Soviet soldiers and civilians). To do it by yourself demands a phenomenal amount of arrogance, but it is a fictional story.
I didn't really like Fruits Basket or Ouran, so...I got nothing.
This sounds a lot like this thread.
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=116917
It was a great thread.
If you are looking for the racist boogey-man, you are sure to find him.
The fact of the matter is, however, that rather than being some sinister conspiracy on the part of the film-makers, Colorado, like much the interior United States, is overwhelmingly populated by European peoples. And that Cuba and Nicaragua are the sort of places you would have been able to find Marxists willing to wage war against Americans.
Cuba is, incidentally, majority white, too.
The entire move is absurd and generally considered silly, given the collapse of the Soviet Union only a few years later. No one knew how weak the USSR was then, though. While the chances of the USSR ever invading the United States were basically nothing, it should be noted that the chances of the events portrayed in Red Dawn having ever happened are infinitely more likely than those depicted in the film Independence Day. ;-)
edit: the various Western battles against the early USSR are an interesting piece of generally overlooked 20th century history. Not really relevant to 1980s action movies, but certainly fascinating. Poland also invaded the USSR, but unfortunately for them, they could not finish it. That fact came back to bite them a few decades later.
If you're going to use words like "the fact of the matter is"--then I'll have to be something of a stickler myself. That's not quite the fact of the matter, because if we're going by historical reality, both of those countries were far more willing to export revolution to nations in Africa than the United States, simply because they considered countries like Angola more receptive to such ideas. It wasn't just a matter of not having enough planes, parachutes, and people who spoke English. In actuality, the US was far more interested in commando-type operations in Cuba, than the reverse.
Then again, the jump from "willing to fight Americans in their own home country" to "willing to fight Americans by parachuting into Colorado" isn't the craziest one in that movie alone, much less American war films in general.
Rigorous Scholarship
It's what happens when someone says "the fact of the matter is". :P
I was more interested in the general chauvinism myself.
The Cuban Missile Crisis ('62), Noriega (80's) in Panama, and the Sandanista's in Nicaragua(70's-80's) were still very much in the forefront of the American psyche at the time. Due to, intentional and unintentional propaganda.
Using Cubans and Nicaraguan's makes a lot of sense in that context. Even if it isn't reasonable, at the time it would seem compelling to an audience.
Absolutely. Which, I would say, makes them demonstration of political (and, let's face it, at least partially racist) chauvinism.
It's 'weird' in the context of using them, rather than, for example, China (with whom relations are souring over contentious issues) or Vietnam. But that's splitting hairs, since the whole situation exists in a degree of ridiculousness anyway.
Edit: Nixon went to China and the U.S. was not so concerned about North Korea or Vietnam. By then they had ended as boogiemen.
Maybe I'm not giving enough credit to the directors and acting. That's entirely possible.
If anything, I'd think you'd want to do everything not to diminish the attention from the primary enemy (it's the reason given, besides a practical one, why portrayal of people from the Soviet Union in American films have that they be white, whereas throughout much of the country's early history it was actually considered by the west to be an "Asiatic" country, and demographically shifted towards a less Slavic population towards its later history--one consistent image is more memorable). Having multiple groups almost seems to be aiming at a sort of subtlety that the film otherwise doesn't use.
I don't think the shift was weird, in large part because the popularity of a Russian enemy hasn't really left cinema or popular media (see: Air Force One, movies set in the earlier period, a huge quantity of video games), it's just diminished somewhat, particularly in the mid to late 90s. The shift you've described isn't nearly as cut and dry in terms of actual film content.
Can you list some post-9/11 movies where the antagonist was of Arab descent?
Iron Man (Not the main antagonist, but the initial antagonists)
Iron Man 2