Get Me Roger Stone (2017)

Get Me Roger Stone (2017)
Written and Directed by Dylan Bank, Daniel DiMauro, Morgan Pehme


“Get Me”? The thing is, Roger Stone doesn’t need to be call on, he is one of these people, like his mentor Roy Cohn, that hang around on the sidelines of mainstream politics for decades, he can’t be got rid of.

This Netflix documentary film does a fine job at illustrating is troubling side of political influence which arose in the mass media age. Roger Stone is shown to have connections to one of the progenitors of the Dirty Tricks, Cohn, and the win at all costs, type of lying manipulation of the public mind that is plugged into the lowest common denominator electronic media outlets.

When I say he and his type won’t go away, I mean that he is simply a feature of the individualism that has arisen to the controlling position of the national and global dialog. I believe this is a feature of 100 years of multi-generational conditioning by commercial mass media culture. Stone knows how to manipulate electronic media.  This type of media manipulation is why reality TV host Donald Trump managed to become president. Sorry to say, these trends will continue and we will see more of this in perhaps even more bizarre manifestations than the election of Trump, if you can imagine that.

Is this a change from the past even the recent past of 100 years ago? It might very well be. The social structure as far as I know was quite a bit different back then. Religious institutions, for what they are worth, had more influence on people’s behaviour. Now is seems, the bottom line is the bottom line. Money is power. The control of it by individuals, the family, and the gang-like corporate syndicates are what is influencing the day with accompanying philosophical underpinnings which are an odd reaction to any other form of collectivism as generated by the likes of emotionally damaged Ayn Rand and the divide and sell influence of Madison Avenue advertising psychology.

Stone is shown to have no particular ax to grind personally other than a strange attraction to Republican power. He calms libertarianism while pimping himself out to any thug dictator willing the drop cash on his lobbying company Black, Manafort, Stone, and Kelly. (Will we hear move about this from the investigations of Trump campaign manager Manafort getting pay-off of Russian money? Stay tuned folks.)

The documentary is a “give him enough enough rope” sort of thing. Stone has never met an camera or a mic that he doesn’t like. Although he might be hanging himself in the eyes of some, he is wise enough to know that others will be attracted to his self-aggrandized bravado and see him as a type of trickster superhero. He is a flashy old dude, with his lovely hats and his clownish pin stripped suits. There is a fascinating array of hairpieces on display over the years in the archival clips shown.

While Get Me Roger Stone is instructive in showing what he is and why he and his type have the influence that they do. The power of his media distortion manipulation, will likely attracted a certain type to him. The type who are wannabe wiseguys. A comic book powerful villain  will be attractive to some at the same time that others will be repulsed.