How Pop Culture Indoctrinates Us to Hate America

Kyle Smith at PJM reviews “The Soloist” and this line really hit me.

The Soloist has more American flags than Rocky IV, and each is there to tell us that we, as a country, have failed our least fortunate citizens. Ayers sleeps on a filthy, ragged American-flag pillow. He wears an American-flag top hat. In several nightmare sequences set in a community center on Skid Row, American flags pop up everywhere — nasty, dirty ones.

It hit me because it made me think of American History X, especially the dinner scene.



Aside from the fact that I just cannot stand Ed Norton in general, this particular scene is a very not so subtle connect the dot allegory that anyone who questions the hard pressed left wing version of racial issues in this country is a skinhead neo-nazi or close kin. Couple this with the constant intermingling of Ed Norton’s Nazi character early in the movie and the American flag and the point is very clear, real racists and Nazi’s are the heart and soul of this country.