They're Out To Get You, Into a Multiplex

Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep in the updated "Manchurian Candidate": Casting globalization in the role of boogeyman. (Ken Regan -- AP)

Ralph Nader might not be paranoid (it is, we might note, a clinical term), but he is certainly deeply suspicious. He is essentially running for president on a platform that says you can't take the stated ideologies of the major political parties at face value. They're two wings of the same dastardly enterprise, he believes. Forget their "message," forget their "political platform": Just follow the money.

"Fahrenheit 9/11" is also remarkably ideology-free. Michael Moore ignores the stated neoconservative goal of expanding democracy in the Middle East. Israel goes unmentioned. Forget all those times that Paul Wolfowitz has suggested that the war in Iraq will have this magical transformative effect on the Arab world. That didn't make the cut. Moore's point is, you can't trust a guy who spits on his comb.

His larger message is, there are connections out there, linkages, secret deals among people with secret handshakes. The rich help the rich. The powerful help the powerful. The oil companies get a pipeline and the Little Guy gets the shaft.

By the way: George W. Bush and John Kerry were both members of Skull and Bones at Yale. Coincidence???

Jonathan Demme, director of the new "Manchurian," is quoted in the press materials as saying, "With the nation's eye focused on a presidential election this year, I couldn't think of a better time to address darker themes about the political process and the forces that try to undermine it."

Take that statement at face value: Election years are good times to promote the notion that the entire political process is a big freaking lie.

The filmmakers have even created a Web site, manchurianglobal.com, filled with bland press releases about the company's experiments and its agenda. A fictitious CEO is quoted as saying, "Creating one world under skilled management was the dream of Alexander the Great. Let's follow him."

The knowledge that there's an enemy, that there are bad guys out there, is the anchor in our lives. To be an American today is to live in the middle of a mind control experiment. If you hear a candidate say, "I'd like to plant a thought in your mind," you'd better run for your life.