A couple weeks ago I mentioned in passing a film entitled Pressure Point. Released in 1962, the Hubert Cornfield-directed film produced by the socially and politically progressive Stanley Kramer examined the conflict between a black psychiatrist simply referred to as the “Doctor” (played by Sidney Poitier) tasked to treat a racist American Nazi referred to as the “Patient” (played by singer/actor Bobby Darin, best known for Fifties hits like “Mack the Knife,” and “Beyond the Sea” I like enough to include in my phone’s mp3 folder). The Patient has been arrested on the eve of World War II for sedition and advocating for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government.
The Doctor wants nothing to do with the Patient after their first meeting; the Patient makes clear he doesn’t care what the Doctor’s job is or what he thinks, because he is a “negro.”
What does he have against “negroes”? The Patient turns it around: “What do you got against us whites?” What he actually means, of course, is what he has against white nationalists like himself who want “negroes” to stay in their “place”—preferably back in Africa, where they can be “equal” there.
Since this is all going to be waste of time, the Doctor wants to know what the Patient plans to do once he is released from prison. “Same thing I did before.” Meaning the violent overthrow of the government? “Not necessarily violent.” And, you'll defend all the American people,” the Doctor says sarcastically.
However, the Patient complains of an inability to sleep because of recurring nightmares, and since the prison doctors can find nothing physically wrong with him, they force him back on the Doctor to see if he can “cure” him.
On the basis of the Patient’s history more than the interview, the Doctor believes the Patient has a psychopathic personality, and is paranoid, aggressive and antisocial. “Because he was the leader type, he might easily become a focal point for the impressionable inmates. I recommended that he be quartered by himself under maximum security precautions to prevent him from spreading his ideas.”
The Patient is apparently intelligent and is an avid reader of books (like Mein Kampf) which “educates” him on the world as he wishes to see it. He frankly confesses that he actually believes most of the things he espouses, although he admits some of it is also “political.” For example, he believes it is “political” that the Doctor and “his people” are allowed to “try to be white and respectable” by becoming doctors and psychiatrists.
The Patient eventually “cooperates” with Doctor in order to aid him in his sleep problem. He says his abusive father didn’t like him because he was the reason he was forced to marry his mother, who was “weak,” constantly whined and forced the friendless Patient to constantly attend to her “needs.”
He insinuates that he was seen as “weak” in a world that was against him, but he was one who “competes”—and a weak man who competes becomes strong. “Stronger, in fact, because he has to overcome all the odds against him.” Once he leaves home, he can "act out" on such. There is a flashback when he "leads" his fellow construction workers into showing “strength” by wreaking destruction inside a bar because the owner seemed to imply he was “weak.”
Jews, of course, are more dangerous than “negroes,” says the Patient, “Because they pass for white and they're smarter.” Why are they dangerous? Because they endanger “The purity of the white Christian stock.” It is suggested in a flashback that his hatred of Jews was actually rooted in an incident in which the well-off father of a Jewish woman who had shown interest in him (perhaps out of pity) “made it very clear that I wasn't good enough for her.”
The Patient claims he never joined the Nazi Party, but the German American Bund, although there was no real difference since they used all the same Nazi symbols, including the flag, the armbands, storm trooper uniforms, and Mein Kampf was required reading.
Did he join because of the Great Depression? I mean, a lot of people were hurt by the Depression, and FDR did much to turn the country around after a decade of Republican rule in which the super-rich ran roughshod over the rights of workers to enrich themselves.
But it wasn’t “depressing” for everybody, says the Patient, like, say, for the Jews. “With their money, they feel they're the chosen ones. You can see it when they drive down the street in their longs cars on their way to the international bank. They think they're the chosen ones alright. With their fat wives and fur coats.” Hitler “is the one who saved us from those who own the banks (i.e. the Jews), who own the newspapers, who own the White House. Because I am not one of the chosen, I say, salute Adolf Hitler.”
The Doctor muses
that his “primary concern was not with the welfare of my patient, but with the
question of whether he was making any sense and how many people there were in
this world to whom he would make sense. For although psychopaths are a small
minority, it seems significant that whenever militant and organized hate
exists, a psychopath is the leader. And if, for instance, 100 disgruntled and
frustrated individuals fall in line behind one psychopath, then in essence, we
are concerned with the actions of 101 psychopaths.”
The Doctor asks him “Assuming that it has no direct bearing on your problem, are you embarrassed talking about you subversive activities?” The Patient replies
Look, first I've never done anything I've been ashamed of and second, as far as I'm concerned, I've only done what I believe was right. And that, in my book, can't be called subversive. It's a cause, just like any other. I don't expect you to understand. Being a Negro, you're biased. But, you take the ordinary man. Now, he's lost. He has no real leader. He wants a leader. He wants a lot of things he doesn't have and doesn't know how to get. But, most of all, he wants an excuse to get them. A cause.
What’s the cause? Hatred against people like the Doctor, a “negro.” The Patient continues
That's where you come in. No offense intended. You see, we need you. Where there's no definite enemy, why, we create one. People need one to blame things on. So, you see, you're the secret weapon. You're the cause to unite against. And, you and the Jews, more than anybody else, will be responsible for our triumph.
The Doctor wants to know how he intends to bring about this “triumph.”
With people. Take 10 people who believe in your cause. Five of those bring a friend, now there are 15.They chip in, get a little hall, do a little public speaking. Now out of, say, a hundred people, 20 come over and ask questions. Suddenly, you're 35. 35 dues paying people.
Now, those 35 dues paying people bring friends. And, their friends bring friends. Some don't have any jobs, so you tell them why they don't have any jobs and why their kids are hungry. Then they bring their kids and their kids are beautiful and you love their kids and you hate those chosen few who don't. And, soon you create interest. And, interest draws people and people bring money and money means a little organization.
And, there you are. It gives you power. And, power creates fear. Fear creates hate. And, hate creates the enemy and the enemy fights back. Fighting back creates more interest. Yeah, right here ladies and gentlemen, right here. Get it right here. Right here. Believe me, if it wasn't for the war, we'd be running things right now…Go ahead and laugh. Laugh and you won't hear us comin'.
“And, you found
many who believed in your cause?”
With the help of a syndicated columnist among others. He want us to support certain industrialists. Ranging from Detroit manufacturers to giant oil corporations. We even got some movie people from Hollywood on our side.
Before you knew it, we were buying radio time. We had youth camps throughout the country teaching American boys and girls of German descent the qualities of leadership. We even sent some of them to Germany to get acquainted. ‘Mein Kampf’ was required reading in every camp.
The Doctor mused
that “I thought it interesting that the man who could not stand blood now
screamed for it. His screams were effective, too, for his standards of hate and
glorification of the brutal drew economic, social and psychological frustrates
by the score.”
The Patient is so convinced of the “rightness” of his “cause” that nothing can stop him, at least in his mind. “I tell you we're moving. This thing is going.”
“Well, you're not moving anywhere right now in particular, are you?”
Are you kidding? So they stick me in here. Listen, there were 18,000 people in Madison Square Garden the night I told you about. Okay, they grabbed a hundred of them and threw 'em in jail. What do you think the other 17,900 are doing right this minute? And, you think this thing can be stopped? That we can be stopped?
“Yes.”
“But how? How are you gonna stop us?”
“You will be stopped because everything you're driving for is founded on a lie.”
A lie? Now look, doc, can you be objective for a minute? I know you're handicapped but are you capable of being really objective? Good, cause I wanna tell you something. No, in fact, I'm gonna show you something. Alright, you say we won't get anywhere because what we're doing is founded on a lie. Now, everybody talks about Hitler and the big lies as if it were a brand new invention. Now, tell me something. Where are you gonna find a bigger lie than the one this country is founded on? All men are created equal. Everything this country's supposed to live by, right? You personally. As far as you're concerned, Joe Miller could've written the bill of rights.
The Doctor reflects that “I knew then what I was frightened of. Fortunately, soon after the start of the war, he among others, was arrested for advocating the violent overthrow of the United States government.”
The film ends when the medical doctors at the prison believe the Patient’s lies about being “cured” over the objections of the Doctor who says he is lying, he hasn’t changed and he is still dangerous. The Doctor decides to leave his position because the colleagues who claimed to treat him as their “equal” chose to believe a white racist over him.
The Patient visits him while he is packing up and gloats over this—of course they’d believe a criminal white man over an educated black man. The Doctor can barely contain himself from physically assaulting the Patient, but assures him that he is nothing and that he is going “nowhere.”
Indeed we are told that ten years later the Patient beat to death an old man he didn’t know on the street for no apparent reason, and was hanged for the crime.
It may have taken 60 years, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to see the message this film has for us today. What was once going "nowhere" is now "everywhere." The majority of white people in this country have maybe just a little bit of that “Nazi” in themselves, and they only needed that “leader” to emerge who had a father who was a Nazi sympathizer, and weened himself on the speeches of Hitler, and felt no shame about it and lacked self-awareness.
Many people even in this country “admired” Hitler then until they became “embarrassed” and “self-conscious” about the crimes against humanity perpetrated by Hitler and the “ordinary” people who carried out mass murder. Of course people “forget” how Hitler came about in the first place, and in Pressure Point we see how it was possible for that to come about today.
In fact, there is a reasonable argument to be made that it has done so. Many humane people in this country still cannot believe how anyone but a diehard racist could find “comfort” in “leaders” who promise a return to an evil past (let alone vote for that) when only they “mattered” and didn’t feel under any obligation to treat supposedly “inferior” people as “equals” with the same rights as they do. They feel they have to “give up” something that belongs only to them.
They need a “leader” who thinks as they do, especially one who has no apparent talent save being a blusterer and self-promoter, who is so narcissistic that he chooses to bully rather than understand the views of others not like him, someone who doesn’t take responsibility for the failures or crimes committed by either himself or those under his command, who has no compassion for others (save for those who believe as he does) and “normalizes” bigotry.
Through the “leader,” those who otherwise would be considered “fringe” and feel themselves discomfited if it was known outside of a circle of shared beliefs, are now allowed out of the box and to spread like a disease that cannot be contained until enough "sensible" people realize they are a disease and somehow must be "cured" by the truth before it is too late.
What crimes being committed by the Trump administration and the U.S. Supreme Court against simple human decency that extend beyond the pale perhaps has not been reached yet, and the fact that a majority of the country still views immigrants—illegal or legal no longer matters if they are the wrong “color” or they dare to say anything in opposition to far-right political trends—as the “cause” and the “enemy” that poll numbers apparently show that a majority of Americans can still “unite” behind while choosing to see "sense" in the chaos that reigns everywhere else, showing what this country could and has become because of the megalomania and psychopathy of one man and the unfit sycophants and meddlers he has aiding him.
Stanley Kramer tried to warn people about fascism coming to America in 1962, and today it has become reality.
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